New Sunday Vision for Exit83

As we prepare to move back indoors as a church, we want to share with you a new vision that we have been thinking about and praying about for quite a while now.

For the past year, our students have been part of the Sunday morning gatherings under the tent, as opposed to pre-COVID when they were part of a youth service. We have seen families worship together, we have seen students participate in the times where we have open mic, and we have seen students respond by serving in our LifeKids ministry. It has brought so much joy to have the students with us and to participate together in these worship services, and we don’t want to lose this good thing that the Lord is doing. 

So, as we return to meeting indoors, we will not have a separate Sunday morning worship service for Junior High and High School students. Instead, we will have them become an integral part of the main congregational worship service. 

To give you an understanding of this decision, let me share our heart for the students and the entire LBF community.

In addition to having an age-related ministry to students on Wednesday nights, this age group must begin having experiences that allow them to be part of the larger church life and ministry. Recent research shows that one of the things that helps young people stay connected to the church after they graduate is the sense of belonging and being connected to the church as a whole. While it is wonderful for students to participate in age-based ministry—and this will continue in many ways through our Exit83 Ministry, We also believe that when students have an opportunity to be in tune with the entire church, they will have a greater vision for the overall body of Christ and a greater desire to continue to engage with church after they graduate from High School. 

We also love the impact that the students have on the overall church body when we are all together. Just as we think it benefits the students to be engaged with other adults, we believe it is a powerful blessing for the adults to worship and engage side-by-side with our students. We look forward to worshiping together and having more students involved actively in the services by participating on the worship team, with Scripture reading, with group prayer, with serving communion, and through a variety of other ways. We see this as a win for the whole church family!

So, as we move to living out this decision, we look forward to what God will do. We look forward to seeing God move in our midst in ways that make a life-long difference in our pursuit of LIFE in Jesus.