Every November and December, our staff team sets aside time to individually and collectively think and pray about vision and create goals for our ministry area for the upcoming year. As Pastor Tag shared last month, God gave me a vision for youth ministry last winter that can be summed up in the acronym CARES, and it continues to be more than just words on a piece of paper!
To refresh your memory, GCC Youth Ministry exists so 6-12th graders are able to:
COME with their questions about life and its meaning,
ABSORB Biblical truth and teaching that provide answers to those questions,
RESPOND to the Gospel invitation, believing that Jesus died on the cross for their sins,
EXPAND their faith as they grow in discipleship through relationship, seeking to follow Christ in all of life, and
SHARE their time and spiritual gifts to build up the Body of Christ and witness to the world by communicating their faith story.
One of the things I love most about my job is providing the opportunity and space that youth need to think about and process through what they really believe about faith. Like many of our GCC youth, I was raised in the church, but my faith didn’t become my own until the end of my middle school experience. I’d heard a lot of Bible stories and attended many vacation Bible schools and Sunday school classes, but I really was just coming and doing a little absorbing but had never personally responded to the gospel. Maybe up until that point I believed Jesus had died for other people’s sin, but the gospel I was hearing remained in the collection of fairy tales and make-believe stories I had memorized as a kid.
God used several loving and patient people in my youth group back in Pittsburgh to draw me out of my “it’s just a story” mentality and into the reality that the gospel was and is for me. I had the space and room to respond to the invitation and believe for the very first time that Jesus died on the cross for ME and for my past, present, and future sins! That was and still is the best decision I’ve ever made! My youth group allowed me to COME as I was with all the baggage and questions I had, they allowed me to ABSORB Biblical truth (even if I didn’t view it as that at the time), and they invited me to RESPOND when it became personal and genuine within my heart.
I know there are youth in our church who have stories similar to mine, and my true heart’s desire is for our youth ministry to be a place where they can begin to realize and see that their life is a compelling story, written by the greatest Author of all times!
In Him,
Stacey