In the Christ United Church of Cypress youth group, a close-knit group of 22 middle and high school students gathers to grow in faith at a time when most teenagers are out at football games or elsewhere - on Friday nights.

At 6:30 p.m. Fridays, the youth group gathers for a worship service, a short message from the Bible, as well as food, games and fellowship. The sermons focus on topics the students can apply to their daily lives and the challenges they face as young people.

"I hope that they'll take the lessons they've learned here and apply it to their adult life. And that they'll continue to be Christians," said Pastor Darrin Holub. "Hopefully, they'll pass it on to their kids one day."

The youth also take their faith to the streets, volunteering with Cypress Assistance Ministries and working to sort donations at the Houston Food Bank.

This past summer they traveled to Galveston to help with hurricane recovery, repairing residents' homes and removing debris from yards.

"It teaches them practical Christianity. We can't just say they're Christians. We actually had to go out and live it," Holub said.

In the summers, some of the youth also join with teens from affiliated churches at Slumber Falls Camp in New Braunfels for outdoor activities, relationship-building and spiritual growth.

The group of teens who participate in the church's youth events attend various high schools in Cy-Fair ISD, including Langham Creek, Cy Creek, Cy Falls and Cy-Fair, and some are even members of different churches. The small size of the youth group promotes an intimate atmosphere.

"For me as the leader, I get to know each one of them personally. For them, sort of the same thing, they all get to know each other," Holub said. "Ideally, the older kids will mentor the younger ones."

As an ecumenical church Christ United Church of Cypress values universal acceptance and is not exclusive to people of their denomination, Holub said. Thus, whoever comes to the Friday night youth rally is welcomed into the youth group family.

The church, which was founded in 1928 as a rural Evangelical congregation with strong German roots is now surrounded by the expanding suburban community.

Despite the changes, the congregation has remained focused on its mission of being "large enough to serve, small enough to care." The youth group, in many ways, is a fulfillment of that promise.