Student Ministries Wednesday Night Community Kicks Off This Week!
We are so excited to see our students coming back together for fun, worship, study, and meaningful conversation this Wednesday evening at 6:30 p.m.
There are a few changes, and we are working hard as a team to make it an exceptional time during this interim season at Oakwood! Please pray for the students to have an encounter with Jesus every Wednesday evening.
When students arrive, high schoolers head upstairs to the High School Room and middle schoolers report to the Middle School Room. Each group will do a fun game separately, then gather in the High School Room for worship together. This week, I will be sharing introductory remarks on Philippians with the students together, then they will go to their separate areas again for the rest of the evening.
Here is what we are talking about this week:
Introduction, Background of Philippians, Ch. 1:1-2
Theme: Praise From the Prison Cell
- Who wrote Philippians and what do we know about him?
- Where was Paul when he wrote it and why does that matter?
- Why would Paul call himself a slave of Jesus?
- What is grace?
- How can we really know peace?
- Will you dig into Philippians the next few months?
- What are you hoping God will do in your life because you are a part of Student Ministries?
We wrap up at 8 p.m. Thanks for entrusting your son or daughter to our Oakwood Volunteer Team!
If you have any questions or comments feel free to email, text or call me (239-841-2605).
Please Note: The Café is open from 5 - 6:30 p.m. every Wednesday night. This Wednesday, we're serving up pizza and sodas.
Also, our Fall Retreat for Students has been bumped to October. We will be getting details to you soon!
Here's a note from our Sunday volunteer coordinator, Chris Schmidt...
We are kicking off Oakwood Student Ministry Sunday mornings in just a few days. We had the opportunity to do a SWOT analysis a few weeks ago and are looking forward to a few changes based on suggestions from that meeting. The meeting gave a lot of perspective on how Sunday mornings (and other OSM activities) can continue to work, or make adjustments for improvement. We are looking at a few changes that could be implemented faster, but there will be a further evaluation and changes to occur going forward.
First, I would like to work on my communication with volunteers and the parents of students in our care. I will create an outline like the one linked here that I plan to use on our first Sunday. This will be sent to parents and volunteers prior to Sunday. It will walk through a high-level overview of the lesson, as well as questions to be covered.
Next, I would like to talk about the High School (HS)/Middle School (MS) split. At this time, we are not ready to split them on Sundays. One suggestion that I will start with is to work on harder questions for the HS students. I will add the questions on the guide each week and have a variety of questions that small group leaders can choose from depending on the group engagement. Next, I would say that with the suggestions to split MS/HS, we will split small groups for MS and HS.
We have an invested group of HS students attending our Sunday mornings. I would like to leverage the HS students attending to help with the OSM Ministry. The HS students are very capable and have many talents. There are many opportunities in this room where HS students could help and participate at the same time. Opportunities may include items like assisting with the technology we use, helping with music, a welcome team role, and in small groups. We will be reaching out to the High School Group in the next couple weeks to get that going.
Lastly, the suggestion of bringing worship back came up at the SWOT analysis. I would like to do 2-3 songs per week that would initially be YouTube lyric videos, but if we had some help from some of the HS students to lead it, we could do the videos with a singer or otherwise to help bring the energy up at this time. I appreciate you taking the time to review this email and give me some feedback. Please reach out with questions, comments or suggestions.
Make it a great week!