by Ken Turner | High Impact Living, Ministry Update
We moved to Central IL, in October, and Jennifer and I probably underestimated how much work it takes to move 600 miles north! A close friend called to “check on me” after we were here a couple of months. I was telling him how I felt “very out of sync” with everything. He said, “A good friend told me once that it takes about four months to feel settled after a big life transition.” I was trying to connect with area juvenile centers to see what kind of ministry needs and opportunities were there. Jennifer and I were trying to formulate a plan to remodel an older home we bought a few blocks from her parents. We were trying to find a church home that felt right for us. We were trying to figure out where to put our stuff that fit into the house we sold in Tennessee but didn’t exactly fit in the house in Illinois. We were dealing with missing our kids, who are now in other states, and even though we are close to Jennifer’s family, we were wrestling with the idea that we don’t have any other close friends here. But a lot has come together in four months.
We had many ministry supporters step up with donations in December, and we were able to provide Christmas gifts, Bibles, and spiritual growth resources to fatherless teens in the juvenile centers in Nashville, TN, Memphis, TN, Indianapolis, IN, Peoria, IL, Normal, IL, and Rockford, IL. Over 300 teens received the gospel message, and I pray God will use the seeds sown to bring many of them to Christ.
I have now met with the program director of the juvenile center in Normal, IL, and am starting a weekly Bible study with the youth there. I also met with the program director at the Peoria, IL, juvenile center, along with a few other friends I’ve been collaborating with in Peoria. I start our new ministry outreach in Peoria today. I’ll be teaching a group of teenage guys, most of them are fatherless, about God as a Father and about how to be a real dad in the future. I created a nine-week study a few years ago based on God’s role as a father in our life and His plan for us to embrace God as a father and prepare to follow His model as a Godly father to our own kids someday. This really is the path to reshaping the family tree and creating a spiritual generational shift. This Friday, I’ll be in the juvenile center in Galesburg, IL, and will be starting a regular Bible study there along with a friend of mine, Rob Skow.
While in the Peoria Juvenile Center last week, meeting with and getting to know some of the youth, a teenage boy spoke up and took his hand, and began patting himself on the chest as he repeated, “I need this, I need this… we all need this. I’m all in.” The program director at the Normal, IL juvenile center said, “It’s been such a struggle to get people here “post-Covid” to meet the spiritual needs of our youth… I’m glad you are here.” Another ministry leader in Peoria recently said, “I believe God brought you and Jennifer here at this specific time to meet some very specific needs of our youth.”
Thank you so much to all our prayer partners and ministry supporters. Please continue to pray for us as we are in the “start-up phase” in three juvenile centers at the same time. Moving and setting up a new office and outreach also brings a lot of expense. It’s much more expensive than we even realized. Your support and extra gifts are greatly appreciated as we try to navigate through this part of the process.
If you haven’t made a recent gift to help bring the hope of the gospel to fatherless youth, please consider a donation today.
Give at https://kenturnerministries.org/give/
In Christ,
Ken Turner
Our new mailing address is:
Ken and Jennifer Turner
High Impact Ministries
PO Box 375
Benson, IL 61516
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by Ken Turner | High Impact Living, Ministry Update
Happy New Year to you and your family!
There’s never been a more urgent time to reach a generation of youth than now. God has given us a fruitful year of ministry in 2021, and we are excited to see the miraculous, life-changing impact of the gospel in the lives of high-risk and fatherless youth in 2022.
We are entering our 35th year of full-time youth ministry. I thank God for His blessings and His faithfulness.
We are so thankful for your friendship, prayer support, and financial partnership.
Year-end gifts made by midnight tonight will help us take the gospel message to fatherless youth in 2022! Just a few more donations will help us reach our goal for 2021. We are within $10,000 of our goal for the year.
In Christ,
Ken Turner
*Give at https://kenturnerministries.org/give/
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by Ken Turner | Ministry Update
Here’s a post I wrote a few years ago giving a snapshot into the real world of ministry to youth in juvenile detention.
The three of us had arrived early and went through the usual process of emptying our pockets and remembering to lock everything in our vehicles except our photo identification and our Bibles.
Alex is a lawyer and Ben is a retired juvenile court judge and the three of us look forward to these times when we get to spend an evening with a room full of teenage boys who are incarcerated in the Mountain View Juvenile Development Center just outside Knoxville, TN. The guards are always friendly as they go through the process of checking us through security.
We sign in, leave car keys at the desk along with our identification and clip a visitor tag onto our shirt. They escort us through a few steel doors and each one locks behind us. We get to the room where we will hold our regular youth Bible study. We set up the room by placing the plastic chairs in the shape of a large oval.
It seems like there is so much to catch up on while we are waiting for the youth to arrive escorted by guards. We use these few minutes to talk about our families, our church, work, books we are reading, and anything else on our minds.
All the while we catch ourselves looking toward the window as we see teens entering the hallway. Are there just a few coming tonight? Are there a lot of them? Are there any new faces and are our regulars all coming? The guard sticks his key in and opens the door. Yes, we’ve been locked in here for several minutes waiting on them.
Teenage boys rush into the room. Most of them have huge smiles on their faces. Rarely do any of them go straight to a chair. That’s just not how it goes. They rush up to Alex and Ben and to me and grab our hands offering a firm handshake. “Hey, it’s great to see you! How have you been? Thanks for coming tonight!” The room is energized!
Everyone grabs a Bible (Alex always brings extras) or they have their own. The room is full! We sit down and everyone shares their name and a prayer request and then we pray.
We dive right into a vibrant Bible study and I usually lead while Alex and Ben chime in with a quick testimony or an insight into the topic. It might surprise you to know, there are no discipline problems. It’s not a struggle to get anyone’s attention. It is a lively atmosphere and guys can’t wait to ask questions or share a thought.
And there are these “God moments” that occur. Moments where it feels like He just pulled up a chair and sat in our circle and spoke right into the ear of someone. This happens a lot and it’s what keeps me so excited about this ministry.
One of those moments happened recently while we were studying Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. A persecutor of Christians became a proclaimer of the gospel, basically overnight. One of the guys started to squirm and you could see that the wheels were turning in his mind. His hand shot into the air and he said, “Ken, are you telling me that God can change someone that much and He can do it that fast?” I said, “That’s exactly what I’m telling you.” He said, “That’s amazing. Because, Ken, I’m just going to be straight up with you. I’ve probably been arrested a hundred times and every time I get out I decided I’m going to do better but I always fail. I had no idea God could change someone like that and do it so quickly.”
Then, guys all over the room began to speak to him and share quick testimonies of a specific way God had transformed their lives from the inside out. It was powerful.
We had a powerful and meaningful moment of prayer as our time quickly ran out. It was obvious the Spirit of the Lord was moving. We gave the gospel and this young man didn’t accept Christ in the Bible study but he took a Bible and the plan of salvation printed in the back to his room. Pray for him to trust Christ.
Being with these guys and sharing God’s truth with them causes me to understand why James 1:27 is so powerful. Authentic faith looks like this… visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and keep unspotted from the world. 85-90% of these youth are fatherless. They need and they really want the hope and love that comes through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.Want to learn more about getting involved? Contact us.
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by Ken Turner | High Impact Stories, Ministry Update
In 2009 things were a little tough in the world of ministry, to put it mildly. We were one year into the founding of our outreach ministry and you probably remember, the economy was not good! I was working in my office in the basement of our home in Indianapolis on what was a very discouraging day. The phone rang and that changed. It was a missionary calling from Ghana, West Africa.
I answered the phone and it was Fred Kearney. We had never met. But here is what he said. “I walked into my office today here in Ghana, and a book was on my desk. It was a High Impact Teen one-year spiritual journal. I couldn’t believe it because I’ve been looking for something like this for the teens we are reaching in Africa. The youth don’t have anything like this over here. So I called the phone number on the back cover of this book to see if there is any way we can get these for our youth?”
No one knows how my High Impact Teen journal ended up in Africa, on the desk of a missionary.
We worked together and were able to ship about 100 HIT Journals to the youth.
Here is a picture of some of the youth smiling with excitement with their NEW HIT Journals a few years ago!
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A few years later, Fred Kearney called again. They were hosting a youth conference for several hundred teens from cities and villages all over. We reached out to our supporters and were able to help by providing a few hundred HIT Journals.
So, now here we are with a new UPDATE TO THE STORY.
Two of the teen guys who used the HIT Journals (or as Fred Kearney says… they devoured everything in these journals) are now grown. Both of them are 25 years old and God has called them to be pastors. Both of them are planting new churches in Ghana. Fred Kearney’s parent church, Lighthouse Baptist, will now have three other churches to bring a total of four vibrant churches reaching the lost of Africa. The two newest church plants are being pastored by these two young men.
Because the High Impact Teen Journal has been such a vital part of their spiritual development as teens, they want all the youth in their churches to use it as well in order to become grounded in the Word. They are requesting 100 HIT Journals for each of the two churches, or 200 HIT Journals.
For a gift of $15, you can sponsor a teen in Ghana to be discipled by one of these young pastors with the High Impact Teen journal. Can you help sponsor one or more and invest in these youth who are hungry for the Word of God?
Let’s join hands and help Fred and Antoinette Kearney and invest in these two young pastors, Samuel and Prosper!
Check out their photos and a video below of these young pastors!
In Christ,
Ken Turner
Click the DONATE button to give online.
Select High Impact Ministries, and Ghana West Africa – HIT Journal Project.
Or you can mail a gift to High Impact Teens, PO Box 1325, Dayton, TN 37321.
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by Ken Turner | Ministry Update
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Your gift today will help us meet our mid-2018 goal and is an investment in the life of a fatherless teen.
Our first youth group in 1987. Metro Baptist Church, Nashville, TN. *My wife, Jennifer is in the middle row, third from left to right. =)
Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. James 1:27
Give a gift today that will change the life of a fatherless and troubled teen. As we move into the second half of 2018, we are releasing ministry training resources, online courses, and tools to equip others in ministry to fatherless. We need your help to expand our ministry to reach even more fatherless youth. You can read more specifics below.
Your best gift today, or even a matching gift pledge, will make a difference.
In Christ,
Ken Turner
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by Ken Turner | Ministry Update
Joshua Goodling Is Available To Speak To Youth In Your Community
The paperwork has all been completed, my mortgage is now paid, and I am ready to hit the road bringing the life-changing glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ to young people and others! I am currently stationed in Knoxville Tennessee while I look for a truck and trailer and pray that God will open the doors He wants.
Jesus said in John 4:34, “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.” In the past few months, we’ve seen celebrities hang themselves, we’ve seen young people shoot others in schools and places, and we’ve seen a world that is filled with people seeking happiness and a meaning in life – but they are looking in the wrong places, they need to KNOW GOD!
I must also remind us that just because some of our young people are in churches does not mean they truly know Him. Many of our churches and so-called Christian groups today are simply entertaining our youth, rather than teaching them the truths found in God’s Word.
I am currently booking speaking opportunities in churches, youth groups, camps, and other events all over the United States. I know many of you who read this have contacts in places – please help me spread the word, and impact more young people for Jesus Christ! Share my website, my facebook account, and other information!
Thank you for your continued prayers and support today and in the days and weeks ahead!
WEBSITES:
www.joshuagoodling.com
www.changetheheart.us
FACEBOOK:
www.facebook.com/impactyounglives
You can support Joshua and invest in bringing the message of the gospel to hurting youth!
1. By Mail: High Impact Teens, PO Box 1325, Dayton, TN 37321 *Indicate your gift is for Joshua Goodling: Impact Young Lives
2. Make an online donation here.
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