Mobilizers on both coasts of the U.S. were eager to use The Unfinished Story for Youth (TUSfy) course over the summer in creative ways to engage and mobilize teens and young adults towards a biblical worldview. This Summer of TUSfy introduced many youth to learning about unreached people groups, praying for the five major religious blocs, and understanding that God’s invitation to be on mission is also for their generation.
Ryan & Cherrybee Betancourt and their team partnered again with Awaken Church in Las Vegas, Nevada. The invitation to take the course was extended to their middle school and high school youth ministries as part of a five-week series during their regular mid-week service. Over those five weeks, a total of 119 unique individuals experienced some portion of the course, with about half that number attending at least three sessions or more. Some of the youth leaders also committed to attending.
A highlight of the course was learning about the existence of Unreached People Groups (UPGs) and being excited for the opportunity to pray for them. Leaders noted that the prayer chain grew exceedingly long and was able to span the distance from one end of the room to the other. This and many of the other activities were inspiring and challenged students to want to learn more.
Kierston Kreider with Virginia Mennonite Missions led a youth group of sixteen participants through a TUSfy course to prepare and train them for a mission trip to the US/Mexico border. Feedback from the students was positive and stated that:
“TUSfy was super helpful to prepare us for our trip. It instilled a learners mindset and challenged us to look for opportunities to be blessings rather than only wanting to be blessed.”
With another student echoing that:
“TUSfy really set the stage for our trip and challenged our hearts and motivations for why we wanted to go on the trip. We went looking for opportunities to learn and listen more than just serve and do stuff to make us feel good. It removed us from the center of our trip and put God in His rightful place.”
From May through July, Krista Martin with Eastern Mennonite Missions in Lancaster, Pennsylvania planned and prepared for their summer youth program called “Kingdom Teams.” In this week-long experience in discipleship and mission, one of the priorities is to include foundational and biblically-based teaching on what it means to live a life on mission with God. When Krista first learned about The Unfinished Story for Youth, she felt that the course would be a great tool for their program. A team of twelve young-adult leaders (all high-school graduates) were encouraged to take the course, then were trained and empowered to lead it for multiple youth groups. Under the guidance of Krista, youth leaders went on to facilitate a total of 96 students through five additional week-long courses.
Krista explained that the design of the TUSfy course, like other SMI tools, is that there are clear guidelines, structure, and resources in place to make it easy to pick up and reproduce. It’s designed to accommodate multiple learning styles and to be interactive and engaging. Many of her youth leaders were challenged to step out of their comfort zone and added their own twists on the activities and discussion questions to keep participants engaged throughout the sessions. Her team was able to incorporate creative ways to engage the youth by expanding on the given materials such as using icebreakers, having trivia, and using the Joshua Project website as a resource to talk about specific UPGs.
The majority of the students expressed that their favorite part of the course was the interaction that runs all throughout each session and the prayer chain. Seeing their prayers grow on the chain each day was a beautiful visual. More than one group of students were eager to put to action what they were learning, and actively sought opportunities to have gospel conversations and offer prayer with people they met on the streets. One student summarized the experience as:
“I learned that God wants to use young people for missions.”
AMEN to that!!
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