SHIFT exists to encourage teenagers and their families to turn their hearts towards Christ! Once we do that, our living, our loving, our working, our playing, our serving, our worship, our relationships, our coming, our going, our everything will experience a SHIFT and ultimately be better because of it!
Simply put, the vision of SHIFT is to change the way we think about a relationship with God here at GUMC. You see, God didn’t call us to “hold the fort.” Being who we’ve always been isn’t good enough! God called us to more…and that’s exciting! That means we’ll push the envelope and maybe push you along the way!
There will be new songs, new messages, new activities, new expectations, and new growth! And it’s true, new things will make people uncomfortable. But we will always be experimenting with new ways of doing ministry, whatever it takes to be a safe place with a dangerous message! We refuse to dumb-down or water-down the ridiculously awesome message of God’s overwhelming love for us. That isn’t what teenagers are looking for anyway! So we will engineer experiences where teenagers can encounter God and be changed from the inside-out because of it!
When teenagers leave SHIFT we want them to understand who Jesus is, what He did for them, and why it matters. We promise you, there would be no stopping a generation who comprehends the amazing love of Christ and lives it out in their every day.
The bottom line is this: life is too short to be part of a ministry or a church you’re not excited about. In fact, life is too short to be involved in anything that you aren’t totally bought-in on or sold-out for. If you’re not excited about what God is doing in and through SHIFT, you’re probably in the wrong place.