Pastor Sam here!
Highland YTH aims to pass the baton of faith to the upcoming generation of Christians. Our desire is to instill in our students an unwavering love for God. We want to see students learn a fascination of His majesty that is so deep they can’t help but enter into a lifelong journey of seeking, exploring, and surrendering to our great God. We believe that when we fall in love with God, every other aspect of the Christian walk begins to fall into place.
Some youth groups, with Godly intention and leading, focus on getting middle school and highschool students in the doors where they can have fun and build relationships in order to open the door to Jesus. At Highland, we are convinced that God has given us a conviction to feed our students strong and dynamic biblical teaching that focuses on developing the hungry believers that God gives us.
We are not interested in catering to short attention spans and consumeristic desires. We are focused and deliberate in our aim to give the students God’s word (contextually appropriate) in a way that challenges their attention spans and their learning capability. While it may take some time to work out young minds that struggle to focus and grasp some of the more philosophical truths of God’s word, we see even the youngest of them fully capable and willing to do so, and we believe it will serve them in their faith and in life. Kids of this age are absolutely able to (even if they don’t always show it) discern what is fluff and what is of real value to them.
We believe our strongest tool for evangelism to be the students themselves. When and if there are students that come on Wednesday nights that are new to church or the faith, the authentic passion for Jesus that is already so present in many of our youth is the driving inspiration for nonbelievers.
What changed me personally in high school was when I saw a kid I didn’t know who was legitimately in love with Jesus and unashamed about his faith. I saw that, and was convicted and inspired that I needed to find a faith of my own that was real. We know the authentic faith of our students will impact others, and also hope that our students will share their faith with the world around them.
Come join us on Wednesday nights!
Middle School (6th grade – 8th grade) runs from 5:45pm to 7:20pm. And Highschool (9th grade- 12th grade) runs from 7pm – 8:45pm. Most evenings include a short game, a message from God’s word, small groups, and a meal.