by Paul Easterday
Excited screams. Adrenaline. Slime. 75 ft. slip n’slide. 45 of your new best friends. A massive paint fight. The sights, sounds, and happenings of our St. Luke Lutheran Church youth summer kick off were truly a sight to behold. The bar was set pretty high on that Wednesday in June and the rest of the summer was going to be pretty hard pressed to live up. And here we are, just about at the end of the best summer of ministry I can remember.
The Holy Spirit has been doing some powerful things and we’ve had incredible opportunities to grow and learn together as disciples of Jesus. Through B^3, In His Service, graduation parties, and worship gatherings on Sundays we have grown together in community with one another and in community with our God. It’s been a summer to remember!
Yet even as summer is drawing to a close and we look toward the fall we know that our responsibility as disciples to worship together (reach up), to learn and grow (reach in), and to serve those in need (reach out) never stops.
We also know that reaching up, in, and out, the discipleship goals of our entire congregation, are best accomplished in the context of relationships. So we move forward knowing that if we are to continue to grow in our calling as believers we do so in a way that is relationally driven and discipleship focused.
To that end we have made some changes to how we do ministry across our three sites. Some areas of ministry will look pretty similar to year’s past, others will have some changes. We would encourage you to read through everything we’ve got to offer and we are looking forward to partnering with you as we head into the fall.
Breakfast Club
On Sunday mornings we want to offer our youth a chance to focus in on some specific areas of their discipleship walk. How does prayer work? How do you care for a friend who is hurting? What does it mean to have free will? We’ll be diving into questions like these and others on Sunday mornings in a way that is dynamic, fun, and life applicable.
Breakfast Club happens at each of our sites on Sunday mornings and it’s for both middle and high school students. If you attend ULC, breakfast club meets in the upstairs lounge at 10:10am, at St. Luke Ann Arbor we meet in the West Wing at 9:30am, and at Living Water we meet in the Teacher’s Lounge at 9:00am. See you there!
Saturday Nights
Every Saturday from 7 – 9 p.m. high school students gather to hang out, serve, and engage in topical discussions about faith and life. Yes, we’ve changed days from Sunday night to Saturday. We’ve also added a service component that will be woven throughout our gatherings. Of course, we’ll still have lots of fun and we’ll still be addressing topics that are relevant to your every day life too!
Saturday Nights happen at two regional locations: The West Wing in Ann Arbor (4205 Washtenaw) and The Dive in Whitmore Lake (364 E Shore Drive). We meet every Saturday except holidays and vacations.
A couple times per semester we meet for an all-site, all age (grades 6-12) gathering. For fall of 2014 we’ll be meeting on September 20, at The Dive for our nautically themed kick-off event, at St. Luke Ann Arbor on November 1 for our service project day, and at ULC on December 5-6 (yes, it’s a Friday!), for a lock-in called “Seeing the Future”.
Confirmation
Newly renovated for this year, Confirmation is a year long process of discipleship training. The process is open to anyone in 6th-8th grade as well as any high schoolers who have yet to be confirmed. Working alongside parents, students will meet on Wednesdays from 6-8 p.m. at St. Luke Ann Arbor. There’s a ton of awesome stuff happening in confirmation this year. Read Confirmation as Discipleship to find out more about what we’re doing!
SpringHill
A great place to invite new friends or to just get to know old friends better, SpringHill is a snow-filled weekend of relationship building and worship. From tubing to bands, broom ball to engaging, Christ centered messages, SpringHill is always a highlight of the winter season! Sign up will be coming out near the end of September so be on the look out, and don’t forget to mark your calendar with our retreat dates:
High School, January 9 – 11
Middle School, February 20 – 22
From our entire youth ministry staff here at St. Luke, we are excited to build relationships and talk about Jesus with you and your family this fall and beyond. If you want to know more about youth ministry or have questions about what’s going on this fall, feel free to contact us! If you can’t wait until September 20th to get things started, here are some great online resources to jump into right away:
Think Discipleship. Think Orange. (article)
The Family that Serves Together (article)
