Over the past year, our church has been prayerfully engaged in an important process of listening, learning, and discerning how we can best serve our children, youth, and families.

Recognizing the importance of this ministry and our responsibility to faithfully steward the gifts God has entrusted to us, we partnered with a consulting group, Ministry Architects to help us take an honest and thoughtful look at our current children and youth ministries. Through this process, Brian McCants, Mike McCaulley, Sam Crews, Katherine Templeton, Glennie Apoldite and Ashley Jaillette sought to better understand the needs of our young people and families, identify opportunities for growth, and consider how our church can continue to create an environment where children and youth can know the love of Christ, grow in their faith, and feel truly connected to our church family. Our former Director of Family Ministries, Alex Cheek, was also a major contributor. Our primary consultant was Andy Fox, youth minister at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Greenville. 

We are deeply grateful for everyone who contributed to this process. We appreciate the time, honesty, prayers, ideas, and encouragement shared by our congregation, parents, children, youth, volunteers, and ministry leaders. Each voice helped us better understand where God is leading us. The process challenged us to listen carefully, ask meaningful questions, celebrate what is already working well, and thoughtfully consider where we can grow.

A clearer vision emerged in the process: Our Mission Statement for formation is: The children and youth ministry at St. John’s grows Christians who love God, know Jesus Christ, and serve with joy. We adopted these core values for our formation ministries: Community: We welcome and love one another. Tradition: We share the scriptures and Episcopal tradition with joy and enthusiasm. Faith Formation: We grow toward Christian maturity and confidence. 

As you now know this process has led us to two important additions to our ministry team: a new Youth Minister, Henry Scouten, and a Director of Family Ministries (focused on children’s ministry), Lynae Beresford. These positions will allow us to invest more intentionally in the spiritual development of our youth, strengthen our relationships with families, support our volunteers, and build upon the strong foundation already present in our church. A new Children’s and Youth Formation Committee, led by Ashleigh Axson, also emerged from the process. Committee members have specific program connections within the wider effort. We also gained detailed, documented plans for major events and ministries in our formation efforts. The essential partnership between lay leaders and church staff now has much more definite shape and purpose. We have appropriate architecture for a formation ministry now. 

This outcome is something we celebrate with gratitude—not simply because we have filled two positions, but because we have taken a meaningful step toward faithfully serving the next generation with clarity about the purpose God has given us and the means we have to fulfill that purpose. We recognize that these decisions carry great responsibility, and we enter this next chapter with humility, hope, and trust in God’s guidance.

As we look ahead, we ask our congregation to continue praying for our new ministry leaders, our children and youth, our families, and everyone who gives their time and talents to these ministries. Ministry is never the work of one person or one staff position; it is the work of the whole church. Some next steps are clear. We want to adopt a formation arc, a plan for children and youth formation from birth to graduation, from baptism to confirmation (and beyond), that makes the path to Christian maturity clear to everyone who comes into the life of our church. We need to offer our new staff members much support and opportunities for training. 

Thank you for your prayers, your patience, your openness, and your willingness to walk through this process together. The church made a considerable investment of time, money, and intention in the process. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our children, youth, and families, and we look forward with great anticipation to what God will do through this next season of ministry.

Ashley Jaillette and Nicholas Beasley

Learn more about other important updates in the latest church newsletter: The Epistle – September 24, 2026