Youth Unlimited (Toronto YFC)
321LAUNCH.ca myLAUNCHtools.com
Issue 4-14 | Summer 2011
what’s insideFEATURE: NEXT STEPS FOR LAUNCH
NEW LAUNCHee STORIES
“JUST BE YOURSELF”
COACHING WORKSHOPS
THE ROAD AHEAD
2 :: LAUNCH News
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The Love Call Ministries is dedicated to the equipping of individuals and teams serving short-term and long-term in the outreaching and evangelism of their communities. The ministry presently has several projects that aim to effectively work with the marginalized and lost souls of our world.
Coach: Janet
jael’s love call ministries
josiah’s conferenceMy vision is for a conference to raise awareness about the issues of self-injury, depression and ultimately suicide. The conference, set for August 13, will equip people to help others dealing with such issues as well as encouraging those dealing with these issues to open up and talk to someone about it. It will be focused mainly at those in high
school and university as they are the ones who are most increasingly affected by suicide. It will be a place for friends, old and new, to come together and talk about their pain and struggles, about hope and redemption.
Coach: Carl
zack’s worship eventI want to encourage teens to be free to worship God as we should. I feel my calling is to bring all of these teens together in my community so that we can openly, loudly and lovingly praise the God who created us. I want to create an environment where everyone can praise without feeling shy or without feeling forced. I intend on hosting a worship event on August 24, gathering youth and their local churches from the St. Catharines area to join together to create a stronger faith environment.
Coach: William
LAUNCH News :: 3
If you’ve got an idea or know you want to do something but not sure what, contact us at [email protected] and we’ll connect you to staff who will inspire you and encourage you in your Kingdom journey!
StoriesMy vision is to create a Canadian based Christian magazine for youth and young adults. This is the time in young people’s lives where they struggle with who they are and what they believe in. God has placed this idea on my heart and I plan on creating this magazine that will collaborate with young Christian leaders to help write about their truths and issues that they have struggled with. This magazine will hopefully be able to help young people realize their own potential.
Coach: Graham
jason’s magazine
I have always been fond of soccer for as far back as I can remember. So too has my love of God stretched back through my life. In my idea of creating a summer program, my prayer is that I will both be able to convey the joys of soccer and good teamwork as well as the love, peace and wonder that comes through a relationship with God. I hope to build faith as well as skills in those younger than me.
Coach: Mike
conor’s soccer camp
Too many teenagers take drastic moves in their pain such as suicide or drugs because they don’t know what to do. I want to help start a suicide helpline for troubled youth in high schools - a website or blog site for teens who need someone to reach out to.
Coach: Diana
jiwan’s helpline
4 :: LAUNCH News
In our last newsletter, we introduced a new website, myLAUNCHtools.com, which is our online vehicle for young Christian leaders to discover and stretch their leadership. It has proven to be yet another door for us to journey through in terms of both partnerships and engaging young leaders in brand new ways. We have been pleased with the impact of the site and are eager to
see it continue to be further developed and enhanced this summer.
The release of these new tools last fall also provided an opportunity for our program to reflect on some vital questions. Moving forward, how has our vision for LAUNCH increased? Are we accurately measuring our effectiveness? What should we stop… or start doing? From a stewardship perspective, how can we further stretch the resources God has entrusted to us?
Now into our eighth year, it was a wonderful time as a team to wrestle through these issues. So, in January, we began an adventure together. Externally, our program didn’t miss a beat. But internally, we symbolically erased from a giant whiteboard our current LAUNCH strategy as well as our individual roles and responsibilities. We used our clean slate and 26 collective years of LAUNCH experience to talk, listen, research and pray our way through the re-creation of our LAUNCH program. What an exercise!
The RoadAheadPart One
LAUNCH News :: 5
Along the way we discovered some important gems:
- Our core DNA to influence and develop young Christian leaders is as strong as ever;- Coaching LAUNCHees while they create new Kingdom initiatives is highly effective;- Regionally, our deepest passion is for young leaders in the Greater Toronto area;- We must further expand our LAUNCH prayer base;- Our tools (software, online assessments, training manuals) are solid and unique;- Our team (staff and volunteer coaches) is deeply committed to one another and our mission.
However, we also discovered one very important void. Many of the youth and young adults we engage with are struggling through the process of making significant life decisions, either because they have never learned a healthy decision making process or because they have not discovered enough about themselves to move ahead with confidence.
As a LAUNCH team, because we feel strongly about the need to address this void, we are in the midst of creating a brand new initiative to guide 14-22 year olds (within the GTA) through a significant journey of discovery and learning how to make godly, wise decisions. We are so committed to this concept that we have re-structured our team to be able to ‘launch’ this new initiative in September. While Monica (currently on maternity leave), Jan and Diana will continue to grow and enhance the coaching of LAUNCHees that has been at the core of our program for so many years, William and Melissa are eagerly chomping at the bit to get this new ball rolling! These next months will see them complete some further research and refine our strategic plan for this endeavour.
We believe that the addition of this initiative to our current LAUNCH program will give us the capacity to influence a thousand more young leaders in the Toronto area each year with our desire to see them reach their full life potential in Jesus. We envision an expanded prayer base and support team that will undergird our new discovery initiative (to be called LAUNCH Pad). As youth interact with various opportunities for experiential learning, self-assessments and coaching, they will become better equipped to make the key decisions they are facing in life. We are truly excited to get LAUNCH Pad up and running to help meet this critical area of need.
Of course, we know from our experiences of the past several years that many of these youth (and other young Christian leaders) will begin to dream about how they can make a difference in the lives of their friends and communities. At that point, we will continue to connect these ‘LAUNCHees’ with a volunteer coach to influence them while they do the hard work of turning their ideas into reality. This continuation of our current ministry will now be called Dream LAUNCH, and as always, we will rely on your support to make it all happen!
We will share more information about this expansion of our program in the months ahead through our website, social media and our Winter 2012 newsletter. As things unfold, we would greatly value your prayers for our staff (including Carl, Lorraine and Suraj, who will continue in their roles of providing leadership and/or support to both LAUNCH Pad and Dream LAUNCH), our volunteer coaches and the young leaders in both Toronto and your own community.
Watch for “The Road Ahead: Part Two” in our next issue of LAUNCH News.
6 :: LAUNCH News
So you want to be a LAUNCH coach?
Or perhaps you know someone who would be great at coaching a young leader with a specific Kingdom dream.
LAUNCH Coaching Workshops are held at least twice a year, although the process of becoming a LAUNCH coach can happen at any time. Here are some things you can expect from the workshop:
- To become familiar with LAUNCH, its vision and coaching philosophy
- To learn about the LAUNCHee intake process and get familiar with a variety of LAUNCHee dreams
- To be introduced to a coach and LAUNCHee
- To be introduced to LAUNCH tools (360o Leadership, Spiritual Gifts & Teamwork Assessments and DreamLAUNCHTM
Software)
- To become familiar with the 6 Phases of LAUNCH Coaching
- To review the process for applying to be a coach, being matched with a LAUNCHee, accessing resources and gaining support while coaching
Contact us for informa-tion on our next scheduled workshop.
WHAT CAN I EXPECT AT A COACHING WORKSHOP?
How many t imes have you stepped into
leadership and actual l y suppressed your own
unique ident i ty and tr ied to lead as someone e lse?
JUST BE YOURSELF
Just be yourself. How many times have we heard this phrase uttered? It has almost become a secular idea along with “Just Do It”. Just be yourself has become more of an excuse to do what we want or to not do anything at all. It is all wrapped up in ego as opposed to service. What if we were to reclaim it as a Christian concept and even more so as a Christian leader concept? Think about it: how many times have you stepped into leadership and actually suppressed your own unique identity and tried to lead as someone else? Sometimes we have this perception that we should lead a “certain way” and ignore who God has made us to be.
In Ruth Hailey Barton’s book, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, she explains it this way:
The soul of leadership begins with who we are - really. Not who we think we are, not who we would like to be, not who others believe us to be. God’s call includes (yet is not limited to) the particularities of our life, our heritage, our personality, our foibles, our passions and deepest orientation, and even our current life situation. Being called by God is one of the most essentially spiritual experiences of human existence, because it is a place where God’s presence intersects with a human life. Our calling emerges from who we really are - in all the rawness and sinfulness of it as well as in all the glory and God-giveness of it.
When approaching how we serve God... JUST BE YOURSELF. This can be a hard thing to swallow. Sometimes we don’t like the gifts God has given us and would rather have someone else’s. Sometimes it can be hard to nail down our identity in God at all. But it is essential to leading. God has created each of us for a unique purpose. There is reason behind each gift and experience He has given us.
Even though the LAUNCH coaching role is specific and laid out, we are privileged to have many unique personalities on the coaching team. Should we be trying to recruit only one type of person for the coaching role? No way! We celebrate the diverse people God has brought us to serve in this way. Coaching a LAUNCHee as ‘who you are’ is the most important thing you can do for them. It demonstrates to them the importance of knowing yourself in leadership. And just as each of our LAUNCHees is unique, so is the God-given match that steps up to coach them. So just be yourself, because we are so thankful to have YOU on the LAUNCH coaching team.
DIANA SKINNER
FOR COACHES
LAUNCH News :: 7
The entire LAUNCH staff team gathered for a full day of team building through The Birkman Method® assessment.
William motivated and challenged over 500 students to Love Out Loud (LOL) at this year’s Today’s Teens Conference. View more photos and read our review on our blog at 321LAUNCH.wordpress.com.
Joel presented his LAUNCH coach, Randall, with a plaque of appreciation at his March Madness sports camp.
As I watched you from the big screen [at your own event], I couldn’t help but to think of how much you have taught me how to be a man in a world where men are diverting from their responsibilities. Thank you Randall. THANK YOU!
Joel, LAUNCHee, to his coach
Getting a note like this sure makes me feel like I have made a difference in a young man’s life. I never saw this coming a year ago when I joined LAUNCH. Indeed, God is good.
Randall, LAUNCH Coach
LAUNCHee alumni Katrina held her second Girls Conference event in May. Around 120 young women met to reflect on Revelations 3:20 and the theme of Open Doors.
"Girls were challenged to open every door of their hearts to let Jesus in, through teaching, worship, workshops, drama, and prayer, all in one amazing, Spirit-filled evening." (Katrina)
Congratulations to our software programmer Suraj for graduating from Waterloo University this year! We look forward to seeing where God leads you next!
LAUNCH HIGHLIGHTS
Collect AirMiles for LAUNCH!Supplimentary AirMiles cards are available for those who would like to collect points on our behalf to help cover LAUNCH expenses such as travel, training and equipment. If you would like to receive a card to help us raise points, contact us at [email protected].
LAUNCH is a program of Youth Unlimited (Toronto Youth For Christ)50 Gervais Drive, Suite 302 Toronto ON M3C 1Z3t. 416-383-1229 x238 e. [email protected]. 321LAUNCH.ca w. myLAUNCHtools.com
iTeamf ro m t h e d i re c t o rCARL NASH
There is no “i” in “team”. I can’t recall my first encounter with that cliché, but I’ve heard it countless times reminding me that as an individual I need to be willing to sacrifice my own desires in order to help achieve a larger team goal. I get it.
The concept of team has been very much on my mind, as of late. Our LAUNCH team had just gone through an adventurous season of re-structuring, during which our frequency of team meetings tripled. We went through the Birkman profile assessment, in order to understand how we can best accomplish our vision together. We also unveiled our new online Teamwork 360˚ assessment and recently facilitated a workshop on how to become stronger team players. In the midst of all this, my daughters are currently involved on four separate volleyball teams and I dusted off my glove to play some softball. To top it all off, this morning I came to my office desk to write this article and a friend had returned my book Team Players and Teamwork. No wonder my thoughts have lingered on the topic!
Each of us is consistently involved in various expressions of team. Family. Work. Athletics. Ministry. Boards. Clubs. How do we measure up? What steps can we take to ensure that we are able to thrive and make significant contributions to each of our teams? Two things come to mind.
1/ In our high-tech, fast paced world of iPhones, iPads, iMacs and iTunes – I wish I could take a shortcut and simply download an iTeam app and then magically lead my team to the promised land. (Actually, there were 4 apps named iTeam, but the cheapest one was in German and I couldn’t read a word of it). Truth is, there are no shortcuts. Vision needs to be owned collaboratively. Conflicts need to be resolved well. Relationships need to be nurtured over time. Taking a longer term view of team success will allow us to be more prepared to invest the necessary time and energy to do it right.
2/ The research for our Teamwork 360˚ assessment revealed that there are four critical attributes we want to develop in our LAUNCHees. Namely, we desire them to become team players that are trustworthy, dedicated, flexible and engaged. If any one of us intentionally grows in these areas, a direct result will be an increase in the overall capacity of our team. In other words, we must remember that ultimately a team is the sum of the individuals involved. Yes, synergy allows us to do more together than we could do on our own. However, if I am willing to increase my teamwork attributes, then the whole team benefits.
Well, what do you know. Turns out there is an ‘i’ in team after all. And a very important one at that.
LAUNCH WILL DEEPLY INFLUENCE THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OF YOUNG, INNOVATIVE CHRISTIAN LEADERS, ADDRESS THE SYSTEMIC BARRIERS THAT HINDER THEIR GROWTH AND RELEASE THEM FOR LONG-TERM KINGDOM LEADERSHIP
