Youth & Family

Youth Group – Our youth group at this time is our Jr. High Group. It includes young adults from 12 to 15 years of age or so who are going through a transition from childhood to adulthood. The course material helps them become familiar with the core beliefs of the Christian Faith; it encourages them to express their faith in their own words; and it challenges them to live out the truth of the Gospel in their daily lives. This is a place where they can practice moving from the milk of salvation to the meat of obedience.

The format typically includes a handout, a brief time of teaching, some thought-provoking questions, and then a lively adult-led discussion. Every student is encouraged to participate and to ask questions of their own in return. The dialogue is designed to give them a sense of their identity as a child of God, and to find their own voices as they defend and articulate their beliefs. We are striving to ground them in the faith in such a way that they gain confidence through understanding. We want to provide them a safe place in which to assess their own faith and the claims of Christ against the claims of other belief systems. Such critical thinking, we pray, equips them to withstand the onslaught of opposing ideas, philosophies, and practices that confront them in today’s world.

Family Life – Rather than leave this at an intellectual level, the students are also encouraged to serve the church body in practical ways, because the church is the larger family of God to which they belong. These are the people with whom they are called to interact as participating members of that family (Rom 12; 1Cor 12; Eph 4:14-16).

Some areas of service for our youth include coffee bar barista’s, Children’s Church Nursery assistants, office aids etc. They also sit under the instruction of the pulpit every other week so that the message is as applicable to them as it is to every adult. This draws them into our “body life” rather than secluding them in a separate ministry for youth only. It reflects the same transition they are experiencing at this point in their adolescent life, but in the context of the church. We want them to experience what it is like to be embraced as responsible equals by the older adults, with Christ as Head over us all (Titus 2, 1John 2).