| Sunday | |
| 9:15 a.m. |
Sunday School (all ages) |
| 10:45 a.m. |
Worship Service |
| 5:00 p.m. |
Discipleship Training for Youth |
| Wednesday | |
| 7:00 p.m. | Youth Bible Study The Shaka Shak Youth Center |
| Friday | |
| 5:30 p.m. | F3 for all youth (7th-12th grades; in the Shaka Shak) |
During Mfuge, a few of our Youth had the opportunity of working with a children’s ministry group who went to the Sangre de Cristo Children’s Center in Santa Fe. They were impressed with the outreach to the families from the apartment complexes there and noticed that the center lacked toys/games for the very young children. When they came back, it was suggested that money from a dinner theatre fundraiser could be used to purchase toys and supplies for the center. Tickets to support the dinner theatre and this ministry will be on sale from Sunday, July 26, 2009. The cost will be $10 for adults and $5 for children under 5 years old. Please join our Youth in an evening of fun and laughter on August 21 at 7 p.m. as they put on the dinner theatre production “The Mobster’s Wink”.
I was in the Youth Dept. when F3 was originally envisioned, designed, and initiated. The 3 “F”s cycled through a number of things, but essentially the concept came to this:
The honorary 4th F was always: Fun
Modern Youth lead incredibly busy lives. They have school, and extracurriculars, and sports, and clubs, and college prep, and band, and they PACK all their freetime with the internet, TV, talking with friends and hanging out. One of the reasons we (the Youth, under Aunty Carolyn’s guidance) started F3 was to provide a regular, scheduled place for kids to have fun in a Christian environment. This would serve as an alternative to the OTHER things that intermediate and high schoolers in Pearl City are prone to doing:
Gangs (I saw the fresh aftermath of a gang fight at Pearl City Wendy’s). Smoking cigarettes (the butts are all over Highlands Intermediate campus). Smoking marijuana (very common at Pearl City High: I get reports in 9th/10th grade Sunday School). Drugs (at PC High: another common topic in 9th/10th grade Sunday School). Sex (even intermediate schoolers are doing it).
This is not to scare you. These are just some things that kids do… WHY? I’m betting it’s because huge numbers of the kids I meet at Highlands Band come from BROKEN FAMILIES. Hyphenated last names everywhere. The kids’ names and the parents’ names don’t match on the field trip forms. Some of them are obviously attention-starved.
The Youth at church are friends with these kids. They want a place to bring their friends. They want a safe place for their friends to have clean fun. They want their friends to feel loved, and to belong to something like a REAL family. That was the reason we started F3. Having clean fun together with other people is something we can ALL enjoy, and it’s something that some visitors don’t get anywhere else.
Family also starts with F. Maybe I’m the only one that thought it when we started F3 (NO WAY) but eventually, we want “Friends” to become “Family” at F3.
I don’t know that F3 was ever “evangelistic” but it was always “outreach”.
This is what I mean by “outreach”.
Non-Christians regularly came to F3 and they played, they participated, they followed the rules, they listened to the devotional, and they hung out. They liked it. They were fed. They came back for more. These were the same kids that turned down invitations to come to Sunday School. BUT, after attending F3 for a few weeks, or months, or year, several of those kids came to Sunday School, and many of them more than once. The “evangelism” in F3 has always been environmental. Because most of these kids don’t have perfect families, F3 was a place for them to be family with all these “brothers and sisters” and even with the adult chaperones. F3 was meant to teach kids to participate in a Christian family. Even the non-Christians learn to participate in a healthy (and Christian) family. F3 has rules. You don’t swear or cut people down, because it is disrespectful. People are valued at F3, so treat others kindly. There is prayer for the food. There is a devotion. There is a prayer after the devotion. The environment is throughly Christian, and non-Christians become accustomed to it, and they become exposed to the values, morals, behaviors and beliefs of Christianity the same way they learn their families’ values, moral, behaviors and beliefs: by watching and imitating. F3 has never been a classroom. It has been a home. Both environments teach, but differently.
For the Christian Youth, F3 is a training ground. They are being called on to act like Christians in front of their friends. This is their GREATEST STRUGGLE. It is hard to live your faith at school… especially if you don’t already have a rep as a Christian as well as a “cool person”. If you’re used to being just a “cool person”, then it’s hard to add Christ into that. At F3, the tables are turned. The majority of kids are Christian or from Christian families, so they have to be the role models that the non-Christian kids follow, showing how to be God’s family to people that are not in your biological family.
Often enough, the Youth are not conscious that this is happening. The Christian Youth like hanging in the Shak, and their visitor friends do too. Everyone has fun (and free food) so they come back for more. But as adults, we see (and the more mature Youth can see this too,) that F3 is a practicum. It teaches through experience. For example, it is usually an older Youth that runs the games or gives the devotional. They have to prepare in advance, and gain leadership experience. The other Youth are being taught how to follow those leaders and imitate them. All by experience.
F3 is not perfect, but we designed it with a mission.
This is the doorstep of discipleship.
Jared Masuno