This Past Year

OVERVIEW

This past year was amazing in Student Ministry here at PAC. We started the year with a series called "The Climb" where we looked at our Spiritual lives as a Journey. We talked for 5 weeks about the tools that you need for the climb. We looked at Bible Study, Prayer, Accountability, Scripture Memory and Involvement in the Church. This series really set the tone for where we headed after that. With that as our base we spent four weeks talking about relationships and purity in those relationship. We closed out the school year with hot topics such as different religions, how to deal with temptations such as alcohol, drugs, sex, cheating, and lying. We talked about how to respect our parents. For the last two weeks we had 2 of our graduating seniors share their heart to both the middle school and high school.

BY the NUMBERS

We had a year where we set many highs. Numbers are dangerous to focus on but they are a good way to measure if what you are doing is working. We are only going to look at the numbers that count: Relationships, Salvations, and Commitments to Ministry.


Knowing God

Middle School
We had attendance that remained steady despite a huge graduating 8th grade class the year before. We had one of our highest attendance's in years for our Middle School retreat. We saw 11 students except the Lord for the first time on this retreat. Praise God! We had solid biblical teaching on the weekends with Courtney McLaughlin teaching one hour and Pastor Matt teaching another hour. Each class was different with Courtney addressing key issues that students were going through from a biblical perspective. He took a survey at the beginning and got there thoughts on what they wanted to learn. Pastor Matt taught through the book of Acts in detail.

High School
We had our highest high school average attendance ever. We had the second largest group at the Life Conference over the summer and the largest to ever go from PAC. We had 45 commitments at the Life Conference which was almost 50% of the students that went. We had 8 students make first time commitments for Christ. We had 37 commit to full time ministry and 23 of those commit to becoming missionaries. It was an amazing conference. We saw students encountering God in new ways this past year. There were high school students who were healed emotionally, spiritually, and physically all because they trusted in the power of God.

Developing Community

Middle School
We saw our volunteer base grow not just in numbers but in there relationships with Students. Many volunteers took the extra time to take their students out for a coke, have them over to their house for a sleepover, and out to do something fun. All this was done to build relationships. Relationships are huge in middle school as students need to have a mentor in their life they can trust to share the tough issues and gain a biblical perspective. We saw many lives changed in small group times. We even had students laying hands on students and praying prayers of healing over each other. With our huge kids klub camp outreach during the summer we had our highest one day attendance ever with our week average one of the highest ever. We saw 65 total commitments with 15 of them being first time decisions for a relationship with Christ.

High School
We saw many one to one relationships develop between students and adult leaders. The adult leaders would many times be spending time with students outside of group to discuss serious issues that students were going through from a biblical perspective. We had about 70 high school students volunteer to help with Kids Klub Camp this past summer. We had a band fest for both middle school and high school where we had 250 students show up and the majority of the students were unchurched and they all heard the Gospel preached in a clear way.

Bring Hope into the World

Middle School
We started our first ever Middle School Leadership team and it was a huge success. We met once a month to discuss being a leader in your school and at home. We put a huge emphasis on spending time with God as well as serving and loving their neighbor. We closed the year out with a service project where we made sack lunches and handed them out at the Econo Lodge, which our church has adopted. As a large group we made care packages to be given out to homeless children in our area, college students, and troops in Iraq.

High School
At the Life Conference we saw our students give away jewelry, ipods, and lots of money for the mission work being done in Burkina Faso. We saw 6 students graduate and go to Bible School looking to become pastors and missionaries. This year we saw the start of a high school leadership team that has focused on leadership and the students spirituality. The leadership team went into Camden the week before Christmas to hand out Christmas gifts to the homeless. As a large group we made care packages to be given out to homeless children in our area, college students, and troops in Iraq.


This past year was a very successful year in student ministry. God was really at work in our midst. We are looking forward to what God has in store for us this year. I can't wait to see what he will do.


We are always looking for people to join the work that God is doing in Student Ministry. If you would like to be a part of this work please contact us: youth@princetonalliance.org