As this new school year started, we have added a junior school ministry to our church. It is hard to believe that what started off just as a college focused church has now expanded to various other ministries. This is truly a testimony to God’s grace and faithfulness.
Within the month of August we were racking our brains to come up with a new name for this ministry. I have been teaching in our church the importance of names. I did a teaching one time about how “our name is our destiny.”
We began to go back to our junior high days and tried (really, really) hard to remember some of the things that we went through; and finally we decided to name the junior high ministry “Velocity.”
Various dictionaries define “velocity” as, “the speed at which something moves or happens; the rate of change in the position of an object as it moves in a particular direction.”
When we go back to our junior high days, there were so many things that came at us in high speeds – puberty, peer pressure, identity formation, friendships, etc. I still remember some of the mistakes I made during this time. I wish I had a Christian background to keep me rooted but that was not the case for me. It was only after a series of events that I got introduced to church and received Christ at the end of the summer of my 8th grade as I was heading into high school.
This is one reason why I am passionate about having a good junior high ministry in our church. It can really change the destiny of people. With so many things bombarding the teenagers at high speeds, we are praying that the direction of their lives will be transformed with the Gospel message. We are praying that “the rate of change in the position of an object as it moves in a particular direction” will be God-centered and transformed to live for the glory of God.
Big props to our servants who are helping out with this ministry as well as with Latitude, our high school ministry. We are definitely changing the destiny of the next generation.