On a roll from last year's successful launch in Denver, Colorado, National Ministries' New Life Youth Media Project sailed full steam ahead in 2002 at six more sites across the country. Now more than 60 junior- and senior-high school youth from Boston to Oregon and all points in between are participating in the biblically-based media awareness and skills course--funded by NEW LIFE 2010--which trains participants in digital storytelling.

In Campbell, Ohio, 23 youth attended Neighborhood Ministries' first project meeting--and participation had been projected at 12. Even as the group works at training and creating its first video for National Ministries, planning is underway to expand the project into producing promotional videos for agencies and churches that would pay a stipend for the service. The criminal justice department at Youngstown State University has already expressed interest in hiring the team as soon as youth have completed training.

The Welches, Oregon, project finds its home with the New Life Slavic/American Partnership Committee at Camp Arrah Wanna. This project received 35 applications, from which the production team chose 20. Youth have mastered the first technical portion of the course and moved on to editing; they also have begun interviewing for the group's first project--a half-hour video documenting the persecution of Christians in the former Soviet Union. Growth is on the horizon for this group, which is hoping resources will be available for a media center in a Camp Arrah Wanna building that's scheduled for renovation.

Along with touring a CBS affiliate station, the group at Immanuel Baptist Church in Minot, North Dakota, has heard from a professional cameraman and a news anchor who shared tips about telling engaging stories. These are bound to come in handy as the group produces its National Ministries video that will include stories about the church soup kitchen, the South Dakota State Women's Prison Ministry, a student-led, early-morning Bible study, and the region's biennial, among others.

At the site of the initial project, Denver's Curtis Park Community Center, youth are expanding their horizons, since they completed their National Ministries' video last year. Now these aspiring videographers are diligently working in partnership with the Get REAL (Resist, Expose, Advertising, Lies) initiative, a youth-led, anti-tobacco movement. As part of the initial assessment phase of this project, group members are evaluating tobacco companies' methods of advertisement, and five members recently participated in Denver University's Rage Against Tobacco Youth Summit.

The Youth Media Project is making a difference in the lives of young people across the United States. Listen to what members of the group in the American Baptist Churches of Greater Indianapolis and the American Baptist Churches of Indiana and Kentucky regions have said about the most meaningful lessons they've learned through their participation:

• "How to work with others different from me,"
• "How to cope better with frustration,"
• "That God can work through all situations,"
• "The way we bonded together like a family,"
• "The value of teamwork," and
• "Friendships happen despite differences."

Probably no one is better qualified to reflect on the project from a national perspective, however, than Victoria Goff, National Ministries' associate director of electronic media. From her unique vantage point as the connecting link among the projects, she sees how it has impacted participants. Goff says it's been especially rewarding for her to watch youth both hear and tell the Good News of Jesus Christ--and "see them touched by God." One young man, she says, was unsure of his life path, but his experience with this project has given him the gift of direction. Now he knows he wants to work for God through media, and he knows he can combine his faith journey with work that he loves.

In the New Life Youth Media Project, youth have found an opportunity to learn a marketable skill, as well as enhance their faith, and National Ministries has found an opportunity to work collaboratively with American Baptist regions, camps, and Neighborhood Christian Centers, building and strengthening denominational partnerships across the country.