Youth Ministry Year Plan Proposal

Christ Our King Lutheran Church

By Youth Director Andi Lynch

11/20/13

For the coming 2014 year our youth ministry team has come up with a

yearlong ministry plan that is consistent to our purpose here at Christ Our King

Lutheran Church. We currently have 69 families with adolescents as members at

our church and this includes 102 teens that we as a church are responsible to help

guide and grow in faith.

As a church it is important to keep track of your members to see how they

are growing and to make sure that you do not loose some along the way. Christ Our

King currently is using the database called Servant Keeper and we as a youth staff

want to continue to use this program to keep track of our youth. We want to track

lots of useful information so we can better understand our youth and their families.

We want to keep track of information such as how many members are in a family,

siblings, names, ages, school, grade they are in, birthday, baptismal birthday,

allergies, medication, special needs, special talents, spiritual gifts, emergency

contact information, and normal contact information. Currently our church

secretary Vicky has been doing a great job keeping the database current, we would

like to help her by having parents and youth updating the database at least twice a

year. Before Sunday school starts I would like to have a program on a laptop so that

teens and parents can electronically update the database in order to sign up for
classes and Sunday school. At the end of the year I want to hold an end of the year

party so that we can update the database one more time.

Youth ministry is an important ministry for the continuation of the church. It

is important for youth to have a sense of belonging and to say active in the church in

their teen years because so many youth fall away from the church after they

graduate from high school. If you look at our church’s organization chart youth

ministry fits level with all of the other ministries on the church council. As a youth

ministry team we love the way our church puts an emphasis on the importance of all

the ministries and has all of the leaders from each ministry in the church council.

Each ministry helps the whole body of Christ work together and no one ministry is

more important than the other.

The purpose of Christ Our Kings Youth Ministry is to provide youth and their

families with a safe place that is dedicated to provide resources and helping them

grow and develop in faith together through active worship, service, and fellowship.

We hope to accomplish all of this by first finding what the need is for the families

that have youth and the youth themselves. As a youth staff we want to give out

assessment surveys and have some questionnaires though different focus groups

that we have here at our church. The first step would be to get permission from the

parents, pastor, and church council, and then we could give out the survey. On the

survey parents and youth will receive lists of topics asking how comfortable they

feel about the topic from the numbers 1 (being not at all) to 5 (saying I feel strong

about this). With this survey we hope to address where our families and youth are

on the topics of Doctrine, Faith, the Bible, comfort with the church, how the church
can help them, and how they can serve. The surveys will also have a place where

people can write down a different topic in that we did not have a chance to mention.

We hope to give out an initial survey when we have the parents and youth fill out

the information for the database, we will also be doing smaller surveys, or

questionnaires during big events we have here at the church. We plan on sharing

the results with the church council, parents, and congregation and we are sharing by

having church announcements before service, presenting the information to the

church council in meetings, and having a special family night where families can

come enjoy some activities and receive the information.

Our leadership team came together and has integrated a vision for the youth

ministry. Our vision is that Christ Our King is a welcoming community that brings

teens and their families to Christ and continues to help them grow in the faith of

Christ Jesus. We will provide resources for families to be the primary faith growers

of their children. Teens will be empowered and welcome through many different

means: through lock-ins, bible study, group events and many other means geared

toward teens. Teens will be involved and grow through participation in the worship

services, and participate in services in the community and through fellowship with

one another. We have taken our vision and have created 6 different goals that we

hope to accomplish during the year. Our goals include…1) that teens by the end of

the year will be able to have a connection with at least one leader and state that

leader and a time when they were helped by them. 2) By the end of the year teens

will understand what their personal faith means to them and they are actively
reading the Bible one day a week. 3) Families will have completed one of the tasks

on a take away that they have received through out the year. 4) By 6 months teens

will be able to say their gifts and talents and will have served at least once in

another ministry in the church. 5) Teens will be able to state what biblical serving

means to them and will have served in the community at least once by the end of the

year. 6) Teens complete a general bible quiz before and after the year and will

receive a higher grade at the end of the year.

In order to fulfill the needs of the teens and their families we as a leadership

team have come up with different events through out the year that will help fulfill

our vision and help grow the people in our ministry. To cater our ministry toward

families we have decided to have an average of 3 events a week. With only having 3

events a week this will help the family save some money because they are not

constantly driving to the church, and it also gives a chance for the family to spend

time together. For this year we have planned Sunday morning bible classes (47

events), Sunday night Bible/life application study (47 events), Wednesday evening

youth nights (45 events), parent nights once a month on Wednesday night (12

events), one mega event (National Youth Gathering), two super events (1 lock in and

Spring Hill Camp), fellowship celebrations (Christmas Party, etc (6)), and lastly once

a month youth board meetings (12) for a grand total of 172 events.

We have crunched the prices and numbers for our budget and have come up

with a good estimate at what all of our events will cost. All of our events have been

sculpted to the vision of our ministry and for the continuous growth and faith

development of our youth and their families. Our Sunday morning classes will cost
$800, Sunday Night $1,000, Wednesday youth and parent nights $1,300, Mega event

$5,000, Super events $2,000 and board meetings $200. The total amount of money

in which we would like to spend on our events is $11,500. For administration and

office supplies we are asking $500, promotions $800, postage $400, Web and

electronic costs $200, travel $3,000, books and materials $200, conferences $4,000,

volunteer training $200, appreciation $200, ETC. $250. The total amount of money

in which we would like to spend for supplies is $9,750 for a grand total of $21,250.

It is important to evaluate how events have gone and if our youth ministry is

reaching their goals. So in order to assess how our ministry is doing we came up

with these assessment steps. After each event there will be a random parent, teen,

and leader selected to take a quick survey to see how that event went and to see if it

had completed its purpose. At the end of the year party we plan to hand out our big

survey to assess how the program went for the entire year, this survey will be given

to all parents, teens, and teachers so that they can give us their input.

Youth ministry is important for the kingdom of God, it is not just keeping

teens out of trouble but it is empowering, teaching, and guiding teens to be active

followers of God. Youth ministry is guiding and showing teens how to take hold of

their faith and act on it in all environments that they find themselves in. We are

teaching them how to become powerful young men and women that will one day

start a family of their own and become the primary faith growers of their children.