Here are some important resources for parents of youth who attend our meetings and events. Please send questions to [email protected] or contact Pastor Greg directly to discuss your teen.

Teen Registration

Our standard registration and medical consent form is required for all youth participants.

  • Once we have your teen’s registration on file, you do not need to submit a new one each year unless medical/insurance information has changed.
  • If you receive our Youth Ministry parent emails, your teen is registered already!
  • To confirm that we have your teen’s registration on file, email [email protected].

Register your 6th–12th grader before the next meeting or event.

Register a Teen


Youth Group Snacks

Parents take turns bringing food to youth group meetings. Hungry teens really appreciate your generosity—you can help by bringing snacks or contributing to our snack fund!

Bring SnacksContribute to Snack Fund


Join our Team

Join our team of teachers, group leaders, and adult mentors! All of our youth ministry adult leaders are carefully screened and background checked. We do our best to create a culture where bullying, name calling and cut-downs—even in jest—are not cool. We need to know if your child is having a rough time at church.

View Ways to Serve


Further Details

Communicating With You

  • Our Website: Our church website is information central for us. All communications link back to information that you find here.
  • Parent Update: We send parent updates via email almost every week. This is our way of alerting you via bullet points and links to the most important youth ministry things you need to know. If you are not receiving updates, check your spam folder settings and let us know you’re missing our emails.
  • Primary Email: You may have noticed when you registered your teen that we ask for a parent’s or guardian’s primary email address. Our policy is to communicate primarily via parents’ email addresses.
  • Church-wide communications: You may be interested in signing up for our weekly Cherrydale Connections email newsletter.

The Parent Team

We partner with parents to help teens navigate their personal faith journey. Please let us know if there are particular ways we can join you in your ministry.

  • For all Christian parents, we strongly encourage you to be a member of our church. You are the primary disciple-makers of your children. Our youth ministry is here to support your ministry. If you attend church elsewhere, we encourage your teen to connect there first. If our youth ministry can add an additional discipleship aspect to your parent ministry strategy, we are happy to serve.
  • For all non-Christian parents, if you are supportive of your teen(s) learning what the Bible says about being a Christian, then this is a great place where they can explore personal faith without being made to feel like they have to embrace our beliefs in order to be accepted and loved as a person.

Go Deeper

  • Parenting Teens Class: Ultimately, as a parent the most important thing is to model what you’d like to see in your teen’s life. Living out your faith is the substance behind your words and expectations that are communicated to your teen. Admit when you are wrong and acknowledge your own failings! Being an integral part of the Cherrydale church family is the best parenting class you could ever take: Make the time for deeper community with other believers.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Does my teen use the check-in stations? No, the check-in stations are for Children’s Ministry kids and volunteers; 6th–12th graders do not check in using these stations. For youth ministry events and classes, leaders and teachers are responsible for taking attendance.
  • How do we handle drop-off and pick-up? Parents should talk with teens to voice our expectations that teens are to head directly to—and remain in—youth ministry areas and not take detours or wander. We will contact parents if we have a persisting problem with truancy or other unauthorized behavior. We do not permit teens to leave the church property or building without parent permission.
  • Can my younger children tag along? Younger children must be accompanied by a parent if present at youth ministry events, including at drop-off and pick-up times.
  • Can my 5th-grader join the Youth Group? No. Very rarely is a 5th-grader beyond all their peers and if so, he or she should be leading them as part of Kids Club. Similarly, we encourage 12th-graders to continue their active participation in Youth Group and their peer-to-peer ministry.
  • Is there something for my teen during the church service? All of the research in the past decade, which evaluates youth ministry strategy of previous decades, tells us that intergenerational worship has a stronger influence on adolescents than attending a separate program in its stead. It is important for teens to be accepted and loved within the context of the whole church community. Worshiping with parents, youth leaders, friends, younger kids and senior saints in the corporate gathering of the church creates a “bride of Christ” bond of shared learning, singing, communion, testimony, prayer and baptism.
  • How can my teen serve in Children’s Ministry? Teens are welcome to serve during the Sunday School hour or as classroom assistants in the elementary-aged classes. We are developing a monthly rotation for Children’s Ministry Sunday volunteers, similar to the adult volunteer rotation. Parents should determine if their teen is ready to serve. We also encourage parents and teens to serve together, which would be especially helpful if a parent feels that his teen needs more guidance before serving independently! Learn more here.
  • Can you give me more information about baptism for my teen? View Pastor Greg’s letter to parents about teen baptism.
  • We’re church members; how does our teen become a member? At Cherrydale Baptist Church, a teen can become a church member at the age of 17 years old. We encourage all high schoolers to take our Cherrydale Explored class and then join the church. Like baptism, church membership is a milestone they can remember. It is a public statement that they are believers who are committed to the journey with other believers in their faith.