Bridging the Youth Gap

There is a lot of great stuff going on with the youth ministry at Restoration. Working with APEX (our middle and high school ministry) is the main part of my job, and it is such a gift to be involved. We have some awesome kids with great personalities and a team of really talented, dedicated leaders that disciple our youth.

You may have heard it said that the church is called to a two-fold mission: to disciple members within the church and to impact the broader community. As Christians, we invest heavily in strengthening the faith of our church family, but we also care deeply about what happens in our neighborhoods and cities and want to see them thrive. Over the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking and praying about what this second aspect of our mission might look like, specifically regarding Restoration’s youth ministry. I’m thrilled with the discipleship that’s going on within our church, and I think the time is right to start dreaming about ways to impact the youth of our broader community.

I’d love to see Restoration be a resource to the middle and high school students in our area, both for the individual students and the schools as a whole. There are any number of ways that we can approach this: from volunteering with sports teams, to tutoring, to mentoring kids.

A team is coming together to think about the best ways to reach the youth in our community.  We’ll start with brainstorming and won’t waste any time in implementing our ideas.  Our first meeting will be this Thursday, 10/24, from 7:30-9pm at my house in Arlington.

Is this something you feel called to? It will involve a combination of loving teenagers and a lot of creativity and thinking outside the box. If you ask me, that sounds like a pretty cool combination. If this sounds appealing, we need people like you to be part of this team!

There are many reasons God has called us to build a church in North Arlington. One of those reasons is to have an impact on the teenagers around us. I’d love it if you joined me in that effort. You can reach me at clay@restorationarlington.org if you’re interested or have any questions.

-Clay