Posted in Discipleship, Life in the Church, Mission, Vision, Youth Ministry
Over the last months, and years, our youth leaders and pastors have been prayerfully considering changes to our youth ministries to make them more effective. This includes our Sunday children's ministry and our youth group(s). We believe we have found the will of the Lord for our church for the foreseeable future.
We should say at the outset that the diversity of our parental perspectives makes it impossible to have complete agreement on every point in carrying out a particular ministry. However, the input we received in this process confirmed where we are unified: The primary spiritual input for our children comes from us, their parents, and whatever ministry format the church extends is a reinforcement as we raise them to know, love, and serve God and His kingdom.
Described below is the ministry format we are excited to implement beginning this September. Informed by your collective input, we feel it is the wisest path forward at this time to help meet the many ministerial needs of our families with the gifts God has supplied. As with all ministry, we fully expect there to be changes and adjustments for improvement as needs are identified.
Children's Ministry (1st-6th grades)
The two big changes for our children's ministry are the curriculum we are using and the division of the classes. School-age children will be divided into two large sections, 1st-3rd and 4th-6th grades. They will be using The Gospel Story for Kids, a curriculum developed by Marty Machowski of Covenant Fellowship Church, our sister church outside of Philadelphia. There will be similar changes to our younger classes as well, down to the 2-year olds.
This curriculum presents the same lesson to all ages at their respective levels. This means that a parent with children at different levels will have a much easier time using these lessons for family discussions. There is also a Scripture memory plan and devotional material that coordinates with the curriculum. Another distinctive of this curriculum is that it works through the whole Bible in a 3-year cycle (2-years Old Testament, 1-year New Testament). The goal is to present a Christ-centered lesson that our children can easily apply.
Middle School Ministry (7th-8th grades)
A significant change for us will be the creation of a middle school ministry. The foundation of this ministry will be a Sunday morning discipleship class that emphasizes practical instruction in Christian living. Mike Noel will lead this class. This weekly class will cover topics like:
Developing a devotional life/Spiritual Disciplines
Building godly relationships and friendships
Being in the world but not of it – learning to live in a post-/non-Christian world in a way that pleases God
Relating to your parents and siblings
The Gospel
Sanctification – growing as a Christian
Bible Doctrine
Study – Learning to listen & take notes
The church and your involvement/service in it
Evangelism – sharing the gospel with others
We hope to incorporate high schoolers and college-age students in this class in various ways, either as helpers or teachers or in some other capacity. Doing so will allow our middle school students an opportunity to interact with and be blessed by the spiritual influence of their older peers in a purposefully constructive environment.
A second facet of this ministry is to build the group into one another through events outside of the Sunday class. These would be a combination of social times and service opportunities. We will need parents to be involved here, but we believe enough of you have expressed a desire to help that we can do this.
A third facet of the ministry is to have the middle schoolers attend certain youth group functions, perhaps meetings where the specific goal is to have the high schoolers invest in the lives of the middle schoolers. The plan is for this to happen a six or so times per year.
High School Ministry (9th-12th grades)
Dividing the middle and high school students also means that we can now provide much needed focus on the upperclassmen in our church. For a number of years now where we have observed a significant drop in the participation of our juniors and seniors, and one of the contributing factors these students have shared with us has been the perception that the ministry is primarily aimed at younger students. To better meet the needs or our high schoolers, we will be using The Truth Project this year, a video-based curriculum that helps to build a Christian worldview. We hope that the smaller meetings and age-spread will allow the worship, teaching, and overall experience to increase the fruitfulness for these ages.
We believe that each of these changes will result in more targeted, effective ministry for the respective ages. Our desire is for children to graduate from our youth ministries as a spiritually mature and knowledgeable Christian men and women, ready for the next step of their lives. The key discipleship for each child will happen in his or her home, but we want to do all we can as a church to assist that effort.
If you have any questions about these changes, contact any of the pastors or the ministry team leaders of the different groups (Ron Jones - Children's Ministry; Mike Noel - Middle School; Jim Martin - High School).
We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. 5 He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, 6 that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, 7 so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments. Psalm 78:4-7
Daniel Jim Ron Mike
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