The Year in Review

R.I.O.T. Youth Ministry


As it is and what’s to come

This year has been eventful to say the least. While all of the normal things you might find in ministry have been going on there has been a significant amount of the extraordinary happening this year as well. The hardest part of writing a Ministry report is where to start. There is so much I want to share with you and just quite simply not enough time or space on this paper, so I will summarize as best I can and hope nothing too important has been left out.

This last year I sat down with my youth leaders and asked them if there was one thing we were going to focus on over the next year what did they think it should be. God is good because e we all came up with the same answer pretty quickly. We saw a real need for true discipleship in the lives of the teens. Less “fluff” and more serious and purposeful focus in the lives of our teens.

The next question was how we should do this. While wrestling with this question the leadership started talking about our purpose as a church, talk of adding a pastor to the staff to help facilitate this new focus and direction for our ministry, as well as looking toward how we as a church help truly disciple our people. Funny how these things all come about at the same time isn’t it? Well as we talked over several months the leadership came up with what you are now familiar with, “KNOW GOD, GROW TOGETHER, SERVE OTHERS”. We wanted this to be a part of EVERYTHING we do here at Cornerstone. So we needed to make sure this was the purpose and goal of the youth as well.

We had already started “LIFE GROUPS” for the teens as one way of focusing efforts on discipleship as well we created a schedule for the teens that was much less about fluff and much more about growing in Christ.

I decided that there needed to be a serious effort made to take the teens through the entire New Testament in 6 years. I realize that not every teen will benefit from a 6 year plan since some will graduate before then but as future students come into the youth ministry they will have the great benefit of taking a journey through the entire New Testament.

Our midweek youth meeting, traditional held on Wednesday night’s, has changed in some significant ways as well. While Wednesday night was the traditional midweek gathering for the teens many had recurring scheduling conflicts as well as the leaders were struggling to get to church on time after a long day at work. We moved this to Sunday nights to help alleviate the conflicts and for the most part it has worked. We renovated the youth room at a cost of appx. $2000 last summer and launched the opening of “sTiR-iT-uP” Coffee Shop. The goal for this was really a three prong thing. First and foremost it was a way to give the room a much needed makeover and give it that modern fun feeling. It was also to help with a budget issue of snack and food expenses for Sunday nights. The third reason was our support as a youth group of two children through compassion international was way behind and we needed to find an easier way to support these two children. By opening the coffee shop we solved all three goals. All the profit goes to support the kids through Compassion International and it is working.

So you might ask, what are planning for next year Pastor Dave. What big thing or next great idea are you working on? The answer is not a single thing. In our effort to become simple churches we are trying not create more “Stuff” to keep students busy. Instead our focus is on empowering our students to live a life outside the church walls that will be a light and a testimony to those in their sphere of influence. Yeah we will do fun stuff (we have an overnight canoe trip planned for this summer and yeah guys and girls will be on the opposite side of the river while sleeping), we will go to a concert, attend Dare-2-Share, go to snow camp, and a few other things. But this is not where the real ministry happens. These things are the frosting on the cake. The real meat of this ministry is happening one on one with students, after their games, during phone calls and visits, in their small groups with other leaders that love them, and in their homes. It is my job to help this happen and to facilitate an atmosphere where this is possible.

I have just one more thing to mention, and that is the immense awe and humility I have experienced this year at the amount of adults who have continued to invest in the lives of students or who have, for the first time, taken a step of faith and put themselves out there to love teenagers as Christ loves them. We currently have 14 adults who are committed to some area of the youth ministry. Not only is this an answer to my prayers but I believe it is the best thing about our youth ministry.

Pray that God continues to draw students to us, that they would find love and acceptance here and that they could walk away saying “Things are different now, I am loved”.

Thank you for your prayers and unwavering support of my ministry and my family. You will never truly understand what you all mean to us.