The most common question people ask us is: Who or what is YouthWorks? We
are incredibly excited about what God has been doing through YouthWorks and
want you to know all about us.
Our Purpose
Quite simply, our purpose is to provide life-changing, Christ-centered
youth mission opportunities. This is our reason for being. We create extraordinarily
fun and significant mission adventures, targeted to the needs and capabilities
of youth, ages 12-19. By crossing borders of race and culture, and by placing
students outside their comfort zones, we find something wonderful happens:
God gets their attention! Without the distractions of everyday life, God
uses YouthWorks to work in the lives of thousands of teenagers. By attempting
to be faithful to our purpose, we find God is also at work in each of the
communities we serve. Yea God!
Our Values
It is important for people to know what we value and why. We have six things
we consider to be our core values. These are our essentials:
Youth Minded
We love teenagers! You’ve probably guessed it – it’s in
our name. All that we do is focused on providing life-changing mission experiences
for 12-19 year olds. We design our trips to meet the needs of this age group – and
we create ministry experiences that will challenge them. We do not believe
youth are the church of tomorrow – they are part of the church today.
They too, can do God’s work if we invite them to join us.
Servant Leadership
The world is thirsting for leadership – the kind the church can provide.
We need selfless, humble, obedient, servant leaders who follow Christ. We
desire to emulate the model of Christ, our servant leader (John 13). By serving
the church, youth ministers and adult leaders, we believe servant leadership
will be contagious. Adults will serve teens, teens will serve communities
and communities will serve the world. By serving these, as Christ commands,
we also serve Christ.
Relationship Oriented
Our ministry philosophy is a relational one – one that has at its core
a ministry of presence. It is our deep desire to create and be in relationship
with the people we serve. We believe that by following Jesus’ example,
loving as Jesus loved and embodying a “Christ-in-the-flesh” model,
we will make friends. We believe it is in real friendship that we give and
receive without demeaning each other or stripping one another of dignity.
The work we do on our trips is focused on the work of building relationships.
Life Change
We believe the message of Christ is about life change. It was impossible
for Jesus’ disciples not to have had the direction of their lives
changed forever! We desire to present the message of Christ and challenge
of Christ in all aspects of our mission trips. We trust God will work powerfully
to create life change in our lives, and in the lives of every student that
participates in a YouthWorks mission trip.
Multi-Denominational
Our ministry organization is ecumenical. What does that mean? Let's just
say we love the church! We believe it is God's plan to reach the world.
There is so much that divides and separates us in the church today. The
strange thing is that the focus on denominational similarities and differences
tends to be an adult thing. Most teens don't seem to care. So we bring denominations
together, adults and teens, to share the experience of serving Jesus together.
We believe Jesus is smiling when we do it!
Ministry Focused
Our primary work is ministry. Although we use the building and repairing
of homes as a way to see the love of Christ (1 John 3:18), this is not an
end all. We also love community children and elderly, and serve with local
ministries. We do not call our trips “work camps.” We do not
spotlight new or repaired houses, or highlight what we have accomplished
during our stay. The “works” in our name are the “works” God
will do in our hearts and lives if we allow it. Needless to say, all we
are and all we hope to be, is Christ centered.
