AHBC, Nacogdoches, TX

Christian Education

Sunday School: 9:30 a.m.

Austin Heights provides Sunday morning Bible study classes for ages 3 through adults. Current classes are ages 3-5, grades 1-3, tweens, and teens.

Vespers

Educational opportunities are often provided during the Vespers time, Sunday evenings at 6:00. Topics have included forgiveness, creation care, faith & films, dealing with depression, end-of-life issues, globalization, candidate forums, and many more.

Adult Sunday School:

Fall 2011 9:30 a.m.

Green Bible Study

Midweek Bible Study

2nd & 4th Thurs each month at 130 Walker St. at 6:30 pm

Reading the Bible through using the Transformation Journal (New Testament this fall)

Camps and Retreats

Children and youth have additional educational opportunities through camps and retreats. As a part of the Southwest Baptist Camping Association, youth finishing 6th-12th grades go to camp at Austin College with youth from like-minded Baptist churches in the region, and children finishing 3rd-6th grades go to Children's Camp at Camp Copass near Denton. Children in 1st-6th grades go on a fall retreat with other churches in the Alliance of Baptists, and a winter lock-in at the church includes games, crafts, cooking, and a movie on a biblical theme.

Please call 936-564-0818 for more information

Vacation Bible School

Austin Heights hosts an Intergenerational Bible Study each summer that includes an evening meal, Bible story, games and crafts

Youth/Other

The church sends eligible, interested youth to the 2-week long Duke Youth Academy at the Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, and to "public policy camp" through the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission.

We support Fair Trade by serving Fair Trade coffee at church, participating in local festivals as a vendor selling and promoting Fair Trade products and selling Fair Trade chocolate as a youth fund-raiser.

Austin Heights rears children like a family. Virtually every adult in the church knows the name of every child. Babies get passed around from the youngest child old enough to hold a baby up through the teens to the grandmothers and grandfathers. We all affirm and discipline all the children in Christian love. We all pray for them and have hopes and dreams for their lives as followers of Jesus. At a dedication service for each child born into the church, the whole congregation promises to rear the child in the Christian faith, in hope that the child will become a baptized disciple of Jesus and a part of this body of believers. Children begin serving as worship leaders, both as liturgist and ushers, as early as second grade.

CHILDREN'S WORSHIP In addition to the educational opportunities provided for the children, worship at Austin Heights includes a children's story time when the leader interprets that day's theme through a story or lesson for the children gathered at the chancel steps. Children 3-6 are then dismissed for Children's Church, a time of learning about and practicing the elements of worship.

CHILDREN'S SABBATH We celebrate our children each year in the annual Children's Sabbath service when children and youth lead in every aspect of the worship service, including preaching.

CELEBRATIONS Children also play an important role in intergenerational activities such as Christmas caroling, the Christmas cookie party and bonfire, Christmas Eve service and party, Easter sunrise service and breakfast, Easter egg hunt, and Easter lunch at the pastor's home. Many children in the church feel the holidays would not be complete without these events.