Barb Kuhlmann Celebration of Life
A radiant light and fountain of joy was lost when Barbara “Barb” (Enoch) Kuhlmann passed away in Kirkwood, MO on June 16, 2022. She was 70 years old. Barb spent over fifteen years teaching the youth choirs at Kirkwood Presbyterian Church.

CLICK HERE to read Barb's full obituary.

A Celebration of Barb’s life will be held at Parkway United Church of Christ on Saturday July 30th at 3 pm, with a reception thereafter. If you’d like to make a gift on behalf of Barb, donations to Parkway United Church of Christ can be sent to 2841 N. Ballas Rd. St. Louis, MO 63131.

Children & Youth Ministry in 2022
by Rob Monroe, Director of Children, Youth and Family Ministries

What on earth do you want to hear from a children and youth ministry director in 2022? I asked that in the PC(USA) Leaders Facebook group and had 37 comments in a matter of two days. There are so many question marks with how to reach our young people that their requests ranged from “how do you start from scratch” to “how do you convince people it’s okay to volunteer, even when they feel like they’re too old.”

Like so many other things in your ministries already the answer is singular: Relationships.

You do not start a Women’s Circle with one person putting an announcement in the bulletin saying, “let’s do this,” you start with an invitation to people you already know a little bit and find a common conversation or task to sit around.

The same is true when your congregation decides to reach out to the community – any part of the community, not just young families, or young people – you need to start by finding common ground.

While other churches took big losses in their youth ministry during the heart of the Pandemic, we were able to pivot our middle school group to Zoom. Typically, we end our program year for them in late April, but they continued to meet, week after week on Wednesdays, because they knew it was a safe space to explore what they were going through together. We structured it with a quick check in, a group game and then just a virtual hang out space that morphed into playing a phone-game that could be played by all and talked through during breaks.

The game needed at least six people to play it well, so when we fell short of that they started calling their friends to jump into the zoom and onto the game. Suddenly we hit the max of 10 players, so I just sat back and watched and caught up with them while they played.

I never invited these “bonus” students – they were invited by a friend for something they had a little interest in. When we started back in person in the fall of 2021 our middle school group was twice as big as when we went into pandemic.

You cannot start a family ministry from scratch if you do not have families on the inside already, just like you would not start a clown ministry without a clown in your midst. (Not a far jump from youth ministry to clowns, trust me!) Take the time to find out what the young people or families in your church have interest in, capitalize on it and then begin inviting others in.

For us this summer it’s the Bubble Bus – we have literally planned an evening where we are buying popsicles and will have the Bubble Bus in the parking lot. That’s it. Our families are excited, and they are inviting friends – folks that would not have crossed our paths before.

By putting relationships at the front of your public-facing ministry you will then be able to incorporate them better. It’s what you would do for those already in your midst, you just have to be willing to push beyond your comfort levels.

But it just may be worth it.

Mission Committee members are busy arranging a mission trip to western Kentucky from October 30-November 5 to help rebuild after a catastrophic storm in 2021. You might not recall the specifics of the storm, as there have been too many disasters of all kinds. To refresh your memory, in December, 2021, a violent, long-track tornado moved through Western Kentucky, causing catastrophic damage and taking 57 lives. Residents are now in the rebuilding phase. This area is a 3-hour drive from St. Louis, which means it's convenient even if you can only come for part of the week. We will be working with Hopkins County Emergency Management and with Habitat for Humanity. They promise there will be plenty of work for all skill levels. If you're interested, just pencil in that week and watch for more details this summer.

If you have questions, email Liz McCane (lizmccane@gmail.com) or Georgina Sikorski (gwsikorski@gmail.com).