September 2017 Newsletter: A New Program Model

There’s some new stuff happening in youth ministry at MPC this school year. To help explain why, here’s a stupidly simplified three sentence history lesson:

It used to be (parents you’ll remember this) that everybody in high school wanted to be the jock or cheerleader. But today, there are a wide variety of unique peer groups, and youth are completely comfortable in whichever group they fit into. In addition to this, youth and their families are insanely busy.

More than you probably realize, this changes things for youth ministry.

Let’s look at it this way: Renew meets on Tuesday nights. Sally has xyz going on. She’s unavailable to come to youth group on a Tuesday night. Billy has Tuesday night free, but he likes to dress up like a pirate (arrgh) in his free time, but no one else who comes to youth group likes to do that (why not?). So Billy never attends.

If Billy likes to dress like a pirate, and Sally is busy with xyz, and they’re just two examples of a really diverse group of youth, then expecting them all to show up on Tuesday night for youth group is kind of absurd. That used to work, but it doesn’t anymore.

The goal this year, then, is to provide more, unique opportunities for youth to get connected, rather than just a one-size-fits-all night of youth group.

So here’s a look at the 2017-2018 Youth Ministries weekly schedule:

June 2017 Newsletter: Aliens, Adolescents & Adults

As an adult, have you ever spent any time inside a middle school cafeteria? Or can you at least imagine what that experience would be like? To a middle schooler, it’s an enormous square room that seems to be bigger than the Grand Canyon and echos just like it, with it’s tile floors, bare white walls, stainless steel countertops and tables with wood grain laminate covering and metal legs on plastic wheels.

Mind numbing noise fills this otherwise barren space, now packed to the brim with people pushing their way through an assembly line of slop: milky mashed potatoes, gravy as thick as molasses, limp, lifeless, leftover broccoli, and let’s not even mention the meat. Full grown, mature adults with the best of intentions would struggle in this situation, but that’s not who occupies this space. No, this cafeteria is full of middle schoolers. Cue the scene: Food fight.

We all know that middle school kids are humans, but if aliens came down among us and looked at a group of adults, making notes and observations about our behavior, and then climbed back into their spaceship and flew at the speed of light to a middle school cafeteria, they’d be scratching their over-sized green heads, confused at the obvious differences.

These middle school aged people look similar to adults, but they could be confused for bald monkeys.

Fall 2016

We’re excited for youth ministry this fall as we have a lot of both fun and inspiring events planned for youth grades 6-12. Moorpark Presbyterian Church is brimming with all types of activity, so I encourage you to jump in and join us.

Renew is our middle school and high school youth program that meets on Tuesday nights. Our program consists of food and fun games, youth led worship, relevant bible teaching, and aims to connect caring adults to youth.

A few highlights:

– Renew meets 6:30-8:30 pm beginning Tuesday, September 13. We think this will work well with people’s schedules and will allow everyone to get home a little earlier.
– NEW Elective Nights (on Tuesdays at Renew, throughout the year) where you can choose from various activities such as sports, music, drama, arts, baking & more. It’s gonna be a great way to connect with new people.
– Nine35 (aka Sunday School) on Sunday mornings in the Youth Room at 9:35 am. We’ll be going along with Pastor Mark’s sermon series this year, breaking it down and discussing it on our level. We’re hoping this will give the whole family something to talk about. Donuts provided each week. Seriously, donuts!

We have a lot more going on so check out the attached fall calendar for a ton o’ goodness. We hope to see you this fall at MPC.

Summer 2016

There is a lot going on in youth ministry here at MPC this Summer. Click the “Calendar” tab in the menu bar to see a calendar view of all these events. A few highlights: Tuesday Offsite Pool Parties (6/21, 7/5, 7/19, 8/9 at the same place as our Incoming Party: HS @ Buttercreek Estates Pool, corner of Bending Oak & Quailwood; JH @ Creekside II Pool, corner of Mt Meadow & Cedar Glen Ct), Beach Days (various Thursdays, 10:00 am to about 4:00 pm), Children’s Hunger Fund Service (Wed, June 29 @ 8:00 am), MOVE & MIX Summer Camps (July 5-9, sign up deadline is June 1; July 17-20, sign up deadline is June 12) and more. We sent out a Summer welcome letter to all our families – read the High School letter here; Jr High letter here. Oh, and you can watch our “Renews News” announcement video here where we talk about some of this info. See you this Summer!

Fall 2015

How many hours are you technologically connected on a normal day? If you were to add up your hours online, your glances at text messages, your streaming music, your perusing social media, your Netflix addiction, how many hours could you count? It’s probably a lot. Our culture is obsessed with technology—and with good reason. Technology keeps us connected to each other and to the world around us. Nearly every device we own transmits signals to something else, somewhere else. Why? Because that’s how they’re wired to function. Our phones, tablets, gaming systems—they all are wired to connect to something outside them. And the same is true for us. We are wired for connection. It’s in our design. As we take a closer look at what Jesus called “the greatest commandment”, we discover that we were wired to have three vital relationships: with God, with ourselves, and with others. And when those connections are made, everything else begins to function as it was designed to.

Come hang out with us on Tuesday nights in the Youth Room from 7:00-9:00 pm as we dig deeper into this topic.