This year, we have 15 mentors who were invited to enter into a deep relationship with the 15 young people. We facilitated this relationship building process by requiring that they fully participate in a learning community with the confirmands. We made this requirement because we believe that the relationships among kids and adults are what ultimately matter. The relationship fostered among mentors and kids offer a foretaste of what is to come. The senior high years are a particularly critical time.
Senior highs require a special kind of intensity and focus on the part of the church.
God needs their prophetic voices in the church, in the culture, and in the families they call their own. They continue by saying that youth ministry needs to be much more than a program. In these relationships, adolescents discover who they are through the eyes of trusted others. These relationships draw into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. In these next months and years, the church will be invited to give a lot more focus to youth ministry along with other ministries of the church.