Take the Plunge!

Here is the youtube Britt was talking about at youth group. It does go well with our lesson tonight... take the plunge!

Esther - Mark - Pool Parties & Fun

Been a busy couple of weeks and I didn’t such a good job of keeping up the blog! Let’s see. The junior high group finished up their Bible study of the book of Esther. Even though this book of the Bible never mentions God, it was a good lesson for us to see how God used Esther to save lots of people. At the end of the study we met at the church for popcorn and snacks and to watch the Veggie Tales movie “Esther.” This last Tuesday we met at Dairy Queen to start studying the book of Mark. We read through and talked about chapter 1. A quick funny story from our study on Tuesday… We were talking a bout whether Mark was an apostle or not. One of our newer kids was animate that he was Not an apostle…several of the other kids weren’t sure. We talked about it for a bit and talked about what we knew about Mark. All the while I was watching this new to our Bible study friend and he was looking at me like I was crazy. He says something like…how can Mark be an apostle if he wrote a book of the Bible. I explained that others like Matthew were apostles and they wrote books of the Bible. He continues looking at us all like we were nuts. Finally he says something like, but how can an animal write a book of the Bible? I looked at him for a minute before it hit me… he was thinking of the word “opossum!” I’m sure he did think I was nuts, asking if an opossum wrote a book of the Bible… lol. It was a good reminder to me that when doing Bible study with junior high its good to go back to the basics…he didn’t know what the word “apostle” meant…and I just assumed they all knew what I meant. It was pretty funny though! We are back to Bible study every Tuesday…next week we are meeting at Long John Silvers/A & W for book 2 of Mark. We are going to “TP” once a month during the fall.

Both the junior and senior high groups gathered together for a pool party at Pastor Justin’s house a couple weeks ago for a pool party/cook out. The cooler temperatures didn’t deter the kids from cannon balls, marco polo, and other pool games. Thanks to Pastor Justin’s family for letting us take over for an afternoon of fun! (Click pictures above to see the full album of pics).

Last week for junior high youth group we played a game of capture the flag before heading inside to watch a silly video called “Slapped.” It was a drama to remind us that sometimes God tries to get our attention and we don’t take action or pay attention. The kids split into 2 groups and put on slap-stick dramas about Bible stories where just that had happened… God was trying to get people’s attention. Boy do we have some hilarious actors in our youth group. I sure wish I had had the video camera!

Looking ahead, we have youth group tomorrow, and then none on Labor Day weekend, then we have youth group the next week (that’s kick-off weekend), and then none the next because of camp-out. Then we’ll get back into our regular schedule! Coming in September we have the camp-out and See You at the Pole, and a youth led service! More fun to come!

Sardines, sand, and sin!

I often wonder what checkout people think when I come through the line when preparing for a youth group meeting. Tonight's cart included a squirt gun, a can of sardines, and a spray bottle. No, I'm not interested in a candy bar, thank you, I'll stick with my sardines! lol Today was a slow youth group...just 3 kids. As fall arrives, I anticipate our numbers to climb back up, too much going on right now for everyone. Britt, Garriot, and Jessica. We started out with a game of love tag. One person got to "be God" and they got to use the squirt gun to squirt "love" at the other players. The other players had to run around in a small area and try to avoid God, which was hard to do! Next we came inside for a game of Bible chutes & ladders. Those are some smart kids! Next we watched a comedy clip called "Avoiding God." In it, a person in a "GOD" cap is constantly hanging around with another person... when he wakes up, when he goes to sleep, when he has a bath, when he eats, when he is with other friends, etc. There is no avoiding God even though he tries to pay God off and trick him. We talked about avoiding God and different people in the Bible that tried to avoid God. Our Bible lesson for the day was the story of Jonah. We did a blindfolded Bible study. I blindfolded each of them and took them into fellowship hall to sit in a chair I had set up previously on top of a drop mat. As I read the story of Jonah, they were sprayed by the waves, blown by the wind, heard God's echoing voice, felt the crash of the ship,felt the sand on the beach, and smelled the inside of the fish (hence the sardines). After our story was over, we talked about different ways we try to avoid God and how we can plan time just to hang out with God. We then made little plaques that said things like Got God? God Time? Got Time? to remind us that we need to spend time with God each day and that we can't avoid Him no matter how hard we try!

TP Prayers

(Jaimee - Britt - Anna - TP'ing our first week!)

Thursday I took a group of 3 girls for another night of TP'ing. We decided since it was almost time for school to start, we would "TP" teachers from our congregation, the superintendent and some freshmen (who had orientation at the high school that day) depending on how much time we have. I also had a friend from work who's husband had heart problems this week that I knew would appreciate our prayers. Britt and I headed over to Jaimee's house to pick her up and then we headed out to the other side of town to pick up a new friend (well at least for me)...another Brittany! So Brittany, Brittany, Jaimee and I headed out. We decided our first stop would be Jim & Cindy Beck's house.... good place to start with teachers! We drove down their street and assessed the situation... wow they have a lot of windows but pine tree's along the front street provided a nice "hiding place" for the car. We pulled off to the side a little bit... hopefully out of view of the house and got ready to "TP" our first house. Unfortunately, we realized April forgot the tape to tape the signs to the door -- oops! -- so we had to make a quick trip to the gas station to get some tape before we could begin. Back to our hiding place, just in time to see their neighbor across the street come out and stand in his drive way and watch us. We prayed for the Beck's and got ready to do our first drop off the night. The girls got out of the car and slowly snuck up to the their front door... avoiding as many windows as they could and stuck the TP paper on the door and ran as fast as they could back to the car and we were off to our 2nd stop! I wonder what their neighbor thought we were doing? lol For our 2nd stop on the list we stopped at the Loeffler's house. We prayed, the girls stuck the paper and we were off again. The neighborhood dogs made it hard to sneak up on that house...woof woof woof! For our 3rd stop of the night, we decided to "TP" Audrey. We'll miss Audrey as she moves up to the high school group this year!! Now, the Walts have a LONG drive way...and lots of windows! But by pulling in the end of their drive way and staying behind the tree's, it gave us a good, safe place to stop and pray before the girls jumped out and snuck up to the house and stuck the paper on the door. Next we were off to the superintendents house. On every TP paper we write a note to the recipients... the girls wrote on the superintendents paper that we were praying for him as the new school year begins and changes were being made and as he was dealing with unhappy people because of his choices. We also prayed for his girls and his wife. After lots of giggles about our misspelled words on our note to the superintendent, we went to pull up at the end of his driveway...just in time to see his van backing down the drive right at us! We quickly pulled the car back on to the road and drove on down the street and onto another side street until we saw their van pass by. Wow we almost got caught!! After the van was well out of site, we quickly drove back to their house and the girls ran up and stuck the sign on their door. We had time for one more stop of the night and we decided to go to a friend from work's house. Now they live over in Blue Heron place...or whatever it's called...across the lake from my parents. There is only 1 way in - and 1 way out - and we know almost everyone who lives back there so we knew our last stop would be a challenge! As soon as we pulled back the main drive, we passed a person we knew...and then 2 more before we arrived back at the house we were going to. I told the girls smile and wave and act friendly! lol We pulled up to the side of the house and said a prayer for good health and strength for hard times and the girls ran and stuck the note on the door and we were off. We made it to all 5 stops without getting caught (at least we think so!) It had been another fun night of TP'ing... lots of giggles, laughs, and prayers. I really enjoy these nights with the kids. We have a lot of fun,, but it's neat to hear the kids praying for members of our church and community. I talked to the girl at work the next day after she had figured out who had left the note. She said they had just got home from a long day in Ft. Wayne at the doctors and our TP'ing had meant a lot to them. She said it's a very special ministry and thanked us alot. It was neat to think that the hour and half of our time we spent... having a good time... could make a big difference in someone's life as well. That's what youth ministry is all about. :)

Why a blog?

I thought it might be fun to start a blog for the youth at Westminster to keep everyone up-to-date with what we are doing. Lot's of times we have funny stories, good times, great memories that we'd love to share with members of our church and members of our youth group that couldn't make it to an event. Here is a way for us to share those fun times and pictures with everyone else. I'll do a lot of posting, but I hope to get some of the youth and others posting as well.