I feel as if the three things that are taking up most of my time at the moment are Confirmation, Student Impact and the reconstruction of the back room. Confirmation is in order, it’s just making sure I prep my leaders for the year, teens and parents for the retreat and making sure that all my ducks are in a row for deadlines, bookings, etc. Reconstruction in the back room is basically figuring out how to do something I’ve never done before…so it’s good practice to large scale vision casting.
Just to fill those in who are interested we are taking our East Pavilion (aka New Hall) and turning it into a worship space for the youth and children’s program. So there will be a stage, updated technology, controlled lighting and just a nicer feel. Working with contractors, managing a budget and doing it within the summer has not been an easy task, but lately there has been a lot of signs from God that this is going to happen, so I take assurance in that.
Student Impact is kind of a new thing. I thought I had set up a system that would work smoothly with plugging teenagers into ministries, but the more we work through this system, more questions pop up.
Question #1: What age requirements should be set for teens in ministry? You can have high school students serve in most ministries, but with middle school students they might be a little out of their realm. A good example is would you want a 6th grader ministering to a 4th grader? Would you want a 7th grader parking cars in a lot? I don’t think I really thought out age restrictions, not that a 6th grader can’t mentor a 4th grader, but it’s probably not wise because they are too close in age.
Question #2: Are teens aware of the ministry roles they are involving themselves into? I know the most popular ministry teens want to involve themselves into is Children’s ministry, but after talking to some of the teens I’ve realized that most of them don’t know anything about those programs. It’s not there fault Kidzone, Time Travelers and All Stars are relatively new and most of the teens have never participated in those programs. I never put into play that I needed to work with ministry leaders in creating positions specifically for teens. I don’t want them to feel underutilized or overwhelmed. I know this can happen in many situations for adults, but you don’t want to jade a teenager’s experience.
Anyway, so I’ve got some work to do, Student Impact and the East Pavilion fit into my “5 things I must do” list (vision casting and working with teens). Confirmation is a larger program, probably the 6th thing on the list if I were to expand that but for now I’m just keeping it simple.