As we head for the summer, school and many youth groups wind down and plans for mission trips and summer camps are in place. Fund raising has been achieved as your congregations support your youth in hopes and prayers that the experience they take on this summer will be pivotal in their faith formation. For many it will... It will be that campfire, that small group moment, that time doing something for someone else that is so much bigger than who they are in their world. I talk to so many youth directors, pastors and youth themselves that after that "mountain top" experience in faith struggle to continue and apply it to the "real world" and their real journey in faith. After doing some looking around, and trying to find some clear cut "pointers" I came across a blog that summed it up really well. http://youthandlife.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/keeping-your-mountain-top-experience-after-the-mission-trip/ It includes 5 really practical ways to take that experience and bring it home. My favorite was "Don't get discourage, changing your life takes a lifetime." I know that my life, my faith is changed even if just a little every year at summer at camp, every time I get a chance to serve and as I walk that walk I know that changing my life and applying my faith moments may just take a lifetime. We owe it to our youth to give them the same grace. Enjoy your summer and all those amazing moments on the mountain tops....