New Small Groups Starting this Sunday

According to the rethink group (www.rethinkgroup.org) 80% of kids that graduate from high school youth groups also graduate from church. Meaning they step away from church when they go off to college. Some return once they have families, but many are gone unless they have an experience (relationship, tragedy, life change) that helps them return to their faith.

How do we as a church change these statistics (because many times they also step away from their faith, not just the church)? Two "things" have been shown to help these statistics. One is teens that serve in church and the other is small group.

If a student was active in a small group or serving when they leave for college many times they will seek out a church that will offer them a similar experience. We utilize Student Impact and have a great group of teens serving on Sunday morning (Nick, Tristan, Riley, Alex, Mary, Cori, Ashley, Rachel and Alissa) Rick also helps with sound when needed. So if they will commit to serve, we will find a place for them to serve.

Every Sunday morning there are small groups for children beginning at age 2 (it's so cute to see those little boys we have right now in the nursery learning each others names). The goal is to get them used to their group, move up with their group, sometimes their leaders will move up with them and then when they move to youth group in seventh grade their groups can go deeper.

So, this Sunday there is a new group for all 2/3's at 11:00 am. We have a whole group of little boys that are ready for this and I hope their parents will see the value and get them in this group each week. They could move up together all through high school. That would be a win.

Then there is also a small group starting this week for 5th & 6th graders in room 111 at 11:00. We've had a group at 9:45 am on Sunday mornings but finally we have leaders for the 11:00 group. This is a more difficult age group as they are easily distracted and they are very active. I'm so excited that Kay Kidwell, a retired Middle School Teacher will be leading these students through a small group study on the fruit of the spirit and then through Starting Point.

Pray for both of these groups that the leaders will passionately embrace the students and have a life long impact.