Young Families 2026 Vision

Hey, young families, we're pastors. Andrea and Sam wanted to just take a second and welcome you to what we had hoped would have been an in person vision night. Thanks to Icemageddon, we could not do that. So this is our way of saying, hey, we want to give you the updates of where the Young Families ministry is headed to in 2026 and have a chance to go through some of the awesome events we have planned and also opportunities for you as a family to get connected. Last year we spoke quite a bit about the idea of being rooted in our marriages and in our families.

And we want to take that to the next phase, which is what does that actually mean and how do we develop that? So coming up on Friday, February 27th would be the first installment of James Part 1. We're so excited. We're going to lay the groundwork for the book of James. Talk about who is James?

Why is he important? Why is there a whole book about him? What did he write? And then we will continue on in the James study in May. So May 22, Friday will also be another James study.

James Part 2, 6 o'. Clock. Childcare is provided. All you have to do is register in advance and we can make sure those are covered. Friday, March 27, it's our Thrive date night.

We love these nights. These are fun evenings where the whole goal of the Young Families ministry is to help develop connection among other people in the same stage of life. And these date nights are a great way to do that. We, we always have a great time. There's always food and fellowship.

Sometimes there's a fun theme, sometimes it's different every single year. But we want you to know that's a night where childcare is on you. You have to get that on your own. But we will make sure that the evening is fun and you can invest in your marriage and in your community. The next thing that we wanted to talk to you guys about was coming up in April, we're going to do Wednesday night takeover again.

If you joined us last year. Last year, in May, the Refuge Young Families Ministry took over the Wednesday night services. Well, that's coming back this year and we're really excited with it. We're going to take over three weeks in April, it's going to be April 15th, the 22nd and the 29th, where the refuge Young Families will take over the service and we'll talk about all things pertaining to family, parenting and everything in between. Yeah, a lot of stuff has to do with how do you raise kids in the culture we're in right now.

How does your marriage stay strong in the culture we're dealing with today? And also what are our kids facing and how do we help them to navigate things we never had to navigate when we were growing up? So all those items are things we care about and we want to make sure that we figure out how to give practical guidance in a season of life that's very challenging. So what else we got going on this year? Well, rounding out the month of May, we're excited that we're going to have another Canaan Ballers Night.

This is a low key night for you and your family just to come enjoy a night of baseball, summer weather, fun times with other families in the community. And we will have a certain spot that the Refuge will have a blackout amount of tickets that you will purchase. But you will get to sit with all of us and hang out with the community that we have. That's May 30th. It is a Friday evening and the game starts at 7:00'.

Clock. We'll get more details about all that stuff as we get closer. So to round out the summer, we're going to finish up with Friday, June 12th. We're doing Thrive Night Summer Bash. We did this last year.

It's at a local park where we have everybody come together with the entire family, all ages. We have food, ice cream, a time of fellowship, fun games, exciting stuff. We can just be together and build relationship together. We know how valuable it can be to have people in your life in this crucial stage when you're raising kids. It's difficult.

There's seasons of great duress, we'll put it that way. And having a life giving community around you is invaluable. We had such a great time with all of you guys at the Rooted Marriage Conference last October that we are bringing it back to a two day event. It will be on Friday and Saturday, October 2nd and 3rd. So mark your calendars.

We are so excited about that. The Rooted Marriage Conference is something that we've never done before until last year. And this is something we felt like was so well received. Just pouring into marriages and making an effort to say what does it take to have people and families feel like they're a priority? And the Refuge cares a lot about families because God cares a lot about families.

That's why this ministry exists and is because we want to pour into the people that we know are. It's a hard season sometimes. But we also know that Scripture says in Psalms that God places the lonely into families. It's a big reason why we do all the things we're doing. And the Rooted Marriage Conference is kind of the icing on the cake as far as what we're planning for this year.

But all that said, these are all things that are coming down the pike in 2026. We need you to make sure that you're at these events. We'd love to pour into your families, we'd love for you to spread the word. We'd love for you to be able to share your friends, other people maybe in your communities that you are part of at school possibly or churches or people, you know, what can we do to help their families to thrive? That's our goal and that's our mission and our vision.

Now one of the main things we also want to make mention of that is new for 2026 for young families is we want to make sure we expand the influence to if you have a middle school age kid, we want to support the families, the parents of this age. It's a really prickly pair at this time of year, really prickly age to be a kid. And the families are really what we're about. So if you have a middle school aged child and you've kind of been on the outskirts of I'm just beyond this ministry, that is no more, we'd love to invite you to come and join us. Of course, sixth through eighth grade is what I'm referring to and we'd love to have those families be a part of this ministry as well.

We also couldn't do what we do in young families with our incredible leadership team that comes in to help support the vision of this ministry and and they help us to navigate some of the most challenging seasons of writing content and developing things that are very important and really making it possible for this ministry to exist. Yeah. So we are so excited to announce the 2026 leadership team for young families returning again for this year's leadership. Josh and Candice Benton Taylor and Stephanie Brown, Laura and Danny Christensen and Gian and Naomi Keanu. And we are so excited that we have brand new leadership joining us this year.

Robin Kenya Clark. Again, there's a lot coming up this year. We're so excited to see everybody. Let us know if you guys have any questions and we'll see.