Class Response - Lee Rodgers (Youth Alive Ministries)

This week we had the pleasure to hear from Lee Rodgers!
Lee, is on Youth Alive Ministries Director for PennDel.  He currently resides in Mt. Holly Springs, PA right near Carlisle.  He was assistant pastor at Bethel AG in Carlisle from 2004-2011 and then became the director for YAM.  He and his wife travel here and there together and they've loved working with this ministry.  He graduated from Big Springs High School, went on to Valley Forge Christian College and is working on his Master's degree through Regeant University.
Big Springs is where he had/learned his foundations on faith and following Christ at the age of 14.  He talked about how culture, church and school has changed but how can we change it for the glory of God?  "We are Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their difference and enter into God's work of making things right between them (2 Corinthians 5:20).  He gave us some statistics that are interesting for me to see because I never really look enough at statistics.  He shared with us that 99.5% of the U.S. population go through the public school system.  About 8 out of 10 Christians make their decision to follow Christ before graduation from high school.  1,125,000 middle and high school students in Pennsylvania and Delaware.  I like how he reminded us of two things we are instructed to do to show our faith.  We are to be baptized and partake in communion.  These are the foundations of faith.
I never knew that in there Merge Leadership Network they run SYATP, Train, Organize, Baccalaureate, and School Assemblies they are involved in.  They are fully engaged in campus ministries.  Youth Alive started in 1979 as a way to engage the school system within our churches.  Four tasks evolve in this ministry.  The logo for Youth Alive have different colors and they each mean an important task.  The blue represents campus missionaries.  The green represents campus clubs.  The red stands for 7 project/ outreach.  Finally the yellow stands for PrayerZone Partner.  I love what each color and part of the logo means.  It's very unique and makes me empowered to help reach other schools no matter what.  Nothing stops God, so therefore what he works in me, he works into the students who I can lead.
Mr. Rodgers seemed very enthusiastic of this ministry and I pray to one day be as hard-working as successful as he seems to have been.  I really enjoyed his time with us and just love the idea of campus missionaries.