YES, our youth group has continued to meet in spite of social distancing. They gathered together on ZOOM on the first Sunday evening in April and it went great!
Once things go back to normal…
These young people are gathering on the first Sunday of EVERY month from 5 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. for FUN, FOOD and FAITH!! Yes, we feed them … we have a blast and meet new friends!
Our youth group is not exclusive to St. Paul’s! In fact, our youth group does not even meet at St. Paul’s! But, this gathering of teens is well represented by our teens and our leaders (Pastor Dave and Samm Smith)!!
When several area churches realized that we needed a youth group but none of us had enough kids to do it on our own a “duh” moment occurred and we realized that the best thing for our teens was to be with teens from other churches so that they could develop new friendships! None of the pastors was worried that it wasn’t happening in one of our churches, because what mattered was having a youth group that worked for the kids.
So, we meet at Zion United Methodist Church on Kings Highways in Clarksboro! We still don’t have an official name for the group but what’s cool is one of the teens wants to be a cook for his career so he is preparing our food each month.
What we need is for each of us to think about young people we know who would enjoy being with other young people in a faith-based youth group. With busy schedules we realized that once a month works, so we are looking for your teens … your grandkids who are teens … your neighbors who are teens who can give up 1-½ hours once a month for God, Christ, and new friendships.
The laughter and the smiles are so incredible, but so is the honest discussion. Our District Superintendent, Reverend Myrna Bethke, actually did cartwheels at the February meeting, which is something that Pastor Dave won’t be doing.
So, celebrate our youth group and keep it in your prayers! It’s AWESOME that we can now tell families that YES … St. Paul’s has a youth group that meets EVERY month on the FIRST SUNDAY of the month with teens from other churches at a central location that is easy to get to!
CELEBRATE!