OUR CHURCH CONTEXT

  1. FBC KENEDY
    1. We are a welcoming and caring congregation. We are becoming more diverse, though we do not mirror our community just yet. About 74% of our congregation is Caucasian, 24% is Hispanic, and about 2% is African-American. We also have an active Children’s Ministry, in addition to our Youth Ministry. Overall, I believe our church is healthy and we are excited about bringing on board a new Youth Minister!
    2. Our Sunday morning Worship Service average attendance is 145 and our Sunday morning Small Groups overall average is 105.
    3. Our Wednesday Night Youth attendance is sporadic, from 10-20 on any given night. Sunday Small Group is also sporadic with around 5-10 in attendance.
  2. OUR STUDENTS, PARENTS, VOLUNTEERS
    1. The youth group is made up of mostly JH students and early HS students. We have several older high school students that were connected to the ministry and still have some connection, but do not attend weekly services frequently, if at all.
    2. There is leadership potential in the students who attend, but it needs developing. They are a passionate group of students who really care about the youth group, one another, and their next youth minister. They are serious about their faith. They can be flakey at times and really committed at other times. Students have challenging backgrounds, often coming from unhealthy or broken homes. They are a high energy group who often have trouble focusing in.
    3. We have struggled to get parents involved in the ministry, even to show up to events/activities we’ve planned specifically for them.
    4. We also lack adult volunteers and the Youth Committee has not been as committed to the work as we would like.
  3. FACILITIES, PROPERTY & FINANCES
    1. We have a good amount of meeting space and a full size gym (built in the late 1990’s). Our youth meet in the Education Building, built in 1950, and is in serious need of remodeling. We’ve begun this work and have roughly $300,000 in an account towards our goal of $875,000. You can see a video of a walkthrough I did, showing the current condition of the building. Our Sanctuary and Offices were recently renovated.
    2. The church owns a bus (26 passenger) and a brand new van (15 passenger) and an inclosed trailer, all stored in a newly built bus barn. 
    3. We have a new MacBook for the Youth Minister to use.
    4. Our overall church finances are strong, but with many older givers moving to be with family or passing away, we are appropriately cautious, though not overly so. We have no debt.
  4. YOUTH LEADERSHIP
    1. Past Youth Ministers have stayed, on average, 2-3 years. I think this is due to the nature of the position, being that we are a small to medium size church making us a natural stepping stone to a larger ministry. And, though our small town has more amenities than you might expect, we’re still a community of 3,400 and the trend among younger generations is to want to live in cities. This has created a disjointed youth ministry that needs to be rebuilt, not around the Youth Minister, but around students, parents and adult leaders/volunteers and the church body as a whole. We do not expect that our next Youth Minister will be here for decades, but while they are here we do expect that will build a solid youth ministry that will outlast them by building an overall program and investing in leaders.
    2. Because of the frequency of transitions among our Youth Ministers, and Youth Minister Interns in-between them, I think the students have felt somewhat abandoned and/or hurt by the church. This, I believe, is a big reason our attendance has been low. The church has had as many as 30-50 students involved in the youth ministry in the past.
  5. PICTURES & VIDEO
    1. Many pictures and videos can be found on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistKenedy
    2. We did a 10 minute video of a walk-through of our Education Building where you can see its current condition: https://youtu.be/lAnxLFhXRZw 
    3. You can find more picture of our facilities at: https://goo.gl/maps/nA7AvyjaJ6egjDJb6
    4. And more pictures are posted for you here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/1XLjBi6bdGYgVdZWA
 
POSTED BY: PASTOR MATT SINGLETON