Over the shoulder and through the heart
June 6, 2025
Dear City Church,
Something unmistakable occurs during every City Church worship service immediately following communion: dozens of Children’s Worship-aged kids come rushing into the sanctuary from the Choir Room, often waving a coloring sheet, sometimes holding hands with a friend, and occasionally wandering aimlessly as they search for a parent’s familiar face. It’s impossible to miss that God has blessed our church family with lots of young children.
Did you know that young children grow up to become older children and then young adults? Today, City Church also has a growing swell of kids who remain in the sanctuary for the entire worship service and a thriving population of middle and high school students. Because these students don’t re-enter the sanctuary en masse, we’re prone to miss noticing them. (It may also have something to do with the insouciant way that many middle and high school students carry themselves through life.)
Over the years at City Church, we’ve done a pretty good job (largely out of necessity) of talking about Children’s Ministry and volunteer opportunities in that area, but we haven’t done as a good a job talking about youth ministry, keeping the church up to speed on what they’re doing and how you can be involved. This month’s letter aims to remedy that by sharing some of the ways that Adam Bailey, our Director of Youth Ministry, has structured ministry.
City Church’s approach to youth ministry (like every other ministry area) is fundamentally relational. We think that discipleship happens best over the shoulder and through the heart. While we have no intention of replacing parents as the primary disciplers of their children, we recognize that as kids reach adolescence, they need safe and loving adults who aren’t their parents to help them process Jesus’s love and his call to faithfulness.
That’s why the purpose of youth ministry at City Church is to come alongside parents to help young people know that though they are broken people, they are loved by God, continually restored by Christ, and sent out to worship God, serve Richmond, and work for its renewal. A specific outworking of this covenantal approach to youth ministry, supporting parents as they love their children, is an overnight we’re planning this fall for adolescent boys and their dads, where they can have fun, take risks, and grow together through God’s Word.
During the academic year, youth ministry at City Church consists of several programming elements:
Sunday Formation: An hour of Biblically-based discussion that happens in the context of friendship with consistent leaders
Monthly Events: These build community, creating a context for outreach and opportunities to engage together in service.
Bi-weekly Small Groups: I bet you didn’t know that starting this Spring, middle school students were showing up at the church at 6:30AM for single-gender small groups. The pancake breakfasts Adam prepared may have been an incentive, but so was the chance to dive deeper into God’s Word alongside friends.
One-on-One Discipleship: These meetings in groups of two or three will always be central to youth ministry at City Church as leaders hang out with students on their turf and help to apply the comfort of the gospel in their on-the-ground lives.
Annual Overnights: These are also invaluable in getting students out of their typical environment and into a place where they can explore how the gospel affects life at school, in friendships, and in their families. The middle school overnight—called Modgnik—is scheduled for early September.
While the rhythm of youth programming changes over the summer (as it does in most areas of City Church), we still have regular events for our middle and high school students:
Monthly Events to build community and memories together. This summer’s events include a hike at Humpback Rocks, a beach day, and a trip to Kings Dominion.
Bi-weekly Small Groups will continue but will switch to every other Sunday, following the worship service (from 5:30-6:30). The first small group time is this Sunday, June 8th.
Obviously, this is a lot to keep straight. That’s why we send regular updates about youth ministry, including schedule reminders of upcoming events. If you want to be included in those updates, you can sign up here.
Given the growth in breadth and depth of Youth Ministry at City Church, earlier this year, Adam recognized the need for a Youth Ministry Leadership Team. This team helps envision and oversee youth ministry and is always looking for more volunteers and contributors. If you’d like to participate in helping youth ministry continue its trajectory of growth, or if you have further questions about youth ministry, please reach out to Adam (adam@citychurchrva.com).
It’s probably a good thing that our middle school and high school students don’t come rushing into the sanctuary every Sunday. We’d probably be overrun as by a stampede. Nonetheless, it’s important for all of us to remember that these students are worshipping among us and that they have an essential role to play within our increasingly inter-generational church. Their presence makes us richer. And they need us to help love them well into maturity.
Stay Well & Do Good,
Erik