What is Impact Youth? Well that is a very good question. Lately we seem to be a group that is desperately trying to serve God despite our failures at, friendship, jobs, family, and life in general.
Why would you want to attend Impact? Because we want you too, and where else in today’s society are youth encouraged to come as they are, to be who they are without being kicked out!
What does Impact Believe? Well one thing is for sure we believe in the big issues in life, here are the most important: We believe in Jesus. We know He's part of the Trinity and all the other important stuff we also believe, but if we're honest, we're partial to Jesus. Don't get us wrong. God is like a Father—no, God IS the FATHER—and the buck stops with Him (if you're going to have the buck stop somewhere it might as well stop with Someone who is … well … all about love with a capital L. Of course, He's also about justice with a capital J, but we'll take our chances that, in the end, justice will feel like love). And then there is the Holy Spirit—mysterious, windy, seems to like fire a lot, whispering, and always pointing us to … THAT’S RIGHT YOUR GUESSED IT… Jesus. We not only like Jesus a lot, He likes us a lot, enough to die for us. We know that when life gets tough (and that it does) He'll be there for us.
We believe in the Church. We know—it's flawed, inconsistent, institutional, bureaucratic, even embarrassing sometimes. Many have referred to it as a placed filled with hypocrites. But we see the church as a group of believers, with their unique flaws that have come to experience this incredible thing call GRACE. The Church is not optional, it's not up for discussion, it's been around ever since Jesus, and it's still here. That's good enough for us, and because of its history record (the bible), we think it is worth believing in. What about Grace? We believe in the scandalous grace of God. Grace is outrageously unfair, ridiculously extravagant and unashamedly the center of the gospel, and it sure beats judgmentalism, legalism, and all the other isms. Grace always gives second chances, third chances and never stops giving chances. Grace has Jesus written all over it. Grace makes people nervous because they are always so worried someone is going to take advantage of it. But that's what we like about grace. You can take advantage of it. But here's the really interesting part—grace doesn't just let everyone in. Anyone, yes, but not everyone. And the Grace of God frequently includes the unexpected. So … who's in and who's not? Only God knows, and that's fine with us.
We believe in the Bible. We're awed by it, inspired by it, and believe it is Truth. We're also terrified of it. We don't understand all of it, but we believe it. All of it. That's the important part, because if you only believe some of it, if you try to edit out the parts you don't like, then you don't believe it. Of course, believing it all doesn't mean we perfectly live it all. It doesn't even mean we have it all figured out. Mostly we're scared of it, scared in a good way, because whenever we read it and try to live by it, God shows up and that's pretty terrifying … and also pretty amazing, and pretty …uh … assuring. So those are the biggies, that we believe in, there are many others but this page can only contain so much, the rest you will have to come out and find out about.
One more thing, it is pretty major to us. We’re UNDER CONSTRUCTION and that is exciting, We will have a whole new look, a whole new feel, with all the same great values, See what’s coming down the wire this OCTOBER 2006. You won’t want to miss out!!
- Jason Maisano & Melodie Petrella