First Haughton students attend SLU
- Jul 19, 2007 - 2
HAUGHTON — First Baptist here is investing in the future by helping its students attend Student Leadership University (SLU) courses conducted throughout the world.
About 40 students at First Haughton are involved in SLU and have made it as far as the third class, said youth minister Scott Sullivan. SLU offers a total of four classes: 101, 201, 301, and 401.
“The [First Haughton] group in 301 have felt led of God to do a revival, scheduled for Aug. 20-21,” Sullivan said. The students are planning to lead the revival by providing a band, the preaching, testimony, funds, and publicity. They’ve even made a video promoting the event.
“SLU has broadened their scope of confidence and increased their spiritual depth,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan, who’d heard other youth ministers talk about SLU, didn’t become involved until he received a letter from the North American Mission Board endorsing the program, he said.
After checking into it, Sullivan decided to involve the youth at First Haughton.
“It came out of my desire to do more than just evangelism,” he said. “I wanted to make sure that we were discipling our kids who are here every Sunday.”
That first year, 12 students participated. Some of those students are now in college.
Though participation in SLU is expensive, Sullivan believes its worth the effort and encourages the students to raise their own funds, which they do through a variety of activities, including church dinners, dessert auctions, and a golf tournament.
“The biggest thing is the prayer partner/ rent-a-youth program,” he said. Families in the church “adopt” a student planning to attend an SLU class and then commit to praying for that student and giving them opportunities to work throughout the year to raise money for the trip.
“We’ll never give our kids money just to go places,” Sullivan said. “We want them to know what it means to work for something. We feel like it’s a privilege to be involved.”
Indeed, SLU offers the chance of a lifetime to travel throughout the world and learn from a variety of teachers about living the Christian life.
SLU “encourage[s] young leaders to commit themselves to excellence … to rise above self, circumstances, obstacles, change and the crowd,” according to SLU’s website, www.studentleadership.net. Students receive instruction in time and life management, goal setting, dealing with conflict and difficult people, and developing a Christian worldview.
For the 301 class, Haughton youth and youth leaders were gone eight days to England and France, where they visited such sites as the homes of C.S. Lewis and William Wilberforce, The Louvre, The British Museum, Notre Dame, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, the Eiffel Tower, and Omaha Beach.
The leader for the tour was Jay Strack, president and founder of SLU, and Brent Crowe, executive director, Sullivan said.
Other teachers for the 301 group included a general from the British military, a historian who led their tour through France, and an expert on C.S. Lewis.
The cost of the 301 tour is a minimum of about $2,200 per person, depending on time of registration.
Other faculty for SLU include Richard Land, Albert Mohler, and a host of other leaders from all areas of life, including religion, industry, and military.
The 101 class, which is conducted in three different venues – Orlando, San Antonio, or San Diego – focuses on leadership themes such as a Christian worldview, achieving your dreams and goals, and attitude. The class is also liberally spiced with visits to theme parks such as Sea World. Cost ranges from $535 per person to as much as $725 per person, depending upon the time of registration.
The 201 class, conducted in Washington D.C., “gives students an in-depth look at the foundation of our country” according to the website. Cost ranges from $699 to $775 per person.
The 401 class, conducted on board a luxury Mediterranean cruise, focuses on the theme of ‘Living Your Legacy of Inspired Faith,’ and includes lessons in ancient history, and how to have a renaissance mind and the heart of saint, according the website.
Students visit the Maritime Dungeon where the Apostle Paul was imprisoned, the Coliseum in Rome, the Sistine Chapel, Pompeii, and the underground catacombs where the early church met in secret by torchlight. The cost per person starts at $2,299.
This article is reprinted from the July 19, 2007, issue of The Baptist Message, the newspaper of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.
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2 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Jul 24th, 2007, at 7:26pm, William E. Whitfield wrote:
It would be good if you provided a method to foward an individual articled by e-mail to someone who would be interested in particular subjects.
2 On Jul 25th, 2007, at 9:23am, Jacob Fentress wrote:
William,
The reasons a forward to a friend link were left off our site are twofold. First, the vast majority of web browsers have a built in way to do this (mostly labeled as “send link” or “send link as email” under the file menu). Granted, that doesn’t help if you’re using webmail or are at another computer, but the same goes for our contact links on the site. Perhaps this needs to be rethought a bit.
Second, a lot of organizations have used the forward to a friend page to capture email addresses for their mailing list. We do not want to get names on our list in this way and insist that our list is by choice only. We don’t even want to give the impression that we follow that sort of practice.
So, those are the points that helped us make our current decision. That doesn’t mean it won’t change in the future. I appreciate your ideas.