Check his out! We've got our own donation account on PayPal! Ethos only exists with your donations, so show us some love! Click "donate now" below! Continue reading

Some one asked about this video, so I thought I'd repost it to our blog. This video was created by a local young person for an Ethos fundraiser that was to give the viewers some insight into local sk8 culture. He is incredibly talented, and so are some of these sk8ers. Check it out: Continue reading

The following art was produced by young people in the foster care system accross the state that came out to the 2011 CYC conference in Fresno. There are, I believe 33 active chapters(counties) in the state, of which 29(I believe) where present, to include MARIPOSA chapter! They represented well. Over 200 young people in the foster system where present talking and strategizing on what issues they wanted to address in legislation this year. This is all student lead, might I add. There will be more to come on this in our newsletter if you are interested. If you want to... Continue reading

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Check it out. This is another local artist. He's an amazing poet. This one is a poem about music. Continue reading

Check it out! This is a video of a couple local young people of Mariposa that performed for the opening act of The Tresspassers last Saturday. Dustin will be playing at an all day concert/fundraiser for MCS(Mountain Crisis Services) on Aug. 13th if you want to hear more. There are a number of other bands that will be playing. More video soon to come . . . hopefully. Continue reading

One goal of Ethos is bringing adults together along side young people through relationships and stimulating positive change to youth culture. The end goal of this would ultimately overflow into society as they grow up in this community. And for someone like me, doing this for about eight years, it can be exhausting and discouraging as such changes are not so immediate and obvious. I want to see results. I like knowing that I can be effective. However, that is not how life always works. And to be honest with you, I’m glad it doesn’t. Perhaps some of you can... Continue reading

The youth center is in the process of receiving the software(mac) and technology to do similar digital story telling/editing with young people here in Mariposa. Someone shared this with us. It is pretty inspiring, provoking, and powerful. Continue reading

Meet Val - "When the power of love is stronger than the love of power, the world will know peace." -Jimi Hendrix. This is one of my favorite quotes. To me, it is one of the most profound statements ever made. All people, both big and small, are looking for love. You see it all around you, songwriters write songs about it, authors write books about it and Hollywood turns out movie after movie on this subject. It is one thing you can’t fake. Teenagers automatically have protective, emotional defenses around them. They push as hard as they can to... Continue reading

The following is the extended version of the newsletter article from last month, May 2011 newsletter. I apologize if it may not make a whole lot of sense to some. The newsletter version is pretty much the first two paragraphs deleted. In the book of Exodus Moses comes down from the mountain top to find Aaron the high priest upholding a golden calf in worship- the classic story of idolatry. The thing that strikes me is they never called it Baal, or Apis. They called it YHWH. They attempted to put a face or physical aesthetic of sorts to the... Continue reading

So I will be posting articles from our old Newsletters in the next few weeks. The following was one fo the first articles from 2009: When people ask me my age, I will often reply that I have been 21 years old for about eleven years now. In a failed attempt to be a jokester, it is also backed by a desire to remain soulfully youthful, relational, and transparent. The beauty about young people is that they have this desire to be heard, affirmed, or simply known for who they really are and where they are at. Having been younger,... Continue reading

God has wrath? . . . . I’ve found that “Christians” who attempt to dictate or curse “other” people or people groups are the most destructive. They’re confident, so they pretend to be and they’re “mature”, so they attempt to front. Some people even fall for it and consume their regurgitation. Anyway, Don Miller does a great job addressing some these issues here in response to Pat Robertson: http://donmilleris.com/2010/01/13/1513/ Personally, I appreciate Don's gentleness and love and I pity Pat as well. But I still think this guy is a jack ass. To the people of Haiti, God is with... Continue reading

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr addresses the issue of injustice and our role, no our responsibility to act and speak up on behalf of God and His Kingdom, whether it be defying conventional laws and constructs or not: "There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for the red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes through the red light, and normal traffic had better get out of its way. Or when a man is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed. There is... Continue reading

I love how Jesus teaches. It throws us for a loop. Like when he is confronted by someone who has a hidden agenda. He’ll reply to the persons question with another question, and then a story, or use something next to him as a prop. It’s great. Like the time when he’s co-kickin it with the Pharisees(Luke 11:37-54 & Matthew 23). He’s been invited into one of their homes for a meal and does everything wrong like not wash his hands. *gasp* He gives them an ear full as well. It’s great. The Pharisees where hecka disciplined and knowledgeable of... Continue reading

So these words are from a young adult friend of ours whose apart of our family/community of Ethos, Mariposa. God knows I needed to hear it. I typed it as is, so sorry for my typing errors. Enjoy, be encouraged, be inspired: Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has gone through some type of struggle or hardship in their lives. Whether it's loss of a loved one, parents divorcing, trouble at school or work, even in daily life. And this can make it very hard for us to keep faith in God. And it can sometimes make you want to just... Continue reading

Check out this vid. Found it on Mike DeV's blog(http://awakening.typepad.com/_awakening/). Let me know what you think: I appreciate Parker Palmers take on the cultural condition of America. I’ll even go so far as to say that I agree. I love his “subtle” definition to violence when he states, “Violence is what happens anytime we violate the integrity of the other”. Taking this a bit further, I would argue that he does well in addressing the human condition as a whole. It seems to be the nature of human beings. There are people who justify the crusades and the ways in... Continue reading

You know what would be really cool? If someone could organize my thoughts in a way that made sense . . . or could even eliminate the rabbit trails that they go down. That would help. Continue reading

Here's one of the promo videos for those who are interested. Ethos is a youth drop-in-center we're building for the youth of our community. The first minute is a bit bumpy but smooths out. Ethos of Mariposa from Tyson Wellcome on Vimeo. Continue reading

comics found at link: http://asbojesus.wordpress.com/ Which brings up the obvious question, Is faith to be worn? Is this how faith is supposed to be perceived? Is there any validity to this comic? Is this about cultures perception toward individuals of "faith"? Or is this about individuals response to a cultural pressure and perception? Continue reading

Found another write up I did a few years ago. In attempts to maintane some momentum here we go: In doing youth ministry for the last five or six years, I have done a lot of reflecting on my own adolescent experience having grown up in the church. One thing that I have always had a hard time with is morality being preached within its walls as well as beyond its walls. So, recently I was reading a book by Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What, that reprovoked these thoughts. Allow me to share some of these with you.... Continue reading

The fam and I are up visiting my parents for Christmas. Having a blast. Having some good times and great discussions. My popps took me out for some coffee and we got to talking. We were talking about Jesus and his insane ways, the nature of evangelism, theology, etc. At one point popps asked me if there is anything that he has said or done to put distance between us, any resentment, or anger of sorts that might be lingering. He’s an awesome dad. I commented about being the youngest and having the privilege of them screwing up on the... Continue reading

It’s easy for us as humans to go through an experience or connect with a verse and as a result have an epiphany of sorts, and want to tell the world of our new found understanding and realization. So we take what it is we’ve learned, this truth and we hold on to it naturally and passionately telling others about it. When this happens we can easily treat it as black and white, cause after all, it is now. Or perhaps we are in an arena where we boil down faith to a few fundamentals(or many) and become so passionate... Continue reading