School has started, the year has begun and our Youth and Children’s groups are making plans and getting ready for a big 2023. So what can you expect for our Youth and Children’s teams in 2023? Well, I’m glad you’ve asked because you know I want to tell you!
Firstly, I am thrilled to have Ainslie Blake continue on in her role as Children’s trainee and she has been thinking about how to grow our Playgroup ministry and improve our evangelistic reach. We have welcomed 2 new members to the happy hands playgroup team and with the skills of Ainslie we are growing our program, revamping our music and story time and thinking about how to make the most of the conversations with the parents, grandparents and carers. Dates for the diary – Feb 8th we begin our year together and Saturday 11th March is a walk and brekky with the parents / carers morning.
Groundswell youth has undergone another shuffle of leaders from the end of 2022 to 2023. God is growing and changing our Youth ministry and in 2023 Jake Lewers has begun as head leader alongside myself, and his lovely wife Emily is using her skills in admin to look after a lot of the background and advertising work needed, as well as camp prep. Dates for the diary – April 21-23 is KYCK, Oct 20-22 is Youth Camp with Erich Sereduik as speaker.
Kids Church in term 1 is undergoing a one off Family Ministry term where each week at Kids Church a family will learn, pray over, prep and deliver the Kids Church lesson on Sundays and I am so excited to see how many families are already keen to sign up and give it a go! Kids church follows the sermon topics so the passages and stories are familiar and on theme. This is a great opportunity for families to read the Bible and minister together, creating a beautiful intergenerational moment and building bible reading foundation’s into family life.
Sunny’s Kids Club launches this coming Friday and our growing leadership team is focusing on the race of life and how to walk daily with Jesus as our Saviour. SRE kicks off in the coming weeks and we pray that God will continue to open doors to the gospel in our local schools.
So as we get into the year can I ask you to pray with us and for us – for leaders to be well trained, prepped and enthusiastic for the task of sharing Jesus with young minds; for the connections we already have in our community and for these to produce fruit; and for each and every member of our Youth and Children’s ministry to grow in their walk with Jesus, having faith in God and learning to trust Him, just like Abraham did.
Kat Harris