Going into the new year, we had one simple question on our minds at Faith Ascent: How can we use our resources to empower young people to build their faith in this season?
The times we live in are certainly difficult, and not without their fair share of new stresses and anxieties. And yet, the Gospel message is the same… and so is the need. Being an organization that typically has relied upon creating in-person events, this winter season has forced us to think outside the box and find new ways to empower young people and train up the next generation of believers to “work out their salvation with fear and trembling”.
So, here are the top 5 ways we went about reaching the community this winter.
Climbing Guide
We are so excited to bring a new type of ‘workbook’ to our Climbers. Climbing Guide is meant to be equal parts an introduction to apologetics, and a discussion launch pad.
We hope that Climbing Guide is a blessing to families, Bible study small groups, and youth groups. Because we want to bless as many folks as possible, we’re offering the electronic version of Climbing Guide absolutely free! You can download it right now, if you’d like!
Not everyone likes to read books on a screen; we get that! That’s why we’re also offering Climbing Guide as a beautiful spiral-bound book! We’re selling these gorgeous books at cost here.
Weekly Videos
With COVID forcing physical separation, we decided to prioritize Faith Ascent’s YouTube page. We’ve updated the look of the page to make it more aesthetically pleasing to newcomers, optimized all of our videos with dozens of “tags” that help the videos to be found in searches, and, most importantly, we’ve scheduled new videos for release every single Wednesday morning. Currently (as of March 2021), we have videos scheduled every Wednesday through the end of July.
In August of 2020, we began creating weekly social media posts under the label “Term Tuesday”. Every week, we briefly defined a term pertinent to the world of apologetics. With our new video focus, we’ve decided to turn our weekly Term Tuesday posts into short video segments. We’re grateful to have our new intern Kayla heading up this project.
Zoom Lectures
We’re always excited to augment a youth group’s curriculum with our own insight! We recently got the chance to lead a special lecture via Zoom for a group of 13-year-olds. We taught on Comparative Religions, and look forward to more opportunities to connect with youth groups and future Climbers via Zoom.
Weekly Newsletters
Near the heart of great apologetics is great communication. At Faith Ascent, we’re striving to communicate well! Going into the new year, with insight from our board of directors, we decided to pivot our newsletter towards a weekly publishing date. This allows us to keep our committed donors, parents, and Climbers abreast of all our new services in concise, concentrated emails.
If you’re not already receiving our newsletters (which come to your email every Friday morning), sign up on our front page!
Trail Head
Trail Head is our online platform that allows us to stay connected with many of our student Climbers. The forum is an invaluable resource for us to keep in relationship with the young people who yearn to hike further in their worldview formation.
Read more about Trail Head here!