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: 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 Himself.
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 He 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
We love the church, and believe it is instrumental in God's plan to reach
the world. There is so much that divides and separates us in the church
today. The interesting thing is that the focus on denominational similarities
and differences tends to be an adult thing – most youth don't seem
to care. United by our shared love of Christ, we believe our denominational
differences only make us stronger in our diversity. We celebrate the
richness of all our Christian traditions.
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've 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.
