The youth from MBC went on a 3 day retreat this past summer in Guelph. The weekend was filled with games, food, reflection, mediation, sports, and prayer. Our church partnered with another church (who meets at Tyndale) and had a badminton tournament accompanied with worship (led by Nicholas Wong). Our church celebrated Thanksgiving with a turkey and all the
Recently, I (Alvin) finished reading Andrew Zirschky’s book Beyond the Screen: Youth Ministry for the Connected But Alone Generation. This short book highlighted some profound insights on how Generation Z engages social media in the context of community. Some specific insights that caught my attention: One key reason why many youth gravitate to technology is “not primarily for its entertainment value or cool factor, but because of its potential to
Our VBS camp this August brought in a lot of new faces to our youth group, as new volunteer leaders from the local high-school and current youth group members were brought much closer as a tight-nit group. The new members transitioned into our weekly youth group seamlessly. Now we have a larger group with a strong drive and motivation to be at church as much as possible. Every member attends our
Snow is falling (and staying depending on what area of Quebec or Ontario you’re living in). Retailers have already set up their Christmas decorations. How is your youth group preparing for advent? Some considerations: What transitions are worth keeping? Contrarily, what traditions should be adapted into something different? What expressions of Advent would speak to your neighbourhood? How would the message of Jesus resonate with your community? What media would
I (Jon Matthews, youth pastor at Kingsway) had a really encouraging phone call with one of our students who is in University now (3rd year). As we were talking and she was sharing how she now has a church in town she goes to weekly, arranging her work schedule so every week she can have Sunday mornings free. And that she is part of discipleship group with another Para-church organization.
In the last few months, I (Alvin) have had the honour of working alongside the Church Life team with the Small Church Envisioning days (the last session is this Saturday at Immanuel Baptist Church in Toronto). While there have been several inter-department collaborations in the past, this round reminded me of its importance. Here are a few insights. I can (and should) learn from others. Admittedly, I sometimes have a
Last Saturday, I had the privilege of attending parts of the Toronto Children’s Ministry Conference. (Tanya Yuen was one of the key organizers.) At face value, it may not make sense for the “youth guy” to be at a children’s ministry conference. However, strengthening a child’s move from children’s ministry to youth ministry is crucial. A few years ago, Tanya and I wrote a booklet called “Faith Formation in Children
With October 31 approaching, many kids (and youth) are preparing for Halloween by getting costumes ready. Households are stocking up on treats. Whether or not you choose to participate in Halloween traditions, Halloween can be an opportunity for Christian ministry. Some churches decide to host events such as fall fairs, which can be opportunities to offer safe gathering places for neighbourhood young people. The key for this option isn’t to
Recently Matt, Meghan, and Alvin have been reassessing how we gauge our effectiveness with our CBOQ churches, specifically with youth ministries and their progressions. Through prayer and discussion, we’ve come up with a 3-tier engagement approach that will help us better evaluate our ministry. (Note: The tiers are not indicative of importance; they simply provide us with three different ways to measure engagement.) TIER 1 Every year, we will compile
Last Monday to Wednesday (October 7-9, 2019), 12 youth pastors came to Camp Kwasind to tackle Renegotiating Faith (RF). We were honoured to have Rick Hiemstra (Director of Research with the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada and principal author of RF). Rick led our group through some key insights from RF and other thoughts on attention, social media and its impact on youth. This led to some great in-depth conversations as
