One of the main reasons why Grace Ministries is such an amazing place is because of the staff that God has allowed us to put together. From pastoral staff to ministry staff to support staff to our educational staff, God is allowing us to put together a ministry “dream team” of sorts. Each of these individuals are very passionate about our vision. This isn’t a job to these folks, it is a ministry with eternal issues at stake. After all, the local church is the hope of the world.
But every once in a while I see one of our staff members go above and beyond in even a more amazing way than usual. Recently, I have watched our Director of Student Ministries, Doug Kegarise, (pictured) do that very thing. Earlier in July, Doug took our student leadership team on a mission trip to Ireland where they spent time with the Beckers, who are missionaries in Dublin supported by Grace Church. Doug was home for just one weekend when it was time to load up the busses and take 95 of our teens and youth leaders to the Momentum Youth Conference at Robert Morris University near Pittsburgh.
If you have ever been to Momentum, formerly called BNYC for Brethren National Youth Conference, then you know how amazing, but how utterly draining that week of ministry is, especially when you are in charge of the largest youth group in attendance as Doug was at this year’s Momentum Conference. So you can begin to understand, especially since it was right on the heels of the Ireland trip, why Doug would be physically, emotionally and even spiritually spent after returning home from these two trips.
But Doug’s first day back in the office after Momentum included hearing of a challenging incident involving one of our teens. As a result, Doug loaded up the van again and took off on yet another overnight trip in order to be a ministry in the life of this teenager and his family. Folks, that’s going the extra mile. That’s a man who sees youth ministry as something far more than just a job. But that wasn’t it. Less than a week later, Doug loaded up the van once again and headed to Columbus, Ohio to pick up the teens from our church that had spent the summer on Operation Barnabas to bring them home.
What a month of July for Doug, wouldn’t you agree? Folks, listen, all of our staff are amazing but since I am a big sports junkie, I would like to take this time to publicly award Doug with the Grace Ministries Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for the month of July. What does he get as a result? He gets mentioned in my blog! It’s not much of a prize but it’s all I got!
But the bigger reward for Doug would be having all of you showing up at our Outdoor, Youth-Led Communion this Sunday night, August 9th, beginning at 6pm here at the church. Come be led by our teens in the ultimate of worship in the midst of God’s creation and see Doug’s ministry first hand as you hear our teen’s testimonies of how God has used all of these trips in their lives and how God is using Doug and Grace Student Ministries to meet hundreds of teenagers right where they are and help move them to where God wants them to be!
But every once in a while I see one of our staff members go above and beyond in even a more amazing way than usual. Recently, I have watched our Director of Student Ministries, Doug Kegarise, (pictured) do that very thing. Earlier in July, Doug took our student leadership team on a mission trip to Ireland where they spent time with the Beckers, who are missionaries in Dublin supported by Grace Church. Doug was home for just one weekend when it was time to load up the busses and take 95 of our teens and youth leaders to the Momentum Youth Conference at Robert Morris University near Pittsburgh.
If you have ever been to Momentum, formerly called BNYC for Brethren National Youth Conference, then you know how amazing, but how utterly draining that week of ministry is, especially when you are in charge of the largest youth group in attendance as Doug was at this year’s Momentum Conference. So you can begin to understand, especially since it was right on the heels of the Ireland trip, why Doug would be physically, emotionally and even spiritually spent after returning home from these two trips.
But Doug’s first day back in the office after Momentum included hearing of a challenging incident involving one of our teens. As a result, Doug loaded up the van again and took off on yet another overnight trip in order to be a ministry in the life of this teenager and his family. Folks, that’s going the extra mile. That’s a man who sees youth ministry as something far more than just a job. But that wasn’t it. Less than a week later, Doug loaded up the van once again and headed to Columbus, Ohio to pick up the teens from our church that had spent the summer on Operation Barnabas to bring them home.
What a month of July for Doug, wouldn’t you agree? Folks, listen, all of our staff are amazing but since I am a big sports junkie, I would like to take this time to publicly award Doug with the Grace Ministries Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for the month of July. What does he get as a result? He gets mentioned in my blog! It’s not much of a prize but it’s all I got!
But the bigger reward for Doug would be having all of you showing up at our Outdoor, Youth-Led Communion this Sunday night, August 9th, beginning at 6pm here at the church. Come be led by our teens in the ultimate of worship in the midst of God’s creation and see Doug’s ministry first hand as you hear our teen’s testimonies of how God has used all of these trips in their lives and how God is using Doug and Grace Student Ministries to meet hundreds of teenagers right where they are and help move them to where God wants them to be!
5 comments:
Doug also did a terrific job as part of the Grace Church team connecting with orphans, teachers, and pastors in the Central African Republic in February.
Yes!! Kudos to Doug for an outstanding job working with our youth.
Doug and Renee do an incredible job with the teens! Many thanks to God for blessing us with them!
Amen, Elaine! Amen!
YAY DOUGERS!!! =D
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