KJV 1611 Only

Ministry Head: Rob Wright (1993-present)

Assistant: Tracy Tuttle (2003-present)

Start Date: 1989

Ministry Vision Verse: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” -Proverbs 22:6

Mission (Goal): The goal of our youth ministry is first and foremost to ensure each young person has experienced a personal, biblical salvation experience through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Sound Bible doctrines such as inspiration and preservation of scripture (I.e. the King James Bible, 1611), eternal security of the believer, personal spiritual growth, remaining pure for marriage, church attendance and participation, winning the lost, Biblical separation from the world, etc., should be thoroughly presented and often repeated in order to ensure our youth are properly grounded in these and other critically important areas. Tangible avenues to personal involvement in church ministry in a committed, surrendered fashion must be provided to them if the church of tomorrow is not only to survive, but to continue to thrive. Directly approaching the specific issues facing our teens in a Biblical, loving, but uncompromising manner must enable them to gain the greatest advantage toward living a successful, joyous and productive Christian life. Youth Group activities should ensure an alternative to the world’s allurement with Christ centered activities providing Christian fun and excitement with others without ungodly influences found elsewhere.

Impact since Start: The Youth Group of our church has seen tremendous growth. It has grown from 7 teenagers in 1993 to more than 37 regularly attending teenagers. Most of our current youth are also involved in one or more church ministries such as the bus ministry, choir, musicians, church nursery (young ladies), and as counselors for the 4-7 and 8-12 year olds camps sponsored by our church. Many of our teens have graduated the teen class to later find themselves in Bible College, in full-time service on the mission fields of Mongolia and Greece; making other mission trips across the globe including Australia, Fiji, and Russia; piano, organ, wind and string instrument musicians’ in the church; some graduates are now heading up specific ministries in our church and other churches. Our assistant Pastor and wife are graduates of our teen class. We have striven to ensure our church teens have activities specific to them and each activity is especially open to visitors to show our teen’s friendliness and how Christian teenagers can have fun that honors our Lord Jesus Christ! Our youth group is alive and dynamic, and is continuing to grow not just numerically, but more importantly, spiritually!

Difficulties to Deal with: One of the most insidious and damaging challenges facing the church today is the case of children being raised in “good churches” by “good families” and still not being born again. Too many “fundamental” church teens today are practicing “conformation” without “regeneration” from a new birth in Christ Jesus. This is without doubt one of the most effective and eternally-catastrophic strategies ever employed against the church by our adversary, the Devil. Children are a true reflection and product of the home. Regardless how much Bible teaching and preaching they receive at church, they will typically grow only as spiritually-tall as the spiritually-shortest parent, or worse. Standards (or lack thereof) in the home verses different standards at the church are enormously (and eternally) harmful and most often impossible to overcome in 45 minutes once a week in the Sunday school classroom or any variety of teen church activities combined. The absence of family-devotions and the family-alter are a sure formula for spiritual disaster. The results to the children: indifference and even resentment to God, the church and church activities. More often than not, it causes them to quit attending church some or altogether when they “come of age” and becoming as castaways.

Special Notes (Things to pray about):  Salvation for lost young people! Pray that our young folks who have never truly accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Savior might accept Him before it is eternally too late. Pray for our young folks who are saved, sanctified and serving to maintain the course and continue growing in the Lord! Pray for our youth from broken homes, homes without spiritually minded parents, homes with loose Biblical standards or no Biblical standards at all. Now, more than ever before, it seems our young folks are facing an ever increasing pressure from the world and sometimes even other professing Christians to relent from any semblance of a Christian stand and to conform to a worldly image. It is only through much prayer, and sound, consistent Bible preaching and teaching that our youth will ever succeed in living a successful, fruitful, Christ-centered life!