YL Capernaum Everywhere

A guest post by Kaitlyn Ramon In choosing a scripture for our club talks, we have found it super beneficial to use the same scripture passage throughout the whole semester. At the start of a semester, our team will pray together and discuss a scripture that we’d love to share with our friends. We map out the gospel progression with the scripture on the club grid (i.e. Week 1: Come and See- Just like Zaccheaus was curious about Jesus, we get to be curious all semester long; Week 2: Person of Christ- Jesus is a friend to Zaccheaus and a friend to us., etc.). Camping out in the same club talk scripture has been great for our Capernaum friends. Repetition is good for us all; it engrains truth in us. Narratives from the Bible are pretty complicated- demon possessed pigs, a bleeding woman, a man being lowered through a roof! Rather than setting up and reading the story before we realize our window of time is up; we find ourselves with more time to dive deeper, like how Jesus raising J...

A guest post by Allen Guy About 8 years ago, I began two different volunteer projects: First, I became a leader with New Tampa Young Life. I also became actively involved with a ministry my church was starting for people with disabilities. When I learned about Capernaum, I was very excited. Through these two ministries I was developing a passion that intersected perfectly in Young Life’s ministry to teenagers with disabilities. With the help of few people with a heart for this ministry, we launched Capernaum here! We had a “built in” population from church, and also used resources to reach into the community. I knew some of our Young Life kids had a heart for that population by their involvement in Best Buddies, Special Olympics and Special Connections at church. I invited them to check out Capernaum and bring friends who might be interested. That is all it took! The YL students loved serving as buddies at Club and camp. I feel strongly that my relationship with our typical ...

A guest post by Nick Palermo The WORD became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.    (John 1:14 Message) There it is! The greatest example of contact work ever! If you have been around Young Life for any amount of time, you know this is at the core of what we do.   Entering into the world of kids and building friendships.   So I am not going to repeat what you may have already heard once or a thousand times. What I want to reflect on together is the mutuality of contact work with our Capernaum friends.   Because with-ness is at the core of our Capernaum values.   We go into a kid’s world to be with them and encounter Jesus together. Did not Jesus do this very thing? He entered our world in vulnerability and took the posture of receiving from his own creation.   But what could we possibly give to God in the flesh?   Until we read Hebrews 5:8.             ...