Creating Capacity

Before I left last night I was able to stop in Cafe Vista and see all the middle school students who were getting ready to meet for small groups. I’m happy about the energy in the air and it was really good to talk to a lot of the leaders and share with them the excitement.
It was a little scary because the sign-ups we had were more than we anticipated but God blessed us with a couple of leaders who could step in and serve for the next 6 weeks. I feel with the turnout that we are having God is ready to move things to the next level. In order to do that we need to create more capacity. The three areas I see us needing to create more capacity are:

1. Physical Size – With 95 students in small groups, on top of the Starting Point groups and other events happening here during the week, as well as all the children and youth programs, plus the increase in Mass attendance we need more space. And while money is a huge part of it we also need to know what it’s going to look like.

2. Ministry Teams – We needed to recruit ministers at the last minute, and I know I want to get the ratios down in Confirmation Mentoring as well as Crowd Ministers. I pray that this Lent at the First Serve event that we can recruit some people who just want to serve God and connect students to His love. They won’t necessarily work one on one with students but just in the area.

3. Resources – The ministers in Youth Ministry have really stepped up their game; however, I know that our resources are limited and in this tight economy everyone is making cut backs. I would like us to be able to offer more books, cd’s and media that is going to help students take that next step. I know some of the resources we need also go into the tech realm, but anything we can do to create better environments and opportunities would be awesome.