Our good friends over at Espanola Municipal court in conjunction with their Teen Court Program extended an invitation to HYA and RCF youth to participate in a two day trip to the Santa Fe Mountain Center to experience a time of creative learning in wilderness, community and cultural environment.

+ I am looking forward to being there for our scheduled trip. Due to Operation Back To School, I had to miss this great trust building experience with our youth.

View the full set of SF Mountain Center Pics here

Conservatives love Fox News. And Rupert Murdoch loves conservatives, especially “social values” conservatives, because their loyal viewership makes him lots of money. Rupert Murdoch bought Myspace last year. The children of his Fox News viewers (not to mention children with other political persuasions) use Myspace (66 million registered users at last count). Rupert Murdoch sells “Naughty” adspace on Myspace that exploits those children. Rupert Murdoch is just one of hundreds of business execs who manipulate teens for profit. See for example, Merchants of Cool for a brilliant explanation of how the process works. In the parlance of Murdoch’s marketers (and Viacom and WB and others) , teenage boys are “mooks” and girls are “midriffs.” Still thinking through the whole accountability thing, but there’s gotta be something more than just the shrill fingerpointing of the so-called culture warriors. What do you think? Update: I’m suspicious this is not the answer. HT-  JDR

Check out this Resource. I have since started to use it myself.

I’m going to like this suite of web apps: Adobe Acrobat Buzzword and Acrobat.com apps. Adobe enters the arena of online office software. There is no spreadsheet program, which is one advantage Google Docs has. Plus I don’t see anyway to import Google docs directly into Buzzword (of course one can save a google doc to the desktop, then re-upload, but that’s seems cumbersome if you have lots of google docs). Give Buzzword a try and tell me it’s not 2x better than Google’s word processor.

Check it out here Acrobat.com

I stole this post from Urban On Ramps

One Generation to Another: The Website of DanielArellano. gets linked up nationally.

Thanks to our friends at Logos This blog
One Generation to Another: The Website of DanielArellano has a new link at Biblias a national directory of Bible Blog. Check them out, you can find this blogroll under the New Mexico tab.

Our friends at Mentoring Our Boys features a blog post article about Hope for Youth Alliance.

Check out their website here at Mentoring Our Boys.com They have to offer a few resources and books that we will soon be able to purchase from our site.

Get Involved:
There are many ways to become involved, young men in our communities and churches are in desperate need of male role model worth following. If your local church does not offer opportunities for relational mentoring of the next generation of fathers, please contact us here , we have a waiting list of boys who are waiting to be mentored by someone who would dare to join them on their journey, or search this directory to become involved in your city or state.

The state of fatherless boys in our churches:
At a mothers day church service, I observed over 90% of mothers had their children present with them at  their church, the fathers where no where to be found.

+Learn more about ministry opportunities with Hope for Youth Alliance here

+If you can not volunteer to mentor , you could possibly give a donation to help us further our work in Northern New Mexico.

The mission of Guitars not Guns is to provide guitars and lessons to foster children, at risk youth and other deserving children. We serve children between the ages of 8 and 18. No child will be turned away. We are not anti-gun, we are anti-gun violence and we can offer an alternative to violence.

Our goal is to stop violent behaviors in schools and in the community. We will try to divert as many children as possible from the self-destructive behaviors of drugs, alcohol, crime and gang activity. By exposing children and teens to music, we hope to engage their creative potential and offer them an alternative to the increasing narrow of choices presented to them. Music can calm a troubled young life and it can give a child something to embrace during an often difficult time in their lives.

IF you live in Santa Fe this is a great program your child. Please find out more info about Guitars not Guns at their website here

They are also on myspace

More info here as published in the Santa Fe New Mexican.

Legacy People, Harvey Carey

Friday Night General Session

MLK would be horrified by how we’ve reduced his legacy. He was about more than a day off from work and school to shop and play.

Elijah / Elisha (2 Kings 2:1-17)
To our forefathers: I am who I am because of you. I can’t be who I’m supposed to be without who you are.

Are you loyal / committed or are you using youth ministry as a stepping-stone to something else? Your kids know if they’re being used.

Legacy comes with benefits.

“I’m the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” He defined himself generationally. The movement of God is bigger than one generation.

Even though God moved with MLK and Mandela, etc, he wants to move with us too. He’s a multi-generational God.

Will we become legacy minded?

You cannot earn the prize of legacy when you have not passed the test of consistency.

Are you consistent? Do you have integrity? Are you unchanging? Consistency earns the right to receive the legacy. Elijah says to Elisha: what can I do for you?

Elisha: I want to be able to take what you did to the next level. I want to build on what you did. So give me a double-portion of your anointing.

What do you want out of your life in relationship to their lives?

Does your youth ministry calendar look like a trip calendar?

Why are the worst kids in our youth groups the leaders’ kids?

It’s a sin to be a boring youth leader. Jesus was a crowd drawer because he had life.

Why would you want double? Because legacy surpasses what came before.

Legacy means the next generation upgrades. Did you come to upgrade?

Elijah: If you keep your eyes on me, you’ll get it. If you take your eyes off me, you won’t get it. Do you believe he could do the chariot of fire again? He’s the same God yesterday, today, and forever. We will not be legacy people if we do not believe he can do today what he did yesterday.

Time to stop having church and time to start being the church.

Chariot takes Elijah from the presence of Elisha. His mentor, his identity was gone. What happens when the leader is gone? He mourned because the generation that blessed him had passed away.

Legacy people aren’t content with pizza and a movie and Chronicles of Narnia.

Elisha got a revelation in the midst of his mourning. He realized what Elijah said. He washed his tears and grabbed the mantle that fell. He wrapped himself in the mantle of the previous generation.

He approaches the same river as Elijah. Says: “What you did for Elijah, I expect you to do for me.” God removes the water, he walks through, and tells the younger prophets: “What’s up?!?”

Forget the holiday to memorialize. Choose to walk in the legacy of the prior generation.

Audio Podcast here

Legacy of Love, Chris Heuertz

Saturday Morning General Session

Word Made Flesh practices the presence of God among child soldiers and other exploited children around the world.

“The greatest commandment is love. Love will never fail, but how much time do we spend truly loving others with our lives? Chris’ life and ministry is an inspiration to this love, visible through his global work with refugees, orphans of war, women trapped in prostitution, sex trafficking and building many other incarnational communities to the poorest of the poor.”

Humilty allows for community.

Celebrate simplicity.

It doesn’t matter what our context is. We’re still called to a life of love.

Opened with a prayer: “Make me a girl who is … [going to be exploited and misused, that I may know you].”

Apologized for not being a preacher - his worst grade in college was in speech — he’s more of a story-teller.

There’s a lament we have as evangelicals: an informed continuity of what’s come before us. Our friends have legitimate reasons to question the reality of a good God. We need to share and pass on, that legacy by loving them.

[Listen to podcast stories/testimonies...]

As he learned to love others, he was changed. He became a receptor of as much as a giver.

We need to rediscover a theology of Christ that is human as well as divine. He came to restore our humanity. In Genesis, God created us good, very good. Jesus came to redeem that goodness.

We have become so disembodied in a hyper sexualized, media saturated, techno driven culture. Christ becomes flesh and blood. He reaffirms our need for relationships, as well as our uniqueness.

What are the missional marks of the incarnation?
+ It’s restorative.
+ It’s communal.
+ It’s identification.

Do we identify with the mutilation and amputation of Sierra Leone? Can our gospel commune and restore the terror and horror of genocide? Does the incarnation relate to war ravaged refugees?

When our limbs are severed, we’ve lost our capacity to be whole. Still, we must love. The truest legacy of love is woundedness. There were wounds on the corpse of Jesus — disguesting, grotesque wounds. Still, those who loved him bandaged those wounds. During Sabath, they prepared the spices to treat his corpse — two days after his death! The Sabbath is a symbol for their contemplative posture. Then they arrive at the tomb to dress the decaying, wounded body. Instead they discover him resurrected and whole.

Thomas’ doubt is crucial to rediscover the incarntaional legacy of love. Do we have the courage to touch those wounds? In the scarred wounds of Christ’s resurrected body, we can find healing for the open wounds in the body of Christ.

God, give us courage to discover those open wounds, and the love to touch them, and treat them, and pursue wholeness.

Podcast here

Young men need direction that comes from a man…maybe you are the one.

This is our second postcard and will be used to recruit men to join our mentoring alliance. Please feel free to down load it and distribute it for Hope for Youth Alliance. We are always in need of men who will mentor young men. 9o% of young men who come to us asking for mentors are absent from their fathers.

Fatherless young boys need a male-model they can learn from, maybe you can be the one.

download here!

I want to let you in the newest and first publication from Hope for Youth Alliance. This will be the cover of our Mentor Resource Manual. It has been over 300 hours of research and development to put over 200 pages together. Mentors from Hope for Youth Alliance who have completed mentor training will be the first to get theirs hot of the press. Please pray that the editing of this manual doesn’t take weeks.

If you would like to support the printing costs of this resource for Hope for Youth Alliance please email gotmentors@gmail.com to let us know you intend to do so, or mail your donations to PO BOX 2458 Espanola, NM 87532. We are grateful to our supporters who have already contributed to this project.
Inside this manual:
Hope for Youth Alliance Organizational Information
Why at risk youth want a Mentor.
Rebuilding a generation being raised fatherless.
Establishing healthy and meaningful mentoring relationships with at-risk youth.
Tips and suggested ideas for Mentoring
and much more!

Donate toward this publication Here

You are cordially invited to Hope for Youth Alliance Mentor training on Thursday, April 17 2008 at 6:30 pm

Place; Rock Christian Fellowship/919 N. Riverside Dr/ Espanola, NM 87532/ Please contact us here by Email.

Come learn about how you can develop a transformational mentoring relationship with a kid in your community. We have over 25 youth on a waiting list you may be the one.

Youth at risk face the following problems:

• Delinquency
• School Failure
• Drug and alcohol abuse
• Gang involvement
• Violence
• Broken families
• Teen parenting

Youth involved in mentoring programs are:

• Less likely to start using drugs and alcohol
• Less likely to hit someone
• Less likely to skip school
• More likely to improve relationships with parents and peers

Download Postcard For Duplication here:pdf

Please visitwww.gotmentors.org for more resources.

Introducing 2 new websites.

Please visit them and check them out.

The website of Hope for Youth Alliance of Northern New Mexico.

www.Got Mentors.org the affiliate website of Hope for Youth Alliance serves as mentor support and resource for Mentor and youth mentoring organizations.

Theme song for this post is that commercial ” I want it now, I need it now!”

Resource: In 2003, teens spent an average of $103 per week — a total of $175 billion, according to Teen Research Unlimited. That’s $169 billion dollars more than the budget for the state of New Mexico, which is $6 billion, and $36 billion more than the 2006 budget for the state of Texas. And the numbers will keep rising, according to The Census Bureau, which estimated the U.S. teen population at 33 million individuals in 2003 and predicted the population to continue to grow until 2010.
However, for some teens, money is taken for granted because the cash is coming from parents and relatives — they spend money, but are not always aware of how to save money.
When items like iPods, cell phones and even cars are tops on a teen’s wish list, it is important for teens to learn good money habits.

Delayed Gratification - Self Control is the Key to Success.
Young people who can delay gratification can sit through sometimes boring classes to get a degree. They can perform rote tasks in order to, say, master a language. They can avoid drugs and alcohol. For people without self-control skills, however, school is a series of failed ordeals. No wonder they drop out. Life is a parade of foolish decisions: teenage pregnancy, drug use, gambling, truancy and crime. The ability`to delay gratification, like most skills, correlates with socioeconomic status and parenting styles. Children from poorer homes do much worse on delayed gratification tests than children from middle-class homes. That’s probably because children from poorer homes are more likely to have their lives disrupted by marital breakdown, violence, moving, etc. They think in the short term because there is no predictable long term.
Read the The Mischel experiment here in full

Read the Article Here

These are some of my favorites, they have been apart of my library over the years. You can purchase your copies here and more of many things from Amazon.com
When you purchase here, Hope for Youth Alliance will receive a portion of the proceeds. Shop now!

As promised, this month I am uploading and making available the newsletter for Hope for Youth Alliance to the faithful readers and visitors of this web/ blog.

I am still learning to create “Archives” on this site so that way our visitors will be able to find their way around here. As always, thanks for coming back!

You can view or download the newsletter here march HYA Newsletter.

Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry recorded an interview with Larry Acosta back in June of 2006. Kara Powell interviewed Larry about strategies for fund development.That recorded resource is still available at their website by clicking hereLarry has been a personal friend, mentor and big brother to me.Thanks for your coaching, mentoring and generosity to the ministry of Hope for Youth Alliance.UYWI BlogUYWI.ORG

The Legacy you leave depends on the life you live. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks and many others lived with their eyes focused on the great crowd of witnesses presented in Hebrews. These men and women of faith lived and died without seeing the fruit of their faith on earth and yet, continued to believe. We continue their Legacy as we walk by faith.

Remember, the youth and families you serve may not know these past heroes, but they know YOU! God has given you the time and place to re-write the Legacy that these youth will leave. UYWI08 will challenge and inspire you to LIVE THE LEGACY.

Sample Workshops:

Executive Director//NEW
>> Beginning With The End In Mind: Setting Your Ministry Up For Success!//Romanita Hairston
>> Fundraising That Hits On All 8 Cylinders//Andy Bales
>> Lessons Learned: From Start-Up To Leading One Of The Largest Non-Profits In The U.S.//Andy Bales
>> Program Rich But Cash Poor//Dean Cowles

Sample Workshops

Leadership Development
>> Bad Leadership: The Bad Examples Of Leadership In Ministry//Anthony Flynn
>> Core Competancies Of The Next Generation Leader//Larry Acosta
>> DeFragmenting The Mind//Marvin Daniels
>> The Keys To Indigenous Leadership Development//Rudy Carraso, Jeremy Del Rio
>> Men And Leaders Empowering Women//Justine Conley

View all the workshops here
View this years trainers here

Attention: New Mexico youth workers, If you would like to attend UYWI 08, Get in touch with me so we can plan a road trip or make travel arrangements. The deadline for early reg ends Feb 29. Hit me up by Email here.

From its beginning, Accelerated Christian Education has maintained high Biblical and academic standards and remained committed to setting children on a path for success. The goal is the same today: to prepare children for the world today and give them the academic and spiritual tools necessary to achieve their God-given potential.

Why The Rock Christian Academy Chooses Accelerated Christian Education?

The Four Keys to Accelerated Christian Education

1. Individualized: The A.C.E. Model adapts to the learning speed of your child. This is unlike the “Public School Model” where the group is lock-stepped regardless of the student’s academic abilities. The A.C.E. Model allows your child to progress independently through the curriculum and not as a group. The “Public School Model” holds back the faster learner and forces all the students forward regardless of their “learning gaps”. Over a million alumni demonstrate that Individualized learning produces academic excellence.
2. Diagnosis: The child is given a diagnostic test to determine current academic ability and clearly identifies any learning gaps within all subjects. For example, your child’s English grammar may be above his/her grade level. However their punctuation skills may be below grade level. Your child is then placed in curriculum at his/her academic performance grade level in each subject and the learning gaps are then addressed.
3. Goal Setting: The Students learn through setting daily goals and are challenged by marking their achievement. This key to learning allows the child to visualize and plan daily progress. This unique discipline of A.C.E. places responsibility and accountability on the student for learning, thus establishing a lifetime appreciation for goal setting and achievement.
4. Mastery: The Biblical value of excellence in all things we do is translated into mastering subject content. This is the foundation upon which all future learning is built. The A.C.E. Model reinforces honest achievement that results in
5. advancement. Students must master a minimum of 80% of the material before advancing.

Resources: How to start a Christian School in your community information here

great_command_commission-web.pdf

Accelerated Christian Education’s concepts are based on the following Five Basic Laws of Learning:

• A child must be at a level where he can perform.
• He must have reasonable goals.
• His learning must be controlled, and he must be motivated.
• His learning must be measurable.
• His learning must be rewarded.

Based on these principles, the A.C.E. curriculum assures parents of:

• A solid, mastery-based, back-to-basics education for their child.
• A course of study diagnostically individualized to meet a student’s specific learning needs and capabilities.
• A program incorporating Scripture, Godly character building, and wisdom principles.

• A curriculum using advanced computer technology to help ensure the finest education possible in today’s high-tech climate.

Christians of the last century thought that if public schools were established, they could become teachers in these schools and influence the community for Christ. As of late as 1892, teachers’ union stated that, “if the study of the Bible is excluded from all schools…then the good of the state would be better served if schools were returned to the churches.”

View some of  RCA photos and collections here