Nativity Play

I've assigned roles for our Nativity Play that will be performed on December 24th at the 4:00 service. 

Rehearsals are as follows:

Sunday, December 16 between services 10:30-11:00

Sunday, December 23 between services 10:30 - 11:00 and dress rehearsal/staging after the 11:00 service until about 1:30. 

Monday, December 24 final rehearsal at 3:00 ("performance" at 4:00)

I hope I got everyone who said they wanted to perform this year. If you are not on this list but wish to help out and take a part, please let me know ASAP. If you can't come to a rehearsal, let me know now. 

Cast

Narrator: 

Beth Stark

Mary: 

Jessica Krone

Joseph: 

Nathan Pohl

Gabriel: 

Drew Degener

Innkeeper: 

Alex Marchand

Shepherds: 

Amanda Glass

Madelyn Degener

Angels: Caitlin Marchand

Brenna Degener

King Herod:  William Stark

Wise Men: Luke Pohl

Joshua Doering

Louie Stark

Why You Should Join Us on Friday, November 16

The Red Kettle Christmas Campaign enables The Salvation Army to provide food, toys and clothing to over 6 million people during the Christmas season and helps more than 34 million Americans recovering from all kinds of personal disasters nationwide. 

Seems like a good reason to me!!

Feeding the Homeless

It’s that time of year again when we get up really early on a Sunday and spread God’s love and compassion to the guests at the First United Methodist Church in Plymouth. FUMC hosts a rotating homeless shelter through the Cass Community Social Services.  This will be our 5^th  year of serving in this valuable ministry. Our middle school youth group is scheduled to prepare and serve breakfast on Sunday, November 11 to about 50 homeless people who stay at this rotating shelter. This would mean getting up pretty darn early in the morning, but it is a great opportunity for service. Let me know ASAP if you’d be willing to do this. Please let me know in person, text or email me.

We meet at the church in Plymouth at 5:30 AM and prepare and serve breakfast at 6:00. We also eat with them and fellowship with them, showing them Christ’s love over breakfast and conversation. Sometimes we play games like chess, or cards before they leave about 7:00 AM. Once breakfast is over, we clean up and head back to our homes (usually by 8:00.) We will still have Food for Thought at 11:00.

We will be preparing eggs, fruit, pastries or muffins, juice and sausage to go with our meal that morning. 

If you have volunteered for this ministry in the past you know how much joy you can bring to others less fortunate and you know how much joy you also receive from serving. I encourage you to sign up, you won’t regret it! Adults are more than welcome to stay, help prepare, and fellowship with the guests.

Looking forward to serving alongside of you,

Nancy

Learn about other's faiths and share your own!

Wednesday, October 17

7:00 - 9:00 PM (We'll meet at Geneva at 6:45, or meet us at St. Thomas a'Beckett  around 7:00)

 @ St. Thomas a'Beckett church

Area teens from all faiths to meet!

Each visiting teen (or teens) will give a 5 minute (or so) synopsis of the beliefs and practices of their religion.  There will be a total of 7 or 8 different religions represented and all teens will have the chance to listen to each group speak on behalf of their faith.  

After all have spoken, we will open up the floor to questions - in which ALL teens (a'Becket and visitors) will be able to ask and answer.  When we have finished, we will end the evening with some fellowship - cookies, punch, conversation and laughs! 

Adults are invited as well!  I am sure parents would love to hear their teens speak. 

from Stephanie Tierney, Youth Pastor at St. Thomas a'Beckett:

I really think that this meeting holds so many opportunities for some great understanding in regards to the teens.  It is my hope that some great connections and friendships will result from this.  Thank you so much for your interest in be a part of this - I cannot wait to meet everyone!  

30 Hour Famine- POSTPONED

October 5 and 6th are super busy for everyone I guess! We'll try to do this in January when we've got more time...

Our 30 Hour Famine has been postponed!! It seems that the majority of our youth have soccer, swimming, running, marching band, family trips, and other very important activities that weekend. We will attempt to do this again in January. If you have already collected funds, please let your donors know we will be doing the Famine in January instead. 

Call for Youth Bloggers

IYA (Interfaith Youth Activist) is calling for youth bloggers! They'll even pay you! Check it out here!

And we're off!

I’m really excited about how our fall programming has taken off.  I love how many kids have been coming to Food for Thought on Sunday mornings, and I also LOVE meeting in the Youth Room! (no more school-like tables and chairs - hurray!) I think everyone is enjoying the videos and I look forward each week to our discussions. Our youth have really good understanding but they also ask excellent questions. They sure keep me on my toes!

I’m really enjoying Sunday night youth fellowship as well. I’ve got some fun activities planned for our weekly youth group time, but I also hope to take suggestions from you (this means youth AND parents!) There will be a box in the youth room marked “Sunday Night Suggestions” and I hope you use it! Please put game suggestions, service/mission project suggestions or anything you have in mind for our Sunday Night get-togethers; remember this is YOUR youth group!

Thanks to the people who've been bringing friends to both Food for Thought AND our fellowship events. I think you'll agree, we have a much better time when more people are there! Keep it up! And if you haven't brought a friend yet, please do so!

Here's the Scoop!

2012-2013 

Youth Group Information

Sunday Mornings (in the Youth Room)

Food for Thought (High School) 11:00 (right when the service starts)

** This year, from September through April we will be using The Story curriculum along with the entire congregation!

Fun and Fellowship Sunday Evenings 6:15 – 7:30

(in the Youth Room/Young Children’s Worship area) 

Typical Sunday Evening Breakdown: (subject to change)

5:30 Family dinner in the sanctuary (if you can't come to this come at 6:00 or so!)
6:00 Hanging out, free time
6:15 Both groups together for music and message
6:30 (or so) Groups split for fellowship and other activities (Middle school/high school)
7:30 Dismiss

Typical Sunday evening activities include games, art, drama, service projects, movies and more

Other Activities/Fellowship

Each month there will be a service activity that all youth are encouraged to attend. Many of these activities will be in conjunction with the Local Missions Team

Each month there will be an additional fellowship outing offsite or at a different meeting time. These outings/events may include retreats, lock-ins, late-nights, bowling, mini golf, wally ball, or movies.

Each group will participate in several fundraisers over the course of the year to fund our annual summer mission trips.

Mission Trip reflections

Although your weeklong mission trip is over, God is still moving in you and through you! I’d like you to think about how this experience has changed you.

How has it changed…

your understanding of God?

your understanding of yourself and how God sees you?

your view of the world?

What have you learned…

about serving?

about following Jesus?

In thinking specifically about your ministry in Washington DC…

What/who made the biggest impact on you?

What surprised you about ministry?

What thought(s) or question(s) have stuck with you since you’ve been back?

How do you think God will use this trip to shape your future (where you live, where you spend your money and on what, how you treat people, your career)?

Now that you’ve been back for several weeks…

What have you enjoyed the most?


What things have most gotten on your nerves?


What do you anticipate others’ responses will be to changes in you?

How are you personally going to continue on this journey?


I urge you to keep serving here in Michigan! Our church has many, many opportunities for you to continue working toward helping others. Here are a few that are coming up soon:

Intergenerational mission project at Wayne County Family Center on Saturday, July 28. Picnic dinner and games with the homeless families that live in this shelter.

VBS at Geneva starting August 13! Help guide children, make snacks, sing songs and more!  

Thursday

Our last day of work…We started the day hopeful that we could continue serving the community of Washington DC, but also sad that it was our last day. We have had such an amazing time here. We saw God every day. Our youth are an amazing group of individuals. They showed leadership skills, servant's attitudes and a desire to do their best all week. I am always so proud and pleased with the group of young people that I bring here. 

Today, we were at the same sites as yesterday - Debbie’s group cleaned the inside of two seniors' homes today. Not a very fun job to say the least, some of the rooms were kinda bad… However, they actually met a descendant of John Wilkes Booth! Dan’s group helped to make the Parks for People building beautiful as he finished up some landscaping (it was hot today!) Nancy’s group worked with the Alzheimer’s patients at Clusters, playing games, watching travelogues and doing art therapy with them.

This evening we had a cookout and relaxed in the park before club. Jessica and Caitlin have a wonderful story to share with you on Sunday about something that happened this evening at the cookout. Don't miss it!

A Thursday night Youthworks’ tradition is a foot washing ritual. As usual. this is one of the highlights of the trip. It gets quite emotional when we wash each other’s feet and pray for each other. A Geneva tradition is for the youth to wash the Youthworks’ staff’s feet.  There is so much love in the room during this ritual, it’s too much to try to explain. You really need to experience it yourself (talk to one of us about joining the youth on next year’s mission trip!)

We look forward to taking showers and seeing you all Sunday! I ask for prayers for safe travel as we head home after making a visit to one of the Smithsonian Museums before we hit the road.

Thank you again for your prayers and support,

Nancy, Dan and Debbie

Wednesday

New work sights today! Debbie’s group worked with an organization called Age-in-Place.  This organization helps seniors who need assistance with various things around their home. They worked in a garden, scraped and repainted a patio, then helped create care packages at the center itself. Dan’s group worked at the building where Nancy’s group was earlier this week. They continued to help renovate the building, working both outside and inside. Nancy’s group spent the day at a place called Clusters, an adult day care center. Many of the people had some form of dementia but we were able to interact with them playing games and just talking. One man was 100 years old! (see picture)

Tonight we attended a mid-week urban youth service. While this type of service was very different from what we’re used to the kids really seemed to get a lot out of the message. Ask them about it when you see them!

The Youthworks staff has been great this week. Christina, the site director is so flu of joy- she's always smiling! Shawn, our program coordinator has wonderful rapport with the kids, and delivers  great messages each night at club. (we've also enjoyed having him 'lead the way' in our car each night when we go out for our evening activities.) Akelia is a terrific service coordinator and also shows us the love of Jesus with her exuberance! Sarah, the other service coordinator arrived just days before we did. She's been a terrific inspiration to all of us with her empathy and caring.

Only one more day of work…. It’s really hard to believe we’ve done so much in so little time, but we still feel like we could do so much more…

We can’t wait to share our stories with you on Sunday.

Thank you again for praying for us. We definitely feel it here. 

Debbie, Dan and Nancy