Youth Ministry

MENDON CHURCH
Growing the Family of Faith

YOUTH MINISTRY PROGRAMS
Nursery through Grade 12

PROGRAM TIMES
8:30 Service: Nursery Care
10:30 Service: Nursery Care and Christian Education for all youth through High School age

YOUTH MINISTRIES

Mendon Church is a caring and nurturing Christian community where the spiritual development of our youth is of vital importance. We seek to encourage Christian love and commitment in our youth and the life-long development of their personal faith journey by:

	Connecting them with other caring members of God's family;
	Equipping and instructing them in God's Word;
	Providing opportunities in which they can apply personal faith and develop and use spiritual gifts for Christian worship and service that honors God.

OUR NEW BUILDING

Our new facility provides large, clean, bright and inviting classrooms. To accommodate our youngest worshippers, there is a child-sized bathroom between the nursery and the preschool classroom. Every room in the building is wired for high-speed internet and audio/video links, providing our teachers with the flexibility to incorporate these technologies into their lessons.

SUNDAY MORNING PROGRAMS

Mendon Church offers Sunday school education programs for children and youth, newborn thru 8th grade. Upon confirmation age, our 9-12th graders participate in a lively sermon discussion group on Sunday mornings.

NURSERY

Our nursery volunteers provide a safe, relaxed, nurturing environment for newborns through age 2 to grow and develop. Play is one of the most important activities in which young children engage and learn. While playing at their own pace, children gain an understanding of their world, and develop and learn basic concepts, which lay the foundations for school readiness. Our nursery is stocked with a variety of toys and books that encourage learning and growth.

PRECHOOL (Age 3-4) and ELEMENTARY GRADES (K-3)

At Mendon Church, we believe that the foundational years of a child's life significantly contribute to his/her later faith formation. Children learn in a variety of different ways: musical, visual, auditory, sensory, etc. Because we recognize this fact, we employ a curriculum called Exploring Faith, which embraces Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory by providing as many learning experiences as possible. This way, a child can encounter God's Word through an activity that speaks to the way he or she learns best.

Exploring Faith helps children:

	Develop a deep and life-giving relationship with God
	Respond in faith to Jesus Christ's redeeming love
	Seek and trust the guidance of the Holy Spirit
	Recognize the Holy Bible as the Word of God, the primary guide for faith and practice
	Identify themselves as children of God and grow in discipleship.

INTERMEDIATE GRADES (4-6)

At the intermediate age level, we employ Bible Quest, a curriculum which provides our youth with opportunities for visual, musical, artistic, linguistic, kinesthetic (movement), individual, and group experiences with the Bible stories, while encouraging personal connection and life application to God's Word. Bible Quest invites youth to experience Bible stories and to be forever shaped and changed by them.

JUNIOR HIGH (7-8)

In our Sunday school program for junior high youth, we use an elective series called BookMarks These lessons are designed to give older youth access to the Bible in a way that challenges them to discover the meaning for their own lives, a resource for making decisions, and a way for nurturing their relationship with God.

One of the strengths of the Bookmarks series is that each session provides youth with the opportunity to practice using effective tools and approaches that contribute to responsible life-long Biblical interpretation. As youth become familiar with the process of Biblical interpretation, the Bible becomes an accessible resource of faith for living now and in the future.

HIGH SCHOOL (9-12)

A Sunday morning sermon discussion group is open to all youth of high school age. Following the pastor's sermon, the group meets with adult leaders for lively conversation, reflection and fellowship. The participants are encouraged to share their life experiences and to grow in their faith development.

CONFIRMATION

Upon reaching high school age, our youth may elect to be confirmed and join the church. During the course of confirmation, we look at the story of God's people in the Bible, and reflect upon the various events from the life of Jesus, in an attempt to understand what it means to be Christ's faithful followers. We study the beginnings of the early Christian Church, as well as our own Presbyterian denomination and church history. Also discussed are some of the disciplines of being Christian, such as: worship, the Sacraments, prayer life and devotions, Christian witness and service.

YOUTH GROUP (Grades 7-12)
(aka CIA-Christians in Action)

Social events, community service projects, Bible study and fun are the focus of Youth Group. They usually meet on Sunday afternoons twice a month for games and fellowship.