J.A.M. celebrates 20 years of youth outreach

Over 850 people participated in J.A.M. 2014 at Cairn University on May 30-31, 2014. Junior-High Adventures in Ministry (J.A.M.) is a summer evangelism event run by the Youth and Family Ministry program at Cairn.  Each year, middle school students come to campus for intensive evangelism training on Friday evening and Saturday morning.  This training is put into action on Saturday afternoon, when children come from all over the Philadelphia region for Cairn’s annual Kids’ Day.

This year, 360 children attended Kids’ Day, including children from regional churches, Kids’ Clubs, and neighborhoods in Philadelphia.   Each child was paired with a teen, who built a relationship with the child through the day’s activities before sitting down to share his or her faith one-on-one.

After the day’s events, each child and teen will continue to be discipled by the church or ministry that brought them to the event.  These partnerships allow the Gospel to bear long-term fruit in the lives of the youth, some of whom come from displaced or otherwise difficult situations.

This was the 20th anniversary for J.A.M. “We are very thankful for opportunity to be the host for an event that allows 40-50 different churches and ministries to work together for God’s glory every year” says Dr. Matt McAlack, Director of Cairn’s Youth and Family Ministries program. McAlack was able to see the ministry come full circle this year as he met a young man who attended Kids’ Day when he was a child, came to know the Lord, and is now being used by God to reach children.

Cairn University would like to thank all those who made this year’s event possible—Cairn students who led the event, CEF volunteers who provided evangelism training to teens, youth group and ministry leaders who brought teens and children, Cairn grad Tommy Coale and his gospel skating ministry, Mike Lukens’ worship team, speaker Cairn grad Dwayne Walton, PCN Bank of Newtown, Herr’s Chips, The Clemens Family, and Rockland Bakery.

View more photos from the event on the J.A.M. Facebook page.