What am I doing in Colorado?

I realize that I left most of my friends and family without fully explaining what I am doing in Colorado.

This is for you...

I am interning with Axis, a non-profit organization with the mission to move high-schoolers (and middle-schoolers) from apathy to compassionate action. 

Hmmm... what do I mean by that?

As a high-schooler I dreamed of success... being the best basket-baller the world had ever seen, being the most active and avid church goer in all of Walker County, to smile the brightest... and run the fastest.

After graduation I quickly realized that the world was much bigger than Walker County... my teeth were, in fact, not the brightest. I realized God is not always found in a church building, and even though I could run fast...I had no idea where I was going.  I was frustrated and I wanted answers.

This is why Axis exists... to ask students, "Who are you and where are you going?"

"What is real?" "What is true?"  ...We are here to question what it means to be successful, to serve, and to have compassion for the world around us.



So what IS Axis?

•   Axis is a non-profit organization.
•   Their mission statement is to move teenage minds and hearts from apathy to compassionate action.  
•   Axis consists of an administrative team and two travelling teams.
•  These two teams travel across the U.S. speaking to middle-school and high-school students through the use of current media (i.e. movies, music, and youtube via powerpoint)

1.   Media is a prominent voice in our culture. 
2. Media is rapidly reshaping our current language and culture. 
3. If you were to affectively reach a tribe of people in the remote jungle you would need to understand and learn to the best of your abilities their culture and the language they speak... 
4. Take a look at the young people around you and you will quickly realize that the language of today is not letter writing, long conversations, or books...but texting, facebooking, music and movies.    
5. In the same way, Axis is dedicated to understanding the current language of our culture in an attempt to reach the minds and hearts that are being drowned out by the white-noise of media and fill the with the compassion of redemption. 

So WHAT does Axis do?

·    

• We watch movie clips. 
• We listen to songs (actually reading the lyrics). 
• Then we discuss the ideas behind the art.
• We encourage students to question these ideas, to discern what is truly being stated.
• The entire presentation is via KeyNote (Mac PowerPoint) with 4 speakers walking the students through each thought provoking slide. 
• The 4 speakers are constantly "tag teaming," never speaking for longer than 3-6 minutes at a time.  

1. Every artist, article, and ad has a point of view, an opinion, an angle. 
2. Our goal is to look these things square in the eye, find the the angle, opinion, and point of view and then weigh these against the truths of reality and scripture.
3. Men were given minds by their creator. We must use them and we must use them well.   

If men cease to discern and think for themselves, then with this ceases the art of thoughtful expression, wisdom, and the desire to know truth.


Axis is an amazing avenue of thoughtful communication and a unique tool in the process of exposing truth in an attempt to reach young hearts and minds.