In 2006, a tiny seed began to sprout. Jeremiah Callihan and David Eaton had finally seen enough friends, family, and acquaintances walk away from God, their faith, and the church after graduating from high school. Something had to be done about this epidemic. What was causing such a mass exodus? What was missing? They were going to find out.
So they put in the hard work, time, fundraising, and research to begin their new educational non-profit that would offer God’s truth in creative ways to the next generations. After months and months, their organization finally had a name and its first six hours of presentation content. In September of 2007, they spoke at their first school, which was the start of a semester of testing their concept. After reaching almost 2,000 students and teachers, they realized that God had given them something special, unique, and desperately needed.
The seed continued to sprout and grow, and they forged ahead, taking teams to speak to students about faith, the power of ideas, and moving from apathy to compassionate action. Two years later, Axis was able to hire its first employees and continue to increase its impact. Since then, Axis has grown to include 13 full-time employees and 3 traveling teams (of four speakers each - two young men and two young women) that speak to over 30,000 students each year and an additional 10,000 parents, pastors, and educators.
The Axis strategy is simple, yet incredibly unique: We are culture translators. Being aware of the pulse of culture allows us to bridge the gap between generations by translating pop culture into the ideas it espouses for younger generations, while explaining and interpreting youth culture in ways that older generations understand. By speaking the languages of both generations, we bring common ground and open the way for understanding.
Throughout it all, God has continued to shape and mold Axis. He showed us that we needed to expand our vision to include parents and grandparents in the discipleship process. Families shouldn’t be outsourced; they should be resourced to better disciple the next generations into logical, lifelong, life-changing faith in Jesus Christ! Because of that, Axis now offers a multi-generational family presentation designed to bring families together again. We also realized that our teams’ reach is finite, so we added a digital platform, called Axis Virtual (virtual.axis.org), through which to distribute content to those who otherwise might not have seen our presentations. To date, over 500 schools and churches in communities across the U.S., Canada, and several other countries have experience this creative content.
Ultimately, we believe in a theology of change. We are not just about individual conversion. We focus on long-term discipleship via families, the Church, and schools through the formation of beliefs, habits, and community. By God’s grace, provision, and guidance, the sprout has turned into a vibrant, flourishing tree!
“Axis does an incredible job helping pastors, parents and grandparents lead the next generation into a biblical worldview that strengthens their faith.” – Ron Hunter Jr., Executive Director & CEO, Randall House, D6 Conference Director
“Axis is creative, captivating and helps families and the church lead the next generation into a lifelong faith.” – Jo Anne Lyon, General Superintendent, The Wesleyan Church
“Axis is on the cutting edge of training students and parents how to think biblically about culture, media and technology.” – Sean McDowell, PhD, Professor, Speaker, Author
“Axis teams are excellent communicators—especially with the emerging generation.” – Dan Egeler, PhD, President of ACSI
“I applaud the way Axis communicates to young people and parents. They are deeply in touch with student culture and trends. Masterful job.” – Kara Powell, PhD, Executive Director of the Fuller Youth Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary
“Axis is an equipping ministry; equipping not just students, but the critical leadership elements around them: teachers, parents and grandparents.” – Del Tackett, PhD, Creator & Architect of Focus on the Family’s The Truth Project
“Axis teams are more effective than any group I know in confronting student apathy.” – John Stonestreet, Breakpoint, Summit, and Colson Center
Our strategy is simple, yet incredibly unique: We are culture translators. Being aware of the pulse of culture allows us to bridge the gap between generations by translating pop culture into the ideas it espouses for younger generations, while explaining and interpreting youth culture in ways that older generations understand. By speaking the languages of both generations, we bring common ground and open the way for understanding.
Throughout it all, God has continued to shape and mold Axis. He showed us that we needed to expand our vision to include parents and grandparents in the discipleship process. Families shouldn’t be outsourced; they should be resourced to better disciple the next generations into logical, lifelong, life-changing faith in Jesus Christ! Because of that, Axis now offers a multi-generational family presentation designed to bring families together again. We also realized that our teams’ reach is finite, so we added a digital platform, called Axis+, through which to distribute content to those who otherwise might not have seen our presentations. To date, over 60 schools and churches have experienced this creative way of experiencing our content.
Ultimately, we believe in a theology of change. We are not just about individual conversion. We focus on long-term discipleship via families, the Church, and schools through the formation of beliefs, habits, and community. By God’s grace, provision, and guidance, the sprout has turned into a vibrant, flourishing tree!
