About Us

Vision | Beliefs | Leadership

Our Mission

To provide a safe place for young adults to meet and be accepted, that they might connect to God, experience a positive Christian lifestyle, and develop healthy relationships and practical life skills.

Our Vision

We do this by hosting a Thursday night program at a Joliet venue. We offer games, basketball, a sit-down meal, live worship music, a relevant message, and small group discussion. We also offer one-on-one Christian discipleship, counseling, and life skill development. We host occasional special events, including camps, retreats, talent shows, and family nights. We purpose to help young adults advance in every way—in their spiritual life, emotional life, professional life, and social life. We purpose to connect young adults to local churches and to inspire them to a healthy, happy life.

Today, young people are facing challenges:

  • Suicidal thoughts
  • Sexual abuse
  • Identity issues
  • Isolation
  • Drugs
  • Depression
  • Broken homes
  • Teenage pregnancy
  • Involvement in the occult
  • Self harm and cutting
  • Pornography
  • Eating disorders

How The Center meets these challenges:

  • We provide an inviting, safe, judgment-free environment
  • We create a family atmosphere where teens and young adults belong
  • We share the hope of Christ regularly
  • We feed young people emotionally, spiritually and physically

In the 1950s, The Center (formerly the Christian Youth Center) began as a ministry primarily for teenagers. We could fill volumes with testimonies of teens who have been transformed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the ministry of The Center!

However, some seventy years later, we find that the world has changed a bit. On the plus side, many churches now have dedicated youth ministries. Teenagers have a myriad of options to get connected to peers in a Christ-honoring setting.

On the downside, dramatic shifts in culture and technology have altered the pace of development in young people. In the 1950s, a high-school graduate was typically ready to launch out to college, career, and family. Today, we observe that young people, though they might be legal adults, still need help understanding and embracing the opportunities and duties of adulthood. Unfortunately, there are few places they can find that help.

In early 2024, the Board of Directors of The Center began to record the age of attendees of The Center’s Thursday night program. Despite our efforts to market our program to teens in Joliet, we found that the vast majority of our regular attendees were in fact 18 year of age and older. And they were THRIVING at The Center!

After pondering this data and discussing amongst ourselves, we have come to this conclusion: At present, the ministry of The Center is most effective and most needed in the 18-30 demographic. There are so many needs and opportunities in this age group that The Center is perfectly positioned to meet!

This means that The Center will shift our prayers, our marketing, and our programming to focus on this group, for at least a trial period of six months.

At present, young people ages 16 and 17 will still be welcomed at The Center, provided their parent(s) or guardian(s) understand this change and approve their attendance.

Please, we are asking you to do a few things:

  1. Pray for the young adults in the greater Joliet region. Ask God to intervene and send them the help they need.
  2. Pray for The Center. Ask God to help us reach as many lives as possible.
  3. If you know any young adults in the greater Joliet region that could benefit from The Center, please inform them of the new direction of our ministry.

We love you, and we appreciate you! We also welcome your feedback.

Sincerely,

The Center Board of Directors
Daniel Stinnett, President
Kelly Corcoran, Executive Director
Mark Bogdan, Program Director
Eva Jabaay, Treasurer
Paula Jarot, Secretary

What We Believe

THE BIBLE
We believe that the Bible is the God-breathed and plenarily inspired Word of God, infallible in its original manuscripts. The Bible (66 books of the Old and New Testament) is our supreme and final authority in faith and life.
2 Timothy 3:16, 17; 2 Peter 1:20, 21
HOLY SPIRIT
We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is God, with all the distinctively divine attributes. He leads us to salvation, indwells us, and bears witness to the spiritual adoption of all believers. As our comforter and teacher, the Holy Spirit empowers us to serve and become more like Christ. By the Holy Spirit we are constantly renewed and instructed so that we might bear spiritual fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The Holy Spirit gives believers distinct gifts for the building up of the Church.
THE CHURCH
We believe that the Church in its invisible form is universal, the true body and bride of Christ, and that all who are born again are members, regardless of organizational affiliation. We believe that as Christians we are to meet together regularly for worship, ordinances, and fellowship. The Church is called to love our God and our neighbors and to witness concerning our Head, Jesus Christ, by preaching the Gospel among all nations and ministering to the “least of these” in body and soul.
Hebrews 10:24-25; Acts 2:42-47; Galatians 5:22-23; 1 Corinthians 2:13; Ezekiel 36:26, 27; John 14:15-17; Romans 8:9-11; 1 John 2:27; Romans 8:16; 1 John 3:23-24; Luke 12:11-12; John 6:63; John 14:26; John 16:13-15; Acts 1:8; Acts 2:38; Acts 10:18-20; Acts 16:6
GOD
We believe in one God, eternally existing in three persons, the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Genesis 1:1; Genesis 1:26; Matthew 28:19; John 1:1-3; John 4:24; Acts 5:3, 4; Romans 1:20; Ephesians 4:5, 6; 2 Corinthians 13:14
JESUS’ DEATH
We believe that the Lord Jesus died on the cross according to the scriptures as the only substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, that He rose victorious from the grave on the third day, and that all who believe in Him are redeemed and justified on the grounds of His shed blood.
Isaiah 53 :1-12; Matthew 20:28; John 3:16-17;Romans 3:22-26; Romans 5:1; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Ephesians 1:7; 1John 2:2; Matthew 28:5-6; Romans 10:9-10; 1Corinthians 15:13-14
SATAN
We believe in the reality and personality of Satan – a created being who stands in opposition to God and His church.
Revelation 12:1-17; Jude 1:6-9; Job 1:6-12; 2Thessalonians 2:1-10; Genesis 3:1-5; 1 Peter 5:8; John 13:2; Matthew 13:19-39; Zechariah 3:1; Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:11-19
HUMANITY
We believe that man was created in the image of God, that he sinned and thereby incurred not only physical death but also spiritual death, which is separation from God, and that all human beings are born with a sinful nature and are guilty sinners in thought, word, and deed.
Genesis 1:26, 27; Genesis 3:1-24; Romans 3:25; Romans 5:12-18; 1 John 1:8-10
JESUS CHRIST
We believe that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and born of the Virgin Mary, fully God and fully man, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary atoning death on the Cross, rose bodily from the dead and ascended to heaven where he is our High Priest, Intercessor, and Advocate. He is the only mediator between God and man.
Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:26-38; Romans 9:5; Titus 2:13
SALVATION
We believe salvation is by grace alone, provided as the free gift through Christ’s death. When one accepts this grace by faith in Jesus Christ, he/she is born again, completely forgiven, and therefore becomes a child of God. There is no salvation through works.
John 3:3-5; John 1:12-13; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23; Ephesians 2:8-9
SACRAMENTS/ORDINANCES
We believe that Christ ordained the observance of water baptism and the Lord’s Supper until He returns.
Matthew 13:10-17; Luke 22:19-20; Matthew 26:26-28; 1Corinthians 10:16-17; 1Corinthians 11:23-26
We believe that water baptism is the Biblical testimony of the professed believer in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:38-41; Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 8:36-38; Acts 10:47-48; Acts 18:7-8; Romans 6:3-4; 1 Corinthians 12:13
We believe that the Lord’s Supper is for born again believers, walking in fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Acts 2:42-47; 1 Corinthians 11:23-29
THE RETURN OF CHRIST
We believe in the personal, visible, and imminent return of our Lord Jesus Christ and the bodily resurrection of the dead when Christ returns to bring salvation and judgment to completion. God will fully manifest His Kingdom when He establishes a new heaven and a new earth, in which He will be glorified forever and exclude all evil, suffering, and death. We believe in the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust, the everlasting joy of the saved and the everlasting conscious punishment of the unsaved.
Acts 1:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17; John 5:28-29; 1 Corinthians 15:1-58; 2 Corinthians 5:10; Matthew 25:31-46; Revelation 20:4-15