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Youth Pastor's Annual Report |
Andy
Pullen, Pastor of Student Ministries
What a wonderful opportunity
it has been serving here at GCBC! Since being hired and starting on September
10, 2006, Jill and I have been so blessed by this church family.
It has been an amazing and challenging few months serving the families
here. It wouldn’t be half as
amazing without the help of those on volunteer staff.
The Clarks and Emilie Hendryx have been so faithful and generous with
their time and energy.
In both the High School and
Jr. High programs, we have been focusing on becoming Kingdom-minded.
Jesus told us that the two greatest commandments are to love God with all
of our heart, soul and mind and to love others as we love ourselves (Matthew
22). The Kingdom of God isn’t
about us… it’s about emptying ourselves as Christ did (Philippians 2).
He modeled this for us when he washed his disciples’ feet (John 13).
Our ministry logo and motto reflect the idea of looking outside of
ourselves... growing in God and serving others.
We are working on various applications in regard to service for the
upcoming year. Additionally, we are
trying to fit in at least one special event per month in both the Jr. High and
High School ministries.
We have had some great fun
getting to know the high school students. Bill
and Sue Turner hosted a game night in September. We took them to a corn field maze in October, which ended up
being much easier than we anticipated. Hopefully
it will take longer than five minutes if we ever go again!
We also had a Christmas and a New Year’s party in December.
Jesus modeled for us that
ministry should never be done alone. As
a developing team of high school staff, we have been focusing on encouraging and
praying for each other and for the students, and getting on the same page with t
he program. We
meet once a month to share life with each other and talk about the ministry,
because we see ministry to the students only happens when we have been
ministered to. In the last few
weeks, we have seen three new potential staff members step up to see where they
might fit in the high school group. That
has been such an encouraging and exciting few weeks.
We have a place for them should they find this ministry a good fit.
The Jr. High program started
us off in September with three students. We
now usually see six to ten every Wednesday.
We are trying to develop that as a ministry that can stand on its’ own,
and have seen tremendous strides toward that.
We are putting out a newsletter specifically for the Jr. High ministry,
and trying to provide separate events from the high school as much as we can.
Pray that the Lord continues to provide us with insight as to how to
strengthen that program.
This following Christmas
break, we held two events with the young adults, with good turn-out and great
feedback. We had a game night at
the Village Grind… the owners were very welcoming and generous.
Secondly, we had a movie night at our house, followed by an amazing
discussion about fear and truth. We are in the works on a Sunday School class
and a consistent ministry. We hope to kick that off at the start of Summer, hopefully
giving it enough momentum to last through the following school year.
Any prayer and volunteer support for that is very welcome.
We have a number of exciting
opportunities for ministry lining up for the spring and summer, and even
reaching into next winter. With
prayer, I am confident that we will see genuine growth in the students as we
make disciples who make disciples.
In Him and for them,
Andy Pullen,
Pastor of Student Ministries