NCFIC Director Scott T. Brown told The Christian Post that today’s modern concept of youth ministry is a “50-year failed experiment,”

A group of pastors and former youth ministry leaders suggest that today’s youth ministries should be disbanded, calling the common practice of separating congregations by age for worship and Bible study “unbiblical.”

At the age of 17, Ravi Zacharias swallowed poison in an attempt to end his life. Overwhelmed and weary from his broken relationship with his father, he wanted a way out. Instead, he ended up in a hospital, where he was handed a Bible. “Thank God I was spared!” Zacharias tells Bible Study Magazine. The 17-year-old who attempted to commit suicide has grown to become an international evangelist, best-selling author and ministry leader.…

Come see and hear Ravi in the Greater Harrisburg area October 2nd, Helping Thinkers Believe, Helping Believers Think. A Connection Ministries event  http://ravi.eventbrite.com/.

An evening with David Kinnamen, President of Barna Group and Best Selling Author of unChristian. Held at Living Word in York (Red Lion). Click on image to enlarge.

More about the book here: http://youlostmebook.com/

More about the event here: http://lwccyork.com/youlostme

Give Them Grace: Dazzling Our Kids with the Love of Jesus is a book I never thought I’d pick up and read let alone now be rethinking and undoing what I’ve done to my 3 children (ages 7,9, 16). Elyse Fitzpatrick and her daughter, Jessica Thompson didn’t just write a good Christian parenting book that every parent should have on their bookshelf. This book is different. It is book that WILL change us, our parenting, and eventually our children’s understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ, a gospel of Grace.

Yes, it is important to teach our children to respect and to have social, civic, and religious obedience, but the genesis of this book “if there’s anything God hates it’s moralism!” stops us in our tracks. When we truly don’t understand grace, “we violate the gospel advancement in the lives of our children”, Tullian Tchividjian notes.

The dichotomy between the dangerous form of religious obedience and the conformity to God’s law is to be searched out and modeled by grace in our parenting, lest we raise shallow, self-righteous, Pharisees that are enslaved to the opinions of others or worse – children who reject the gospel completely because of our hypocrisy. How is that done without losing control or our minds as parents? What does grace look like in the meltdown or in moments of idolatry or coveting? It’s here in this book.

On a personal note, even though our family motto has always been, “spend time with us for just a few hours and you will know why we need a savior!” it is deficient to the totality and richness of the gospel. It is so much so, that I decided to read this book alongside my 16 year old daughter, one chapter every two weeks, with hopes of undoing some of our “raising good kids syndrome” and to help her grasp the true gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s very humbling.

Give Them Grace challenges us to the core of our Christianity and even cuts each of us at points. It’s such a transforming book that 15 parents in our Church decided to walk through it together, chapter by chapter, and build community together in the process (something you may want to consider doing with others). If I had to say only one thing about it, it would be – don’t let this become a book you almost read.

On…

Love:

Communion with God:

Inspiration of the Bible:

Purity:

Doctrine of God:

Answered Prayer:

Creation:

And solutions for the Fall of Man??:

In review of 2009, it was a very busy year full of growth. With your financial gifts, we helped to equip almost 900 students, parents, leaders and Pastors with a Biblical Worldview on issues of youth sexuality through our ANSR, A New Sexual Revolution event. Hundreds of teens texted us with questions and even today we continue to provide them with help. We hope, with His provision, we will be able to improve and organize this event every other year.

theConnection also had the privilege of helping 30 Christian schools to collaborate in two different events. In Harrisburg and Lancaster, we pioneered the now annual CEO, Christian Education Options fair. Together those events brought out over 500 parents looking for answers. Each school has prospective families because of the event.

We have spent an immense amount of time building our new website and theConnection’s network of Churches, Christian School and Organizations. If you haven’t visited the website recently, you’ll surely want to see the evidence of hundreds of hours of work and the beginning Central PA collaboration taking place.

We are very thankful to Peter and Jill Stein for faithfully hosting theConnection’s monthly prayer meetings. This past year we’ve learned four things; we can’t do everything at once, we can’t do them alone, eventually we’ll need to get a paycheck to continue, the Lord is sovereign, opening and shutting the right doors (flexibility).

What, then, is on the agenda for 2010? Exciting things! In a step of faith, Dan has moved his seminary schedule to part time. The plan is to start area gatherings for Pastors and Ministry leaders. Getting them together for prayer, purposeful fellowship and facilitating conversations of needs. Our vision continues to be to serve and create a strong bond in the body of Christ also through its leaders, helping one another to see each other as fellow believers and neighbors, and ultimately facilitating more Christian community collaboration.

We are currently entrenched in the planning of two events. ACSI, the Association of Christian Schools came to us asking to help them with an Economic Summit for Christian School Leaders. We agreed and this will take place on March 25th. Our main event for the year is the Shepherd Press East Coast Authors Conference. It is titled, Rejuvenating the Gospel in Your Marriage and Family. Dr. Tedd Tripp, Dr. Dave Harvey and 5 other authors will help equip our community and show the practical implications of the Gospel in this area.

Thank you again for your support. Please continue to pray for theConnection Ministries and our mission to serve Central PA’s Christian community with collaborative events and to develop the most distinguished network of co-laboring Churches, Christian Organizations and Schools. If you know others who would be willing to help support this needed mission right here in our own backyards, please pass along our information.

Dear Ministry Friends:

It’s finally here! This week we’re pleased to present our refreshed brand identity and web home to theConnection friends and supporters. We’re interested in your feedback, and want to express sincere thanks to the entire team of design professionals who worked along side us to make this possible.

The new logo or graphics package doesn’t change our mission. Not one bit. In fact we think you’ll agree, the visual message packed into the new design brings renewed clarity and focus to a simple idea – collaborating to build up the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Please consider submitting your church, school, faith-based ministry or organization for inclusion on our “network” page. You’ll also want to print out flyers to promote upcoming events hosted by theConnection. And if you haven’t noticed, we asked a few of Central Pennsylvania’s leading Christian voices to Tweet their view of the world – right here, on theConnection’s online headquarters…Check out the Leader Tweets Live.

Thank you again for your continued prayers and financial commitment to our work. We can’t thank you enough for all you do.

Sincerely,

Rebecca & Dan
Co-Founders
theConnection