YouthReport2013

Link to > CouncilMinutes20131217 > YouthMinistry

Youth & Young Adult Report

GWUC is a faithful, Christ-centered community that meets God and shares that unconditional love:

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Goals

To make faith accessible & relevant in todays youth & young adult culture - experiential, interactive, creative and relationally based.

To teach about Jesus in a hands on approach -mission and discipleship.

To be missional not just attractional - go to meet youth & young people where they are.

Practice

To have a youth and young adult ministry that encourages and empowers individuals to explore their faith and purpose in a community environment of unconditional love.

• Fostering relationships
• Navigating our diverse world
• Inviting people on the journey
• Developing expressions of faith
• Empowering the disempowered
• Unleashing creativity
• Exploring vocation

Existing Ministries

• Youth Group

• Camps: State Youth Games, Youth & Young Adults Camp, More Praxis Gathering National Christian Youth Convention

• Leadership Training
• Small Groups
• Retreats
• Mentoring (still needing more mentors)
• 7pm Worship
• Partnerships: Glen Waverley Secondary College, Brentwood secondary College, Habitat, Monash City Council
• Internships
• Social Justice Initiatives

• Social Networks & communication

• Specialized practices of faith: Confirmation, Baptism
• Outreach: Exposure trips, Kombi Krew, RAOK
• Safe Platforms (to volunteer)

• Dinner & Documentary

Youth & Young Adults 2013

Youth Group; Youth group has continued to grow this year with young people inviting friends. The envi- ronment on friday nights is one of acceptance and understanding at one small group third term the group discussed how they wished that school was like youth group, “where you could be yourself and no one would judge you”. We are thankful for the wonderful leadership that a small group of dedicated young & not so young adults provide, in putting together an inclusive community and activity on most Friday nights.

Small Groups: run at least four times each term, and are a place to discuss, study, share and pastorally care for one another. They are the pastoral, and faith development back bone of youth group, and again we thank the commitment of the small group leaders and the families that open up their houses to create the small group environment. Small groups this year have looked into various issue based studies, from relationships, to TED talks they aim to share life and disciple young people were they are at in life.

Youth Study Group: this year we again have had a specified youth bible study held most Fridays at 5:30pm during school terms. It has been going through two studies, the first re form - the bible unit, sec- ond the story, going through the whole bible chronologically and thirdly - the Jesus Unit. After the Jesus unit we will continue the story study.

Communication & Facebook Group: the youth & Young Adults have a Facebook group, that is private to members, it’s here that we promote what is on and share if we need specific things. Each term youth re- ceive a term program & are emailed what’s on each week, this information includes dates to remember, special events, camps and combined services.

Young Adult groups: continue to run Monday and Wednesday nights and have looked at various studies and topics this year. Monday nights joined in the lenten study, have watched two documentary series and are currently studying reanimate looking at theology in the 21st century. Wednesday nights has changed rhythm half way through this year and have been building community over trivia, this has seen a renewed commitment for fringe members and community has been building between both young adult groups. As Monday has become study night & Wednesday community night.

Retreats: this year started with a retreat at Mount Martha, this was a wonderful weekend with all who came keen to do more retreats. The young adults have also been requesting another retreat, but finding a date that suits everyone the current challenge. We look forward to having three retreats next year, focusing on becoming a person of influence.

State Youth Games: we again headed to Warrigul for state youth games and joined with over three thou- sand young people from Victoria, to play sport and worship at the night rallies. This year was our first year without the amazing organisation of John Yates, we missed him greatly but SYG was again a great suc- cess. The most obvious change for us after SYG was that our youth got to know each other even better and we no longer have the gender divide, we really became an inclusive community.

Camp: this years annual youth was held at Merricks a uniting church camp site, on the peninsula. We had a wonderful weekend away looking at Being Yourself, we challenged ourselves with tree surfing and found our way through mazes and tyre slides. We also learned about human traffiking and explored ways we could make a difference to the world we live in as well as sharing about ourselves and the things we value the most. Overall we had a great weekend away building community and doing faith together.

Splat: This year saw our third leadership training event partnering with synod, unfortunately it seemed the change of date for the event didn’t work for as many people as we would have liked. But a small group of us enjoyed networking and learning about youth leadership.

More praxis gathering: was another synod event that we were helping with this year, by doing the Alter- nate worship, but unfortunately it was cancelled.

Internship: Jacob is coming to the end of his internship with us at GWUC, he has been looking and serv- ing in our diverse and busy music ministry and has been a great help in those areas. He has been work- ing hard towards his Certificate four in youth work and has been learning and putting it into practice as a youth & small group leader.

NYMC: This year Nicole Boyer, Ben Krieger and I attended the National Youth Ministry Conference and the Uniting Church inservice together. This was held at tweed heads, and provided seminars and elec- tives from 9am till 10pm fro four days. We all learnt something and have highlighted some things that we would like to grow in our youth ministry next year. Overall we were thankful that we are apart of a congre- gation that values young people and invests in them, hearing others stories we again realised how fortu- nate we are here at GWUC.

Outreach: It feels a little quieter than usual with outreach this year, we have raised money for the RSPCA at youth group, with the youth choosing the RSPCA as a cause to support, we have also gathered for a high tea for habitat, raising money for Habitat for Humanity and are excited that Bethany & Jacob Davey and Kat & Jas Mann are again off to Kenya to work and raise money for Mission In Action, the orphanage we have visited numerous times over the last five years. Bethany & Jacob are climbing Mount Kenya and have done an amazing job raising money to support the orphanage. The MIA calendars will again be available for christmas with all moneys raised again, going to the orphanage. We have explored starting the breakfast program up again at Glen Waverley Secondary College and have a team of people inter- ested in again providing this ministry, so look forward to it beginning first term next year. We also sup- ported the refugee documentary devil and the deep blue sea, by donating to the pozible crowd funding campaign.

7pm Worship: it has been another full year at 7pm, we have sent members of our community off with prayers to jobs, ministry positions and overseas as is the fluid nature of young adults. We are still explor- ing broadcasts and have had a trial and training session. Music continues to be a important part of 7pm and we are so thankful for the time energy and effort those who share their gifts with us put into it each week. We have had a few guest speakers and as always love to hear stories from our congregation as they live out their faith, we have looked at the book of Luke and look forward to exploring advent to- gether. We are again doing carols on Kingsway at the 11pm Christmas eve service.

Ministry & Missional Lenses

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Of course these are placed as a general rule of focus, we could debate that all of them come under almost every missional group........and that Worship is every act we do.....but we have tried to identify the main focus of that particular ministry.