Program Description: Youth programs at The Potter’s Wheel include a Thursday Youth Night, Sunday school, vacation Bible school, summer camp, weekly field trips during school summer vacation, and other youth outings. EPIC 1:3 meets weekly at Glenwood Middle School with The Potter’s Wheel staff presenting values lessons and activities from a research-based curriculum. There are also youth activities and services each Thursday evening at The Potter’s Wheel and Sunday school during adult worship services. Vacation Bible school (VBS) is held for four nights each summer. Bible lessons, music, games, crafts and snacks are provided for the children. On the fourth night VBS culminates with a parent-child program and presentations of backpacks filled with school supplies. Other youth events include weekly summer field trips, one week of summer camp, pizza parties, movie nights and girls’ slumber parties. In addition, the youth pastor provides one-on-one mentoring to many of the children. All youth program activities provide spiritual instruction and a safe, supervised environment where youth socialize and learn more positive life-styles.

 

The EPIC 1:3 Project teaches Godly principles that help at-risk inner city youth make good choices to avoid lifestyles that lead to incarceration. This will impact their destinies and the community in a positive way. The Potter’s Wheel youth department had 2490 encounters with 417 youth during 2011.

 

The EPIC 1:3 program has been in operation since 2008 and strives to accomplish the following:

  1. Teach at-risk youth to make the correct choices in life which is essential to becoming a morally sound and productive adult. Learning how to make these choices will be taught through stories from the Bible, role playing, skits, songs, crafts, games and dancing. These activities will allow the children to be creative at the same time that they are developing good social skills and participating in physical activity.

  2. Peer pressure, poor choices, poverty, abuse and low family expectations all contribute to a poor self-image that leads to negative choices. This program promotes a positive self-image.

  3. Helps to build positive Christian relationships through adult mentoring. The vast majority of these children have no positive adult role model in their lives.