Youth work

By Gerry Straker, 28 Sep 2016

At Church by the Bay our four youthwork principles are:

1. Parental responsibility

The Bible gives the responsibility of bringing children up in the faith to parents. Where parents are Christians, our role at Church is to support parents in the home bringing up their children in the knowledge and love of Jesus.

2. Young People really need God's Word

God's Word brings life, God's Word helps us face any and every situation and God's Word will do its work! The Bible itself is joyful, engaging, relevant, delightful and good for our young people - including when it challenges us deeply. Bible teaching when done properly is relevant and can be great fun. At Church by the Bay, God's Word is at the centre in order to teach our young people to be disciples of Christ who make more disciples for Christ.

3. We can expect great things from young people

In the Bible young people can do great things (check out Joshua, Samuel, David and Paul's nephew). We want to encourage young people not to pursue pleasure, but to pursue excellence. To that end, we think young people can cope in the main meeting where they are taught by the Church leaders. With parental support and Church support they can do this, and Sunday School has been getting them ready for this step. While this might seem hard, many other things that we think are worthwhile are hard especially to start with (such as learning to ride a bike), but we pursue things with our children precisely because we think they are worthwhile!

4. Church will support parents and young people

We provide youthsheets on Sunday that help young people follow the sermon, and on Mondays evenings we now have Real Food Micro.

Real Food Micro

Real Food Micro is a Real Food group for 11-14s where Sunday's Bible passage is discussed, applied and prayed to help our young people grow in knowing God, build relationships and enjoy God's good gifts of food and drink together!

It's at 91 Balmoral Road, 5:30pm - 7:00pm. The dates for Autumn term are:

Monday 3rd October
Monday 10th October
Monday 17th October
Monday 24th October
Half Term
Monday 7th November
Monday 14th November
Monday 21st November
Monday 28th November
Monday 5th December
Monday 12th December