Youth Ministry

Mission & Vision of the Education Ministry

We exist to glorify God by providing opportunities for those of any age to learn more about Jesus, and to nurture and equip local leaders to facilitate growth within North Park and the body as a whole.

CHIC 2012

CHIC is a triennial national conference for High School students. CHIC 2012 will include students completing grades 9-12 in the 2011-2012 school year, who will be at least 15 years old by September 1, 2012.

CHIC 2009 was held at the University of Tennesee at Knoxville. Here's a snapshot of the encounter at CHIC 2009:

The first night at CHIC we explored what it meant to undo our dreams. Based on Erwin McMannus's book "WIDE AWAKE", Erwin called us to end the small dreams, sleepwalking and settling, and challenged us to live "a heroic life, void of monotony, teeming with danger, adventure, and the unknown"; to dream of what a life radically surrendered to God might look like.

The second night we worked to undo our lifestyle. Shane Claiborne led us, through personal example, to better understand an authentic pursuit of Christ as radically counter-cultural, counter-comfortable, counter-pleasurable, counter-wealthy, and counter-materialistic; to understand that a call to Jesus' gospel message should, "comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comforted."

On night three, we learned to undo our equations. Whether we are willing to say it out loud or not, we all live by a hidden set of equations: if I pray harder, God will answer… If I behave better, God will reward me… If I believe more, God will favor me… Steven Furtick helped us better understand that while we can find cause and effect relationships in our faith, the path to following Jesus can not be explained with a simple set of equations.

The fourth night, we discovered how to undo our self. Every one of us believes things about our self that are untrue, distorted, or at the very least unhealthy. Judy Peterson helped us reclaim our individual and communal identity as children of God; to understand that in Christ we are becoming a new creation.

On the last night, we expanded our vision to undo our world. Efrem Smith sent us home with a challenge to allow this transformation in our lives to flow out and impact our family, friends, churches, schools, neighborhoods, cities and more; that together we can help bring God's kingdom in our world.