Having discovered Jesus through primary school SRE, Luke is now leading youth towards Christ as a young adult.
Kirk Watkinson, children’s and youth minister at Kingswood Anglican, has had the joy of witnessing the faith journey of a young adult, Luke*, who came to know Jesus in his primary school SRE class. Now in his 20s, Luke is leading primary aged boys in their faith journey at church. Kirk says,
“I first met him (Luke) in my Scripture class in a local primary school and a couple of his brothers were there as well. I think at that point, he might have been year 3 or year 4, so he was in the right age group to join our primary age boys’ group. He and one of his mates started to attend the group...”
Luke came from a broken home and out of the kindness of a friend and his dad, they became great role models for Luke’s Christian walk. Kirk was encouraged to see both Luke and his friend transition from kid’s ministry, youth, and now young adults.
“Luke and his friend started coming together to the kid’s ministry, and as they got to high school, they started doing both the boys’ group and youth group together and then at the end of youth group they got into young adults’ ministry. Luke really enjoyed coming to NextGen when he turned 18, the time away was a big step for him.”
Kirk is slowly giving responsibility over to Luke as he leads the primary boys group at church, taking charge of games and running memory verses with them. Kirk sees great potential in him teaching God’s word to them in the near future.
“At the moment I've got him (Luke) just doing some games, activities and running memory verses, so that's where I’ve started him. I've asked him to think about doing talks. But timing hasn't worked out yet. Because obviously, that'll take a bit more time and we'll have to meet up a bit through that process, as well. So just lining that up, that will hopefully happen over the next couple of months”.
Young people from all walks of life join Kingswood Anglican youth group and Kirk finds so much joy in seeing them have those lightbulb moments of understanding the gospel better.
“Seeing the lightbulb moments, when kids finally hear something and it just kind of hits home for them”.
Kirk would love prayer for his youth kids to grow in consistency in attending youth group and understand more about their identity in Christ.
“Pray for the kids to regroup and get to know each other once again (due to various barriers). There's been sporadic attendance within groups. We are going to spend time particularly thinking about identity, helping them think about who they are and as they do that, hopefully they can open up to each other.”
Thank you for generously supporting SRE in schools, which is helping young people grow in their faith and connect with church youth ministries like Kingswood Anglican.
*Name changed to protect identity.
*Representative image used for privacy