The newsletter comes out occasionally, and provides information & reflection on the latest issues regarding youth, their families and the church.

For current events within SBCC Youth Ministry, go to General Information.

Youth

(Our brochure is currently being revised - please know that what follows is not our most current edition)

"Our goal is not to grow our youth program, but to grow our youth." *

Our goals are:

To help kids to make their faith their own, primarily through one-on-one discipleship: "The most important priority a church can have in its work with teenagers is providing them with opportunities for significant dialogue and relationships with mature Christian adults...It requires a group of adult leaders to make the creation of relationships between adults and teenagers THE CENTRAL PRIORITY of the youth ministry." *

• To serve the students AND their parents: "One of the secrets to a lasting ministry with teenagers is to find ways to undergird nuclear families with the rich support of the extended Christian family of the church and for these two formative families to work together in leading young people toward mature Christian adulthood."

• To equip them to read the Bible for study, devotion, worship and service: "How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word...Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." (Psalm 119:9, 105) Rather than teach kids about the Bible, we want to teach them how to read and study the Bible themselves...

• To help them transition into the larger Body of Christ as adults: "The primary task of a family-based youth ministry is to 'pass the baton' of faith foundation to the extended family of the church."

• To supplement the primary source of Christian instruction (the home): "Parents need help in learning how to provide for the Christian nurture of their children. But youth workers must not merely do for the youth what their Christian parents cannot, or will not, do for them. Instead, we must endeavor to equip those parents to communicate the faith to their teenagers themselves." Parents are the primary spiritual influence in their children's lives, and we merely want to reinforce what they are already teaching and living out to their children. In the case of young people who live in a home with non-believing parents, we will do our absolute best to integrate these youth into the extended family of the church and instruct them in the ways of the faith.

We are to uphold these principles by having our adult youth ministry leaders:

1. Actively participate in a Santa Barbara Community Church home group in order to be encouraged, nurtured and held accountable.

2. Take initiative within the youth ministry to develop relationships with students and to take leadership at any and all youth activities.

3. Start a small group Bible study with students as soon as possible.

4. Recognize the cost of service: "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." 2 Corinthians 8:9

5. Pursue a relationship with a student's family whenever possible.

6. Live a life reflective of Christ! "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children." Ephesians 5:1

Questions? Contact Kelly Soifer.

* Quotes taken from Family-Based Youth Ministry by Mark DeVries