(c) The Congregational Church of New Canaan
Our Mission:
We will foster a community in which our youth may experience and share the love of God. Our community is inclusive of all youth, of all races, ethnicities, sexual orientation or gender expression.
Our Beliefs:
We believe that the way of Christ offers our youth a life that is abundant, flourishing and everlasting.
We believe that flourishing life is best nurtured in a community marked by love, covenant and participation.
We believe that caring for our youth in a community of love, covenant and participation will equip them for a lifetime journey following the way of Christ and characterized by faith, hope and love.
Community
We welcome our youth into a community that is unabashedly and passionately counter to a secular culture too often characterized by self-centered competition, judgment and exclusion. Our youth ministries welcome our youth into a community that fosters a safe space of unconditional acceptance and other-regarding love. Here, a deep sense of Christian community grows out of shared experiences of fellowship, spirituality, service, and just plain fun. In our youth ministries, every child can just be themselves.
Fellowship
Christ taught that God is known and experienced when we keep his commandment to love one another. Our youth ministries understand that relationships are just as likely to grow in zany, exuberant play, as in deeply moving vesper discussions, as in urgent collective action to complete a mission. We gather our youth into small, relational teams, each led by a caring young adult. Our teams draw kids into community regardless of grade, gender and social groups where they form lifelong friendships. In our youth ministries, every child has a small group to call “home.”
Service
God calls all of God’s children out of cramped self-centeredness and into participation in God’s larger labor of love in the world. When our youth respond - by feeding the hungry, by housing the homeless, by serving the poor, by seeking justice, by mentoring a child - God’s love flows through them and they experience God as channels of God’s grace. Our youth ministries facilitate frequent, varied and age-appropriate opportunities for our youth to serve their brothers and sisters in need. In our youth ministries, every child learns that God has already equipped them to love and be loved in God’s name.
Spirituality
Our young people don’t just want to be told about God, they want to experience God for themselves. They have a passionate desire to encounter the living God who is passionately committed to being there for them. Our youth ministries introduce our young people to powerful communal prayer, inspiring worship and music, ancient forms of Christian meditation, and revelatory stories of the faith. In our youth ministries, every child learns the practices and traditions that will support their own ecstatic experiences of the transcendent.
Fun
Did we mention that our youth ministries are fun? Again and again our young people have taught us that they are as ready to engage serious human need as they are to break into raucous, run-around games - as ready to share their deepest hopes and fears as they are to break into spontaneous dance. Our youth ministries are characterized by a serious playfulness and a playful seriousness. In our youth ministries, every child finds time and space to just be a kid.
Community
Fellowship
Service
Spirituality
Fun
We minister into the lives of these youths in service of one belief, that God wants them to lead a healthy and flourishing life and to have it abundantly. Of course no path through adolescence occurs without some bumps along the way. Because of this, our ministry is important and exists as non-anxious and listening presence in the lives of these youths. We will be the existence of unconditional, non-judgmental love in the midst of their lives. We are a place to turn, a shoulder to cry on and a caring soul, but we are not a fix-it or a solution.
For the instances that threaten this abundant life and go beyond the normal woes of adolescence, the following is written to give you a guideline on how to respond. Confidentiality is important in your relationship with these youths, but as situations are diverse and varied the following is only a guideline.
If any of these topics, suicide, self-harming or depression, should arise when talking with one of the youths please follow this guideline:
Follow up with the child without asking too many questions.
Say to the child something along the lines of, “Thank you so much for sharing this with me. You know what you tell me is in confidence, but I think I could be of more help if I shared this with and [Youth Director name].”
If the child gives you permission then great, but if not say something like, “I care and worry about you and do not want anything bad to happen to you so I really need to tell [Youth Director Name]”
Tell [Youth Director] about the conversation with the child.
If you feel that you are unable to leave the child alone for risk of them hurting themselves or others you need to call [Youth Director] immediately. If [Youth Director] cannot be reached then call [Minister]. If someone is in immediate danger call 911.
If any of these topics - substance abuse, eating disorders or physical abuse - should arise when talking with one of the youths please follow this guideline:
Follow up with the child without asking too many questions.
If the child gives you permission then great, but if not say something like, “I care and worry about you and do not want anything bad to happen to you so I really need to tell [Youth Director]”
In all of these situations, stay away from giving advice. Be present just to listen.
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