Children and Youth Ministry at St. Luke’s  

Our overarching goal is for the children and youth in our care to come to know that God loves them.  We want to encourage them to Love God and Love People.  Together, with your support, we will help them develop a healthy moral compass.

School Year Services
During the academic year, we offer informal activities for children during the Adult Forum from 9:15 – 10:00 AM and hold Children and Youth Chapel every Sunday at 10:15 AM  To learn more, about Chapel, click here.  
During the summer, we offer guided childcare with snacks.

Christmas Season
In the weeks leading to Christmas (the church season of Advent), St. Luke’s hosts an event for all children and youth celebrating with a special story, games, activities, crafts, snacks and music.  We include a mission project, and focus our event on a rotating theme (examples: The First to Meet Jesus, the Luckiest Star, All About Angels, Mary’s Baby Shower, Lessons from The Grinch).  Closer to Christmas, we gather as a parish family to decorate the parish hall with flowers and garlands for Christmas, calling it “Greening of the Hall”.  

Easter Season
In the weeks leading to Easter (the church season of Lent), youth gather for the ACTS 29 Class presented by StorymakersNYC.  (Fun Fact: There are only 28 chapters in the Book of Acts in the Bible – we are living the next chapter!) We also offer a special “kid friendly” Stations of the Cross with a simple soup supper. 

Outreach Projects
In any month with a 5th Sunday, we gather the K.R.E.W. (Kids: Ready, Equipped and Willing).  The K.R.E.W. group of children and youth come upstairs after the service to work on an outreach project. Past projects include: cooking food for the church

freezer, braiding rope dog toys, painting prayer flags, designing bookmarks and placemats, embossing crosses and painting Happy Rocks.  

We seek to raise adults who are compassionate, kind and sensitive to the needs of others.  Doing service projects helps children and youth to recognize need and shows them that they can make a difference.  It lays the foundation for a lifetime of seeking out ways to make the world a better place.

We are so thankful to have such a dedicated Children and Youth Ministry Team who not only prepare the story and craft for Chapel each Sunday, but also are exceedingly generous with their time to volunteer handing out friendship bracelets at Mechanicsburg’s Streets of Treats, guiding folks on making hedgehogs at the Earth Day Festival, gluing googly eyes on Hug Monsters (photo at right), supplying the Little Free Library out front, hosting coffee hour periodically and enthusiastically leading the numerous  

and various events through the year.

Summer VBS
For St. Luke’s Vacation Bible School, we host a two-hour action-packed event with a new theme each year. Children hear a special story, and partake in activities, games, music, crafts and snacks.  Past themes have included Super Hero Training Camp, The Master Made Me (Lego VBS), This Zoo is Not For You, and we have coordinated with area churches on Creation Care sessions.