Sunday AM Change

Hello parents,
I am excited to announce a change happening in Edge starting on Sunday, March 14th. Pastor Joe’s challenge for this year for our church is to go from being consumers to disciples. This challenge along with 6 years of doing Sunday morning Edge the same way has caused me to rethink our format. Right now, 180 students sit under my teaching in the gym. Because of the size, it is difficult to interact with students, connect with their different levels of maturity, and give them a chance to respond. While I know that growth takes place, I kept asking myself, “Is there a way that we could engage students more in order to see more growth?” With that said, our Sunday format is being renovated in order to be more intentional and purposeful about seeing students grow deeper in the love for Christ and the church. This program is called, THE CORE. The purpose of The Core is two part…

1. to create atmospheres where middle school students can grow more intentionally at their level of maturity
2. to help students understand what it means to serve in the church.

Explanation of THE CORE
All middle school students will gather together for the first 15 minutes of the hour for hanging out together, icebreakers, and Edge announcements. Then students will split into 3 classes by grade level. There will be a very qualified teacher and several assistants that lead this class with curriculum provided by me. Classes will be 40-50 students in size (as opposed to 180) which will enable the teacher to facilitate more discussion, connect with students at a deeper level, and give a chance for students to respond each week to the lesson. Along with these classes is a service program. If students are involved in an Edge small group, their small groups will rotate serving in our children’s ministry on a monthly basis. Each month, 4-5 different small groups would be assigned to an area of children’s ministry for the whole month (instead of going to class). That way, students will be growing/learning in a class for 3 months, then serving for a month (GROWTH AND ACTION).

TIME CHANGE
The difficult part of this new plan is finding the space to make it all happen. In order to accommodate for this change, we are going to have to move Edge to the 11:30 AM hour. While this isn’t our first choice, it is the only way to make it happen with the space available to us. With this change, we will be able to meet in 3 large classrooms versus the 10 AM hour where there is no space available. We definitely don’t want to throw a wrench in your usual Sunday morning plan, but our purpose cannot be accomplished without this change. We feel it is more important to make this purposeful change than to worry about which hour we meet.

THE DETAILS
Starting on Sunday, March 14th, students will meet together at 11:30 in room 8/9 downstairs for our opening program (checking in, hanging out, games, and announcements). Then they will split into 3 rooms (Room 8/9, 10, and 11) for their grade specific classes. These classes will include creative teaching, student interaction, and discussion.

I realize that this change will mean that parents have a lot of questions/concerns about what this means for their family? We have spent hours with our best thinkers here at the church working out what this will mean for families. I can assure you that we have thought of most (if not all) of the questions/concerns that you might have. Feel free to ask questions and express concerns. We realize that most of the concerns will have to do with inconvenience because of what your family is used to. Please consider making a small sacrifice to allow your son/daughter to be involved in this program.

There has been a lot of thoughtful and prayful consideration of this change. I am really excited about how God might use this program in to deepen our student’s faith.
Thanks,Todd