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Leverage Influence: Create consistent opportunities for students to experience personal ministry

Out of all the Orange Essentials, this one gets me the most excited. Being a follower of Jesus means taking up the call to serve him in bring hope to the world. It doesn’t matter whether a child is 3 or 18, he can experience what it means to serve Jesus. You just need some creativity and parents to help you along the way.

As part of our Integrated Strategy, we’ve decided to prioritize service in how we attempt to pass along faith to the kids and students at Ada Bible Church:

Embrace | Preschool: Children are introduced to getting their hands dirty serving, mostly in the context of family and home. We rely heavily on parents at this stage to help with the different projects we have. Most of them are projects that collect food or other products for local ministries.

Expect | Elementary: Children start to see their place in serving through a variety of planned service projects led by the Discovery Village Staff, as well as opportunities within your family.

We do quarterly service projects in elementary. We budget these project right into our annual programming expenses. We’ve partnered with local organizations and ministries collecting food and making blankets. We’ve raised money to build a library in Kenya and brought in food for our own food pantry.

Experience | Junior High: Small groups serve together. Students in junior high become more consistent in serving as they develop a rhythm of serving in their life.

We desire students to serve not only within the ministries of Ada Bible Church, but also to communities of needy people around the world. Small groups and cell families are encouraged to provide opportunities for students to discover and use their God-given talents. Opportunities include partnering with World Vision to local missions to short term mission trips throughout the United States. We also LOVE junior high stedents to serve in our preschool ministry.

Express | Senior High: Serving for the senior high student is an expression of their faith. To follow Jesus is to serve.

We desire students to serve not only within the ministries of Ada Bible Church, but also to communities of needy people around the world. Very often, small groups and/or cell families will generate these service projects on their own based on how they are feeling led. We want for our senior high students to express their faith out the passion that God has given them for their world. We also allow older high school students to serve as small group leaders in our elementary ministry.

We are always looking for new ideas to integrate service into our family ministry. I’d love to hear your ideas! Please leave a comment and share how your ministry incorporates service into your program.