Dear Journey Family,

I hope this letter finds you all well. I wanted to contact you all in regards to NextGen Kids Ministry and the plan going forward in these uncertain times. Obviously, we will have a new normal as we assess and adapt to our new and ever-changing reality with COVID-19.

We will be following the lead of the Jonathan Alder School District on protocols and risk levels on how we can safely open up our ministry. We will have on-line registration for the all classes on our website to ensure that we do not exceed our occupancy limit.

Also, I wanted to reach out to all the parents that have children in our ministry and express the fact that this re-opening plan is highly dependent on the willingness of parents to serve at least once a month to help staff the classrooms. Many of our current servants are in the high-risk category for contracting COVID-19 and have expressed to me that they wish to not serve until a vaccine is readily available. With this reality, we would need a minimum of 25 new servants to even entertain the idea of this re-opening strategy. We are all in this together, and we desperately want to re-open NextGen Kids Ministry to provide your children with a great Jesus focused learning environment, but we cannot do this at our current servant capacity. If you are interested in serving please reach out to me directly (cburneka@discoverjourneycc.com) and I will get you into the rotation to serve alongside one of our veteran servants. This is an all-hands on deck kind of moment in which we need everyone to step up in order to have a thriving ministry. 
 
Chris Burneka
Director of Next-Gen Kids
 
 
 

Here is the four-phase spiral development for re-opening our NextGen Kids ministry.

 

Phase I

Phase I will begin on Sept 6, 2020 with two classes for Pre-K through 2nd grade children. We plan on separating the classes as needed, on a week by week basis. Both classes would have an occupancy limit of 10 children and 2 servants. We will also require all children and teachers to wear masks. The nursery will be open but not staffed by volunteers.  

 

Phase II  

Phase II will begin October 4, 2020 and add 3rd and 4th graders to NextGen Kids Ministry. The class split would be two classes broken up between Pre-k – 1st and 2nd – 4th grade. Both classes would have an occupancy limit of 10 children and 2 servants.  Social distancing and mask protocols will still be observed. During this time the nursery will be open but not staffed by volunteers.

 

Phase III

Phase III will begin on October 25, 2020 and would add 5th and 6th grader to NextGen Kids Ministry. The 5th and 6th grade class would meet in an office in the main hallway. The 5th and 6th grade class would be limited to 6 students and 1 servant due to the occupancy limits of the office rooms. Social distancing and mask protocols will still be observed. During this time the nursery will be open but not staffed by volunteers.
 

Phase IV

Phase IV will begin Nov 15 and would add a staffed nursery to NextGen Kids Ministry. The nursery would be limited to 6 baby/toddlers and 2 servants. All other classes would stay the same. This brings us up to 100% function capacity. Social distancing and mask protocols will still be observed.