Helps Change Church Culture
G
rowing Young is more than a program; it’s much like a long-term investment. If your church is looking to make a culture change, Growing Young will help you do this over time. As one of the Growing Young Team Members at First Baptist Church in New Bern (FBC New Bern), I have seen some small but significant changes since we began. Our Growing Young cohort began right before the worldwide pandemic of COVID-19, so our timing was
Youth from First Baptist-New Bern.
probably not the best, but God continues to demonstrate how His timing is always perfect. Through the tools learned in Growing Young, our church engaged young people (defined as ages 15 to 29) in as many ways as we could in the midst of such an “abnormal” time in our history. During Advent of 2020, we invited young people to talk in-person or by video about what they enjoyed most about Christmas and to share what Christmas means to them in their personal testimonies. This was one of the highlights from all of 2020 in my opinion. In a year when more was planned and then canceled than any other year in my lifetime, the true meaning of Christmas from the perspective of our young people became our church’s major focus of Advent 2020. We continued to engage young people moving forward. Young people ran PowerPoint during our 8:45 a.m. nontraditional service for most of 2021 when we were 14 | The Gathering
By Jeremy Slagle
Associate Pastor of meeting in our Family Life Center. Youth and Family Life Our Pastoral Staff intentionally asked First Baptist-New Bern our young people to read our Call to Worship as a focal point for Growing Young. In our youth ministry, we have had a young person step up to serve as a small group leader for our Middle School young ladies. Through Growing Young, we learned that extensive research shows that once most young people graduate from high school, they feel there is nowhere that exactly fits them in the church. Hannah Garner was also a member of FBC New Bern’s Growing Young Team and she seemed to already feel this way. Thanks to Growing Young, she stepped up in that small group leader role. She is also a chaperone for some of our youth trips and has brought some much-needed excitement to our youth ministry during the pandemic. Hannah has taken these keys to leadership in our youth ministry which I have felt God leading me to hand to her. One of these keys is connecting with our youth through the use of Instagram. I am thankful for Growing Young and the ways that God has already used this resource to empower young people because they are not the future of our church; they are the present. Hannah understands that the ministry of presence is so important and often overlooked. As a small group leader it is vital to show up and provide consistency to our youth. Hannah not only shows up but shows up ready to make an impact in the lives of our youth. Thanks be to God for Growing Young and for leaders everywhere like our own Hannah Garner! Growing Young is a CBFNC initiative in partnership with Fuller Youth Institute to help churches better welcome and engage young people ages 15 to 29. We now have 18 Growing Young “alumni” churches in North Carolina that have completed the year-long program. The 2022 cohort began in January and recruitment for 2023 will take place this fall. For more information about Growing Young, visit cbfnc.org/engage/growing-young.
