Summer 2009 Ywam Chicago Newsletter

A Newsletter of Youth With A Mission Chicago

Summer 2009

Colors of Chicago Reaching the City to Reach the World Celebrating 17 years of ministry to the nations in Chicago!

ARTS With A Mission Summer CAMP

6th al u Ann

performing & ministering at foster beach

performing & ministering at Lake Shore Nurshing Home

sports workshop

arts & crafts workshop

learning choreography

City Scape YWAM Chicago

PO Box 268408 Chicago, IL 60626 [email protected] www.ywamchicago.org Director: Brad Stanley Youth With A Mission Statement of Purpose YWAM is an international movement of Christians from many denominations dedicated to presenting Jesus Christ personally to this generation, to mobilizing as many people as possible to help in this task, and to the training and equipping of believers for their part in fulfilling the Great Commission. As citizens of God’s Kingdom we are called to love, worship and obey our Lord, to love and serve His body, the church, and to present the Whole Gospel for the whole person throughout the whole world.

YWAM Chicago Statement of Purpose YWAM Chicago is committed to city-wide ministry and to the redemption of God’s design for the modern urban community. We endeavor to present the Gospel to the socially and culturally isolated, to embrace and train the immigrant populations of our city, and to seek to bring the whole gospel to the whole city through long-term community development and short-term outreaches.

FRONTIER MISSION For the last 2000 years, Frontier Mission has been the drive of the Church. The desire to take the Gospel to those who have not heard and to extend the manifested Glory of God to all nations, tribes, and peoples has been the defining passion of the Church. It could be said then, that the clarified mission of God’s people in each generation is to continually discover and redefine what the current “Frontiers” are for the Gospel and display God’s Kingdom on the Earth. The Oxford American Dictionary defines frontiers as “the limit of knowledge or achievement in a particular area.” The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as, “an undeveloped area for discovery or research.” For the last 100 years we have seen global populations shift from being 20% Urban to being over 50% Urban. Less than 100 years from now urbanization will reach 90% of the world’s populace. The 21st century will be remembered as the century of urban migration. Every known nation, language, and people group is now moving into the cities nearest the rural areas of their family history. The assumption of the church has been that since many of these global mega cities have some representation of “church”, a natural saturation of the Gospel is taking place. Rather, the nature of the modern mega city is not natural, relational or social connectivity within geographic proximity, but greater division, specialization, and isolation in all social classes. People now exist economically, ethnically, religiously, and occupationally isolated from those who may be geographically near them. The Mega City is creating dozens of isolated population enclaves scattered throughout city neighborhoods. Western nations are facing phenomenal growth of cities that are post Christian. Today, 80% of western cities are un-evangelized, producing a generation that no longer identifies with Christian culture or Biblical Worldview. These post-Christian cities house people from nearly every nation of the world. In Asian, African and Middle Eastern cities, populations are exploding and drawing nearly every isolated rural people group, having existed outside the reach of the Church for centuries. These realities have created new “Frontiers” for the Gospel. These city islands of complex diversity need to be “discovered” and “researched”, so that we can expand the Church’s “limit of knowledge or achievement”. We must train, equip, and mobilize a new kind of Urban Missionary; an Urban Frontier Missionary ready to take the Gospel cross-culturally and learn the complex languages of an Urban World waiting to be understood, redeemed and mobilized by the Church.

- Brad Stanley, Director - YWAM Chicago

Chicago News From Old Testament times, it has been God’s heart that His people care for the foreigner and sojourner among them. We have an incredible responsibility and opportunity to love these foreigners among us and we believe that it all starts with prayer. The Chicago Ethnic Embrace 31 day prayer guide is still available. We continue to have a passion to equip the body of Christ in Chicago with this key tool. Each day of the guide features a nation of peoples with significant representation here in Chicago. A brief synopsis of the nation is given about that nation’s history along with the history of their arrival in America and October 2, 2009 to how to specifically pray for them. The guide will show you where to find March 12, 2010 these people in the city as well as an ethnic restaurant where you would likely find and meet them. Contact Emily Bond at 805.400.5846 or [email protected] for more information or to purchase copies for your group.

$3,400 (tuition, food, housing & outreach)

school of urban frontiers

Ramadan 2009

august 22 september 17

Ramadan is a month in the Islamic calender year. During the day Muslims fast from food, water, smoking, etc. and in the evening they celebrate. This is a key time to be praying for Muslims because they are particularly seeking God to make specific revelations to them. We have a free electronic prayer guide (pdf document) available that will guide you for how to pray specifically for Muslims in Chicago. Please email Emily Bond at [email protected] for a copy of it. Additionally we will be hosting a time of prayer at our building every Friday of Ramadan at 6:30. In our Winter 2009 Newsletter we featured our friend Najah. Najah is a Moroccan Muslim Background Believer (MBB) who lives with a handful of other immigrants on the third floor of our YWAM building. Thank you for your prayers for Najah and the MBB Bible Study he leads. The group continues to grow as God uses Najah as His ambassador to Muslims. Please continue to pray for Najah and those attending the study: that they would find answers to the questions they have about Jesus and those who follow Him.

urban dts

SAVE THE DATE 2009 YWAM CHICAGO MINISTRY BANQUET SATURDAY November 7th new

Mayfair date! community chuhrch dinner is at 6 pm

New Orleans, Louisiana Mar 28, 2010 - Aug 15, 2010 www.ywamneworleans.org

UDTS is not only for those who are from the city... but for those who have a heart for cities and a desire to understand the character of God in an increasingly urban world.

Chicago Ministries After being in the Ywam Tyler SST program and AWAM for a few years it was a great experience to be able to help out as student staff in Chicago. We did everything from carrying 80 loads of water bottles to cooking hot dogs and doing sidewalk chalk in the local parks. Besides giving us something to do, it showed me how much of a blessing we can be to hundreds of people just by taking an hour or two to recognize them. After an entire summer, I really came to realize the fun of living in a city with such diversity. I was excited to see teenagers my own age worshiping God with unashamed joy in so many different ways, something that I really admire about my generation. I can truly say that it was a worth while experience and I hope to do it again next year! -Jordan Stanley

Summer student-staffers Amanda Vennemalla and Jordan Stanley with staffer Ruth Troyer.

first friday youth night

First Friday of every month - 7pm Kick-off!!! September 4th - 7pm YWAM Chicago Building - 1721 W. Wallen (in the Bsmt) email [email protected] for more information

For a long time, we have been talking about (and you have been asking for it!) meeting regularly with youth in the city that have come to anything YWAM... Friday night fellowship, Arts Camp, Missions trips, Take Action, etc. So, we will be gathering on the first Friday night of every month. The goal of this group is not to replace your current church youth group! It is a chance to get together, talk about what God is doing in our lives, pray for each other and even to do outreach together! This is for those who have completed 6th grade and up.

Season of Ministry

worship downtown performing skits in parks

Performing downtown

praying for the audience

“Planting gardens in the city”

your photo could be here...

clean up and sidewalk chalk in city playlots

go to our web site for more info on how to bring a team to the city

CITY IN A GARDEN In our last newsletter, we highlighted the motto of the city of Chicago: A City In A Garden. As we headed into our summer season of teams doing ministry we were impressed by a passage in Jeremiah. God was instructing the Israelites taken into captivity in Babylon to build houses, plant gardens and ultimately to seek the welfare of the city. God was instructing his people to invest in the community even though it was a foreign land and a foreign people. Likewise, God desires for us to invest in our neighborhood, community and city as well as our nation. To invest not only in tangible material ways but eternal ways as well. As the church pursues the welfare of the city then truely the purposes of God will be released into our communities. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Jeremiah 29:4-7

YWAM Chicago PO Box 268408 Chicago, IL 60626

Non Profit Org US postage PAID Chicago, IL Permit No. 2010

Youth With A Mission is an international movement of Christians from many denominations dedicated to serving Jesus throughout the world. Also known as YWAM (pronounced “WYEwam”), our calling is to know God and to make Him known. Back when we began in 1960, our main focus was to get youth into short-term mission work and to give them opportunities to reach out in Jesus’ name. Today, we still focus on youth, and we also involve people of almost every age (even many people who choose to spend their “retirement” in active service). Our many ministries fit into three main categories: evangelism, training and mercy ministry. We are currently operating in more than 1000 locations in over 149 countries, with a staff of nearly 16,000.