I'm sharing this only as an example. I am amazed at the creativity of various congregations to encourage and acknowledge their student's LTC efforts. Our approach at Center Road has changed a lot over the years. I think our approach this year worked out best for us, at least in my memory.
Why Have A Celebration?
When LTC in the Mid-West began, we had every student come to the stage at the Saturday evening celebration. As participation has grown, that has become impractical. Instead we have a general celebration to close LTC and encourage churches to more personally encourage their students at home. It's also important, because the true value of leadership training in our youth can be sidelined in general in the congregation. A celebration can be encouraging not only to students but to the congregation as members see great things being done for Christ.
What Doesn't Work For Us Anymore?
In the past we really tried to have every event showcased. That drove us to an evening time slot automatically. Our congregation has become more focused on small groups on Sunday evening, thus the Sunday evening "crowd" has dwindled. While it means so much to have whoever deems the activity important there, regardless of numbers, I think it's human nature to compare audiences from Sunday morning to evening - it sends a message to our kids. We have also tried to have every event done in full. However, the saying that the "mind can absorb as long as the seat can endure" does come into play. I remember for years having the kids come to the stage to get their awards and announcing the award, etc. However, I realized that the fact that our kids stepped out in faith was much more important than how they did. So we publish the list of what the kids did in the bulletin, but the award levels are more low key. We are proud of everything everyone accomplished.
What We Did This Year
This year our worship leader, minister, myself worked together to come up with a morning worship service that allowed us to worship God and at the same time praise God for what our students and coaches accomplished. We integrated our Bible Readings into the worship service and had youth say prayers and help with communion. Art, bulletin boards, and service challenge papers were on display in the lobby. Our minister had an abbreviated message on the Journey of Faith. We then transitioned to LTC mode. Instead of doing the skits, we had the puppet teams all come up with their puppets and say hello to the congregation, which was well received. The same with Bible Bowl and Bible Quiz - we brought the kids up as a group and acknowledged their efforts to hide God's word in their hearts - which in the end is really what it's all about. Our Drama team and the Bible Readers we didn't use in worship we also brought to the stage and acknowledged. Then our focus shifted to our singing group singing one of their favorite songs. We focused on this part because this particular year, our support singers took a special interest in helping our singing group with their parts. It highlighted to me the importance of adults mentoring youth. So, our adult helpers sang with the kids and it was very encouraging. We thanked all our volunteer staff and ended worship with the theme for next year, "the Extra Mile" from Matthew. One of our volunteers passed out awards and plaques after services.
And we ended on time... which well, that's always a bonus.
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