St. Francis - The Episcopal Church in Potomac : Pray Hard Play Hard

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Student Ministries

Pray Hard Play Hard

Student Ministries welcomes our summer interns Gillian Ellsworth and Dylan Thayer.

— David Hirsch, Director of Student Ministries

"Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, and in purity."

— 1 Timothy 4:12

We will disciple students to be faithful servants of Jesus Christ, enabling them to be transformational agents who share God's love and mercy, so that they will change the world for Christ.

Students are a big deal at St. Francis. Student Ministries (otherwise known as Youth Group) is a vibrant and burgeoning ministry to and of teenagers in the seventh through twelfth grades. Ours is a relational model of youth ministry. Many of the students in our youth group are part of it because they've been invited to Bible Study, and, like their friends here in the parish, they keep coming back!

We enjoy what God is doing in the lives of our young people. We meet students where they are spiritually, and we pour our hearts and souls, and a lot of energy, into ministry with them. We watch the way they love the Lord our God, and love their neighbors, here in greater Washington, DC and in other parts of the country, and it inspires us to want to do the same. All of the programs we offer help shape youth to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

During the school year, there are weekly Bible studies held at Glenolden House, our Youth House. More than twenty junior high/middle school students come to Bible Study every Wednesday. An average of twenty-five high school students come to Bible Study every Thursday. In both cases, we meet at 5:30 pm for supper and fun (which includes everything from billiards to Dance Revolution to Guitar Hero, from Wii bowling to good conversations to Capture the Flag, to football [hey, it is a youth group!]), and we begin the worship and Bible study at 6:30, wrapping things up by 7:30. In the summer, the two groups meet together on Tuesdays at 5:00 for a cookout, fun, and worship at Glenolden House.

On the third Thursday of the month, we worship in Saint Francis Church in the chancel. Here's the February 18, 2010 service leaflet.

There are also monthly activities and periodic retreats. The summer of 2009, middle school students went to Great Escape Johnstown, the latest example of the usually week-long Jr/Sr High conferences our students attend with adult leaders.

There's the annual ski trip and we participate in numerous local outreach projects in and around DC.

A linchpin and highlight of the year is the summer Mission Trip. In recent years, St. Francis Student Ministries students have made mission trips to Standing Rock Indian Reservation/St. Gabriel's Camp, Selfridge, North Dakota; Logan, West Virginia; New Madrid, Missouri; Houma, Louisiana; and, D'Iberville, Mississippi. This summer, there's Mission Philly and plans are shaping up for a return trip to rebuild a community in the Gulf Coast.