Suncreststudentlife’s Weblog

This has been an exciting time of year in youth ministry; students are filled with nervous energy because school is starting.  At this point, most students are either back in school or will be soon.  It is also a season of transitions as some students go to middle school or high school for the first time.  We are also making some transitions in the Suncrest Student Ministries this fall. Our first change is the addition of some new programming.

A couple of years back we decided that we need to do something special for our 5^th and 6^th grade students. Our reasons for doing so are that most 5^th grade students are ready to be done with “children’s ministry” and tend to lose interest in our Team Go programming for that age group, and most 6^th grade students are overwhelmed by our Student Life Ministries programming. So, with that in mind, we created Team56, a special ministry just for 5^th and 6^th graders. Team 56 kicked off on Friday night with the amazingly fun Jell-o Olympics. We had a great turn out, and had tons of fun. Everyone ended up covered in Jell-o with big smiles. The Jell-o Olympics also built great momentum for the Team 56 Class that that met for the first time on Sunday morning with a crowd of very excited 5^th and 6^th grade students!

This fall we have a new line up in Student Life Ministries.  We have moved Student Life Worship to Tuesday nights. The new lineup is:

6:30        Doors Open

7:00        Worship Begins

7:45        Community Groups

8:30        Parents pick up students

We experimented with this format last spring and found that when students worship they are much more engaged during their community groups.  Tuesday night was great, and I have found that students love the idea of a worship service to give them a little boost during their crazy weeks.

Taking the place of Student Life Worship is Student Life Connect.  Student Life Connect takes place on Sunday mornings during the 9:30 and 11:00 services at West Campus and during the 9:30 service at East Campus.  Student Life Connect is designed to help students connect with each other and with Christ.  Sunday, I got to sit back and watch students sitting around tables talking with each other about the lesson, and working through their faith by talking about it with their friends.