Ablaze! in the Northern Illinois District

Before following God's call into church ministry, Ben Denen "spent a lot of time playing the guitar," but not a lot of time on the typical educational path of a youth ministry worker. One of his first goals as worship leader/youth ministry director at Fellowship of Faith Lutheran Church in McHenry, was to network with his peers for support and ideas.

It turned out others had the same idea. Nikki Limon, serving her DCE internship at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in nearby Cary, was also trying to make connections. After some email exchanges and phone conversations, Denen invited Limon and her students to CORE, Fellowship of Faith's Sunday night student ministry and worship service.

As enthusiasm for CORE grew among Holy Cross students, Limon encouraged her friend Jen Youngsteadt, youth ministries director at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Crystal Lake, to check it out. Like Denen, Youngsteadt had followed an atypical route into youth ministry but was committed to the spiritual growth of her students.

"When I first was hired, we tried to put something together for high school students on Sunday nights," Youngsteadt remembers. "It was hard to get off the ground when only three or four kids would show up." She was eager to get her students involved in a larger program. "CORE was great - more students, more going on," Youngsteadt says. "Sometimes one church can't do it by itself."

Nikki soon completed her internship, but before returning to school gave Denen's name to Jeff Kuester, Holy Cross's newly hired youth ministry director. "Many area churches are just like ours: same size, same budget, same kinds of kids," Kuester says. "We knew we could achieve more and reach more students together than apart," Kuester says. After about a year of informal collaborative weekly worship, events and retreats, the three were ready to make it official.

"We realized making it ONE youth ministry made sense," Denen says. "We could pool our resources, time, talents, and gifts for one program." In January 2009, they officially launched FUSE Student Ministries (www.coremchenry.com).

FUSE averages about 55 students in attendance each Sunday night and continues to grow. Kuester has already seen that he's able to accomplish much more with the combined ministry.

"I'm able to do things on a bigger scale," he says. "We can offer our students more with FUSE, including involvement in a band, video or drama ministry. I couldn't have dreamed of doing something like that with 10 or 15 kids."

Youngsteadt agrees. "FUSE enables us to do so much more by combining resources and playing to our strengths," she says. "Ben and Jeff are awesome musicians, so they get more involved in planning worship and running the media ministries. I enjoy curriculum writing and the behind-the-scenes organizational administrative stuff. Together, we get it all covered."

Denen observes that youth ministry is almost like running a separate church, and "there's only so many programs one person can offer and run well before students start slipping through the cracks."

"Now we have three leaders who can focus on their strengths and build into strengths of individual students," Denen adds.

"I think students benefit tremendously from a larger group - there's more of an exciting atmosphere," Youngsteadt says. "They are making more friendships, building relationships outside of their church, and getting to know kids they didn't even know were Christian." They demonstrate that excitement by inviting their unchurched friends.

Kuester notes that three leaders in charge of a ministry can lead to some "butting heads," but the spirit of collaboration is strong. "We meet at least once a week to plan, talk about things, and sometimes we just agree to disagree," he says, adding that it's also important for each of them to communicate the benefits of FUSE to their respective congregations.

"Sometimes members don't understand why the students are hanging out somewhere else," he says. "We need to do a good job of communicating how this type of ministry allows kids to connect more with what the church offers."

Denen emphasizes that each church has its own confirmation program, which they take into account when planning FUSE events and activities. "FUSE is what we do together, and it includes our weekly worship, mission trips, retreats, and service events," he says.

"I think this is the future of youth ministry," Youngsteadt says. "Every church has kids interacting with each other at the local grade schools and high schools. When we get them together, it's great."

Ben, Jen and Jeff welcome your questions and interest in FUSE. For more information contact: Ben Denen or Tessa Denen at Fellowship of Faith, 6120 Mason Hill Rd, McHenry, IL; 815-759-0739; Jen Youngsteadt at Prince of Peace, 932 McHenry Ave., Crystal Lake, IL; 815-455-3200; or Jeff Kuester at Holy Cross, 2107 Three Oaks Road, Cary, IL; 847-639-1702.