CCYN
What are we doing at youth group tomorrow night? Thanks for asking!
Back in the fall of 2018, the younger youth pastor, Ryan Aufenkamp, joined two other youth pastors in planning a collective youth group night of prayer and worship. They did this for See You at the Pole the fourth Wednesday of September, and it quickly turned into three youth groups meeting a few times a year for worship, prayer, and fellowship.
A few years ago, I and a few other new youth pastors inherited these events and were left to decide if and how we wanted them to continue. We all affirmed the benefit of gathering more students together to celebrate the gospel and encourage one another in living out our faith. As a result, these events have evolved into what we now call the Cross County Youth Night that takes place twice a year (Fall and Spring) hosted at different churches in Vancouver. The vision for these nights is to gather students from across the county to catch a vision for something bigger God is doing in our community, unite around the gospel message, celebrate in worship, encourage one another to live out our faith, and fellowship with others from our schools or community.
Tomorrow night we will have 8 different churches represented with likely over a couple hundred students from EBC, Bethel Community, Laurelwood Baptist, Felida Bible, East Park, Glenwood Community, Cascade Park, and Journey. It wasn’t our goal to make this a larger program, but churches have continued to reach out expressing interest in being involved which is encouraging seeing others catch a vision for bringing our churches and youth together. After our last CCYN in the fall, we had a girl from our youth group who met another Christian friend at her school she didn’t previously know. Up until that point she couldn’t find any other Christian friends at her school, but she has mentioned multiple times since then how encouraging it is to have another friend at school who loves Jesus. I also spoke with another student who professed faith after hearing another older high school student share his testimony.
The Cross County Youth Night is a very small piece of what God is doing, but it is special to highlight and expose our students to something larger God is doing among teens in our community. Please pray tomorrow night will be glorifying to the Lord and transformational in the lives of our students. If you know of any other middle school or high school students who would benefit from this time together, they are more than welcome to join us!
Jacob Abrahamson
Youth Pastor