“I’m scared. How long is this going to last? I’m so bored!” We know you’ve heard this already, just like we have, and we’ve only just begun! As school districts close, and we all start the process of “social distancing”, the emotional needs of our students start to surface immediately.

Everything they have known is turned upside down in an instant, and they’re forced to face a very different daily routine and the disappointment that they will not be finishing sports seasons, attending proms or many of the social highlights that they live for!

How do we make sure they are heard, validated, comforted, and more than anything, looking to Jesus as their hope, when we as parents are grappling with a fragile existence ourselves?

We, as Creekside student ministry, are ramping up our efforts to come alongside parents to help students not just survive this season but learn to thrive in their personal relationship with Jesus!

We are choosing to teach students how to study the Bible, how to pray, how to lean into the power of the Holy Spirit and how to share their faith even during this time where everything is scary and unknown!

• Our teaching team will be writing a detailed lesson each week with follow up questions for students.
• Each of our small group leaders will be sent this guide so they can study it together during the week and teach it to our students each Sunday night.
• Our leaders will be leveraging Google Hangouts on Sunday nights at the same time we would normally corporately gather to connect with students, teach through the lesson, and facilitate discussion through the small group questions provided.
• During the week, leaders are checking in on their groups via text messages, and our whole student ministry is going through an interactive Youversion Bible Study on fear and anxiety together.
• We will also have our student ministry leaders share a “Two-minute Tuesday” video every week to talk about what God is saying to them right now.
• Our worship intern, who leads our student gatherings in worship each week, will also be sharing how God has taught her to worship on her own in the quiet of her home since we are not gathering for corporate worship.

We have already seen parents and students that were not connected before wanting to engage in this way. Students that might have been scared to come to a corporate gathering seem to feel less intimidated to hop on a video call.

Our hope at the end of this season is that we have helped each one of these students learn to develop their personal relationship with Jesus in a way they might not have seen the need for previously.

We want them to feel a deep sense of security, not in the world around them, but out of the time they’ve spent in worship at the feet of Jesus!

We are hoping to teach them to feed their faith, not their fear! They are the light of the world, and we cannot wait to see God unleash His power in them through this time!