YOUTH LINKS Diocesan Youth Pages My Faith My Life * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * NEW BEGINNINGS New Beginnings is a weekend retreat focusing on two great commandments: loving God will all of our heart, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbors as ourselves. April 23-25, 2010 For Students in 6-8 Grade Grace Cathedral, Topeka Registration forms available in January.

Acoltye Schedules ON THE AGENDA... SUMMER CAMP AT CAMP WOOD Senior High Camp: June 6-12 Junior High Camp: June 13-19 Intermediate Camp: June 20-26 For Girls Only Weekend: June 26-28 MISSIONPALOOSA July 13-18 @ St Paul's in KC

HAPPENING #84 When: February 19-21, 2010 Where: Right here at St. James Who: High School Students (adults can also attend) Register: Download More info: Contact Karen Schlabach or Renee Blinn * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch for our SUPPERS TO GO!

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