I can’t believe it’s been 4 months already. This semester has flown by. I’m having a great time so far; I love my job. However, I need to make an apology: in all the craziness of youth ministry, and trying to make sure that I’m there for the students, and be a good example to them and give them support, I forgot a key part of my role here; to be a support and a bridge to parents as well. I have not been communicating well, and for that I’m sorry. Believe me when I say that your kids and I are having a great time, and I truly would like to keep you in the loop more, and I will be making a stringent effort from this point forward to do that. Let me tell you my strategy.
Blogs: I have a special little section on the website called “Jeff’s corner” (which you may be reading right now, as I have posted this there and sent it out other places. It has been my goal (a goal I have yet to realize…) to update this part of the website weekly as a way to both follow up with the students about what we talked about throughout the week (most of my follow up happens over e-mail currently) and as a tool for parents to both stay informed about what their kids are learning, and to give them the resource to have meaningful spirit lead conversations with them. The first four months have been crazy and so my postings on the website have been sporadic at best, and, for some reason, only my first post has stayed up long enough for anyone to read it.
Twitter: LPBC Youth has a twitter account. You can follow us at @LPBC_Youth. Sometimes my blogs can get a bit wordy, and this is a great way of staying up to speed with what’s going on in the youth group 140 characters at a time. I’m new to twitter, so I post rather infrequently here as well. I’m getting better though; my only problem is I remember to post activities an hour after we’ve ended them. Going forward I plan to make twitter a priority. It’s short and doesn’t take a lot of time, so my goal is to tweet something every day, even if nothing in particular is going on; a thought, a bible verse, something to get the motor running.
Facebook: I will be starting a Facebook network for parents of students in our youth group. This will provide regular updates of meetings, lessons, and events, as well as have pictures of events or videos of anything special we do. I will also link the Facebook network with our twitter account, so if you are not on twitter but you use Facebook you can still stay up to date on our updates.
E-mail: e-mail is a format that I think I communicate best through, as it is a tool I spend most of my day using. I think part of the communications problem is I don’t have a number of your e-mails. I am fairly good at keeping the Eureka parents up to date on all the goings on, but I have few if any of the high school parents e-mails. If you would like to receive regular e-mails from me, please send me an e-mail with your name and the name of your child and I would be glad to send you regular updates on what’s going on with our groups. My e-mail is jeffmbaker@live.com.
Paper: are you like me, and find that you are not at all tech-savvy? That’s okay! Because I will be printing a bi-monthly newsletter that I can either mail directly to you, or send home with your child (which might not work, seeing as I never gave anything to my parents when I was a teenager…) These newsletters will contain highlights of weeks past and news of upcoming events!
Now that I’ve told you about my strategies, let me tell you a little about what’s been going on in the group!
Baptism: We are very excited that three of our own are taking the plunge on June 5th! Christine, Chelsea, and Charlotte have all decided to take the next step in their faith and make a public proclamation about their relationship with Jesus. I’m still new, but I’m already so proud of them and honoured that they are going to let me baptize them. This will be my first time performing a baptism, which has the girls a little nervous. There is no need for nerves though, as I plan on practicing extensively on Ryan McKerlie.
Mission: Possible!: Mission possible is a game we play during Sr. High and Eureka where the students are presented with a missional challenge and volunteer for different mission opportunities around the church and the community. After 10 completed challenges the students earn a pizza party/movie night. They have completed all of their challenges and so we will be having our pizza/movie night Friday May 13th for Eureka, and Wednesday May 18th for Sr. high. We’ve had good success with this program but will be altering it in the fall. The points get bigger, the challenges get harder, and the prizes get better.
Sunday Video: If you haven’t seen the Sunday video yet, you can find it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRXSIfEPhyk&feature=feedf This was a great way of getting to know some of the kids in a relaxed atmosphere. I hope to be able to do more projects like this in the future.
Switchfoot: Christine Wozny had a great idea for an activity the group could do outside Wednesday nights. She suggested that those who wanted to could go to a switchfoot concert (Switchfoot is a Christian band, their biggest hit thus far is a song called “dare you to move”). So on Monday the 16th some of our group will be going out to see Switchfoot.
Blizzard and Avalanche: Blizzard and Avalanche are our annual retreats for Sr. and Jr. High respectively. They were great successes this year with challenging messages from Matt Wilkinson and Paul Carter. It was a great way for me to get to know the kids in each group and begin developing meaningful relationships with them, while also getting to see where various students were at spiritually and offering some counselling to those who were working through issues in their lives.
Those are the big events that have been happening this year so far. There have been lots of smaller but equally great moments as well. Many come to mind, many I’m sure have escaped me. All in all they are too numerous to count. If you ever have any questions for me or would like me to go into greater detail about events or ministry moments please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Jeff Baker
Pastor of Youth and Young Adult Ministries
Lorne Park Baptist Church
office: 905-278-7833 x228
cell: 647-456-8090
jeffmbaker@live.com
Thanks and God bless!
Jeff