On Wednesday night about 35 people gathered to hear a potential next step for our youth ministry. We heard about young people who want good solid Christian input. We heard about young people who want to hang around us. We want a type of youth ministry that involves adults and families. Some concrete ways to achieve this were presented. Again it was a blessing to have a range of generations present. People spoke with passion and challenge.
What became clear
Agreement to a model which gives clear places to relate, to learn, and to
worship.
Desire to have a more intergenerational ministry, practically a once a term
family day.
Move toward Junior (5-10); Middle (11-14); Senior (15-18); Young adult (18+)
That our current youth team feels overstretched and requires support.
That we need an overall team leader/s, for whom youth ministry is a passion,
not a job.
We might have to pay them, but we proceed in this direction with caution.
What remains unclear and needs further talking:
Timing. Are mid-week best time for greatest majority?
Timing. Danger of over-committing kids and leaders.
Relationship between Boys' and Girls' Brigade and OBY.
Relationship between intermediate age kids on Sunday morning and Koru.
Next steps:
Clarify what is unclear from the above by talking with specific people involved.
Build a discipling team, a relationship team and a family fun day team.
Find an overall team leader. They need passion for young people. They need
to build, coach and encourage leaders. They need to put in place discipling
structures to grow young people at varied ages and stages. It would be great
if this was a married couple in order to be a model for males and females. Do
you think you know this person?
Pastor's para continued...
So we need your help? We need (and the "we" includes Girls' Brigade, Boys'
Brigade, OBY and Koru) the following:
adults willing to be an on-call pool of drivers
adults willing to regularly help young people grow
adults willing to irrregularly help young people grow
adults willing to regularly help our young people have fun
adults willing to irregularly help our young people have fun
adults willing to be part of a youth prayer chain.
See Steve Taylor or Paul McMahon if any one of these is you, or if you think
it's the person sitting beside you as you read this.