Youth ministries is an exciting place for students to be able to grow in their faith while building relationships with other students and leaders. This continues to be a ministry where God shows up in powerful ways.
2021 wasn’t a typical year for our youth group, but we made the best of it by live streaming youth nights for Tuesday night life groups as well as for creative Friday night events. When the weather warmed up, we were able to start meeting again in person outside in Kin Coulee.
Every year, we look forward to celebrating our youth group graduates. Typically, this looks like a graduation service hosted at the church where family and friends are all invited to come. Things may have been locked down during the 2021 grad season, but we wanted to do everything we could to continue to celebrate our grads. We provided individual graduate photo-shoots, had gifts and trays of food to send home with them to enjoy with their families, and were able to do a live streamed graduation event for anyone to join in and participate with us. We had a great time doing this!
Over the summer, we were able to make use of the outdoors through nights around a firepit, trips to Echo Dale, and a baptism event in Elkwater. We also celebrated our Youth Pastor, Krystin Thomas’ “retirement” from youth ministry as she stepped into a full-time teaching position.
In September we were able to get back to in-person youth nights. Our Tuesday night youth life groups consist of fun games, delicious snacks, a time of worship, a message, and then time spent in small groups. Worship was led by Alex Egert, who joined the youth team as staff from August to December. On one of these nights in November, we saw four more students and a leader be baptized. It was a very exciting season!
We love Tuesday night youth nights. We’re seeing more student volunteers than ever before. We are also seeing a new openness and vulnerability in our teens that wasn’t always there in the previous seasons. Our teenagers seem to be hungry for more of the Lord and are wanting to grow deeper relationships with the people around them. This new openness has opened the door for healing, and for growth in our students.
We are so thankful for our youth leaders. This amazing team of adult volunteers come every week to invest in the lives of our students and to help them grow closer to the Lord. There are many varying volunteer roles that they fill including helping with tech, being on a worship team, serving up snack, hosting from the front, giving the message, and leading youth small groups. They are loved by our students, and we couldn’t do it without them.
Friday night youth events are a fun time for students to come out and bring their friends into a church environment. We do one or two events every month, and they’re a great place for outreach. In 2021 in the spring, we did online events like Youth Jeopardy, Bad Art night, and we joined in with YQ events from Briercrest. In the fall, we did in-person events such as Nerf Wars, Diamond Smugglers, and a Home Alone Christmas. The emphasis on these nights is to have fun and build relationships with the students. This can be as easy as a leader playing basketball or volleyball with a group in the gym.
Every year our youth ministries attends a youth retreat out at Whispering Pines Camp. In 2021 we were creative and were still able to plan a One Day Away event. On this day, we left the church early in the morning and arrived back late that night. The day away was refreshing. It was incredible to be able to get away again as a youth group and spend time growing in our faith as well as growing in relationships with each other. Retreats have always been one of the experiences where we see the most significant spiritual growth, and this was one of those times.
2021 was a year that required some extra creativity, but God was more than willing to provide it. Our God can use any season to do His work - and we are so thankful for the ways that He moved in 2021. We look forward, with anticipation, towards what God will do next. Thank you for praying for our youth ministry!
-Pastor Alisha
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