"As Core Advisors, we have responded to the call to aggressively and passionately pursue our own self development and that of each individual within our sphere of influence. It is our responsibility to clearly mark the path, enabling others to follow as we follow the example of Christ. We are perfectly united in mind and thought, standing in one spirit, contending as one man, proclaiming Christ as one voice to this generation.

We were designed for accomplishment, intended for success, and endowed with seeds of greatness. We are not limited by the place of our birth, color of our skin, but by the size of our hope and faith in our god. We now live by his presence, we lean on his faith, we love by patience, we lift by prayer, and labor by power. Challenges ahead will frequently bring pain, but pain is temporary, while growth is permanent. We believe those challenges will form that strongest moral foundation that will produce the leaders who best reflect the legacy of the Honor Academy.

This is our conviction, and true commitment, to ourselves and to God, from which we will not back down."

A good one-word summary for a Core Advisor (CA) is "servant", because that is really what being a CA is all about: serving the people around you. Core Advisors have completed at least one full year at the Honor Academy, and have applied for and been accepted into a higher leadership program through which they lay down their lives for a year in order to serve the undergraduate class of interns. CAs are the most direct line of leadership in the interns' lives at the HA, living amongst the interns in the dorms, helping to organize and participating in all activities with them on and off campus, and continually digging deeper and deeper into their lives, serving as one of the major agents of change in each intern's year. Core Advisors are full-time volunteers, raising support for their year just like the undergrads do, with a small price decrease.

For this year, I am a Core Advisor. My main purpose at Teen Mania this year is to lay my life down for several men, in every way working to be a blessing to them, helping to guide and support them through this difficult year of the internship, at all times desperate for the LORD to use me to help bring change inside of them, transforming immaturity into maturity, inexperience into experience, complacency into passion, and youth into wisdom. Much of the awesome work our father does in interns' lives is through the CAs on campus, and for this year, I have the great privilege of being one of these very loving servants.

Throughout the year I will be blogging about my time here, the work the LORD is doing in my men's lives, and the miracles that are happening all around me. It will be a difficult year, one where my desires and priorities take a back seat while I lay everything down for the work of the LORD in my guys. I am excited.

Here we go.