Youth Fellowship Updates
Hello Friends,
As we have reached the conclusion of another school year, we wanted to take a moment and share what our Youth Fellowship will look like in the year ahead, including some important dates and new leadership. Programmatically, here are some changes that you can expect along with a brief explanation of the reason for some of these changes.
Weekly Programming
We will be starting a new time for our students that will take place on Sunday mornings between the 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m services. Sunday morning is a time when many of our leaders and students are already gathered together to worship with our whole church. We want to make best use of this time and give students and leaders another space to build fellowship and grow in faith together. We’re calling this time “Sunday Devotionals” and it will be an opportunity for students to sit down with their leaders for some breakfast and hear a brief devotional from one of our Youth Fellowship leaders on a passage of scripture. Then students will have a short time to talk and pray with leaders. These Sunday Devotionals will begin on Sunday, August 30 and will take place from 10:25-10:55 a.m. Look for more details as we approach August.
Our weekly Youth Fellowship meetings will be on Wednesday evenings from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at 2715 Grove Ave. There are several reasons for this change and we hope it serves our Redeemer families and students well. In the past our Youth Fellowship has met on Wednesday evenings, though we tried Sunday evenings for the past year. It was not clear that this move to Sunday evenings served our families best, plus we wanted to provide a time Sunday morning as mentioned above. Tikvat has enough space for us all, middle school and high school students and leaders, to gather together. Both our leaders and our students see a value in being together as a larger group and we are looking forward to having our high school students begin to take on some forms of leadership and service in our ministry. At the same time, we recognize the developmental differences between 6th grade students and seniors in high school, and so, the second hour of our time together will involve middle school and high school separating into different groups. Each group will hear a lesson given from God’s word and then break off into small groups based on grade and gender.
We believe that having this middle-of-the-week touchpoint with students is valuable, even if a Wednesday evening gathering is difficult for some students to attend during certain seasons. In the event that a student cannot attend on a Wednesday night, our Sunday Devotionals are still a time set apart for them to be with leaders and grow in their faith.
Fall Retreat
The dates for our Fall Retreat are confirmed, so please mark your calendar for the weekend of September 25-27. This retreat takes place in a few different beach houses located in Sandbridge, Virginia. We will depart Friday evening and return Sunday morning. These retreats are a great opportunity for our team of volunteer leaders to form strong relationships with all our students and to create a strong foundation for the school year ahead. These retreats are also a big logistical undertaking and we could use help in making this retreat a success, particularly as it relates to food planning, preparation and the execution of meals during the weekend. If you believe you have relevant skills and are interested in helping, please email me.
Youth Fellowship Leadership
Finally, a few words regarding the leadership of our Youth Fellowship ministry here at Redeemer. As we have finished the school year and are looking to the year ahead I (Nathan Horner) will continue to give leadership and oversight to our Youth Fellowship for the year ahead. We also want to officially announce the hire of a new “Co-Director of Youth Fellowship” named Kenzie White. Kenzie is an alumni of James Madison University and has spent years working with middle school and high school students as a leader in the ministry of Young Life. More recently, Kenzie served on staff at The Church of The Incarnation Anglican Church in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Her official start date is August 1, at which point she will come alongside me in leading our Youth Fellowship.
We are delighted to have a strong team of volunteer leaders who are looking forward to discipling and coming alongside our students for the year ahead. We recently had 4 new leaders join the team who will be paired with our rising 6th grade students as they join our Youth Fellowship. Our volunteer leaders are central to the way our Youth Fellowship operates here at Redeemer and so if you are not sure which volunteer leader is specifically assigned to your child’s grade and gender, please email me and I would be glad to make the connection.
Friends, thank you for your attention. We are so excited for the year ahead in our Youth Fellowship. Please take the time to pray a blessing over our Youth Fellowship as a whole, our volunteer leaders, and over all the students of our church as we seek to disciple them into mature followers of Jesus, rooted deeply in the Gospel, and living in the love of the Father.
Thanks and Blessings,
Nathan Horner
Church Planter-in-Residence