by Paul Moy

The late Pastor Chuck Smith said, “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken.” This quote resonated in my heart in regards to ministry. Sometimes in life, things change and we need to be flexible to the leading of the Holy Spirit.

During the first few days of quarantine, our youth ministry team had to figure out how to go from leading in person to leading from a distance. While the methods of ministry have changed, our goal of connecting relationally with students and helping them pursue their relationship with Jesus remains the same.

On March 20, we had our first via Zoom youth meeting.  We did not know what to expect or how we would navigate this new way of having youth group. We were trying to figure out how we could incorporate worship, a message and small groups virtually.  To our surprise, we had 85 students at our first Zoom meeting. We were blown away!! Praise God! We did have some technical issues but by the grace of God, we were able to worship in unity. We had worship, I was able to teach God’s word and the students were able to meet in small groups to pray.

We have now been meeting for more than 10 weeks via Zoom.  The Lord has been richly blessing our time together with our students. We have been averaging an attendance of 90+ students weekly combined between Surge and The Bridge. We’ve been able to reach more teenagers online than we have in person.  We’ve also been able to connect with students who normally do not attend youth group due to school obligations, other activities, and the difficulty of getting to church on a Friday night. Also, we have had students inviting non-church friends and they have been attending our meetings as well.

I am so grateful for my team of advisors who have been doing a wonderful job reaching out and praying for the students during this time. They have poured so much time and effort into making youth groups seems “normal” in a time where everything is but “normal’. 

During this time of uncertainty, ministry practices have been different from what we are used too.  One thing that has remained the same is that the students need to hear the Gospel of hope, grow in discipleship and experience Christian community.  God has been so good to us to continue to give us a platform to continue to meet virtually. Praise the Lord.