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: : 3 Year Plan, 2009 - 2011: :

What will our next 3 years look like?

A bit of a preamble…
It’s with great excitement and anticipation that I pen this preamble.  Our last three years have been phenomenal.  God has blessed us in ways that I didn’t even imagine.

Over the last three years we praise God for:

  • Our Leaders and Youth Staff who continue to step up and take on more and more responsibility
  • For the provision of Emily and the development of the community based youth work
  • Our Youth Hall (or at least that’s what we call it!)
  • The growth of School Chaplaincy in our district
  • The growth of Wild Life holiday program in our community
  • Our continued partnerships with the City of South Perth and Como Secondary College
  • Angie’s role as Community Service coordinator at Como Secondary College

We now look to the next 3 and I’m reminded out of Galatians that FAITH will be required as we continue to build upon an amazing youth ministry foundation in this great church.
Gal 3:9-10 So those now who live by faith are blessed along with Abraham, who lived by faith—this is no new doctrine! And that means that anyone who tries to live by his own effort, independent of God, is doomed to failure.

Please continue to faithfully stand with us, praying as we love God and love young people.

Rod Thom
Senior Youth Minister

A look back over the last 3 years by Emily Dickinson…

I became part of the South Perth Youth Team in May 2006, the first year of our last three year plan.  In watching what God is doing in and through SPYouth, I am amazed to look back over the last three years and see all that’s happened.  

In the last three years, God has taken the South Perth Youth & Young Adult Ministry to many new places.   One major new thing is that the Youth Ministry has expanded – with more arms of the body of Christ reaching out into the community.  One of the places SP Youth has gone is the new Youth Services, which has added the Wild Life Holiday Program, the Workshop and the chance to get into the schools more. We’ve been able to attend a few school camps each year & run programs or help with activities most weeks.  From those programs, we’ve seen many youth come along to RIOT on Friday nights.  Then in 2008 a fantastic opportunity to reach out to the local high school came along with Angie Mitchell being appointed to a role where she gets to meet every Year 10 student and work closely with the staff.  We are truly making an impact in the community, thanks to God opening doors! 

I have been inspired by the Youth Leaders that God has placed in the Youth Ministry.  Their talents, dedication to God and passion for youth have been amazing to watch and to be a part of.  To work alongside such amazing people has taught me heaps while at the same time been so much fun!

The Young Adults continue to come and go in their transient stage of life, so we are trying as best we can to meet their needs in the time we have!  It’s been a great few years seeing the established Young Adults help new people connect and grow in Christ. 

At the same time that we’ve been growing & changing, we look to the future and realize that our goals remain the same – growing youth towards spiritual maturity (discipleship) and seeing and loving people the way Jesus does (mission).  God has some amazing things planned for the next three years:

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” – Jeremiah 29:11-13

We are seeking God with all our hearts – we look forward to the privilege of working with God in all He is doing in the lives of these young people in the next three years! 

Emily

Our Current Key Leaders in 2010
Rod Thom                  Senior Youth Minister
Emily Dickinson        Community Youth Worker & Young Adults Minister
Sue Vawser               SPYOUTH & Youth Vision WA Administrator
Emily Dickinson        Como Sec College Community Service Coordinator
Chris Mayne &
Kendall Wall              Youth Worship Coordinators
Brett Stanford             Riot & Youth Church Coordinator
Kendall Wall               Student Youth Pastor & SURGE Coordinator
Jess Gorman             Lifestreamers Primary Minister (Team Coordinator)
Alisha Faulkner         East Victoria Park Youth Group Coordinator
Lynette Dewing          TREK Coordinator

Our Vision (What we want to be!)
A Christ Centred Youth Community
Passionately Committed to Transforming our World with Christ

Our Mission (How we get there!)
Helping Young People find and follow Jesus

Our Values
Please refer to Church's Values that can be found at www.spcc.org.au

Our Strategy is very simply to focus on
1. DISCIPLESHIP and
2. MISSION

A bit of Youth Research

Mission Australia's National Survey of Young Australians 2008
Body image, drugs and family conflict are the top three issues of concern among young people, according to Mission Australia's seventh National survey of young Australians, released on 25 November 2008.
More than 45,000 young Australians aged 11 to 24 took part in this year's survey, the highest number of respondents since the survey began in 2001. As well as being asked to rank their level of concern for 15 key issues, respondents were asked about what they valued, who they turned to for advice and support, the types of activities in which they were involved and which people or organisations they most admired. Demographic information was also recorded.

When asked to rank their level of concern about 15 issues, young people most frequently named body image among their top three issues, closely followed by drugs and family conflict. In comparison with findings from last year's survey, the 2008 findings indicate an overall increase in the proportion of young people who listed drugs in their top three concerns – from one in five respondents in 2007 to one in four respondents in 2008. This increase in concern about drugs was most notable among the 11 to 14 age group, who were twice as likely as 20 to 24 year olds to identify it as a major issue (31.2% compared with 16.6%).

Key Discipleship Focuses for 2009-2011
South Perth Youth

Family Based Youth Ministry
This is an area that God keeps encouraging us to further explore in our youth ministry. What it looks like, we are still not 100% sure. What we do know is that we want to more and more involve the whole family in what we are doing. So we will be encouraging parents and families to get involved, especially on Friday nights and camps.  We will continue to have a major focus on parental support in our Lifestreamers church on Sundays.

Youth Prayer
As a youth ministry we need to pray.  The youth leaders pray at the beginning of each youth event in addition to specific times of prayer and fasting.  We are hoping with the later start to Friday nights (7pm) that more leaders will be able to attend.  We will also be encouraging our youth to get to our church prayer nights which in 2009 will be on Sunday Nights.

Riot, Youth Church and Small Groups (Friday Nights)
2009 will be the 4th consecutive year of ‘youth’ on Friday night in its current format.  We believe that God would have us continue in this format but tweaking the following things;

  • New key leadership for 2009
  • Parental involvement
  • Work smarter at promotion and communication especially with the parents
  • Find a Small Group Coordinator
  • Sharper focus of our small groups
  • Promote and encourage journaling
  • Encouraging our leaders to be very focussed on the youth in their small group
  • Continue to work very strongly at linking Wild Life with Riot
  • Equip youth to reach out to their mates
  • Look at better connecting with the “introverts”
  • More intentional at being inclusive
  • Bring more variation to our Friday nights
  • Youth Shepherding Elders
  • Seekers small group

Youth Worship and Creative Arts
We are trusting that God will continue to raise up, release and empower youth and young adults to be worship leaders, vocalists, musicians, composers, audio visual, creative arts ministers using their gifts to bring glory to Jesus.  Damien Bailey will continue to lead this area with a particular focus on developing the 3rd youth band, high school outreach, seeing youth released in drama and serving our Kids Ministry!

Youth Journalling
The journals will continue to be an integral part of the teaching and the spiritual development of our youth throughout the next three years.  We have implemented an easier bible reading plan called E 100.  It is the essential 100 bible passages that will give us a fairly good overview of the bible.  We will encourage the youth to use their journals with this program.  My hope over this next period is to ‘youth up’ the actual journal and work on making it more youth friendly.

Leadership Development
We will continue to work on identifying and equipping key emerging leaders. We plan to invite these potential people to courses, conferences and training events to equip them for leadership.  It’s our desire to see more leaders released in areas of responsibility and we will be intentionally doing this in the next three years.
Another strategy that we will be working on during the next three years is developing our young people to serve and use their gifts in areas of ministry throughout the life of the church.

Junior High Church (Sunday AM)
We will continue to provide age specific teaching during the two AM services for students who are in Yrs 8 -10. Students will go into ‘Big Church’ to enjoy praise and worship with their family and then leave together after the community spot.  Kendall Wall is the new Junior High Coordinator who will facilitate this ministry.

Camps and Retreats
Camps and retreats will continue to be an integral part of our programming, into the future.

Possible Partnerships with other Youth Ministries
Como Baptist
Full Gospel Assembly Perth
Powerhouse
Cornerstone Church in Busselton

Lifestreamers Church (Years 1-7)
With the assistance of the youth bands it’s our hope to continue to develop kids worship.

Intentional Transitioning
We will celebrate and support the transition of young people from Kids Ministry to Youth and Youth to Young Adults.  We will do this by having celebrations with the church family later in the year and continue to do the Year 12 Road Trip.

South Perth Young Adults
Our Young Adults ministry consists of the following:

  • Life / Home Groups
  • Social Events (YA Connect Nights)
  • AM Church, Church Prayer (Sunday PM)
  • Mission (Possibly in the University?)

Emily will be working with the 18-25’s empowering them to discover what they want and need as a group.  We will be re-inventing “suppers” and really promoting SYG as an awesome opportunity for outreach.  We will also continue to pray a dialogue about the possibility of a ‘specialist’ Young Adult Pastor into the future.

Key Missional Focuses for 2009-2011
South Perth Youth Services

Broader Involvement in Local High Schools
We want to continue serving our local High Schools in ways that enhance the community. These are some possibilities: assisting on Camps, helping facilitate the Peer Support and Peer Skills programs in schools, as well as student mentoring (The workshop program with Blokes and Chick). We will also continue to assist at Drug Awareness Week, EXO Day and our regular lunch time activities at Como Secondary College.  It is also our dream to be more involved at Penrhos.  Emily will take more responsibility in this area and will look at getting a team together who will be more active in doing High School ministry.

Community Based Youth Groups
It is our desire to see the East Victoria Park youth group continue to develop and flourish under the leadership of Alisha Faulkner and her team of very committed leaders.
Another fantastic community youth group is TREK.  TREK started in 2007 and since then has seen a number of youth give their lives to Christ under Lynette Dewing’s leadership. 
We would like to look at the possibility of opening up TREK to Collier Primary as Phil Smoker is the Chaplain there one day a week.
We look forward to partnering with these two great groups.  South Perth Youth wishes to be a support by providing combined events, leaders (esp last years, year 12’s) and any resources.

Como YouthCare (Chaplaincy)
It's our desire to continue to invest in the Chaplains from our local area. Our immediate role is to continue financially and prayerfully supporting our existing Chaplains.  Please continue to pray and support these frontline ministers:

CURRENT PLACEMENTS for 2009:
Phil Smoker                                    2 days Como Sec. College
Phil Smoker                                    1 day Collier Primary School
Blair Robertson                              5 days Como Sec. College
Amy Rundle                                    3 days South Perth Primary School
Roxanne Morine                             2 days Wilson Primary School
Roxanne Morine                             2 days Curtin Primary School
Terry Dwyer                                     5 days Kent St High School
Alisha Faulkner                              2 Days East Vic Park Primary School

Outreach Opportunities
In 2009 we will be involved in the Youth Vision WA State Youth Games, Youth Rally's hosted by South City and Youth Alive.

Mission Trips (C2C Youth)
We will continue to offer trips that reach beyond our local setting including India and Kununurra. One idea that we are thinking through is the possibility of taking Wild Life to the streets of Kununurra and running it there concurrently during the school holidays.
 
We will also support and champion individual callings. We hope to develop a closer relationship with the LCC C2C missions and be more intentional about developing our partnership.

Continue to Partner with the City of South Perth
We will be working to ensure that we continue to develop this fantastic partnership that we have with the City.  We will also be regularly attending the bi-monthly SPARKYS Network which brings together youth services in the City of South Perth and the Town of Victoria Park.

Wild Life
In two years Wild Life has grown significantly.  For the next few years we are going to focus on training up more leaders, making sure all of our policies are in place, looking at program sponsors and also looking at the possibility of franchising the idea (not for profit of course) throughout the state.  It’s our hope to trial run Wild Life in Kununurra in the next year or so.

Community Service Program @ Como Secondary College
In 2008 Angie Mitchell started as the Community Service Coordinator at Como Secondary College.  Due to the huge success of this new role Angie has been offered another contract for 2009 and we are also exploring the possibility of expanding the idea into other High Schools who have heard of the success.

Community Transformation
We feel very strongly that God has called us to practically assist the community in anything that it may need. For example, renovating houses, doing yard cleanups and any other service with no strings attached!  It’s our hope to find someone who loves this kind of thing and we can release them to mobilise the troops to do a missional project at least twice a year.

Where to from here;
In order to achieve this plan we believe we need the following:

Some roles needing to be filled:

  • Marketing and Technology Assistance
  • Web Designers
  • 3rd Youth Worship Team
  • EVP/Trek Leaders
  • Youth Smalls Coordinator
  • RIOT Youth Leaders
  • Youth Missions C2C Representative
  • Interns and Gap Year students
  • School Chaplains
  • People committed to praying for the youth ministry

Please pray about your involvement in 2009-2011 In order for these things to become a reality we need devoted followers of Jesus to join the team and play a part in what God wants to do in us and through us. Is there an area of youth ministry that God is calling you to? If you want to chat about any of this please feel free to talk to or email one of the youth staff.

Youth Team
www.spyouth.net
9313 1600