New Venturing Crew Grows Out of Religious Emblems Class:
Testimony by Youth Pastor, Karl Shelton

In the spring of 2006, as the youth pastor of Pomerado Christian Church and a Scouter, I offered a God and Church class and a God and Life class for members of my church and sent announcements to Troops, both Boy and Girl Scout, in the area. As a result, fifteen youth came to the God and Church course; the God and Life class had only four. However, when we were done, the four said to me, “We had so much fun, we'd like to keep meeting every week to read the bible and hang out.”

After a short while non-scout friends were coming, and I introduced the idea of a Venturing Crew. They took to the idea and that fall, Crew 7 (yes, the number of completion) was chartered with seven members.  In our first month, we went to provide the Scout's Own (worship service) at our district camporee. We struggled to get 20 people to attend. We did the same in 2007 and had over 100.  This past April we drew over 200 in attendance.  We have provided many hours of service to the charter organization, my church, both in physical labor as well as running programs for children. These youth are demonstrating their faith in action and reminding Scouts and others, to do their Duty to God.

In the past 20 months, we have already had our growing pains, but we now have 15 youth in our crew, some of whom were in the God and Church class in 2006 and others who have never been in Scouting of any kind.  We just started a new God and Life course and six of our Venturers will complete the program in June.  Last week, they visited another church to encourage them to consider forming a crew of their own. This group is the highlight of my week and the class was the catalyst for it.