Young People Portfolio Team

Archbishop Desmond Tutu writing a foreword in "Youth ministry in a time of crisis" by Di Scott, said,

“I am writing this foreword only a few days after the feast of St. Francis, a young person whom God used powerfully to advance the purpose of his Kingdom. It set me to promote the cause of Kingdom. Just think for instance of people such as Joseph, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, the Blessed Mary and even Jesus Christ himself.

The young people of today will be part of the church today but they will not be part of the church in a complacement and comfortable way, for they are different and they understand Christian discipleship to mean a suffering servant hood and a critical involvement of the church in the affairs of the community is essential."

THE OBJECTIVE OF AN EFFECTIVE YOUTH MINISTRY

To enable young people to encounter Jesus Christ. In our ministry to young people, we do need to be continually wrestling together with the question “what is the meaning of Christ and Christian Faith for us today?
To provide opportunities for young people to explore the question: “who am I”. As we explore this question together, it is hoped that they would come to see themselves as persons who is unique and worthy, people who possesses special gifts and abilities, which need to be recognized and developed.
To help young people in their search for deeper relationships. We must constantly be enabling them to discover ways of building healthy deeper relationship with other people.
To provide with opportunities for joyful and celebrative worships.

Programmes to meet the objectives

To explore the alternative from traditional youth group or youth ministry. It is important to look at the history of the parish’s youth ministry. What has been done in the past? What is going on right now? Have there been problems in the past and what worked and what did not work?
Systems theory of organization applied to a group.
Collecting data, an effort needs to be made to collect accurate data in order to work from the base of the needs of the group concerned.
Risk taking: to enable young people to examine their behavior with regard to taking risk.
Personal value clarification: to explore our own values and assess whether what we call our values are in fact values. To encourage critical awareness of current values in the community - e.g Heartlines program.
Becoming a community, making an expression of commitment to the group.
Who am I to : (a) others, (b) myself, (c) Jesus Christ. Also focus on personal growth in the group. Focus on relationship-Jesus demonstrated during his life on earth that caring for people and loving them is what life is all about.
Exploring the Bible as God’s word. Who is Jesus Christ?
The church and the different denominations. What is Anglicanism?
The Christian lifestyle. To explore what Christian lifestyle means and explore how we live so as to move towards such a lifestyle.
Family life: to explore issues related to sex, marriages and family.
A new look at leadership. What should a Christian leader be trying to do?
Goal setting and program planning. Questions to be asked: What is our vision as young people? What do we want to accomplish?
Guidelines for evaluation.
Stewardship (Renew-Material)
Diocesan Vision. A given vision is a flexible dream of where God seems to be taking the young people.

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