Come to a saving
relationship with Jesus
Grow in your knowledge of and relationship with Him
Understand how their faith
intersects with issues they face
Walk in obedience to Him
Union Lake Student Ministry seeks to help 6th-12th grade students to know Jesus and make Him known by partnering with parents to see their students
Join ULSM!
Regular Gatherings: The primary avenue of teaching and fellowship for ULSM. During these gatherings, we come together for approximately 2 hours to sit under the teaching of scripture, grow through small group discussions, and foster relationships through fun activities. Currently the ULSM Gatherings take place on Sunday Evenings throughout the school year and Wednesday Evenings during the summer; you can see our current gathering times on the calendar.
Intentional Relationships: As an informal environment, we engage in intentional relationships to promote discipleship within the group. These exist casually, such as conversations in passing or before a church service, and through more planned times such as getting coffee with a student or inviting a family over for dinner.
Fellowship Events: We plan events to intentionally provide a context where relationships between members of ULSM can flourish. These could be large events like mission trips and retreats or smaller like game nights and holiday parties. Often, though not always, our fellowship events include some form of biblical teaching.
What Makes ULSM Special?
Biblical Teaching: The foundation of ULSM is Biblical Teaching. It is through the scripture one learns to trust Jesus, grows in knowledge of Him and relationship with Him, learns principles to apply to daily situations, and is matured in obedience to Christ (2 Timothy 3:15-17). Therefore, we cannot fulfill our purpose as a ministry without faithful biblical teaching.
Discipling Relationships: Through Discipling Relationships, we follow the biblical pattern of teaching those younger or less mature the ways of the faith (Titus 2). This begins with the ULSM leaders investing in and discipling the students God has entrusted to our ministry.
Worldview Formation: More than just information transfer, Worldview Formation is a goal of our teaching. Through topical and sequential lessons through biblical books, we want students to develop a Christian understanding of all of life and learn to live in a way that is distinctly Christian. We understand that this is a crucial task in the formative teenage years.
Church Integration: ULSM is not preparing the church of tomorrow – the believing students are the church of today. Therefore, Church Integration is the intended result of ULSM. In other words, we do not seek to usurp the role of the church at large as the primary worship and fellowship context for students. Rather, we seek to equip students and train them as leaders so that they are healthier, more productive members of Union Lake Baptist Church and propel them into the larger church body. If students leave ULBC and join a different local church (while in college, for example), we want to bless that body by the way we trained students to love the local church.
Parental Involvement
Integration: Instead of separating students from the church, we gladly invite and encourage parents (and other church members) to be involved in ULSM. As partners in discipling their students, we recognize and celebrate parents’ role in their children’s lives and want to promote that critical relationship.
Parent Summits: The Bible understands parents as the primary disciplers of their children (Deuteronomy 6:7, Ephesians 6:4). As a partner with them in this role, ULSM should help parents in this task. Parent Summits are the key way by which we do this.
The goal of Parent Summits is fourfold:
- To teach parents about their role and equip them for specific challenges they face as the parents of teenagers
- To give parents a place to give feedback and help ULSM staff to understand needs of their students
- To inform parents of what ULSM is teaching so they can partner with us in discipling their students
- To foster a sense of community between parents of teenagers in the church.
