Middle School Sunday School Sundays at 9am– 10:15am Current events and lectionary based discussions on being a Jesus Follower.
Wednesday Night Youth -6pm-8pm
We have a vibrant and active group of young people at Good Shepherd. All 6th through 12th grade are invited to participate in our youth programs.
Join us!
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Youth Sunday School meets at 9:15 a.m. in Room 202 of the Church Office Building. We always enjoy some yummy snacks like these, and this year we are exploring and asking questions with the Echo the Story curriculum from Spark House. As Kindergarten through 5th graders, you heard the stories in Godly Play. Let’s listen to them again 
and pay atten
tion to where we hear the ECHO of ourselves: What does it mean to be made in the image of God? What do YOU hear in the creation story: the light pushing back the darkness, the breath of God breathed in to Adam’s nostrils, the wonder at being created and placed in a beautiful garden?
YOUTH EVENTS
Youth Events take place on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of every month as school calendars allow. Our Middle School youth meet from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., and our High School youth meet from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Both groups sh
are dinner together from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. Youth Events are an opportunity for Christ-centered fellowship as our youth engage in any number of activities: hiking, watching a movie, field games, making manna bags, having a cookout, playing charades, shopping for other teenagers at Christmas, etc.
We have a Middle School Mission Wild Week that runs in conjunction with Vacation Bible School where we stay local and work with a different organization each day from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. We have served with such organizations as Children’s Home/Chambliss Center, the Humane Educational Society, the Boys & Girls Club, Family Promise, Community Kitchen, and Children’s Nutrition Program of Haiti.
This past summer, our High School Mission Trip was to serve with Reading Camp, an outreach ministry established in 2002 in the Episcopal Diocese of Lexington to help struggling students who need to build reading skills and self-confidence. Our youth served as camp counselors for the week of Reading Camp held at the Cathedral Domain Camp and Conference Center in Irvine, Kentucky.
ACOLYTES & CHALICE BEARERS
The youth are active in the liturgical life of the parish, serving as 
acolytes and chalice bearers. We have also had youth serve as ushers and lectors. In addition, we celebrate Youth Sunday twice a year where our youth not only serve in these roles, but also as our preachers for the day.
Current Acolytes, please find the Acolyte Rota here: Acolyte Schedule , and remember that your Acolyte Masters want YOU to find a sub if you are not able to be here on the Sunday that you are scheduled.
CONFIRMATION
We are all welcomed in to the Body of Christ, the family of the Church, at baptism. For those of us baptized as infants, our parents and godparents assumed the responsibilities and promise of baptism for us. Confirmation is the sacramental rite in which candidates are invited to “express a mature commitment to Christ, and receive strength from the Holy Spirit through prayer and laying on of hands by a bishop (Book of Common Prayer, p. 860).” It is the time to proclaim for yourself what your parents and godparents proclaimed for you at baptism-a big decision and a big responsibility.
PILGRIMAGE
As a form of prayer, the pilgrimage is an incarnational prayer, a prayer of the body. The pilgrim is a person who prays with his/her feet.
~Edward Hayes
Along with the opportunity offere
d our older High School youth to make a mature and public affirmation of their faith in the sacramental rite of Confirmation, an intentional time of travel and journey is offered this same group of youth in the shape of our bi-annual youth pilgrimage. Confirmation and Pilgrimage provide opportunities for self-reflection, growth, and group bonding; both are informative and transformative experiences.
The youth pilgrimage experience grew out of the Journey to Adulthood model. Groups from Good Shepherd have journeyed to Ireland, Greece, and Alaska in 2015. This year (2017) they are headed to Astoria, Oregon
Our model of pilgrimage invites the parents of the current 
group to set parameters in the way of cost and travel. The youth are then invited to dream of those thin places they might travel to encounter the “Other,” the places where the saints (big “S” and little “s”) have walked before, and then discern within the parameters offered by the parents where ultimately they will journey.
The youth along with adult leaders have the responsibility of preparing and fundraising for the pilgrimage and walking the way together in prayer.
DIOCESAN YOUTH ACTIVITIES
“Diocesan Youth Ministry in East Tennessee seeks to connect parishes across the diocese, facilitate stronger ministries with young people, and connect youth and youth leaders in the diocese with the greater Church.” Please visit http://etnyouth.org/ to learn more.