My time at Ignite Youth started as a teenager in 2015. From 2015 to 2018 I was part of Ignite Youth, and it was also during this time that I felt called intto full-time ministry. After matriculating in 2018, I began my theological education at the North-West University at the start of 2019. After three years in Potchefstroom, I returned to AGS Brandpunt to do my Ministry Integrated Learning Year through the AFM of South Africa, under mentorship of Pastor Charl. Near the end of 2021 I became a volunteer at the Youth Ministry and continued at the beginning of 2022. On the 10th of June 2022, I was appointed as the new leader of Ignite Youth.
My vision is see the Youth Ministry grow on every level. One of the short-term goals is to see an increase in the number of teens attending on a Friday night, since we want to reach as much teenagers in the community as possible. Most teenagers are hurting and we want all the youth to feel welcome and to have an encounter with Jesus when they visit our Youth. We also want to see each teenager grow spiritually and mature as followers of Christ. In our preaching we focus on “Spirit and Truth”, since we believe that only God’s Word, together with the working of the Holy Spirit will really impact the lives of our teenagers and equip them to make a difference in their schools and communities.
We currently have a volunteer team of 10 people who serve on Friday evenenings. We are actively busy with ideas to grow the Youth Ministry. Recently we also asked the teenagers to complete a survey where we asked for their imput to gain a deeper understanding of which areas they believe we should work on. One area where we currently focus on is Social media. We are working to have a strong social media presence, especially on Instagram and Facebook, since most teenagers spend a significant amount of time on social media. We also started a new Youth Ministry Welcoming team that serves at the church on Sunday mornings to attract parents of the teenagers to church and also to get the teenagers involved on Sundays. We also plan to host a social event once a month at Youth to continually attract new teenagers. In the second term we hosted 2 social events and it proved to be very successful in attracting new teenagers. We also plan to eventually start a worship band for the Youth in the near future. We also plan to build relationships with schools in the community and partner with them to reach more teenagers with the gospel. We also have a Youth Camp every year where we also reach new teenagers and have the opportunity to equip all of our teens to make a difference and reach others with the gospel.