Well, after taking a look at the Calvary Fellowship blog we realized we need to do a better job of letting people know the inner workings of what is going on at Calvary during the week, and behind the scenes. (hence the title "Not Just Sunday") So let's kick it into high gear for an update about our Youth Group!
Many of you remember back in February and March we were fund-raising for an event call "Rock The Revolution." And we did an update on it a while back, but I realized that there really hasn't been a lot of news since then. With this post I want to show you what's going on with our youth, and how bright the future of this ministry is.
So after having almost 50 kids come out for "Rock The Revolution" we started to have biweekly meetings at Panera Bread on Wednesday Nights. And initially the response was ok, with maybe 10 kids showing up just to "hang out." (No Bible Study yet at that point) And at that point I was a little bit nervous about what direction God was taking this ministry, or even how it was going to work. Not to mention the fact that I have no formal Youth Group training. It was like I took the express train to discouragement city.
We had those 50 kids come out and I was so encouraged to see all of the youth we could reach in our community, but not many seemed to stick and that was discouraging......AT FIRST!
As we continued on we had our camping trip in April, which again was awesome! It was my first time preaching to the kids and I really felt that there was a great connection with the group, and more importantly there were some bonds that were forged that weekend that we will never forget.
Moving forward from the camping trip we started meeting on a weekly basis with regular bible studies. And that is where we are presently. And again the numbers as far as kids aren't particularly high, and it opened questions in my mind about doubt or confusion. What were we doing wrong? The kids were bonding, the lessons were becoming more comfortable for me to teach and we were having a great time. Just not as many kids as we would like.
But one Wednesday morning in preparation I was meeting with a friend who devotes a tremendous amount of time and resources (Thanks Kristi) with the youth group. And I started to bring up some of my feelings on the numbers. And right then Kristi had a thought about the situation. It was something I had forgotten in this whole process. Numbers are great to have, but in God's Timing! From there it was like a light bulb went on in my mind. I looked back to the our first few hang outs and thought what if we had 25 kids who showed up to Panera when we hardly had an idea of what was going on? How fast would we have lost those kids and never had a chance to get them back? Even some of the kids who are from our church might have seen some chaos in the group if we had a huge crowd show up the first few times and decided "this isn't that fun"?
So now in the present I am so thankful that God has given us this small group of kids! Because frankly 5 months ago, as the leader of this group, I probably wasn't ready to minister to these kids in the most effective way. Working with a group that is a little smaller and has a more of an intimate setting really helped me to develop more confidence in my speaking skills with the kids. And by meeting mostly every week I get a chance to constantly get feedback about how the lessons went and ways to improve. It has just been a blessing to have this opportunity so far.
And these kids are our future, and no matter the numbers I look forward to spending time with them each week and learning what God has in store for all of us as a group and individually!
Chip
Recent Comments