The 90 Day Challenge

A couple of days ago I returned from a 3 day youth convention. I lead a group of 10 teenagers on what I hope becomes a life changing event. At the very least, it is an event that they won’t soon forget. I know that I am going to try to take it for all it was worth.

One of the big things at this youth group was the emphasis on continuing the experience. It is too easy to let the spiritual high that comes with youth conventions fade away into nothing. I think that there are a number of teenagers that feel this same way from my youth group.

It is for this reason that I have decided to take a number of challenges up with the youth group. I recognized that I am there leader. They are going to be looking at me for ways to grow spiritually. If I am not an example that should be followed, I am going to lead them down the wrong path. As such, I aim to place a higher emphasis on challenging them to grow deeper and take more responsibility with their faith.

Follow 2012 gave us a number of suggestions for challenges that we should try to do. Some of hem were new to me, but others gave me some ideas. The first challenge that we are going to do is we are going to seek places where we can give to the community. Many times we are asking the community for donations. We always have this trip or that event that we want to do. This time, it is our turn to give back and do something for the community. The second challenge we are going to do involves the church. We are going to meet at the church an hour early for 6 weeks. During this hour we are going to commit to praying for the church and its ministries. The third thing that we are going to commit to is we are going to try and see 100 different to students come to youth group in 2013. I figured this was a pretty reasonable number as we can get about 25 kids from regular attenders. The cool thing about these challenges is that the kids really seemed to be excited and into them. They were ready to go and saw them as very achievable.

Finally, for the more devout students I came up with another more in depth challenge. I have named this the 90 Day Challenge. The goal is for students to make a journal entry every day until Easter. When I checked this, I found out that it was conveniently 90 days until Easter. The journal entries can be as simple or as elaborate as they’d like. The goal is to show students another way that they can interact with God. Many experts encourage journaling as a spiritual discipline. I have had 4 students tell me that they are going to try the challenge. I’ve offered them a reward for anyone who succeeds.

For me, this blog is going to be my primary source for journaling. In the past, I really gained something from writing these and hope to receive a benefit this time as well.

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ,

-Zach Haas