👑 Leaders Rise Up!

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At TFC, we do our best to make sure teens become a lot more than just Christians. Being a Christian is great, but a lot of the time, teenagers have a sense for authenticity in people. This makes many of them skeptical of things like Christianity and such when they see some people act one way at Church and another way out in the community. Often, this puts a bad taste in the mouths of teens when it comes to Christianity. Our hope and prayer is that we can create leaders out of teens who exemplify integrity instead. One way we do this is through Leadership Retreat!

Every fall, most people get excited about trees changing colors, falling leaves, sweaters, and pumpkin spice lattes. I get excited about Leadership Retreat. When I was a teen in TFC, Leadership Retreat was this haven of rest and Jesus. I loved it. I loved that I could take a break from school and just enjoy my TFC friends and getting to know Jesus more! For a whole weekend, we ask teens to stop from the busyness of life and come to learn about being a leader.

This year, we asked them to take that calling VERY seriously! Leaders for Christ are sorely missing in our world, and we wanted to help the teens prepare themselves for what they could face should they begin to truly stand up for Christ. So, we challenged them on being a real leader. One who isn’t like those many who lack integrity and clearly aren’t authentic about their faith, but instead who put such a central and clear trust in Jesus that no matter the filth that our world might throw at them, they’ll be ready!

We talked a lot about the persecuted church and wanted them to feel ultimately prepared for what may happen in their lifetime. We asked them to care for each other in such a way that even if their world looks more and more like those persecuted Christians, they’ll be able to bear the weight of it, with the help of others! Finally, we also wanted them to just be refreshed. Like I said, Leadership Retreat is a place of rest, and we wanted them to still feel that, so we gave them a lot of time to just rest in Jesus’s peace and the company of each other, praying that God uses that to ensure they are prepared moving forward.

😲 So. Many. Events.

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On top of Leadership Retreat, we had many things going on this month! At the very beginning of the month, we celebrated TFC’s 45th year as a ministry! And right after Leadership Retreat, we held another 180 Encounter, our special gatherings of all TFC groups!

At the 45th, TFC was so incredibly blessed to just celebrate with so many people who’ve just helped to make TFC what it is! Many alumni and volunteers and staff who have moved on came back to Phillipsburg to see what’s been happening in the ministry and just celebrate those memories of how TFC was used by God in big ways in their lives! And oh man it is a blast to sit with friends recalling all the goofy things we did in our years as TFC students! But ultimately, that’s all because of Jesus! Jesus created the ministry of TFC and called all these folks together in the first place. Then it’s only through Him that we bond in those friendships that have lasted so long. All of it is because of Jesus.

Then bringing kids together to watch those friendships blossom at our 180 Encounter is just a blast! We brought 6 kids to the 180 this month, and they loved it so much they asked when the next one is before we got home! Keep praying that those friendships will draw more students to Jesus and convince of His great love for them!