Tag: Christian Emphasis

The “C” in the YMCA Today

Find out the refreshing, innovative, practical ways Christ is at work across the YMCA movement! It builds on our heritage since 1844 and prepares us for an exciting future of loving, serving, caring for all as the hands and heart of Jesus.

Is the “C” back in the YMCA?

Yes.

Was it ever gone?

No.

But…!

It has changed a lot since 1844, like all the different kinds of Christianity’s have changed over the past twenty centuries.

That’s part of the problem of the “C” in the Y – Christianity is diverse in the world and the YMCA: depending on what kind of “C” you are looking for, you might not see the “C” that is flourishing there.

Like Christianity in the USA and the YMCA, faith is a dynamic, contested, adapting, vibrant, controversial, disruptive, divisive, uniting, healing reality.

Christianity, faith, spirituality is complicated and messy. And that’s ok.

This means there are also a variety of energies and visions for a stronger, healthier “C” in the YMCA.

So who is doing what in the YMCA in the USA to strengthen our mission, build a healthier “C” in the Y, and support the presence of Christ Jesus in every YMCA?

This compilation is based on what I’m aware of – let me know if you have more to add:

  • Christian CEOs / Directors / Leaders / Volunteers / Members
  • Christian symbols / art / Scriptures
  • Good Friday Breakfast
  • National Day of Prayer
  • Christian Leadership Conference (CLC)
  • Raggers / C in the YMCA book
  • Chapels
  • Bible Studies/Prayer Groups
  • Meetings: opening prayers & devotions
  • Christian Emphasis Committees
  • Volunteerism w Christian Non-Profits (I.e. Habitat, Rescue Mission, Church Food Banks, etc.)
  • Service Mission Trips (local/global)
  • Programs: i.e. Journey to Freedom, GriefShare, Finances God’s Way, FCA Coaching, etc.
  • Covenant Church Partnerships
  • CITY (Church In The Y)
  • Clergy Volunteer Chaplains & Prayer Tables
  • Silver Bay Chaplains Retreat
  • Monday Prayer National Call
  • Certified Chaplains (clergy/members)
  • Health Coaches (holistic/Christian)
  • Harold C. Smith Symposium Papers
  • YMCA Staff Christian Emphasis Training & Discussion Guide
  • YMCA Strong Challenge
  • Friends of the Jerusalem YMCA
  • OnPrinciple
  • YMCA Christian Principles (YCP)
  • Being Christ’s Presence In The YMCA (YCP)
  • Faith As A Dimension of Diversity (YCP)
  • How To Save Souls in the Y Like George Williams (YCP)
  • Kingdom Contentment (YCP)
  • Chaplains For All (YCP)
  • Silver Bay Institute
  • Flourishing For All (FFA)
  • YouVersion YMCA Devotions
  • YouTube George Williams Story (3 part series)
  • ymca.spiritmindbody (Instagram)
  • Books: I.e. Oswald Chambers, David Newman, Tracy Howe, C. Hopkins, Clyde Binfield, Paul Limbert, John Mott, etc.
  • YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly
  • DIG

Links to Click:

YMCA Christian Principles (YCP) – for events, training, articles, networking

Being Christ’s Presence In The YMCA (BCPY) – monthly Zoom call on how Christian leaders live out their faith through their Y work

YouTube George Williams Story (3 part series) The Reason Why

Friends of the JIY – US support for Jerusalem International YMCA

OnPrinciple – strategic effort to strengthen Christian presence in the YMCA through adaptive leadership training, immersion in Holy Land YMCA’s and mentoring

Church In The Y (CITY) Movement

Christian Leadership Conference (CLC)

YMCA STRONG Challenge

YouVersion YMCA Devotions

YMCA Books

Strengthening the Organizational Heart by Tracy Howe

The Shining Light by David Newman

Reliving A Century by Paul Limbert

Have more to add to this resource list? Put it in the comments!

Prayers for Peace on the National Day of Prayer :: the YMCA, the Church, the City

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” – to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

For the 2022 National Day of Prayer, the emphasis was drawn from the encouragement of St. Paul to the church in the city of Colosse (Colossians 2:6-7).

Here is the cotext of what we wrote to the young Christian men and women who associated there in homes and the marketplace:

“My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

For though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how disciplined you are and how firm your faith in Christ is.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.”

Colossians‬ ‭2:2-7‬ ‭NIV

Prayers for our country and community are essential, praying for our leaders and families, our churches and YMCA’s matter.

Especially as Christians, we have a responsibility to fulfill our calling as “little Christ’s” to “live our lives” in Christ Jesus – this is how we will overflow in thankfulness and be instruments of peace where we live and work and pray.

As you pray today, and everyday, may these words above of Saint Paul, and this prayer below of Saint Francis guide you in spirit, mind and body, for all whom Christ brings into your life:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us bear your love.
Where there is offence, pardon us as we pardon others.
Where there is discord, bring union through us.
Where there is error, may truth arise.
Where there is doubt, grant us faith.
Where there is despair, be our hope.
Where there is darkness, shine your light through us.
Where there is sadness, inspire us with joy.


O Master, let us not seek
to be consoled but rather to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying in Christ that one is raised to eternal life.

Adapted from the prayer attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi

The following prayers and prompts are from Central Branch YMCA in downtown Fort Wayne.

Happy Easter & YMCA Ukraine

Today on this Easter Sunday, join me in praying for YMCA Ukraine, for their faithful and brave service to their neighbors as they strive to overcome evil with good.

Today April 24 is Easter Sunday for Orthodox Christians around the world – here in Fort Wayne and in Ukraine.

What’s it mean to celebrate Easter when your nation is being brutally terrorized and violently decimated by the machines of war from your next door neighbor?

When horrific deaths mar the landscape of blasted cities, where does the courage and hope come from, that faith, hope and love can endure?

Even just briefly reflecting on how my pleasant Protestant Easter Sunday went last week compared to my fellow Ukrainian Christian’s celebrating Easter today in Kiev or Mariupol… it is humbling, it is grief-full, it is maddening really that such evil exists and devours the innocent.

What can YMCA Christians do – we who are known as the resurrection people – in the face of such madness, darkness, and violence?

Our name – “little Christ’s” implies that we are marked as such because of our loyalty, imitation, and love of Jesus, in particular how he was present to the weak and vulnerable, the innocent and the guilty, those with power and those praying for deliverance.

The YMCA has within its history a record of brave women and men who responded to the call of Christ upon their life, to serve Him through the Y as peacemakers, as mentors, as friends, as advocates for the oppressed, as allied for justice.

If you haven’t done it yet, please donate to the YMCA work in Ukraine.

Donate Today!
YUSA & YMCA World Service Check In with YMCA Europe & YMCA Ukraine

If you are a Christian in the Y, consider the call that Jesus Christ is making on your life these days: what are you doing about evil in the world, what is your Y doing about despair and violence in the world, what is your Y doing about peace and truth and reconciliation in the world, what is your Y doing about war and oppression?

It’s easy to try and avoid conflict, to keep my head down, eyes averted…until trouble comes near and then we are unprepared in spirit, mind and body. It’s hard to keep caring about our neighbors and fellow YMCA’s around the world. It’s also hard to become cynical, jaded, and hard-hearted…

Today on this Easter Sunday, join me in praying for YMCA Ukraine, for their faithful and brave service to their neighbors as they strive to overcome evil with good.

Pray for the Christians of Ukraine, that as they celebrate Easter amidst rubble and refugees, amidst terror and tyrants, that the Risen One would strengthen their spirit, that their love would breathe new life into their nation.

And today, pray for your neighbors facing darkness in your own community- and be willing to say “yes” to the call Christ is making on you to be present to those in pain, to be ready to be the hands and heart of Jesus, for all who are walking in darkness yet yearn to see a great light.