Encounter Youth

This week Jake talks about what to do when you are feeling stuck with God, and you are on the journey toward an encounter with Him. Encounters and feelings come when the truth of God's word goes from our head to our heart, and God uses times of waiting to teach us to cling to the truth in His word until his Spirit makes it real to our hearts!

Jake shares again this week about how to walk with God when the feelings aren't there. We sometimes want God to skip us to the top of the mountain rather than recognizing His presence with us on the journey. Journeying with Him means learning to live by the truth of his Word and seek his presence every day.

This week Jake talks about times when we can't feel God. Feelings are amazing, but your feelings don't always tell the truth. That's why its important not to put your faith in your feelings. Maturity in your faith means learning to stay connected to the truth even when your feelings aren't there, to learn to walk by faith and not by sight.

This week, Luke shares that God is never out of reach and that he deeply desires relationship with you. Sometimes we feel like we are walking the road of our life alone, but God wants to walk with us.

This week, Jake starts a new series about relationship with God where we learn how to build a close, personal relationship with the Living God! This two-way connection with God where we share our thoughts and feelings with God and He reveals His back to us is what life is all about!

This week, Luke shares about radical love, love that gives everything for others because it sees them for who they truly are. This is the kind of love that Jesus lived, that God gives, and that we can show if we walk in His love.

Hayes shares his final message as a leader at Encounter Youth about finding God in the dry, desert season. Even when you feel abandoned by God, he is working the background in ways you can't always see. Hayes shows an amazing video in this massage that can be found at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrOoJ_iEWoE

This week, Jake talks about how humility is confidence that comes from God and not ourselves. Jesus, is the ultimate example of humility and shows us how humility is about putting other people above yourself, giving to others instead of taking from them, and being willing to serve instead of be served. Its about being willing to go lower so other people can be lifted higher.

Guest speaker and financial advisor Matt Boulden teaches principles on what the Bible says about avoiding debt and investing your money well so that you can have financial peace in your life.

Jake Ragsdale opens up our National Day of Prayer with a message on what gives us confidence and passion for prayer, knowing God's heart for ourselves and our situation. God is calling us to ask him to pour out his love into every situation that we face.

Closing out our National Day of Prayer event, Tre Moore shares about what it looks like to share Jesus with the people you encounter everyday. All it takes is choosing to stop for the one.

Jake spills tea on how gossip is the number one thing that can destroy friendships and unity. Every time we gossip we partner with Satan by spreading the dirt on people. What if we chose to honor people instead and spread the gold about them?

No one influences you more than your friends. Jake talks about how important it is to have friends who are flowing in the same direction you are. Do you friends fill you up? At the end, Jake talks about to take good friendships to the next level by making them godly friendships.

In this message Jake talks about something that is needed in every relationship, forgiveness. He talks about how unforgiveness only really hurts you and not the person you won't choose to forgive, and how forgiving means canceling the debt that you feel someone owes you.

In this message, Jake talks about how love is the most important thing in being unified, and actually in life! He also talks about love as finding the gold in others and laying your life down for them. The message ends with us recognizing how God acts toward us because he is love.

In this second message on why we need each other, Jake describes how God empowers us to love each other and build each other up through what the Bible calls spiritual gifts. He describes each of the gifts named in the Bible and tells stories of supernatural things God does when we love each other with the Spirit's power.

This message starts a new series on why we can't do life alone and we need each other. God made us to need each other and we all represent a piece of his heart and who he is in our own unique way. (There is a long illustration at the end of this message that you may want to skip through).

This week we talk about how to have good boundaries in a relationship. We cover everything from purity, to physical boundaries, to guarding your heart, and get practical about what to do and what not to do in order to keep your boundaries. PARENTAL WARNING: At the end of this message we talk about sexual boundaries in an appropriate way.

Have you ever asked what you should be looking for in a girl or guy to date? What does God say about how to be datable and how is it different from all of the external, skin deep stuff everyone seems to care about so much? Confidence, Character, Joy, and Love are good places to start.

This first message of our dating series talks about what dating is all leading up to, the beautiful covenant of marriage. Knowing what marriage I all about lays the foundation for understanding what dating is all about.