Children’s ministries
Tammie Sawicki continued to flourish as our Director of Children’s Ministries, expanding her role to also include newcomer welcome and integration––which she’d always done, effectively if informally. Our annual Vacation Bible School is always a highlight of the summer, one of our main evangelistic efforts at Christ Church. This year was no different as Tammie conducted a symphony of 90 volunteers to share the ‘monumental’ love of Jesus with over 115 kids in our church and community, with 23 making a profession of faith. Some six months later, my kids are still singing the VBS songs: “God’s love never fails, it lasts forever, our God is great!”
In addition to VBS, children's formation continued to achieve greater integration with the overall discipleship objectives of our church––now focusing whole–life formation as we learn to be with, become like, and live like Jesus. Children's ministry, offered during the Liturgy of the Word, reinforces our ‘kitchentable discipleship’ approach where we equip families to form their kids in the faith.
youth ministry
In one of the more significant developments of the year, following Brady TenBarge’s transition from youth pastor to Director of Operations, was our pivot to a youth-led, adult-supported model of youth ministry. Three seniors (Drew, Paxton, David), a junior (Prescott), and a sophomore (Grace) stepped up to comprise a Youth Leadership Team, taking responsibility for teaching, programs, games, communications, peer mentorship, and more––demonstrating remarkable spiritual maturity, commitment to Christ, and devotion to their church.
Summer social events, including raucous laser tag and a rain-soaked Lecrae concert at Elitch Gardens, gave way to substantive fall programming led by the newly-constituted Youth Leadership Team while numbers continued to grow and newcomer youth were welcomed into the fold.
ADULT EDUCATION
For adults, alongside the continued Scripture classes offered by our engineer-cum-theologian Bruce Dunn, Fr. Terry began a deep dive into Paul’s letter to the Colossians (which has been predictably well received), and parishioner Grace Hamman (who holds a PhD in medieval literature from Duke University, writes and podcasts about medieval spirituality at oldbookswithgrace.wordpress.com, and has a forthcoming book, The Many Faces of Jesus, Zondervan 2023) offered a heralded class on Advent hymns and carols.