May Update

Hey Friends and Supporters,

May was fantastic! We are beyond grateful for your incredible support and prayers. Your generosity means the world to us, and we have some exciting updates to share!

LOCAL
I want to highlight our local church and the “Influencing Your World” small group I’ve been discipling this year. Our group led a sports camp for Great Oaks Church in Richmond, sharing the gospel with children, youth, and adults. Eleven of our Declaration Student Mission Team, Carol, and my YP friend, Travis Shaheen represented Jesus well in Richmond. In addition, seven of our group will go to Oregon from June 14-21 to lead sports camps and support new church plants in Portland and Hillsboro.

“Both experiences for me mean that God is our coach even when we don’t want to play. It means that we can be a leader and learn through anything and everything but we have to be coachable. In order to be a good leader, you have to be a God listener.”
- Channing Breunig, Sophomore

“Serving at Great Oaks has taught me to grow in my faith by helping me spend more time in the Word and the Lord’s presence and has helped me use what I’ve learned to teach and guide others to do the same. Getting to do the same in Portland is just an amazing opportunity that the Lord has allowed me to be a part of.”
-Sidney Roberts, Junior

I’m honored to be the Missionary in Residence at my home church, Declaration in Spring. My pastor, John Sherrill, emphasized this generation in his “Growing Young” series, allowing me to preach on “Empathy with Young People.” We recently baptized 34 people on Sunday morning, and our students are increasing in boldness. Thanks also to pastor Michael Lehnhardt for allowing me to preach at Chambers Creek Baptist in Grandview on “Missions and Youth” as well. I regularly get to lead worship with Holly at Grace Houston, where Jason is now Pastor, and we will do it again in a few weeks.

STATE
Please pray for our upcoming camps in June and July. As part of our “Accelerate Texas” plan, our NNYM team/partners will train 3,600 leaders and students in Gospel Conversations and Leadership strategy. We’ve already seen around 300 salvations at these camps.

We are close to having key strategists and partners in our 25 Texas regions. Our partners from First Priority in West Texas and the DFW area saw hundreds come to Christ last year. PAIS leaders in Arlington will provide campus missionaries to churches. One of our new HUB networks in Lubbock is a great model for comprehensive networking. In Corpus Christi, baptisms continue regularly due to a strong school prayer ministry. One of my state team members, Scott Burks, released two books for youth pastors and is working with me at Texas camps to develop leaders and train students in gospel conversations.

NATIONAL/GLOBAL
Carol and I attended the National Staff Retreat in Cincinnati, braving weather challenges including tornados and flight cancellations. I was honored to lead some worship and devotional times. Here is the outcome: NNYM in partnership with Global Leadership Summit will provide a NextGen track for youth leaders worldwide in early August. NNYM is also championing “Footprints on Campus,” aiming to prayer walk as many of the 64,000 campuses as possible the week of August 11. While there, Carol and I got to enjoy the awesome Creation Museum. Also in August, Travis Deans and I will promote the “9-month mission trip” on a national live stream from Student Discipleship in Burleson.

Our NXT MOVE DFW team is growing, and we’re excited about barrystclair.com, which provides resources for youth leaders. The new book “Campus Connections” will soon be available in digital format.

Two more of my studies were published by Interlinc and sent to around 15,000 leaders based on songs by “For King and Country” and “Planetshakers”. Great things are in store this summer!

With gratitude,