Courntney--Glad Tidings

Courtney is only 24 and is a Pastor at Glad Tidings Assembly of God. She graduated from VFCC in 2006, and oversees the varsity student ministries.

The core of the youth is driven by small groups! It helps new comers get connected and allows leaders to feeel that they are investing in the life of students.

One of the biggest adjustments moving from college to being a youth pastor was learning that you are always being watched. Learning to balance cutting age and relevant ministry with holiness has been a difficult struggle, but being able to have an open dialog with the Pastor and Youth Ministry Director has helped significantly.

Some other issues that have been encountered is the transition from children's church to youth. One of difficulties is that parents try their best and succeed at sheltering their kids and keeping them on the right track. This results in mostly all Christian kids getting together for children's church. Then when these same children make a transition into the youth group setting and these same students come into contact with children who did not grow up in the church and the parents become worried and concerned that their kids might make bad decisions about who to hang out with and compromise their beliefs.

When it comes to discipleship it does not seem that big and crazy outreaches are effective as they might at first seem. tons of kids would come, get saved, but not come back. Their outreaches were not changes students lives.

Deep and wide is a survey done by Doug fields (see handout) to discover whether or not discipleship and evangelism is effective in what it should be doing.

Some Observations from survey:
While 89.1 % of students feel comfortable at Real Life, and 68.1 % of students say they would feel comfortable inviting a friend on ANY night...

While 57.1% of our students claim to have be Christians with a growing faith...nearly 2/3 of our students read their Bible and pray Less than once a week or never, and only 1/3 of our students feel thy could defend the existence of God.



Courtney had a wealth of information, and after speaking with Eran Holt a few times about how Glad Tidings does youth ministry it really makes a lot of sense. I also think that i will check out more information on the surveys, results, and organizations of the data.

Courtney seems incredibly sensible and passionate about her position and about students. It is also very encouraging to see a female youth pastor who is doing amazing things!
One out of four students had NEVER BROUGHT a friend.