Encounter Youth

This week Jake talks about about all the false ideas the world give us about what is really attractive. The worlds definition of what the perfect guy/girl looks like is so superficial, but what really matters is the heart. What does biblical masculinity and femininity really look like?

In this message Jake answers two of the biggest questions about dating! 1) Why would God give us all these desires so strongly if he didn't want us to act on them?! Why are is marriage and Covenant important? And 2) Am I ready to date in Middle/High School. It involves a flamethrower and a lot of fun. You'll have to listen to find out more.

In this last message on the power of knowing God's Word, we actually have an encounter with God's word for ourselves. This message on how to meditate on God's word and let the truth go from your head to your heart culminates in a meditation time where we meditate on Isaiah 43:1-3 and Romans 8. The Holy Spirit showed up so strongly and some people felt God's love for the first time! This is a good...

This week Jake talks about 4 ways to describe how powerful the Bible is in our lives. It's like a lamp that guides us, like bread that sustains us, like a mirror that helps us see ourselves clearly, and like a sword that we can fight with. And he gives some tips about what to do if you don't understand something when you're reading.

This week Jake shares about the basics of what the Bible is, how it was written, and awesome some tips for how to read it.

This week Katie King shares her testimony about trusting God with her future, the challenges of obeying God when you can't see the bigger picture, and God's faithfulness when we are obedient.

This was an important message. This week Jake shares about how knowing God goes beyond having an emotional encounter in a worship service. God wants to know you as a friend. He wants you to have a relationship with him when you are all alone in your room. That's the place where we tune our hearts and our minds in to hear his voice and recognize how he's leading us. Its the place where we get conne...

This week Jake shares about how following Jesus means living a whole different lifestyle from the rest of the world; how the world tells us that there is something in the world that can fill us up - more popularity, more attention, more love, more money, more achievement - but Jesus calls us to a totally different way of living where the only thing that can fill the whole inside of us is the love...

This week Katie shared her testimony about being saved from lying and rebellion as a kid, and how her life changed. She also shares about struggling with sickness and loss later in life and learning how to trust God in the midst of seasons where His goodness is hard to see.

This was a message that is going to shift things for our group. All of our confiedence in prayer, in fighting the enemy in our lives, in believing God can really change our lives comes from really knowing who Jesus is. So many times we think faith is something we have to do, like we have to work it up inside of ourselves. But really faith is when we get a revelation of how amazing Jesus is and how...

This week Jake talks about Jesus' mission in coming to earth. Jesus had a mission to destroy all of the power of sin and death that have made a hostile takeover of God's world, kind of like a spy on a mission to overthrow an evil government. Check out the attached pdf to see the beautiful drawings that we used this week.

This week Jake shares on revelation. Revelation is when God opens the eyes of your heart to truly understand the power of what Jesus did on the cross. Revelation is where revival starts.

This week Jake shares what it means to be justified before God. Using an apple that gets all cut, and bruised and broken apart, Jake shares about how our hearts get broken and messed up by sin. But justification is when Jesus takes the old apple of our heart and replaces it with a new one. Now when God looks at us, he sees us as having that pure, perfect, and clean heart that Jesus had.

This week Mikey shares his testimony and Jake shares his tips with the seniors on how to stay faithful to Jesus moving into young adulthood.

Students from the Love the Hill trip share the testimonies of all the stuff God did and everything we learned! We share how the distinctions we usually make between "good people" and "bad people" are false. There are just sinful people who need the Gospel of Jesus.

This week Kephas shares about learning to hear from God in the twists and turns of his life, Zach talks about being proud of his story, and Willem shares about how God encountered him even through viewing a dead body.

This week we hear from two of our seniors about their testimonies, and from Emily Hastings on receiving God's righteousness as a gift. All three of them talked about laying down our striving, trust in ourselves, and performance to receive what God has for us. His love and his righteousness can't be earned. They are a free gift when we put our faith in Jesus.

This week our senior testimonies continue with Evan Saunders, who shares about his experience of coming home to God after a time of running, and Sarah Stoltzfus, who shares about overcoming legalism and perfectionism.

This summer we are having our amazing seniors share their testimonies of growing in their faith and how knowing Jesus has changed their life. This week Luke Slabach and Evan Hastings share about overcoming difficulties and loving Jesus even in when you are constantly in the pressure that can come with a Christian environment.

This week our very beloved Grace Kreider shared a message for youth group!

In this message Jake talks about one of our most complicated emotions - anger. Anger is a natural thing to feel but it can often make us want to hurt others. Jake talks about how anger works, and about the nature of God's love and anger. God does feel anger, but his hearts desire is always to show mercy and forgiveness, and that is what he wants us to show as well. Then he finishes with some tips...

This week Jake talks about the Gospel - the good news of Jesus. He talks about how God's love doesn't just overlook sin - the sickness of selfishness and pain that every person has. God loves us so much that He deals with sin by giving us a new heart and paying for our guilt. Jesus says that receiving this new life in Him is like being born all over again.

Tonight, Jake wraps up the dating series by talking about how set boundaries with the person you are dating, and how to make sure you keep them. He also talks about the myth of "the one" and "love at first sight" and how to find the person you want to marry.

There's so much temptation in our world use the online world to gratify ourselves. From Snapchat to Tik Tok, to Instagram, to messaging, to pornography. This week Jake shares about how purity is about more than just what you do with your body, its also about what you allow into your heart through what you look at. We talk about how to check your heart in everything you do when you are online.

This week Jake shares about how to set good boundaries in dating relationships and how to walk in purity. There is a SHALLOW END in a relationship where things are just cute, and there is a DEEP END, where you start to know deep things about each other emotionally and physically. God tells us to learn how to guard our hearts, and control our bodies, and he tells us these things for a reason, becau...