YOUTH FORMATION

Creating spaces in the middle and high school years for youth to grow in faith, spiritual friendships and a sense of belonging.

A key part of the formation of our youth happens through participation in weekly worship and Eucharist. In addition, we offer a weekly youth group, where we eat together, play together, and nurture faith together. Outside youth group, we encourage our teens to regularly engage with the scriptures, we host occasional parties and retreats, and we serve the wider community of Charlottesville as members of Christ’s body.

WORD & TABLE

We value the practices of living out life together as followers of Jesus with our Youth. The rhythms of our Sunday liturgy together, modeling ancient Christian practices, loving our neighbors, the work of justice, all of these things are done alongside youth. Our desire is for our youth to be with us as much as possible in our worship together, not as passive participants, but as active members of our community. Because of this, we encourage all members of our youth group to consider where they might serve on a Sunday (passing out liturgy guides, scripture reader, setup, kids, etc).

FORMATION

Our youth group meets on Sundays from 11:30-1:30. We eat lunch together following corporate worship, play together, and have focused time in formation. This fall, Father Bliss is teaching a 10-week course called Rooted in the Faith: Youth Catechism. We hope to offer youth a framework that is good, true, and beautiful: a way of understanding the Christian story they have inherited, the life into which many of them have been baptized, and the practices through which Christians across centuries have learned to inhabit that story.

READING PLAN

We have created a three year reading plan that will take our students through the whole the Bible. Our plan is 6 days/week, and includes readings each day from the Psalms, Gospels, and one other book of the Bible. Our aim is to introduce students to the books of the Bible as complete literary units, with their own design and method of communication. Thus, our reading plan is intended to teach our students the language of prayer (Psalms), keep them in touch with Jesus who is at the heart of our faith (Gospels), and introduce them to the unified story of the Scriptures that find their fulfillment in Jesus (Everything Else). All are welcome to join us in the journey.

Reading Plan: June through October