"It isn't easy to follow Jesus"

“It isn’t easy to follow Jesus and believe in God.”

“I know,” I replied, “especially in a culture where it is practically unheard of and there are very few people to join you in your decision to follow Jesus and live a Christian life.”

I had this conversation with David, a young skater from France that came to church last Sunday. David saw a video that Calling All Skaters had shared on social media and started to look at some of our profiles on Instagram, to his surprise he found that there is an entire community of skateboarding Jesus lovers that travel around the world sharing Gods Love to the rest of the skate community. David is studying abroad in Barcelona for three months and after watching more of our video content, contacted us saying that he used to be a Christian, leaving his faith years ago but was be interested in meeting us and skating together. This all happened about two weeks ago, since then we have been skating with David almost every day and having very open conversations about what it is to follow Jesus in this culture. I was really hyped when he came to church with me and afterwards wanted to go out and grab dinner together to talk about his experience. He shared a lot with me about how he has experienced God but also has many doubts and negative experiences with the church that make it hard for him to imagine himself coming back to Jesus. I was very encouraged because he said he has been so impacted by our group and that meeting other Christians that skate makes him very happy because that was a main reason he didn’t keep following Jesus, the lack understanding from his skate community. This is exactly why Calling All Skaters exists, to proclaim the Gospel to all skateboarders and to be a family for those who choose to follow Jesus where they can be discipled and encouraged.

Please keep David in your prayers and the many other skaters that we meet and get to share the Gospel with each week.

This photo is of some of my favorite people, a community of guys that love Jesus and use skateboarding as a platform to share His love and truth + my best friend Tristan who I grew up skating with in high school and came out recently for a visit.

TWO FOLD MINISTRY SKATE + ART

Calling All Skaters Barcelona is developing quickly as God gives us vision for new ministries and brings new staff our way. As things develop I see a two fold ministry being created naturally, there is a nice balance between local skate ministry, which is to be out skateboarding in the city, connecting with people and sharing our faith and then there is PanamaLab and what we call the "art department" of Calling All Skaters. This second area, the ART DEPARTMENT is something we have been pioneering here in Barcelona over the last two years, beginning with PanamaLab. Our goal is TO BECOME AN INFLUENTIAL HUB FOR CREATIVITY WITHIN THE LOCAL BARCELONA SKATEBOARDING SCENE, and in doing that sharing about our creator and providing a healthy environment for skateboarders to develop their creativity. This is a way God has showed me how I can give back and bless the skate community in this city, forging strong relationships along the way.

This photo is of our FUTURE ART STUDIO, it is almost fully cleared out of all the garbage that has been stored there over the last 10 years. We are working hard to transform this old storage space and give it a new potential. It may not look like much, but with a lot of faith and a team devoted to the vision we look forward to transforming it into a rad space for skateboarders to create.

I am excited to announce and share with you the NEW WEBSITE for the Calling All Skaters Art department. We have been working hard to create an art studio where we can connect with skateboarders and see natural discipleship happen as we explore our creativity together. The vision is basically to have an art studio that serves the community and works to inspire and encourage skaters in their art. God has provided us with a great space to create this art studio, it is in the same location as where I run PanamaLab. To run the art studio and PanamaLab we have to pay monthly rent, so our goal is to raise up a support team of people who believe in this ministry. The website was made to clearly share what the heart is behind the art space and communicate the needs to make it possible. I would like to invite you to take a look a the website and if you feel like this is something you would like to support let me know.

Please join me in prayer for the skate community of Barcelona and for the funding of this ministry we are pioneering. Our prayer is that Gods Spirit would continue to lead us and work through, touching the lives of skateboarders through all our ministries.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE NEW WEBSITE

Thank you for reading

Dave