Youth Group (grades 7 through 12)

From Rev Doug Marshall:

Hi,

This will be the last weekly update for this year.  The Youth Group will not be meeting again until January 8 – skipping Christmas Day & New Years Day.

We had a great day on Sunday.  The kids went out to visit Beulah’s home-churched members.  I’m sure there were a variety of different experiences – from the people not wanting to visit to people wishing the visits go on much longer.  I encourage you to ask your teen what it was like for them.  I don’t know if you have elderly relatives or friends around, but our culture tends to isolate and separate teens from the elderly too much, so I hope this was a positive experience for them.  One amazing thing that happened was that one of the couples we visited gave the Youth Group a gift of $100 for the mission trip!

When everyone returned we had our Revolution worship, after which we went downstairs for our dinner & Christmas Party.  Many thanks to the Lynne’s (Braun & Kolas) for organizing the dinner and to everyone who supplied food.  Way too much food, all of which tasted fabulous.  We also had our gift exchange which went better than it has in several years.  The gifts were mostly good ones, which made the game more fun – more stealing from each other than in the past.  Yes – once a year we encourage stealing!

I’d like to share with you a prayer request.  On Sunday after church I met with four of the students to figure out what we are going to do next summer for our mission trip.  They were split (2-2) between the two options.  One option is to go on another Reach Workcamp (we’ve done two of these – in 2009 & 2010).  This involves a week of construction / house projects, along with a good program.  The other option is to do a Group Week of Hope, which is more a community service focus.  There could be construction projects, or visiting elderly, working in a food bank, leading a day camp for children, etc.  There are advantages and disadvantages with both options.

Deciding one way or the other will be likely to cause some hard feelings, and might lead some to pull back from the group and maybe choose not to go on the trip.  My primary concern is that we don’t split our group.  Please pray that God will lead us to the choice that He wants for our group (not what we want), and that we will know how to stay connected to each other.  This is a fabulous opportunity for our students to learn what it means to be Christ’s Body, loving each other and serving each other, even when we have disagreements and/or problems.  If you have any thoughts or ideas about this please give me a call.  My hope/plan is to have this decided by the middle of January, so that you can begin to make your own plans.

I pray that God will fill you during this Christmas season with an overwhelming sense of awe and wonder, and that your life will overflow with the joy and peace of the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and his abiding presence in your life.