2000 ACTS puts teens to work
ONTARIO - Between 3,000 and 5,000 youth picked up trash, raked yards and performed random acts of kindness during the Easter weekend and the weeks leading up to it. The massive effort was the practical outworking of a large youth event in Hamilton last year in which 11,000 youth were commissioned to do acts of service in the year 2000.
Now 2000 ACTS is seeing the fruit of that commitment. Director John Latta says he was thrilled with the participation. "It was incredible to see them as they were serving," he says.
Youth groups from across the province planned service events in their own communities. In most cases, the youth cleaned up the neighbourhood around the participating church. In one of the larger events, 300 teens from the Ajax/Pickering area cleared trash from a large piece of commercial property nearby.
Even on a smaller scale, students made an impact. Latta tells of a small youth group made up of a handful of teens who did a "rake and run"–anonymously cleaning people's yards by raking and hauling away leaves.
One elderly man came out of the house to ask them what they were doing. When the teens told them they were raking his leaves as a favour, he cried. His wife had died two weeks ago, the man said, and he hasn't been able to get out of the house. The teens later brought him a sympathy card with a Bible verse and visited with him.
It's small stories like that, says Latta, that prove the vast good that comes from small acts of service.
And those acts will continue. 2000 ACTS workday coordinator Vanessa Hamilton adds that many of the Ontario youth groups have monthly service projects planned.
Canadian youth network
2000 ACTS is already evolving in the short time it has been around. It began when then youth pastor Dale Winder envisioned a way to involve the more than 65,000 youth who attended a 1995 Skydome concert during a Billy Graham campaign. That evolved into a vision to network the various youth groups of Ontario and get them doing practical acts of service to back up their commitment. The Hamilton commissioning was part of a service curriculum that taught a biblical model of servanthood.
Now that the acts of the commissioning are underway, 2000 ACTS will likely go by its alternate name, the Canadian Youth Network. And its goal for 2001 will concentrate on establishing prayer groups in high schools, says Latta.
"We've established it to assist churches in the body of Christ. Serving will always be what we're about, but what we've decided to do is that we need to target our high schools."
To do that they're teaming up with Darien Kovacs, the teenaged first-year Arts student at the University of Victoria who started Canada Fire, a network of student-led prayer groups. Latta says he is mentoring Darien and they are merging their prayer networks.
"Darian's got that vision. We've got to release students into their environment."
The next event for Canadian Youth Network is a celebration event at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton September 30. The event, featuring the band Out of Eden, will celebrate what has been accomplished through the acts of service in 2000.
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