Student Ministries

William L. Pitts, Jr.

2001 started off with a major staffing change in the hiring of a new Director of Student Ministries. Bill Pitts brought over 10 years of youth ministry experience both as a volunteer and full-time youth worker to Central's already fantastic student ministry. Things were going well, but as we looked at the programming we saw where things could be improved.

One area that we have worked on this year is building a CORE group of students. These are students that meet together every other week for 2 hours for a leadership training Bible study and to give input into where we are and where we are going as a ministry. We finished the year averaging 18 students at EOS. Eos stands for Eye Of the Storm. They are at the center of what is going on in our ministry, helping to determine what path we will take to reach their generation.

This is the 2nd shift we made this year: coming up with an identity that would fit what the ministry is all about. After much discussion, the EOS came up with the idea of 'the Storm' Student Ministries. High school youth would be called 'the Storm,' middle school youth would be called SOS (Start Of the Storm) and our small groups would be called Satellite Stations (through accountability, the groups are tracking the progress of the Storm in our personal lives). This stems from the idea that the Christian life we live is a lot like a storm. Jesus is at the center of the storm, but all around us life continues to rage. Christianity doesn't make our lives peaceful but instead draws us deeper into chaos as we try to live contrary to the world. Storms are mysterious and powerful and exciting just like the lives we lead when we give ourselves fully to Christ.

We have one last change coming at the beginning of 2002 that will make our program schedule more accessible for lost students. We are excited to see how that will increase our impact numbers wise in the community. Having a big student ministry is not the goal. Putting ourselves in a position to reach as many people as possible with the life changing message of a relationship with God is the goal.

2001 saw several key events take place: 176 students turned out for our Fall Kick-Off, with 23 committing their lives to Christ for the first time; we took a team of 18 to the Dominican Republic for the 2nd year in a row to work with over 300 children and help build a new school building; 20 of us went on an incredible team building event in the summer called 'The Wandering'; and we had very successful retreats in the spring and fall for both high school and middle school students.

2002 will see mission trips for our high school students to Tijuana, Mexico and Pawley's Island, South Carolina for our first middle school mission trip. Our middle school students are teaming up with Grace Fellowship for a discipleship retreat in the spring while the high school group heads back to Ocean City for YFC's 'Impact' weekend. Mix in our ski retreat, lock-in's, game nights and service projects and 2002 will see us with another full schedule designed to help us fulfill the mission of Central and our own adapted mission Statement:

We will provide a place for students to BELONG; teach them what we BELIEVE; and see them BECOME disciples of Christ.