Youth Ministry Changes

Ask and you shall receive! These are some of the things we will be doing to our youth ministry this year. We have been meeting twice per week, with nights that generally consisted of worship, a message and small groups. Sunday mornings were hang-out, lame game, group discussion, message. This might be better:

1. We will meet only on Sunday nights.
2. Though the nights will hopefully be fun, the draw is the Gospel, not program.
3. There will still be funny videos, skits, a game, etc.
4. We are going to go through the entire Biblical story this year. That doesn't mean every verse, nor every book of the Bible, but the story from creation to eschaton.
5. Every week we will look at a specific story from the larger story. After discussing it as a group (if there is a message, it will be short and interactive), every student and leader will be invited to write out how/why they will live their life differently and have the opportunity to share with the larger group.
6. The back of the piece of paper on which they write will have the weekly reading.
7. Every week we will discuss any questions/insights students had from the past week's reading.
8. Every week we will share how we did living out the challenge we took on the week before.
9. There will also be weekly small group discussion time.
10. Yes, we will have (musical) worship.
11. Monthly service projects are a must.
12. Yes, retreats and mission trips are in there as well.
13. Leaders will be challenged to spend time every week with one or two students.

There's a few other tidbits like different spiritual practices, and Effie and I will be hosting a coed seniors small group in our house, but that's most of it. I'm excited about this... It means that if students don't participate, our nights suck. That's scary, but on the other hand, if our night is based around program, we judge the night incorrectly. I'd rather be about impacting kids than producing a cool night. So there you go.

Peace,
Matt

Currently Reading: How Can the Bible Be Authoratative, an amazing lecture by N.T. Wright that I read a year ago but wanted to be refreshed on. I just ordered Brueggemann's text on Genesis, which I am excited to read and comment on soon! The truth, though, is that my reading is going to be slowing down for a while, since most of my spare time seems to be going into home repair! Maybe I'll learn how to attach pictures and put some up to show how busy I've been. Okay, bye for now!