Summer Purpose Shift

Our Wednesday ministry focus is evangelism, we accomplish other things (worship in the word and song, fellowship with other believers, etc) but we make every effort to teach plain biblical truth in a relevant way making sure Jesus is our focus and clearly and creatively presenting the Gospel each Wednesday.

I struggle with our ministry purpose over the summer because our numbers drop...not because we have less people but that lower number usually equals less visitors (or no visitors). If we are not living out our purpose we need to either work harder and change how we focus on that purpose or we need a total refocus.

With our new freshmen class coming up it might not be the best to reshape the way we do evangelism, things are already so new I do not want to overwhelm and lose them. It has been a challenging year (if you do not know, this year I went from jr high director to taking over all of student ministries). I, our students, and our ministry have all gone through major adjusting...and all have played out for the better. That said repair and unity are still needed and potential core students are still on the fringe.

It seems like a good idea to shift from evangelism to assimilation for the next 2 or 3 months. To grow together as a group has great potential and benefit, surrounding and serving each other and especially this new group of students that will be joining us in a few weeks. We need to create buy-in, generate excitement, and create a Christ centered, loving atmosphere.

I need to think about how this looks. I do not want to move from solid biblical teaching to fun and games. This is not about laser tag and paintball or crowdbreakers and pizza each week, it may involve these things the idea is not to move from depth to the surface, it is about loving our students and seeing them take ownership.

Any thoughts?