Padre’s Ponderings: Building a Stronger Community
Eric+ shares the story of “Who Is My Neighbor?” with some of our youngest saints of John.
I’m delighted to share that I had an excellent meeting with several of our youth and their families in early July. We shared pizza and prayer, and discussed our favorite flavors of ice cream, getting to know one another. We reflected on our current youth ministries and how those are going. And then, we discussed what we want our program year at St. John’s to look like for our youth and their families.
We want to see our Godly Play Sunday School continue to meet and grow. Godly Play is for roughly kindergarten to fifth graders and meets at 9:30 am every other Sunday during the program year (mid-August through May). We recognized that two of our Godly Play storytellers have been storytelling for several years, and we understand that one of them needs to step down for other ministry opportunities. We are looking for a new Godly Play storyteller. Is this your next ministry with St. John’s? Please speak with Maggie McCabe or Bren Pomponio.
We also acknowledged that we have children old enough to begin a new Journey 2 Adulthood group, and we need two facilitators for this transformative ministry to occur.
Interest was expressed in calling a part-time youth minister to facilitate and lead St. John’s Youth Ministries. I love this aspiration and was also quick to remind us we would need parental support/involvement even with a youth minister.
Our children (and adults) loved our first Intergenerational Game Night last May, which was facilitated by our Grow Church Team and Chris Ross’ gaming pals. Chris graciously agreed to host quarterly game nights for all. Thanks, Chris!
Several of our children love baseball! So, they were thrilled to hear that St. John’s is attending the African American Heritage Night to watch the Dirty Birds play at 5:30 pm on August 12. Tickets are free, too! Contact Bianca Prince at church[@]stjohnswv[dot]org to reserve your tickets.
Not only do our children love baseball, but they also love to bowl—who knew?! Choir Director Chris Brown volunteered to organize an Intergenerational Bowling Outing between September and mid-November.
The youth and their parents were mindful of the need and desire to share their love of God through taking helpful actions. One of our parents is looking into an Intergenerational Mission Trip to Highland Education Project in the Spring of 2026.
Notice that all our youth activities are labeled as “Intergenerational.” We want our youth and adults to continue getting to know one another better. An excellent way to form relationships is by doing activities together, thus the intergenerational approach.
The final topic discussed was Christmas. I know, I know. Who discusses Christmas in July, right?! St. John’s families discuss Christmas in July because we want an early Christmas Eve service this year for our younger families.
That’s right, this year St. John’s will have a 4:00 pm Family Christmas Eve liturgy and a later 7:30 pm musical prelude and 8:00 pm Christmas Eve liturgy. The children want to keep the Christingle tradition alive, and they were very interested in having a pageant. This is where we’ll need some parental support.
All this to say that I am full of hope and gratitude for our St. John’s Youth Ministries!
In God’s Grace,
Eric L. Miller+
