Senior High Pastor Zach Fallon

Zach Fallon

We thank God and give him all glory for another year of passing on the saving message of the gospel to our beloved students. Even as every ministry faced COVID challenges, it has been encouraging to see students engaging with God’s Word and worshiping Jesus as they have grown in their grasp of the height, depth and width of the love of Christ.

We’ve had various ways in which students could grow in their faith this year. Last summer we introduced a summer cohort ministry where students gathered in backyards and at parks for fellowship and study of the Book of Galatians. We saw how the Apostle Paul taught that we are “set free by Christ alone.” We had about 20 adult leaders who sacrificially served in leading eight cohorts (grade and gender specific).

As we moved into the fall, we began our fourth year of our Bridge Fellowship ministry. Over the years this ministry has been such a joy to me personally. Bridge is the capstone opportunity that HYACKs offers to our high school students. It is intended to help upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) cross into Christian adulthood. This year we have 24 wonderful, mature, fun and growing students. I couldn’t be prouder of them for staying engaged this year and growing in Christ together.

If you are interested in learning more about Bridge Fellowship, you can do so here (issuu.com/hyacks/docs/bridge_fellowship_2021-2022) Many thanks especially to our leaders who serve in this ministry: Katie Nussbaum, Kolby and Bethany Atchison, Nick Girgis, Lindsey Befus and the wonderful Christine Fallon.

I’m also pleased to report that this past year we started a midweek ministry for underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores) called Rooted Fellowship. We wanted to help students be even more prepared for Bridge Fellowship as upperclassmen, so Rooted has aimed to help create strong relational bonds for our underclassmen as they grow, using a curriculum geared towards grounding their understanding of the gospel and of God’s Word. This past year they have made their way through the Old Testament portion of the curriculum and saw how each part points to the gospel. We have about 30-40 underclassmen regularly involved in this ministry. Praise God! This ministry has been blessed to be led by Addie Teevans, who has done a wonderful job of seeing this new ministry community develop and thrive.

We have also been blessed by the excellent teaching gifts of one of our pastoral residents, Mike Solis. Our leaders have done a great job connecting with students and showing them the truth of God’s Word: Meredith and Jeff Sommars, Ashley Ramsland, Kayla Costley, Mike Walsh, Jake Fernandes and Daniel Conroy.

It has also been a joy to gather as a whole HY- ACKS community on Sunday evenings this past year. We gathered in Commons parking lot until the weather got too cold and have been meeting in the Commons Gym since November 2020. We have typically had about 70-90 students and 25 leaders come to have fun (HYACKs Cup!) and study the Bible.

In the fall we dipped our toes into the Book of Hebrews and saw how Christ is better and the fulfillment of all the Old Testament foreshadowed. This spring we did a worldview and apologetics study called “Gospel Glasses” and talked about how everyone has a worldview, and God calls us to see all things through the reality of Christ. To finish the semester, we have been doing a series through the parables of

Jesus and seeing how Jesus teaches us eternal truths through earthly stories. As always, we pray that these gathering times on Sunday evenings would grow our students’ understanding of the gospel, their love for Christ and their convictions of the truthfulness and authority of his Word.

A special thanks is in order for Katie Nussbaum. Katie has been a faithful servant of Christ, always reliable, full of joyful energy and expressing thoughtful and intentional love for our students. She puts the fun in HYACKs and is a wonderful blessing to our ministry and church family!

For the third year in a row, we continued a discipleship ministry called Project Discipleship. This ministry pairs two to four students with one to two adult leaders to read the Bible and learn how to understand it better. This year we have 16 groups and 44 students participating in this ministry. We use Crossway’s new resource

Unfolding Grace to help facilitate Bible reading and discussion. It has been wonderful to see and hear reports of students growing in their understanding of God’s grace to them in Christ and how God has operated in salvation history.

As Christine and I make the transition to College Church’s new church plant this coming summer, we express our gratitude and love for you all, our beloved College Church family. Thank you for entrusting me with the sacred task of spiritually investing in your students. I love each of them. As I have already shared with many of them, “once your pastor, always your pastor.” We will miss you all and covet your prayers for the progress of the gospel in South Metro Atlanta. If you are ever in town, please let us know and we can continue to have fellowship with our Savior together. May the Lord bless you all and our student ministries in the years ahead.