2023 UNWRAPPED

Maybe this last year “was the best of times, and, it was the worst of times.”

Charles Dickens penned these famous words describing society in London and Paris leading up to the French Revolution.

“It was a season of light and a season of darkness. It was the Spring of hope and the Winter of despair. It was both good and bad at the same time.”

Now, of course, all of us have highs and lows and ups and downs. Those highs and lows could be as devastating as the death of a family member or friend, or, as difficult as a job change or an out-of-state move. Whatever the case for you, like us, the end of one year brings us to beginning of another. And with that change, God brings a lot of hope for the future. And like anything God puts before us, there will be obstacles.

But on the other side of difficultly and the work is the reward!

Let me give you a quick review of ‘22. And then, a vision for our life and ministry in 2023.

MARRIAGE & FAMILY…

As I’m sure you probably know by now, we’ve been married for 15 months and blending the Grenell & Binkley family. We both have a vision for next GEN ministry and are thankful to God that He brought us, our families, our talents, and our callings together.

EVENTS…

This year we had so many highlights and ministry moments across the country. In all kinds of events, such as GenSeXYZ weekends, Leadership weekends, spiritual emphases at schools, Youth Conventions, and Winter and Summer Camps. We saw salvation and healing and ministry in every setting. I wish I could take the time to tell you the stories of what God did in the past year. You can go back over our socials and see some of those reports throughout the year!

CAMPS…

Camps are probably the highlight of the year. Hundreds of salvation’s and healings. And we have all kinds of conversations and training with youth leaders and students across the country. This is where we get a lot of our personal information and understanding of the youth culture also! Along with mud pits, team competition, and a lot of basketball.

GENSEXYZ WEEKENDS…

Maybe the most popular event we have done in the past year, came out of our last book on the sexual revolution. These GenSeXYZ weekends have came out of multiple national podcasts we have done and the dozens of invitations. These weekends are a theology and practice of how to minister to a generation in sexual crisis. These are attended by educators, clinicians, parents, teenagers, and pastors.

NEXT GEN VISION…

Probably the pivotal moment came with the closing of the door in Dallas for the next GEN center - and the opening of doors in Minneapolis for what we are called to do in the next season of our life. When God was speaking to us to move to Minneapolis it was a wild direction, given that we would need to establish two homes. And the crazy obedience this is taking for Jessica to balance the family and the ministry calling is exciting.

iNG UPDATE…

This leads to the next exciting steps for us. We are moving to North Central University in Minneapolis to build a brand new youth institute and a culture for next GEN leadership, education, training, and resources. And that brings us to our vision for 2023!

So, our move to Minneapolis happens in January and we will begin building what we are calling the Institute for Next GEN (iNG) at North Central University. It will be for the education, training, and resourcing of next GEN ministry globally. There are so many needs in the church and the parachurch setting for good next GEN leaders.

The internal structure will take up the first few months of our planning - and then we will push fundraising and ultimately recruiting throughout the year once we organize at the University. The iNG will open officially in the Fall of ‘23.

‘Next Gen Faith’ Book…

One of the projects we have been working on for a year is a new Book. Jeff has been rewriting an old classic, The Celebration of Discipline, by Richard Foster. It is a brand new youth discipleship book on 12 Spiritual Disciplines for teenagers. The chapters cover topics, such as prayer, worship, generosity, rest and the Sabbath, and a student’s relationship with the Holy Spirit. We are so excited for youth groups and families to get this resource to help teenagers with spiritual formation.

The book will drop this Winter in March 2023.

Event & Ministry request…

We are available for ministry in multiple ways - including Next Gen weekends, parenting weekends, spiritual emphases at schools, and other various youth ministry events. Finally As we finish this review and our vision for 2023, please follow us on the socials. You can get in touch with us by hitting the Linktree in our bio where we have plenty of resources:

-4 Books

-Hundreds of blog posts

-iTunes podcast

-Our YouTube channel

So, please connect with us so that we can do ministry together in the coming year by clicking on the Linktree in our socials!