Happy Holidays!

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We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas, we WISH you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Let's Recap 2022

Every December, Brayden prays and asks the Father to give him a word or theme for the next year. At the beginning of January, he internalized the word "release". After 2021 (arguably the hardest year of our ministry), we were ready to be released into the next season of Half Step's work in Fort Collins; we were ready to be released into a “successful ministry year”! But that wasn’t quite what happened in 2022…

Half Step at Faith Church made the decision to sunset their ministry. What an honor and privilege to have 6.5 years of creating space where youth could build authentic relationships and be connected to a local church!
With this news we went into Half Step Camp with the hope and expectation that a new ministry would be starting in Windsor. However, the leaders there decided they needed to prioritize some other things in their lives at this time.
Throughout this year we’ve had a handful of supporters drop off, which has been natural and makes sense to us. Maybe you’re starting to see our pattern?

All this news could be viewed as failure. And to be honest, it felt like it all year. This drove us to our knees and to our Father’s arms over and over, and what we found was that God wasn’t releasing us INTO, but releasing us FROM.

As good as our beginning was, we see with fresh eyes that God has been releasing us from some structures and mentalities that have been hindering us from fully trusting Him and saying yes to him whole heartedly.

So “release” didn’t happen the way we thought, but we are grateful nonetheless. God has been so good and kind to us this year- in large part through YOU!

Let's Not Forget

We don't want to forget the great things that happened this year either! Some highlights for us have been:

Stepping into a great church family at Mill City
Our Non-Profit status officially being approved
Our awesome camp team from 8 different churches
Seeing the fruit from Half Step 3-5 years later in former students that are now leaders in different ministry spaces
Survival Day 2022!

Survival Day happened on November 5th. It looked different than we had hoped, but overall it was successful in that we had 6 people new to Half Step and at least a couple non-believers! We would have loved to have more students participate, but we were glad for the connections made with the students that did come. We had 5 different stations around Fort Collins and the students (and leaders) really loved them! We haven't been able to follow up super well with these new students since there is no weekly Half Step happening right now, so we have been intentional about building in a follow up plan for Master Camp and summer Camp in July.

Coming Up: Youth Leader Retreat

Next month, January 14th, we will be hosting a one day event for youth ministry leaders in NoCo! Our vision for this time together is for youth leaders (veterans and newbies) in our area to feel connected to a community with the same mission, and for them to feel encouraged and inspired to continue pursuing youth in the unique way that Jesus has equipped them to do.

Master Camp - March 17 & 18th
We pushed our Master Camp back a couple of months to allow for more involvement from our church and we are very excited about what this weekend will look like and how it will impact students! We are recruiting our team right now and will be receiving some professional help in promoting this event over the next few months.

Here's how you can pray:

Pray for youth leaders in NoCo to be open and excited about the opportunity to gather behind one mission.
Pray for the Spirit to be present in creating community and breathing new life into seasoned leaders.
Pray that this retreat is filled with rest and encouragement for these leaders.
Pray for our recruitment for Master Camp, for us to find all the leaders we need.
Pray for the students that will attend Master Camp, that God would already be preparing their hearts.

Our Mission

To connect youth to Jesus and the local church by creating spaces where youth can build authentic relationships through their passions.

Would you join us in praying for opportunities to make this mission happen here in Northern Colorado among a united Church family? Lord, Your Kingdom come.

Friends, we love you and are so blessed to have you with us! And it has been a long time since we have seen some of you face to face...

If you are a monthly/yearly supporter, THANK YOU!! We will be reaching out to reconnect with you in January and February because we would love to know how Jesus is working in your lives as well! We truly could not do this work without your generosity. Every dollar of support frees up more time for us to invest into planning and executing these events, discipling young leaders and connecting youth to Jesus.

We are humbled by the continued support and goodwill you've shown us over the years and we believe the best is yet to come in 2023!

Give Now

Mini life updates:
Brayden has been working at Omni Carpentry for over a year now and has loved it! He's still doing coffee roasting business on the side as well.
Avi turned three and started Pre School a few weeks ago and is doing really well! Avi was found eligible to go to PreSchool for free, which has been a HUGE gift from God.
Benji is talking up a storm and turns 2 in 4 weeks.
Abby is rediscovering the joy she finds in discipling young people after only being able to be around toddlers for a couple years.

Merry Christmas from Brayden, Abby, Avi & Benji!