ON THE AGENDA. . . FALL FUN FEST September 25-26, 2010 @ St Margaret's in Lawrence HAPPENING #85 November 12-14, 2010 Location TBD MIQRA January 15-17, 2011 Grace Cathedral

YOUTH LINKS Acoltye Schedules Diocesan Youth Pages My Faith My Life

YOUTH NEWS Fall Fun Fest - The Diocese of Kansas youth program kicks off the school year with an exciting retreat featuring thrilling games and a live concert with Isabel Zacharias, an exceptionally talented youth from St. Michael's who is a singer and song writer. The event is fun and welcoming and a great chance to attend a youth event for the first time. Invite a friend and don't miss it! It’s for youth in grades 6-12 and takes place September 18-19 at St.Margaret's, Lawrence. Registrations and more information are available at http://www.episcopal-ks.org/youth/fallfunfest.html Youth Pages for Diocesan Convention - One way that youth can participate in Diocesan Convention is to serve as a page. Youth pages help with the administration of Convention, such as delivering and collecting ballots and distributing other materials. Serving as a page is an excellent opportunity to learn about the common mission of the diocese and to represent the youth of the diocese. Youth pages should be in grades 8-12. Contact Youth Missioner Chad Senuta by September 15 at csenuta@episcopal-ks.org to register a youth to be a page. Youth Group Committee Meeting - We will be holding a Youth Group Committee meeting on Sunday, September 12 after the 11:15 service to discuss Junior and Senior Youth Group programs at the church. This committee is only now being created and any interested participants are welcomed. All youth leaders and any interested adults are invited to attend.

This has been an exciting yet challenging year for our Youth Ministry program. The exciting part is that we have a healthy program. We have a program that provides a Christian formational and supportive environment for our youth, sharing God’s love and feeding them with experiences, religious education, fun, and other enrichment opportunities. We work very hard at being “present” to our young people and practicing an incarnational ministry.

We are blessed to have the finest team of Youth Ministers in the diocese and probably the country. Each youth minister educates, mentors, models Christian living, and supports not only the group they are specializing in, but all the youth. Our youth ministers are of varied ages, backgrounds, education, and personalities giving us a rich variety of people for our youth to connect with. CJ Strehl and John Breiner minister to the High School Junior and Seniors, Amanda and Drew Rucker minister to the J2A group which are 9th & 10th graders, Ashley Petty, Grace Rucker, and Teresa Rogers minister to the Rite 13 group which are ages 6th – 8th grade. Frances Nunz-Smith ministers to our youth when her work and studies allow. All but I work as volunteers and dedicate huge amount of their lives to our young people. I would safely say they dedicate five or more hours a week to working with our program. Please thank them when you see them for the fine job they do.

Our program changed this year as a result of evaluating our program and what is being recommended nationally. Changing our program has allowed us to utilize our resources to the fullest when our youth are available and gives them an opportunity to be together twice a week. The program now shares the educational piece primarily on Wednesday evening along with games and worship. This allows us to be available to youth that attend services at times other than Sunday morning. It gives parents some flexibility in what services they attend or if they need to go out of town. On Sunday morning we meet with our youth for fellowship and conversation. Having a more casual time to be together is very important. Even though this time may appear to be frivolous or unguided to the naked eye it is a very important time of support and being a part of our youth’s lives. Getting to know who they are and spending time just listening and talking without an agenda is essential in today’s youth culture.

We have also widened our program and now provide an opportunity for youth from other Episcopal parishes in the area to join us on Wednesday evenings. Our sister parishes in town have just a few youth at this time in there parishes and over the years these kids have found their way to our doors by invitation of a friend from a diocesan event or school. So we are in the experimental stage of developing a more formal relationship of shared ministry for our youth. This is an exciting and God given opportunity for us here at St. James. At this time we have youth attending from St. John’s and St. Stephen’s parishes. We are hoping to see youth from St. Andrew’s Derby joining us soon.

Come join us -- have fun and learn about God!

St. James Youth have many opportunities to serve:

For more information on St. James youth events, contact Teresa Rogers at teresa@stjameswichita.org. For Episcopal Diocese of Kansas Youth events, contact http://www.episcopal-ks.org/youth/index.html.

Youth Photo Gallery