A Summer Without Interns

We don't have SOAR interns this Summer. For the past 9 years, there have been college students who come in for our Summer internship program. They run the Wednesday Night Youth and Sunday Morning Youth Class Program.

Their absence is a part of us taking a break and re-imagining how we do internships at NMC. A good thing. For our Summer Program, it was a scary thing. Classically, our Student Ministries staff dives full-in to our Summer Trips (GO trips, IMPACT, Summer Camps) as well as takes a little time to breathe from the weekly programs. So, we had to come up with some ways to do Wednesdays and Sundays a little different than we've ever done before.

Enter FYBY and AWAKE.

FYBY stands for "For You, By You" and is a completely student led gathering. I and the other adults are only there to serve as encouragers. There is a group of 10 students who have taken ownership to see the nights happen. In discussion with them, they felt like the best way to spend our summer would be in building strong connectedness and worshipping outside the box. So that's what we're doing. Some weeks are all interactive games. Some weeks, students will share their life stories (a.k.a testimonies). Some weeks will be spent in prayer, worshipping to CDs, in silence, reading scripture. Based off the first week, I'm encouraged with what we're doing.


AWAKE is kind of a joke name. Sunday Morning Youth Programming is ridiculously tough. One of the main reason is that no students are awake. So, we thought it would be fun to give it the name for what is not happening. Yet, I really believe we've found something that students will wake up for, and truly benefit from. Each week, one of our veteran key Senior High Adult Leadership Team members will be sharing an extended version of his/her testimony. The testimony is then followed by an interview time from me, as well as questions from the crowd. I love what this accomplishes as it allows our students to become familiar with some of the coolest people around. Also, nothing "preaches" better than someone's personal experience walking with Jesus Christ.
My wife, Janelle, started us off yesterday, and it was awesome. I could see kids somewhat shocked to hear that the pastor's wife is a human being who has faced failure and trials, and is seeking to live in a way that honors God with both the beauty and the scars that are her life.
I was pumped to overhear a student talking to another... "Hey, we should make sure we get the other girls here. This is going to be good this Summer!" It's every Sunday morning at 9:30 in the Fieldhouse!