I want to announce that there will be changes in youth house church and youth Sunday worship time. Presently, youth house church is made up of middle school and high school students, but we are going to separate these two groups. Under the current system, high schoolers have difficulty sharing because of the presence of young middle school students. Also, it is not the right environment to invite friends and because of the burden of caring for younger kids, students have tendency of avoiding to serve as a shepherd.
Also, there is a problem for middle schoolers to hear unfiltered sharing of high schoolers and they do not get the care as they need. Of course, right now, most middle schoolers enjoy house church but that is because of friends and fun they share and it is not the best possible situation.
To solve this problem, middle school and high school students will be separated and high schoolers will meet at home on Saturday and one of the students will serve as a shepherd and an adult will assist on the side. As for middle school students, they will meet in church on Sunday after worship and an adult will serve as a shepherd. Therefore, system for middle school students is based on the combined concept of Sunday school and house church, rather than a pure house church. Young adults of college age or older will serve as shepherds for this group.
The reason for this change is to understand middle school students as an immature stage where they still need caring of grownups as they study bible and do sharing. When they reach the later part of 8th grade, they should look for house church. We will implement this system from the 6th grade of this fall semester and students who are currently in 6th and 7th grades will continue in their house church.
Because of this change, middle school students will be guided to go to adult house church with parents and we are trying to devise ways for them to be occupied and not to be burdened by caring for children.
Another change is to offer only one service for youth at 10:45am. At the moment, 1st worship for youth is attended by almost 170 students while there are less than 10 attendees during the second youth worship. In that situation, the second service participants become isolated without friends and the worship is not a blessed experience which could result in falling away of youth from church. Since we need to offer some kind of program for the second worship time, this system seems the best.
There are several benefits when youth worship is at 10:45am. First, any students who have ministry work will have ample time to prepare for that and will have greater opportunity to be a part of ministry work. Also, it is a good flow to attend bible study and middle school sharing right after worship. In addition, teachers and youth shepherds will have an ample time to prepare for their ministry work.
If youths do not need to come to church early, I recommend for parents to come to the second worship. If they arrive at church around 10:40 and send youth to their worship and have a fellowship time with house church members then participate to the second service, it will work out great timewise. We also have a plan to open a facility on the second floor like a library for youth to stay when they have to come to church early.
[출처] 휴스턴서울교회 – http://www.sbchouston.org/bbs/board.php?bo_table=0602&wr_id=681
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