Why'd We Do That?
WHY'D WE DO THAT? is a document that we're putting together to explain pretty
much how and why we made the decisions that we made. The point is so that others can
understand our thought process, provide feedback and questions. Our hope is that others
would read through these carefully and perhaps use some of what we're doing in order
to grow and benefit their own ministries.
- 1. COMMUNITY GROUPS (CG):
We formed these groups because of several factors. First of all, we
always want to make sure that we were being led by Scripture and by the Holy
Spirit to do this and after much praying, studying and planning, we felt that
this was the right direction to take. Second, we formed these groups
because we felt like this would be one of the best ways to engage the majority
of our youth group. Most of our students were attending church on Sundays, yet
they were never really plugged in or they showed up but nobody knew who they were
and what was going on with their lives. The hope is that CG's would make that anonymity
impossible for students to come and not be known. Third, we wanted it structured
with both genders, all grades and multi-leadership because we were trying to model
the multi-generational picture of the church. This is hopefully going to establish
long-term trajectory in membership and ecclesiology.
Community Groups resemble the Korean House Church model with
characteristics of modern church structural community group model. We know for
certain that getting started and building momentum will take a long time. It'll
be difficult and when our students and leaders get busy, they start to really
know each other's annoying habits, and when they realize we're not stopping...
that'll be the big test. However, we're hopeful in CG's because there is real
potential of lives changed. We hope to see it as many youth will be discipled not
by one but by many older students and leaders that are dedicated to their growth.
We hope to see friendships and relationships nurtured during the week where real
heart change takes place. We hope to see Gospel-saturated students evolved from
this and continue to model this understanding way past their teenage years.
We're doing Community Groups because we believe that lives will be
changed by the Gospel through this.
- 2. SNACKS TO COLLEGE CAMPUS MINISTRIES:
At the end of the 2015-2016 fiscal year for CBC Youth, we noticed that we
had a significant surplus in finances due to...I'm not sure - fundraising?
Underspending? Well anyways, we wanted to take a look at it and see what we could
do with some of that extra money. We decided that with some of the left-over budget,
we wanted to support some of our former CBC Youth. So we are targeting the college
campus ministries where our former CBC Youth are currently a part of so that is:
AACM & EPIC in Austin, Texas, AMIV at Baylor, AAIV, at A&M, and UHIV at UH. There
are other smaller ministries but we'll be spending individual packages there. Ok,
so why are we doing this?
- 1. We teach about
partnerships with like-minded ministries and so we practice partnering with
whoever we can. We want our students to know that other ministries around the
world are also engaging and equipping others with the Gospel and so we want to
support them in their efforts. We want to reiterate to parachurch ministries
that the local church is behind them cheering them on.
- 2. We want to fuel our
former youth in their efforts to be faithful on campus. Just because many of
our students have graduated and now attend colleges all around the world, we
want to make sure that they know that they are being prayed for, supported and
that they still represent our church where they're at.
- It's a small thing that this youth group is doing, but we feel like a small
thing can go a long way. Again, our youth ministry wants to be faithful in the
small things - even if that is supporting our college campus ministries. Our
prayer here is that wherever Gospel-minded believers are that they be faithful...we
hope that these little gifts gives you a bit of encouragement while they're being
faithful.