New Year, New Notes

• Our group is growing, and is about to explode in size with the addition of the Bridge tween ministry students when they officially join the youth ministry in January. As always, we need your help to continue all the good things going on, and that has never been more true than this year. What does that mean, practically speaking?
  • In the past we've made it with just one volunteer at many events, even at larger fellowship events. This will be the case less and less. If you see a slot still open even after someone else has signed up for one on the same day, that means we still want you there!
  • This is especially true for men. Before we've focused requests on women volunteers to fulfill our Safe Sanctuaries policy while also maintaining a helpful student-to-adult ratio. Now we need more adults more frequently, and our youth would benefit so much from having a mix of male and female role models (and don't look now, but thanks to the Bridge our boy/girl student ratio is about to shift, too!). Men, come be that helpful presence while also getting to hang out with some of the most energetic, exciting members of our church family. 
  • As mentioned in the Signup Genius link for ENGAGE, we're already feeding the confirmation students this semester since that's what dinner will look like from now on for Sunday nights. If you sign up for dinner, you are free to recruit other folks to help with the larger number but you are the point person for that evening's meal. 
    
• Since this is the first time we've prepared for a Bridge cohort to join the youth ministry, we've had a lot of very understandable questions from students and adults about that process. You'll hear this a few more times, and I'll also be talking to the youth directly more about their role in this happy moment of transition. 
  •  For those without younger students, a reminder: the Bridge is our tween ministry created in 2021. Rather than folks aging in or out every year based on grade, every two years we create a new Bridge cohort. We made this move to give them a more intentional time to reinforce bonds and learning rather than relying solely on the single semester firehose of confirmation. This January the current Bridge students will officially become youth, and in August 2023 we'll take the newly minted 5th and 6th graders to create a new Bridge cohort who will talk together through that formative time. This also ends the awkward double step every other grade went through of joining the youth, then leaving for confirmation. Rather than "missing out" on joining youth early, these students get the added benefit of fellowship and study aimed at their development level between early childhood and their teenage years. 
  • In the meantime, the current Bridgers are all middle schoolers as of this month and will thus be moving up to the middle school Sunday School class. This class, led by the one and only Drew Pruett, will include our 8th graders. The Bridge students will not, however, be part of any youth events until January, instead having their own fellowship events and confirmation classes for their final months before joining us. Conversely, if your student is on the younger end of our youth ministry they aren't going anywhere. They're still coming to ENGAGE, Wednesday night events, special events and service days, etc.