Purpose … The Coming of Age (CoA) program provides a substantive spiritual program for youth in transition from childhood to adolescence. The program is run every second year; we expect that the next CoA will start up in the fall of 2009.
CoA provides the following benefits to youth:
Participants … Youth ages 14 and older are eligible to participate in the CoA program. Currently, no upper age limit exists, enabling all interested Junior and Senior High youth to go through the program. Youth who are 13 but will turn 14 during the church year may participate after consulting with the Minister or Program Coordinators about their readiness for the program.
Mentoring … Each CoA youth is paired with an adult mentor. The purpose of mentoring is to give each youth the opportunity to develop a relationship with an adult other than a parent or guardian. The mentor provides the youth with another role model for adulthood and, hopefully, becomes a trusted adult to talk with and learn from. Youth and mentors are expected to meet once a month.
Community Service …
The purpose of the community service requirement is to expose youth
to the benefits and challenges of volunteering and to provide an
opportunity to develop their compassion and generosity. Each youth is
required to perform 4 hours of community service each month, or a total
of 32 hours for the program year. Uncompensated community service may be
done with the mentor, with other mentor/youth pairs, and/or through
school or with friends and family members. Youth are expected to keep a
log of their hours.
