Please find below the notes from the Elder's Prayer this past Sunday.

For those of you new to our church, you might notice something is different. You can’t help but notice all of these young people, with a few older folks mixed in, all dressed with same shirt sitting together.

I’m troubled by this visual display of separation. Our students are largely detached from the rest of the church. They are separated. This bothers me because it portrays and sends a message that is completely contrary of our philosophy of ministry.

Student ministry is not an island or a place where parents send their 7-12th grade students only to return when they graduate HS. Student ministry does not have unique ministry mindset that is different than the ministry mindset of the church as a whole. Student ministry doesn’t just happen on west side of the building. Not at all. This is a misleading visual.

As a ministry, our aim is to come alongside parents, to aid in the disipling of their students. We are not replacements. We aim to reinforce the teaching and training taking place in the home and in the church as a whole. We are never instead of parents efforts, but always in addition to parents efforts.

Moreover, the image can convey the message that student ministry is only done by some adults. Those adults who can handle the special quirks and unique odors of young people transitioning from childhood to adulthood. This notion can leave the rest of the church thinking they have no responsibility to minister to this segment of our body. Let me be clear. That thinking is wrong. It is simply not accurate. We are a body. We need everyone. We need the whole body praying for and looking for ways to involve their lives with our students. We need the whole body praying for and looking for ways come alongside our parents.

So if you don’t have a green shirt on today and are a member of our church and think student ministry is for others - let me challenge your thinking. Consider ways you can engage with our students on a Sunday morning or at a growth group. Seek to get to know them. Seek to have gospel conversations with them. Seek to discuss what they hear from the pulpit. Ask them what they learned this weekend. Pray for them and let them know you prayed for them. Seek to enjoy them and embrace their awkwardness in all of its passing glory.

Despite the unhelpful visual today, I know our church deeply loves and invests in our students. Let me say thank you to the body and specifically thank those who served our students this weekend. Since Friday night at 5:00, our body has fed, housed, transported and cared for 43 young people. Meals were prepared by the body. Members opened their homes for students to sleep and eat. Senior saints invited us into their homes to visit so students could get to know them better. Leaders invested their time and efforts to building deeper relationships with these young people. Church, it has been a good weekend and only possible by your generous assistance. Thank you.

Let’s pray. 

Father God, I’m grateful for this body that you have collected and arranged at Summit Woods. I’m grateful that their abundant and evident love for King Jesus results in their selfless service to disciple each other, including our students. I’m grateful to you for Lance Quinn and his faithful ministry of the word this weekend. I’m grateful to you for the students who eagerly engaged this weekend to wrestle with the truth of scripture and how it should not only grip their hearts but how it should inform and shape all aspects of their lives.

Father I pray for our student leaders who faithfully disciple our young people. I ask that you would protect us from disqualifying sin. I ask that you would cause us to grow in our knowledge, love and affection for the things of Christ without a hint of hypocrisy in our lives. As we grow closer to students and they see our lives more clearly, grant us the humility to seek forgiveness before them. Help us model delight in, dependency on, and devotion to Christ not motivated by mere duty, but from a consuming desire to worship you with our lives. I pray too that you will continue raising up leaders from within the body uniquely gifted and equipped to disciple our students.

Father I pray for the primary disciplers of these students – their parents. I pray they would be faithful instructors and trainers of their children who are consistently pointing their kids towards the hope found only in the gospel. Their work is hard. Their work is sometimes frustrating. Their work might seem fruitless at times. Their own deceitful hearts will feed them lies. I pray for our parents. I pray they would not grow weary in doing good. I pray for their faithfulness. I pray for their steadfastness. I pray for their patience. I pray for their eyes to see evidences of grace in their kids that can be celebrated. Give them an eternal perspective. Use their parenting experiences as a refining tool in your hand to make these moms and dads more like Christ. Help them to trust in you as the one who grants the gift of repentance and faith. Please give them a biblical perspective that enables them to balance their faithfulness to instruct with a contentment that you are God, you are good, and you are sovereign over all things including their children’s spiritual state.

Father, I want to pray for our students. I want to pray for them as they are regularly tempted to be conformed to this world instead of being transformed by the renewing of their minds. I pray they would see how their deceitful hearts will tell them lies such as “nobody will know of my sin” or my sin is “no big deal” or I can “handle my sin”. I pray that if there is habitual sin in the lives of our students, that it will be discovered. I pray their attempts to isolate from others or their efforts to coverup their sins will fail. Your word tells us our sin is against you Lord and our sin will not go undiscovered. I pray the sins of our students will be discovered soon so that they might repent of it and enjoy the promise of forgiveness found in Christ alone. 

I pray for the students who are new believers in our church. I pray they would see progress in their growth toward Christ likeness. I pray there would be those in this body who would see that sanctifying work taking place and perceptively point out the grace they see in our students lives. I pray growth would be evident as they seek to present their bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to you God. I pray to for those young people in our midst who do not yet know you. We plead with you God, in your kindness and in your mercy, that they soon would know your kindness that leads them to repentance. It is your kindness. It is your mercy they so desperately need. I ask that you will lead them to repentance. 

Father I pray for us as a church. May we be found faithful to love and instruct all that you bring our way as we point them to hope only found in the gospel. Please grant us a kingdom mindset, eager to build up your church, for your glory.