Below you will find more information about our student ministry. You can read a bit about our Youth Pastor, Paule Patterson, here. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you might have.
Our Mid-week gathering is a time where we pack as much into an hour and a half as possible. The night starts with a designated 20 minute hang out period where we offer drinks, snacks, and places to sit and chill. This is when leaders meet new students and introduce them to the group. We then go into games that both mix students and build a group mentality. After some announcements, we then go into worship, led by Joel Bath and our students. the worship is both real and well done. After the worship, we have a 15-20 minute lesson, after which we pray and are dismissed.
Our Sunday Study time is a completely different atmosphere than our Mid-Week Gathering. It's relaxed, nothing flashy, and to the point. On Sundays, we primarily slowly work through a book of the Bible in which we pick apart verses, look at the context, and really try to learn the Bible and how to study it.
Below you will find a simple and concise explanation about our student ministry's philosophy.
For too long, we've taught our students only what to think and not how to process, engage, evaluate, and make logical conclusions. While we still teach what is true and not, we also strongly emphasize being able to think and challenge students intellectually.
Often times, the word "discipleship" is limited to just evangelism or to shallow forms of relationships, programs, and roles. Discipleship is so much more than that! It's life long, it's hard, it's responsibility, it's engaging our own culture, it's relational, it's commitment to people, to God, to doing something that matters. It's about investing so much in an individual they turn around and invest it in others. While our Gathering is exciting, the really exciting stuff happens when we plug students into our discipleship program (FORGE), teach them, train them, and give the REAL projects and responsibilities. Last year, these students dreamed up, planned, and ran a several thousand dollar outreach concert on Halloween night called Radiate.
We don't settle for the casual Christians. We're not just "ok" with just ok. This applies to what we expect out of students, how we do things, and the overall performance of our ministry.