April Activities
April Activities
Student Registration and $50.00 fee is due
Wednesday, April 11th.
Please encourage your students to attend
We will have our last meeting with this years NYI Council after the morning service.
What is a D-Now Weekend?
“DNow”stands for Disciple Now. So, a D-Now Weekend is focused on discipleship for those in attendance. Disciple Now Weekend is a weekend retreat for our youth group.
Discipleship Oriented
While some retreat weekends are more about getting away and hanging out, DNow Weekends put a high premium on discipleship. There are Large Group sessions where a speaker can move the weekend’s theme along from a big-picture perspective. And there are super-intentional Small Group times where students go deeper with their individual small group leaders. It’s a focused time of spiritual growth and application.
Host Homes & Small Groups
“Host Homes” are a key feature of DNow Weekends. A host home is where a family in the church agrees to host a Small Group for the weekend. The small group leader & the students will meet in the host home for Bible Study (when they aren’t at the church for Large Group sessions, or other activities). They’ll will spend two nights with the host home family. It’s an AMAZING way to get a greater portion of the church involved in the lives of the youth.
Service Opportunities
One of the aspects of the DNow Weekend is to use the free time to do some sort of mission project in our community. While giving students a chance to just hang out and enjoy each other’s company definitely has its place, we will dedicate some time on Saturday to serving in the community. This puts an even greater emphasis on discipleship and helps students understand the importance of living out their faith.
The cost for D-Now weekend is $50. That includes a Student Book, Follow Up Journal, Meals, and T-shirt!
See Pastor Darren for a Parent Information Packet, to see how you can be involved in this amazing weekend.
One of the main reasons I remain focused on young people as my life work is because it is such an important time for developing a relationship with God. It's exciting to see teens explore their spirituality, but it's also a bit scary for us parents. As they move from a concrete faith to a more abstract way of thinking, they just may say and do some things that go against their parents' views. While in college, our daughter Christy felt she had to disown our faith to eventually claim her own faith. Interestingly enough, her faith still looks quite similar to ours.
This is the stage in their faith development where teens may not want to go to church, or they might say things about God just to get you upset. It is a time of passionate belief and passionate doubt. One morning they may sincerely feel called to be a missionary, and later in the day they will tell you they don't believe in God anymore and they want nothing to do with church. Both feelings are real, for the time being, both feelings are a normal part of their faith development. The worst things parents can do is freak out, panic or put down their child during this time of searching. Young people are on a spiritual quest, and we can't mistake skepticism or doubt as a sign that they are not interested.
Parents must also avoid smothering their kids with their own faith. Sure you can set expectations (like church attendance,) but don't spend much time preaching at them. Allow and even affirm the difficult questions. A healthy faith has room for questions. And whenever possible, empower them to put their faith in action. During a tenuous time in the faith development of one of my own daughters, we went on a foreign mission trip together. The experience of putting her faith in action caused her to do some very important thinking, and after college graduation, she moved to Ecuador to invest a year of her life working with kids.
Teens today are very experiential. They need opportunities to put their faith in action. Obviously, we can't all go with our kids to a foreign country to do mission work, but we can help them find the time to give them the opportunity to do hands-on ministry and learn that the call to Christ is the call to serve.