Encounter Youth

This week Jake shares the straight up good news about Jesus, God's love for the world, and how you can be reconciled to God because of what Jesus did on the cross.

No one influences you more than your friends. No one. And that's why its so important that we choose good friends. Do your friends encourage you? Build you up? Push you to be the person you want to be? Trying to live differently than your friends can be like swimming against the current.

This week Jake talks about the power of the words we say, how words can wound. Almost every person has a wound from something someone has said to them. Actually, the wounds left by our words are usually longer lasting even than physical wounds. This is why its so important that we speak life the way that God does.

This week Jake talks about Gossip, which is a major struggle for a lot of people in middle and high school. He talks about what Gossip is, why its wrong, and how to test if you are Gossiping. If you wouldn't say it when they are there, why would you say it when they're not?

Did you know that Jesus gave us a literal step by step guide for what to do when someone hurts us, annoys us, or offends us? Its in Matthew 18, and we're talking about it this week. Usually we gossip, get revenge, or just shut down, but Jesus teaches us how to seek reconciliation.

This week Jake continues talking about how obedience to Jesus leads to freedom, this time specifically about Jesus' teachings on surrender, giving control of everything in our lives over to God. The only way to be fully free is to be fully surrendered.

This week Jake talks about how Jesus gives us his commands to lead us into freedom. He gives us his teachings to show us the way to deeper intimacy with God. Keeping His commands is NOT about earning God's love; God loved us when we were yet sinners. But your measure of freedom and intimacy will God will always be proportional to your obedience.

This week we have two of our beloved leaders share their testimonies, Will Herschberger and Melissa Momcilovich! Both share testimonies about coming out of legalism and embracing the Gospel.

This week Weston and Madison share their senior testimonies and advice with underclassmen.

This week Caroline Hostetter, Acacia Kreider, and Eamon Kreider share their senior testimonies and advice for younger students!

This week Jake goes in again on how to Encounter God this summer! He talks us through exactly what he does in His quiet time to Encounter God in His Word. How to pick what to read. How to look for the meaning in the text. How to listen to the Holy Spirit while you read. This is a practical guide about how to read your Bible.

This was a message that set the tone for the summer. Jake received a prophetic word about this being a summer of hunger for a lot of people, of desiring more of God. Tonight Jake shares about HOW to direct your hunger this Summer. How to seek God in three main places - The People of God, The Word of God, and the Presence of God. He also shares about God's promises that he will be found by those wh...

This week Cody Zook walks us through what the Bible says FAITH really is. Sometimes we can think that faith is just "believing harder," but biblical faith is always placed in something God has spoken or promised. Cody takes us into the book of Hebrews and shows us how to look at the Greek words.

This week Noah shares about the love of God. Sometimes we can overlook a verse as simple as John 3:16 and what it means about how God gave a part of himself to be able to reconcile with us.

This week Caroline Hostetter shares about how the Christian worldview of our nation is in decline and how to share the truth about Jesus in a hostile context. She also shares how we as Christians can be involved in reviving values and legislation in our nation that is based on biblical principles through blessing and sharing with others.

God has done SO many amazing things in our lives over the past month, from YWAM Lancaster visiting, to the Holy Spirit moving, to National Day of prayer, check out these testimonies of how God moved supernaturally in different people this month.

Benji Martin shared an INCREDIBLE message on the good news ("Gospel") of Jesus' kingdom and how it encourages us to leave our own kingdoms behind. Then he shares the prayer that Jesus gave us to come into alignment with His Kingdom, the Lord's Prayer.

In the afternoon of National Day of Prayer, Cody Stoneback of Unrestricted shared how we can be carriers of the kingdom of God and the message of hope in Jesus to our friends. He shares his personal story of how person after person he knew never shared the truth of the Gospel with him, and asked us the question: Are they worth it? Are the people in our lives worth the challenge of a simple convers...

This is the HIGHLIGHT of National Day of Prayer, where students pray their own prayers for God to move in their generation. Some incredible prayers, prophetic words, and testimonies were shared during this time.

This week Seth Momcilovich shares the word as we prepare our hearts for National Day of Prayer.

This is one of the most fun messages of the year where we talk about how to set good physical and emotional boundaries in your dating relationship. Jake talks about intimacy and why it is important to keep our dating relationships from going too deep too fast.

How do you know if you're ready to date in middle/high school? What is the difference between a good and bad relationship? What are some of the qualities I should watch out for when I am looking to date someone? Here's some dating advice on all of that stuff!

This week Jake talks about surrendering your heart to Jesus. There are so many other things that fight to take the throne and focus of our lives, but the only way to walk in Jesus' resurrection life is if you surrender to fully to Him!

This week Jake talks about beauty, modesty, and how what you do with your body and who you have intimacy with matters! Because you are God's image on the earth. Your body is sacred because it is made in the image of God. This is a great message especially for girls to check out since it runs against what our culture tells us!

This week we wrap our series on 1 John! We share about the importance of our words lining up with our actions, silly middle school relationships, and how we need to be aware how God changes our hearts to love to do the things he wants us to do.