Five Two Youth exists to REACH unbelieving students with the gospel of Christ, to DRAW them into the family of God, and to GROW God’s children to spiritual maturity so that they can SERVE others and GLORIFY our Lord.

PHILOSOPHY

We see youth ministry as an extension of the parents' work of training up their children in the  ways of the Lord.  While the parents are responsible for the spiritual instruction of their students, we hope to reinforce the positive values that they teach at home and work as a team to equip our youth for successful Christian living.

OUR NAME

In the sixth chapter of John's gospel, Jesus performed a miracle using the simple offerings of a young boy.  A crowd followed Jesus out to a remote shore of Galilee and he determined to provide the entire group of 5,000 men (+ women and children) with their evening meal.  To demonstrate the impossibility of this task, he asked Philip to go about feeding the people.  Philip responded "Eight months' wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"  And the best that the disciples could come up with was a young boy who had brought 5 small loaves and 2 fish for his lunch.  It was that inadequate gift from a willing boy that Jesus used to perform the miracle.  He didn't have the skilled fishermen catch fish for everyone, nor ask for an offering from the multitude, but Jesus looked to a boy who was willing to give up whatever he had for the Master to use.  This is the attitude that we hope to instill in our teens; that God can do far beyond our imagining when we offer him our insufficient all.

YOUTH CENTER

From the summer of 2003 until winter of 2004 youth group met in the living room of our youth director, Chris Hurton.  When he married Lindsey on January 1st of 2005, that arrangement became less than ideal, so Chris went looking for alternative locations.  He stumbled upon 625 Douglass St while driving around town and noticed that it had not been used for quite some time.  Vandals had broken out most of the windows, the property was littered with trash and overgrown with weeds and the plumbing needed some work.  The County Assessor procured the name of the owner, but was unable to provide any other details.  The phone book did the rest and he was able to contact Mrs. Marengo.  It turns out that the property has formerly been used as a concrete/construction yard run by the Marengo family, then Marengo's Garden Center, then leased out to Leslie's Garden Center, then abandoned for years.  Mrs. Marengo had no need to sell the property and we had a good idea of how to use it, so we entered into an agreement.  We agreed to do the necessary immediate repairs and ongoing maintenance to the property and she allowed us to use the property for significantly less than fair market value.  All of the furnishings have been donated, from couches to vending machines, including: surround sound stereo, refrigerators, microwave, copier, computer, basketball hoops, trampoline, pool table etc.  This win-win situation has continued for four years now and we hope that it will  continue to bless the community youth for some time to come.