CATC Students | 2023

Emerging Leaders

This has been an incredible year for our student ministry. We had a solid year in which we have had a great normal rhythm of Midweek and Student Life Groups throughout the year, but I want to

Summer Camps
Summer camps are always a top week for our students in the summer. This year, between middle school and high school, we took right at 100 students to camp. It was an incredible couple of weeks to see our students grow in their relationship with God and become a closer community with one another. A fun element we added this year was to have some high school students attend middle school camp as junior counselors. This allowed them the opportunity to be challenged in a new way and get to know our younger students better.

This summer we were able to offer a couple of different mission opportunities for our students. The first opportunity was serving a couple of Saturdays with Beautiful Feet ministries in Fort Worth. This ministry focuses on meeting the physical and spiritual needs of the homeless population in Fort Worth. Our students were able to sort clothes, serve meals, share their testimonies, lead worship, pray with people, and much more.

Our second opportunity this summer was to spend a week up in Utah working with Austin Glenn and King’s Cross. We took 19 students and 5 adults up to help host a VBS, canvas neighborhoods, prayer walk, offer babysitting for their staff for a night, learn about the Church of Latter-Day Saints, have conversations with Mormon missionaries in Temple Square, and much more.

Growing Intentionally

When it comes to intentional events (camp, One Weekend, mission trips) we see God use those times to stir a new work in the hearts of students in our ministry. This year, we have 8 students who are processing through what God may be calling them to as a life dedicated to serving the church in full-time vocational ministry or being a part of the work of taking the Gospel to unreached people groups.

This has been a great year for students growing in their relationship with God. One of the tangible ways that we can see that growth is through believers’ baptism. We were able to see 18 students come forward to make their decision to follow Jesus publicly before the church.

One Weekend and Fall Retreat were huge successes this year. During those two weekends, we saw over 150 students participate. At Fall Retreat our focus was on one of our church values, renewed as a community. We sought out together to answer the questions, What does an authentic community in the church look like?

When it came to One Weekend, we looked at the life of Elijah and how God provided for him in the big and small for what he needed in that moment. It was through God’s provision, that God’s name was glorified through His faithfulness to Elijah.

Emerging Leaders

An exciting new opportunity that was added this year was our student leadership team. This team was made up of 13 high school students who met twice a month with the CATC Student staff to plan events, help cast vision for the ministry, and learn what it means to serve those around them. This group leads out in student takeover nights (where they lead worship, share testimony, and plan the fun element without adult help), welcome team, sermon series planning, etc.

One of our greatest joys is to see students use their giftings to serve the church. We seek to build opportunities for students to try new things and lead out in their giftings. This year we were able to launch a student-led worship team for Wednesday nights. This allows the students the opportunity to grow in leading worship and their own personal worship with God. We have also been able to plug some of our students into serving on the production team on Sunday mornings. 

Support
None of the events or trips above happen without the incredible support of our church, adult volunteers, and families. The student ministry is growing and God is moving in the hearts of our students, and we cannot wait to see what He has in store for us in this next school year.

If you get excited about the idea of helping students encounter Jesus, please reach out to Nathaniel Kuhns as we are always looking for ways for adults to use their giftings and talents to help our students grow in their relationship with God.