Info

I am a college student at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids Michigan, studying Worship Arts.
Cornerstone University is a Liberal Arts college centering studies from a biblical worldview.  The core requirements require some general bible classes as well as the typical core general education courses.  The campus is tucked away about 10 minutes from the down town area of Grand Rapids.  Joe Stowell, is our president, although most known for his time serving as president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
The Worship Arts program was started 5 years ago by Matthew Westerholm. This program at Cornerstone centers in three main areas, music, bible, and media studies.  I would highly recommend this program to anyone interested in undergrad worship studies. Not only is it a solid program, there are so many opportunities right in Grand Rapids since there are a lot of churches in the area.

A lot of what I've been blogging about are my experiences working with Group Cares, a youth group mission trip program.  I am one of the about 90 'Redshirt' staff members for this summer.  We all travel to Colorado for about 2 weeks of intense training, and then get sent out into our communities.  They have camps all over the country.  I work specifically with the Week of Hope program, which is a smaller camp and more community service oriented. The other camp format is Workcamps which are larger and a lot of work projects.  This summer (2012) will be my second summer working with group.

A typical week goes like this: The campers arrive Sunday afternoon and get all settled in.  There is dinner and an evening program where they find out their assigned crews (we split up the youth groups to give them a different experience), and get to meet them.  Then most of the week, we have a short morning program, and then they head out into the community for their service projects.  The projects vary from camp to camp, but most of them are working at a nursing home, a day camp, doing work projects for the city, VBS programs, working at a Christian camp etc. After they come back, there is dinner and an evening program and youth group devotions.  They leave Friday morning after cleaning up a little.  The campers help each week with food prep and cleaning tasks as well.  It is amazing to watch these youth get involved and serve week to week, and the transformation and things learned is incredible.
Check out www.groupweekofhope.com for more information about Group.
Note: any opinions or views expressed do not necessarily reflect Group Cares or Group Mission Trips