Thank you, Church!  Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to attend the Perkins School of Youth Ministry training seminar and workshop for those people who are involved in working with youth.  It was an awesome experience!  We worshiped together, we ate together, we fellowshipped together, but most importantly we learned together.  There was A LOT of information given to us over the weekend.  I will be putting this information to work as soon as possible in this youth group and have lots of fun doing it!  It truly was very informative and very fun.  Thank you for allowing me to go.

The youth have planned a pizza/movie trip for this Saturday, January 21st.  We will be going to Poppa Rollo’s Pizza and afterward to see the movie “Joyful Noise” with Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah.  It should be a good one!  I have heard some very good things about it.  We will leave the church parking lot no later than 4:45.  Come and join us!  The youth’s dinner will be paid for from the youth fund, but they will need to bring money for their ticket into the movie and any snacks they wish to purchase at the movie.  Any adults wishing to go are more than welcome to come along.  However, adults must pay for their own dinner, movie ticket and snacks.  Hope to see you then!

Remember, youth meetings on Wednesday evenings at 5:45 and Sr. High Sunday School on Sunday mornings at 10:00!   See you at either one or both!

Thanksgiving is fast approaching and so is the time to provide food for those who can’t get out and get it for themselves. That is where the youth are going to help! We will be providing a Thanksgiving dinner to the shut-ins of our church and delivering it on Wednesday, November 23rd beginning about 11:00 am.

We need as many youth on that day as possible to help deliver the meals. Remember, shut-ins love to see a youthful, beautiful smiling face bringing them a meal that is nutritious and delicious to let them know that they are remembered and loved and that the Church is truly blessed to have them.

Please come and help on the 23rd!

The menu for the meal will consist of ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, a vegetable medley, roll and a fruit dessert.

Parents, please have your youth come and help with this very important event.

Our project for next month will be the Cookie Wonderland. More details and information to come soon.

Thanks,

Nanette

It seems hard to believe that it is November 1st already!  Time sure does fly by really, really fast!  Before you know it, it will be Christmas time.  But before we skip to the Christmas holidays, we must remember to stop and give thanks to God for our many, many blessings which He provides to us on a daily basis.  Thanksgiving is also a time of remembering - remembering whose we are and who we live our lives for in the service to others that we provide all year long.  We are a family that prays together, worships together, eats together and joins with one another in a time of fellowship.  Let’s remember this Thanksgiving holiday to especially give thanks for our fellow church members.  Some we know and some we don’t know.  As you give thanks for those you don’t know, pray that you will make time to get to know those you don’t.  Prayer can do marvelous things such as getting people to know one another.  Learn their names and where they live.  Give thanks that they chose to come here to church.  Praise God for their witness.  Give THANKS!!

The youth will be doing just that either around Thanksgiving or Christmas when we choose to provide a dinner (with Erin’s help, of course!) for the shut-ins.  They are oft times overlooked because they cannot attend church at the building anymore.  Please do not forget these fellow church members in your prayers of thanksgiving.  They are the ones that have gone before to strengthen and grow the church to what it is today.  Won’t you help us provide a dinner of thanks for them?  Look for more info. on this to come.

Likewise, on Christmas, the youth will be adopting a family to provide for who otherwise would not be able to provide toys or food for their children.  Look for more info. on this in the future as well.

Cookie Wonderland will be coming up the second week of December as well.  Please keep this in mind and be getting ready for those wonderful cookie ideas that always show up!

Thank you so much for supporting your wonderful youth!  They are truly a blessing to me and to all!!

See ya Sunday, Nanette

We are about to enter a new season… a season full of reds, golds, oranges, greens and yellows. A season of cooler weather. A season of change.  A time to be thankful. A time to count your blessings. A time of renewal, a time of Thanksgiving.

Please don’t think that just one time a year only is set aside to give thanks.  That is just plain wrong! We are to be thankful every day for what we have and do not mourn or desire what we do not have.  It is easy for most of us to be thankful because we have a way to get around, a roof over our heads, money in the bank and food on the table.  But what about those less fortunate? What about those right here in our own town who do not have those things?

Can we help? You bet! Use your resources to help those less fortunate than yourself. Adopt a family for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. Send a card to a shut-in or nursing home resident. Take them food. Whatever you can do.  Just do something.

The youth are planning some upcoming activities in this regard. Be sure to watch the newsletter and listen to the announcements in church for more information.

See ya Sunday!

Nanette

This Saturday, October 15th at 11:30 a.m., the pumpkins will be arriving by a great big ole’ truck!!  We will need plenty of hands to help unload them!  As a great incentive to come and help, we will be serving pizza afterwards!!!  Yummy!  Please be there on Saturday morning to help!  With many, the job will not be near so hard or take near so long.  Won’t you come and help?

The youth would also like your help on October 31st in the church parking lot for their sponsored event, Trunk or Treat.  They would ask that anyone who wishes to to load the trunk of their car with candy to pass out to all the kids that come by for Trick or Treat.  You may wish to decorate your trunk and/or yourself!  That is perfectly fine and will please the kids tremendously!!  Hope you can help!!

Please remember the Senior High Sunday School class meets at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings on the third floor.  Please also remember the youth meetings on Sunday evenings at 5:30 in the basement.  We need more attendance at both of these meetings!  Please mark these things on your calendar and don’t forget about them!!

We need plenty of youth to help with the kid’s games and activities during the Harvest Festival on October 22nd!  If you would like to help, please contact Nanette at the youth meetings, leave a message at the church or call her cell phone which is (254) 221-5620.  Please come and help!!

As you can see, there is much going on within the month of October and your help is vitally needed!!  Please mark all these things on your calendar and come and help out the church!  It is a great way to serve your church and the people in it who really need you!  Remember, we are all family and therefore, we serve each other.

See ya Sunday…

Nanette

October is turning out to be a busy, busy month here at the church with the Pumpkin Patch, the Harvest Festival, Trunk or Treat and, of course, all the other regularly scheduled activities that go on every month.  How can you help?  You can help in a number of ways with all of these activities!  People are always needed in any and all kinds of ways!  Come and help unload pumpkins on the 15th, volunteer to sit in the Pumpkin Patch for a 30-minute period of time, the youth are asked to help with the kid’s games and kid’s section of the Harvest Festival, but there are lots of other things any one of us can do!  We can help in the Country Store, volunteer our time in the Arts & Crafts section, help with the setting of the tables for the meal and clean-up afterward, come and spend your money in the silent auction and the live auction, purchase a meal ticket and get to know people in the community and even in your church that you may not know, load up the trunk of your car or the back of your pickup truck with candy and come and park it in the parking lot to pass out candy to all of the kids from the neighborhood and the church who go out trick or treating! 

Service to others is one of the most important ways we can live out the life that Jesus wants for us.  I don’t believe there is a story in the Bible where Jesus refused to help anyone!  Why should we then?  Come out and serve your church and its people and people in the surrounding community and neighborhood!  That’s what this church is all about.  Service……. won’t you be a part???

See ya Sunday….. Nanette

Busy, busy, busy!  It seems like that is the only word that really describes people’s lives today.  And youth are no exception what with all of the volleyball practices, football practices, baseball practices, basketball practices, track, homework, studying, play practices and all the other practices and things that youth are involved in today.  It seems like there is no time left for anything else!! 

But shouldn’t we make time for just one other thing?  It is probably the thing that should come before any of the above things that I just mentioned.  That is God.  God should be the number one priority in everyone’s life.  Without a spiritual life, everything else is meaningless.  God is the answer to everything.  Make time for God.  Come to church.  Attend Sunday School.  Read and study scripture.  Pray. 

Our curriculum in the senior high Sunday School class has been very good and very relevant in the lives of our youth today.  I hope you will join us this Sunday when we talk about this very subject of where God fits in the busy, busy, busy lives of youth today.  It must happen.  The youth are the future of this church.  If we don’t teach them how to put God above all else and to learn and grow spiritually, the church will die and cease to exist.  Please come and sit on Sunday morning with a fellowship of believers and learn how to put God first in your life.

See Ya Sunday,   Nanette

With Friday’s arrival comes a changing of the seasons. The world will be full of reds, greens, yellows and golds. The leaves on the trees will be changing color (at least those that haven’t already turned brown and died from a lack of water). The world will be leaving  behind the vibrant, energetic and lively heat of summer to transition to the cold and dead of winter.

Seasons also change like this in our spiritual lives. When Easter is here, for us it is like the lively, vibrant heat and total excitement of our Lord’s resurrection. Then we transition back to those last days of our Lord’s life on this earth.

During this time, we are longing for that living water to get us through those rough and dark times of spiritual drought. We fell hopeless, lost and abandoned. We may even feel like the Israelites did when they were in exile. We may feel that God is nowhere near us and that whatever our situation at the time, God has left us.

But then the seasons change. The drought doesn’t last forever. The colors begin to change, the world blossoms with new growth and we become a new creation. We have hope once again. Our spirits have been watered with that living water. We realize that God IS with us and had been there all along. But we were too focused on our own selfish wants, needs and desires.

Thank goodness the drought doesn’t last forever! Come to the services on Sunday, and be filled with the living water of God’s love and grace.

See ya then!

Nanette

I remember when I was a little girl way back when, my Mom and Dad used to get me and my two brothers ready for church on Sunday.  We would first go to Sunday School because Mom and Dad considered it very important for our Christian education and upbringing.  We had some of the best teachers ever!!!  I appreciated the information and stories they shared.  I remember most of the stories to this day and all of the Bible stories they taught us and the songs we used to sing before we would break up into our different classes.  Sunday School became important for me as well.

When I had a child of my own, my husband worked the swing shift at Chapparral Steel and would not allow us to go to church on Sunday because he wanted us home with him.  This continued for a few weeks and I just could not take it anymore.  I told him he had better get used to the fact that me and my daughter would be gone on Sunday morning to Sunday School and church and that if he didn’t like it, that was just too bad.  That was the way I was brought up and that was the way it was going to be.  Well, you can imagine the marriage failed.  I raised my daughter as a single parent from the time she was seven years old.  We always went to Sunday School and church on Sunday.  That is where we belonged.  I even taught her Sunday School class.  To this day, she remembers the bible stories from those lessons.  My parents left a wonderful gift to me and my brothers when they departed from this earth in 1981 and 1992.  It is a precious gift that I will treasure always.

I know that after four years or so of not having a Sunday School class to go to, a person can really get out of the habit of not going when it does start back up.  It can be really hard to realize that its there just waiting every Sunday morning.  Can you hear it calling?  Is it calling you to come back?  I hope so.  Please consider it to be a very important of your Christian education and upbringing and revisit your Sunday School class.  I will be waiting…….. Sr. High Sunday School room……. third floor next to the video room………… every Sunday morning unless I notify you in the newsletter of different plans…….. please come……….. it is a God-given gift.

See ya Sunday,

Nanette

We had our first youth meeting last Sunday evening.  There were 12 youth and 8 parents in attendance!  It was an awesome group!  Thank you to those who came and participated with your ideas.  Our next meeting will be Sunday evening, August 28th.  Our snacks will be ice cream at the ice cream social.  Youth, please meet in the Family Life Center at 5:30.  We will have some ice cream and then go downstairs to the basement for our meeting.  Hope to see all of y’all there!

Our United Methodist mission statement is “Making Disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”  Why is it that we only think of adults upon hearing this statement?  Why do we not think of our youth and young people?  Remember, they are the future of the church.  Without them, there is nothing.  I am reminded of something that the apostle Paul had written to Timothy when he left Timothy in charge of the church.  He said, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young….” (1st Tim. 4:12)  We all do it.  We all tend to look upon our young people at times as not worthy of listening to on certain matters because of their inexperience and lack of knowledge regarding certain things.  But isn’t it our job to teach them?  I believe that sometimes our youth and young people are alot smarter than we give them credit for.  Ever heard that phrase, “Don’t judge until you have walked a mile in their shoes?”  We don’t know someone’s background until we get to know them.   We don’t know their experiences.  Don’t just automatically assume something about someone until you get to know them!  Take the initiative!  Go up to someone you don’t know, introduce yourself to them and invite them to come to worship with you!

Remember, its not about you……. its about them……. “Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”  That’s what its all about.  Whether you are young or old, you are never too young or old to become a disciple of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.

See ya Sunday!  Nanette