Letter to Youth Parents for Spring 2025

Parents of LW Youth Group, 

Ryan here! 

I want to share some exciting youth related news for the Spring season: Andy is taking a Sabbatical this coming February, March, and April!   

Sabbatical is a time of physical and emotional renewal, for rest, spiritual direction, and other activities that are restorative and life-giving. We offer sabbatical “leave” to our full-time Pastors every seven years so they can disengage from the everyday demands of ministry, recover their vital energies, and return to their work with renewed energy, spiritual vision, and effectiveness. 

As you know first hand, Andy is amazing. In his role as “family pastor” at Living Waters, he pours out so much for so many, especially for our youth and families. I am in awe of how he leads and invests in the Living Waters Youth Group and Youth Team. We have all been impacted by how well he loves, serves, and builds connections, and I know our youth love him! He will be missed over these weeks ahead! But, we have a great plan to make our Youth Ministry focused, impactful, and fun while he is gone. Our goal is to make sure our youth (and families with youth) are seen, loved and served as best we can. Thankfully we have an incredible youth team in place, and our LW team will be jumping in as well! 

In the beginning of January we met with our youth volunteer team along with our pastoral team to settle on a plan for the next three months which entails the following:

1. WEDNESDAY NIGHT YOUTH GROUP – We will put a “pause” on bi-weekly Youth Wednesday Night Gatherings. This pause will begin in February making January 29th our last Wednesday Night Gathering until May 7th. This will allow our volunteer team to focus on:

2. GUYS & GIRLS DISCIPLESHIP GROUPS – Continuing with our bi-weekly Girls Discipleship Groups for Middle School and High School, AND launching two new groups for guys (MS and HS). Beginning in February, Chadd Noland and Mike Holden will be leading the HS guys, while John Eaton and I will lead the Middle School guys group.    

3. “ONE BIG NIGHT” EVENTS – Our combined LW and Youth Team will also host two large “One Big Night” Youth Events with a meal, games, prizes, worship, and a message!

The dates for those will be Sunday, Feb.23rd and Sunday, April 6th, from 6-8pm. These will be awesome events where our whole team gets to come together to give our kids a night to remember!   

4. SUNDAY MIDDLE SCHOOL – Sunday Morning Middle School will continue as normal during the teaching portion of our Sunday gatherings. 

And finally, while I have you here, a quick YOUTH SUMMER CAMP UPDATE: In order to lower the cost while increasing the intentionality and focus on our youth, we are going to be running our own Youth Summer Camp (for HS & MS). We are confident this year will be an even better experience for our students, for much less money. However, since we haven’t yet figured out how to do camp for free, we do need some fundraisers – the first of which will be our Bake Sale on May 18th. Please mark it on your calendar and we will keep you posted on details. 

We have so many opportunities for your child to get involved and enjoy this spring time together as a youth group. Please reach out if you have any questions or would like to help out as a Parent Volunteer during this upcoming season!

Thank you, 
Ryan