Paul Boice

Wow, you completely misread my blog.  The critical point is that the individuals who are most open to the Gospel and the population that most urgently needs to hear it are between the ages of 4-18.  That includes children within and OUTSIDE the church.  It has absolutely nothing to do with telling 15 year-olds that they are more important than their parents or grandparents.  That's absurd. You can make honoring  age and tradition the focal point in your church, and I suspect you'll be doing so in a shrinking congregation with fewer and fewer youth and very little significance to those outside your walls.

Thanks for your input.  I certainly agree that fund raising often works best when various options are tried and each church then identifies what works best for their group and congregation. I am hopeful, though that this Faith Alive fund raiser will have a number of positive results.  It will be great if it helps raise funds for the youth group.  I believe that there are far too few Reformed resources or resources with a Reformed perspective being used in our congregations, and if this program can get some high quality Reformed resources into our churches, that will be a win.  I also have a heart for Faith Alive and want to offer assistance to this incredibly important ministry partner.  So, all that to say that I figure this fund raiser might work for some groups, and the additoinal benefits look pretty good too.

I think that your comments would make for a great future blog for this network.  I hope you don't mind if I use some of your ideas/suggestions for a post later this spring! Thanks again for your thoughtful post.

Great advice Albert.  Thanks for sending along these suggestions.  I think you are right on point.

Thanks Rebecca.  I think you are right on point!

Great response Jason.  I like it!

Thanks.  I have a church planter friend who has brought fasting into his congregation and they have been blessed in so many ways.  I've never led a fasting exercise, but I've participated in some and always find a very defined focus on/with God as I experience the fasting.

Great post Albert!  I absolutely love your suggestion that youth development be part of the church's mission statement.  I wonder how many churches have done that?  Thanks for sharing.

Thanks John.  We too believe the Holy Spirit has led us to this relationship with a youth leader and the community. I can't wait to watch the Spirit continue to work in this relationship.

To answer your questions, the relationship between the youth leader and church planter is still being developed. I suspect that the accountability for the plant will fall on the church planter, so in many respects the youth leader will report to the planter. Though again, I think that will depend a lot on their relationship and their cooperative efforts to use God's gifts in this planting process.

Both positions are fully funded by our church. It was a sell to the consistory, but they understood the opportunity and embraced it.

I'm not sure if the goal is to be a young life model or not. I suspect it will. At this point, youth around the neighborhood know there is a place they can hang out and be accepted...and parents know it's a place where their children can be in a healthy and safe environment. There's a lot more to do to expand the relationship with students and their parents, but the momentum is there.

What a cool story Rick. Thanks for sharing it. 

I think the challenge is always going to be in finding the funding for a youth leader at a church plant and then finding a youth leader who is willing to step out in the uncertainties of planting. Sharing stories like yours can help on both fronts.

Thanks for the heads up on this George.  I changed the text to reflect this.

Thanks for the reply Ashley. I think it's a great idea to find the common experiences and point them out.  I suspect you also find, as we did, that the more the students hang out together, the less the different schools matter.

Hi Kirk.

Yes, the first youth group was largely comprised of Christian school youth. Your challenges with that, and school schedules were the same challenges we struggled with. Your school neutral position is a good one. That's a really good reminder for those of us who are dealing with the same situation.

We also made an intentional effort to let the students that went to the public school talk about their school stuff. When one of our students was in a school play at the public school, we talked the entire youth group into attending the play to show our support and cheer her on. That really pulled our group together.

Thanks Kirk.