I spent an exhausting weekend in Miami with Darwin, one of my former students and graduate from the MA program in Cuba. He moved to Miami a few months ago, but he still has the vision and desire to train youth workers.

After surveying the situation in Miami, he called our office and asked if we would think about and pray about the possibility of training youth workers for the hispanic churches in Miami. We prayed about it, thought about it, and decided to at least do something to empower him and the 2 other graduates who live there now.

This past weekend I flew to Florida to be with Darwin and the Florida Baptist Convention at an event called the Cumbre de Estudio Biblico, or the Bible Study Summit. Darwin and I shared some Biblical principles of youth ministry. To everyone’s surprise, our 2 hour workshop was packed. We made a lot of connections and talked with many different youth leaders from Baptist churches in Miami.


In the evening, we had another workshop for youth leaders at Darwin’s church. Again we talked about the need for youth ministry and the desperate situation in which many teenagers find themselves. Many youth workers were encouraged at the fact that someone wants to help them be able to minister effectively to the youth of their churches.

After the meeting on Saturday night, we had a strategic conversation with the three graduates who live in Miami. They were all in agreement that there is much to do as far as youth ministry training goes in this strategic city. We talked through many ideas and landed on having an informal gathering of youth workers to encourage them and explore the possibilities of doing an informal “forum” on youth ministry with Reach-Out, a partner organization with YMI.

We are fervently praying about the future and would like to see many great things come from these meeting.

I had the privilege on Sunday to preach in the two services at the church where Darwin serves as youth pastor, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the future.