Bible Study

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Throughout the year myself and Daniel and two of our leaders have run a bible study for our youth ministry which finished on the 16th of December for this year.

This bible study was a big step for our youth ministry as before this all that our youth ministry provided was a drop in center on Friday nights which at the same time is a really important aspect to our ministry so we have found out after trial and error in our community.

while the drop in center has been really important in our community so has the bible study. It has opened up a whole new side to our youth group and has allowed us to go much deeper with a lot of our youth who decided to come along to our Wednesday night bible study.

It really was a big risk that ended up paying off. In saying this, being the first bible study myself and Dan have ever run there was things we would definitely do better next year. For starters we would probably think about having a meal before each study to create a real sense of family and community and as well as this making the entire night a bit more interactive rather than book focused as we don’t think this was very effective. I think we would have more regular leaders meetings in order to be more prepared as a team and ensure we are offering the best we can to our youth in terms of preparation etc.

But all together we are so pleased that we took this step in to creating a bible study for the youth at Grandview and it has definitely showed some fruit which is encouraging. We will continue to offer the drop in center/ events as well as the bible study and hope to improve our youth ministry through what we have learnt from last year.

Camp Devotions

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Camp Karakariki has been a big part of my life since I met my husband. He had lived there since he was really young as his parents run the camp, it was a place which had a really big impact on his life as a Christian

For my summer placement I have been taking leaders devotions at camp KCC. I often will help out at camp taking activities such as kayaking and cave guiding but this has been a real privilege and has opened my ministry up to a whole different group of young people and has also lead to some really good relationships being formed.

For these devotions we will go out to camp for chapel and once chapel is over and the campers have had super we have leaders devotions before they go off to bed. It is really awesome having the opportunity to have input in to these young peoples lives and knowing that what we are teaching them often flows on to the campers who they are taking care of.

So this event you cold say came about just out of existing relationships with camp KCC and seemed like a natural flow on from what we were already doing out at the camp.

When planning for these devotions we really wanted it to be applicable to how they are living there lives as leaders at camp and making sure they understand the huge influence this has on the campers they are taking care of but not only this we also wanted to make these devotions applicable to their lives at school and in their day to day living as its so important they can take things away from camp when reality sets in again. These devotions can come from devotional books or things which Dan and I or the camp directors see fitting. This camp this included things such as a devotion from Matthew 5 around living before God, A devotion from Matthew 6:5-13 around Praying with simplicity and also a devotion on inviting outsiders in to your life from Matthew 9:9-13.

We try to provide resources for the leaders and have given each of them a daily devotions book to try and make spending that important time with God a little bit easier and also to emphasize the importance of making it a daily habit.

Overall, these devotions have been awesome and they are still a continuing thing which we will do at some camps. They allowed new relationships to be formed and created space for challenge and growth for me a well as the leaders.