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FAQ
Introduction
As a team seeking the face of
God, He made it very clear to us that pre-planning programs
based on looking at what we’ve done in the past is not what He
desires.
Instead, He has called
us to look forward, seeing Him as our mark (Philippians
3:13-14).
In the race you do not
see everything that may be in the path that lies in front of
you, but that doesn’t matter … you have only one goal: to finish
the race.
Therefore, our
Seek Plan
deals more with our end
goal, realizing that as we trust Him daily, He will direct our
paths (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Mission Statement
The H20
Student Ministries of Crossover Community Church seeks to guide
teenagers to love the Lord God with all their heart, soul, and
mind; and to love others as a reflection of their love for God.
The result will be
transformed lives that are involved in transforming their world
for Jesus Christ.
(Matthew 22:37-40;
Romans 12:1-2)
Objectives
Our emphasis since our youth
group was formally established has been to love and fear God, to
read His Word and have a daily “quiet time,” to worship Him in
Spirit and in truth, and to share the gospel.
All of these “concepts”
are true and they need to be emphasized, but we often find it
hard to live them out in our daily lives.
Why?
It is our motivating
factor….do we love God and eagerly seek and zealously desire to
be with Him and serve Him?
This is what is really
important:
Being in love with God.
When we fall in love with the
Lord, he promises us so much more than just “salvation from
hell;” He promises us “life to the full.”
(John 10:10)
This will include loving
others (Romans 12:9-13), serving Him (Ephesians 2:10), and
sharing the gospel (Mark 16:15).
The difference is that
it is not an obligation to work for Him, it is our responsive
actions of love for Him.
It is an
unquenchable thirst for God
that we desire!
“Forgetting those things
which are behind, we set our eyes on Jesus.”
(Philippians 3:13)
Unquenchable means “impossible
to satisfy.”
A youth ministry with an
unquenchable thirst for God will fulfill the mission objectives
that we established three years ago for our youth department:
·
The Lordship of Jesus Christ -
Our ministry can never be about
us or based upon us.
Everything we do must be dependent upon and exist to give glory
to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It is our desire that every student and adult in our
ministry will recognize and acknowledge Jesus as Lord in all of
our events and activities and in their lives.
We give Him our best because He gave us His best (Romans
6:23; 10:9; 1 Cor. 8:6, 10:31; 2 Cor. 4:5; 1 Peter 3:15).
·
The Power of the Holy Spirit -
God gave us His Spirit to
enable us for ministry and to empower us to see supernatural
results. We must
commit to an openness to His Spirit to work in and through every
person, if we want hearts to be turned toward Jesus and be
changed (John 14:26; 16:13-15, Acts 1:8; 2:17-18; Romans 8:5-17,
26-27; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; Gal. 5:16-18, 22-25).
·
The Authority of God’s Word -
God has given us His inspired
Word, the Bible, to reveal His plan of redemption and to direct
us how to live. In
our ministry, His Word is our final authority.
Rather than try to simplify hard to understand passages,
we will walk by faith and trust His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17;
Hebrews 4:12).
·
Prayerful Dependence -
Our source of direction, wisdom
and power is from God.
Prayer will mark our ministry.
If we are going to expect supernatural encounters and
life-change to occur, we must recognize that it only comes when
we acknowledge our dependency on Him.
We must regularly turn to
Him in prayer, not trusting in man’s wisdom or strength, but
trusting in God (John 15; Ephesians 6:18; 1 Thes. 5:17).
·
Relationships with God and
Other people -
Ultimately, this life is all
about relationships.
Our ministry must be committed to developing and growing
relationships with God and each other.
In everything we do, we must ask, “How is this event or
activity promoting the development or growth of these
relationships?”
(Matthew 22:37-40)
·
Ambassadors of Grace -
God has called the church to be
His tool for bringing lost people to Him.
We are Christ’s ambassadors connecting people to God
through Jesus Christ.
We must relentlessly pursue lost people on behalf of God,
revealing his free gift to us. (2 Cor. 5:17-20).
·
Student Ministers -
All Christ-followers are
ministers of the grace of God.
The role of the leader in our ministry is to assist each
student in discovering their spiritual gifts and equipping them
to effectively use their gifts in ministry so that the Body of
Christ may be built up (Eph. 4:11-13; Romans 12:4-8; I Cor.
12:7-11; 14:12; I Peter 4:10-11).
·
Counter-Cultural Community -
The new community of Christ
followers is one of radical inclusiveness.
We seek to be a place where arms are wide open to receive
anyone God brings our way and be ready to meet the needs as they
come. We must be a
culture that is radically different than the world, yet openly
receptive to people in this world (Acts 2:42-47; James 2:1-9).
·
Holiness that Directs our
Decisions -
The Body of Christ is called to
be Holy in all it does, yet relevant to the world so that we
might win it over to Christ.
We must promote and encourage students and adults to
strive with God’s strength for Holiness that guides how we live
in this world (1 Cor. 9:19-23; Ephesians 1:4; Hebrews 12:14; I
Peter 1:14-16).
Ministry Strategy
Our ministry strategy begins
with prayer and an understanding of God and building our
relationship with him, which in turn will cause us to love each
other and others transforming this world of the Lord Jesus!
In the past this section
listed “programs” and to a certain degree there will still be
some, but our greatest desire is to point ourselves toward Jesus
and allow Him to guide in what we need to do this year.
PRAYER
Prayer is the “power” sources
of all ministry activities.
It is to be our first
focus for this upcoming year.
To make it a more focal
point, we plan to do the following:
·
Re-configure the youth room making our prayer wall more focal
and keeping it up-to-date.
·
PRAY FOR EVERY STUDENT IN OUR AREA BY NAME IN 2009-2010.
To do this we are going to copy off pages from yearbooks,
which will be at our prayer wall, as they are prayed for they
will be checked off.
·
The need to pray in the youth room prior to Wednesday night.
Since Pastor wants the youth in the main building for
prayer time, the leadership team and others who desire to take
part will meet at 5:45 on Wednesday evenings to pray in our
youth building prior to going to the 6:00 prayer time.
·
Karen Gage is going to take on the responsibility for the
“Prayer Ministry” within our youth department, along with our
leadership team.
LOVE FOR GOD
We want to do all that we can
to get our focus on Him and who He is this year.
By understanding who He
is and how much He loves us, we believe that it will cause us to
love others and serve Him in such a way as to transform our
world!
Below are some things
that we believe God would have us to do.
·
Encourage youth to take part in
all activities
offered at Crossover Community Church – not just those
specifically for youth.
·
“The Event” - Wednesday Night
Youth Meeting -
All youth meet for a time of
worship, fellowship, and Bible Study.
This is a time when God’s truth is presented with
creativity and variety, while maintaining our focus on
relationships. We
encourage active participation in worship through music, drama,
testimony, video clips, the spoken word.
H20 Youth meets following the corporate prayer
time from 7:00 – 8:15 on Wednesday nights.
Also, generally students are provided with a printed
study guide that they can place in their H2O Notebook for future
reference and study.
·
Quiet Time Journal -
Each month the youth department
produces a Quiet Time Journal for use by both students and
leaders. The journal
provides a number of options that allow students to select how
they use their time alone with the Lord.
Students in leadership roles are accountable for their
Quiet Time and must show their journals to their leader
periodically as part of the accountability process.
·
Sunday Morning Bible Fellowship
-
Sunday mornings during the
Bible Fellowship Hour (9:00-10:15), students will meet for a
deeper level of discipleship training.
The emphasis will be on deeper Bible study, developing
ministry gifts and exploring the lesser emphasized disciplines (eg....fasting,
memory, meditation and outside reading).
Middle School students meet together, while senior high
students are divided by gender.
·
One-on-one Discipleship
– Replaces what was formerly
called “POD” and “PAT.”
We see the continued need for discipleship and
accountability, but where God has taken us is to a point to
encourage each leader and growing student in the youth
department to find someone to disciple them and then someone for
them to disciple.
Thus it is a one-on-one ministry for relationship building,
accountability, and discipleship.
Emphasis is placed more on application of the Word of God
than it is on interpretation.
Intimacy in relationships is the goal.
Through this intimacy we create an environment that
fosters authenticity, empathy, confidence, reflection, honesty,
confession and rejoicing with each other.
LOVE FOR OTHERS
As we grow in our relationship
with the Father, our relationship with the family of God and
those outside the family will also grow.
According to the Lord
our relationships with our neighbors reflects our relationship
with Him.
We plan to do several
things to help facilitate fellowship and reaching out to others:
·
Special Activities -
A variety of activities are
planned to reach out to the diversity within our population.
Youth retreats are planned periodically throughout the
year. A strong emphasis
will be placed on service activities for the 2009-2010 year.
We believe that we need to let God lead throughout the
year in this area, but several will be placed on the calendar:
·
Student Leadership -
Leadership development will produce character, spiritual growth,
purpose, and maturity in everyone. It will lead to making
sacrifices that will change the world.
We believe that leadership is a combination of both
training and experience, so students involved in leadership get
“on the job training.”
Being part of a leadership team is a privilege that
carries with it responsibility and commitment.
Students must agree to and fill-out a commitment form for
6 months at a time to participate.
Areas for service include worship team, puppet team,
media team, follow-up team, special events team, Oasis Café
team, prayer team, welcome team, and e-mail team.
·
Follow-up Team
–
Beginning with our leadership
team, a group of youth will be designated to make contact with
those that are MIA from youth and church and also to encourage
those that are being faithful.
This will be done in conjunction with adult leaders.
·
Service Within the Church Body
-
Students are also encouraged to
serve in the other ministries of Crossover Community Church.
Students are currently involved in the SEEK Ministry,
Media Ministry, Children’s Ministry, Nursery Ministry, just to
name a few.
·
School Ministry -
Various purposeful efforts are
made to reach out to the schools in our area with the gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Youth will be provided with the tools to share the gospel
and to invite their friends to church.
·
“YO” Youth Outreach -
In an effort to reach our
community to teach our youth how to reach out to others.
Service projects are directed at toward the showing that
we really do care and in an effort to share the Gospel with
them.
·
Student Planner
–
The
H2O Bill will be
replaced with a “Student Planner that will be published at the
beginning of each semester.
This will provide students with all events, a directory
of those in youth, and tools to help them in their daily walk.
TRANSFORMING OUR WORLD
This will be the result of us
loving God and loving others.
We do not need to plan
for it … God will make it happen! |