Elim Fellowship Canada,

I am writing this letter to you for three reasons: first to introduce myself as the Elim Canada Youth Rep; secondly to share a bit of my background with you; and finally to share with you the vision for the new Elim Canada Youth Department.

To start, let me share with you my background. I have been in youth ministry for 27 years. I started with Teen Challenge in 1980 after I graduated from Brockville Bible College. Five years later I founded the Living Rock Ministries which I have been doing now for the past 22 years. (For more information on the Rock, please check out our website at www.livingrock.ca.) On the side, in my spare time, I am the Young Offenders Chaplain at the Hamilton Wentworth Detention Center. I was ordained in 1982 and became part of Elim Canada in 1987.

I am also married to Karen Craig, who is the co- founder of Living Rock, a registered social worker and the Program Director. We have two children, a twelve year old son and a fifteen year old daughter. (That is a youth ministry in and of itself.)

In my other spare time, I do a lot of speaking engagements and I am in a worship band that does some outreach to churches, jails and community events. I also sit on a number of committees, including the Elim Canada Board of Directors.

So why am I taking on the position as the Elim Youth Director? It was during the last board meeting that Pastor Ralph Byma put on the table the need for someone to take this on. Everyone was quiet and I tried to hide from the others members who were smiling at me and nodding. I tried not to make eye contact with them and not commit. Don’t get me wrong I love Elim and I love youth but want to be careful what I take on.

After praying about this and reflecting on what I believe the need is, I have decided to accept this responsibility. My heart is not to be the youth pastor and actually do the youth work within the churches, but I would like to create a resource for the youth pastors and workers.

What I would like to do is to identify who is involved in youth ministry within the affiliated and associated Elim Ministries. Out of that, there are a number of visions that I would like to impart. First I would like to set up a monthly tela-conference, in order to get input from the youth pastors/workers and to find out how we can support and serve them. I would like to see a committee raised up that would work to implement ideas and visions. There could be many different ways that we could work together to see this generation raised up for the Kingdom of God.

The most important vision I would like to impart is that you are not alone in the battle; the word of God teaches us that one can put a thousand to flight but two can put ten thousand to flight. I believe that we need to stand together in this important work. In the future we may put conferences together or put on outreach concerts because when we stand together under the banner of Christ we can see many things accomplished.

But again my goal and vision is to serve the individual worker who may feel alone in his or her work. It is important for me to know what it is that they need to continue in this important work.

One thing I know from many years of doing youth work is how important the youth worker is, not only to the Church, but to the youth.

So let’s rally at the next conference and plan our next steps. If you have ideas or topics that you hope to address, contact me at al@livingrock.ca .

Al Craig