Let's Keep Talking

Hey everyone! Just a quick reminder that due to a low registration, tonight’s Kid’s Night Out has been rescheduled for December 9th!

Congrats to the following people who will be on this year’s student leadership team!

Middle School Class reps: Blair Martin, Rachel Stobbe, Sydney Martin

High School rep: Chandler Martin

Worship: Emma-Quin Smith

Activities: Mallory Snyder

Youth Care: Sarah Lee

Photographer: Claire Papp

Media: Dillon Thompson

Hey everyone! Here’s what’s happening the next couple of weeks.

1. We’ll be celebrating Holy Communion in worship this Sunday! That means that we’ll stay in worship for the whole service at 9:30 and have Sunday school at 10:50. I know it’s Labor Day weekend, so be in worship wherever you are!

2. Remember that because of Labor Day weekend, we will NOT have youth activities the evening of the 4th. 

3. We’ll have a youth Sunday planning meeting at 5:30 on Tuesday the 6th. If you want to be a part of the services, come help us plan them! If you can’t make the meeting but still want to be a part, just let Kris know.

4. Wednesday night Connect activities kick-off on September 7th with some highlights from Campbell’s various mission experiences this summer. Come hear about youth mission trips, children’s mission experiences, and about our Haiti team’s trip! The schedule looks like this:

5:30: Bring a sack supper. Dessert available for a buck!

6:00: Hymn Slam (come sing some hymns with Andy and Kris!)

6:30-7:30: Mission trip presentations

7:30-8:00: Youth praise band

On subsequent Wednesdays, just insert “Bible Study” in the 6:30-7:30 slot and you’ve got it made!

5. We’ll have our first Middle School barn night on September 9th from 7:00-9:00 pm! Come play games, eat snacks, and hang out!

6. September 10th brings us to SERVE 2011! This event was created to get United Methodists around the state involved in community service on the same day. The youth group will be helping out by passing out orange juice and bagels before the ACT at Kickapoo. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll get you the details!

7. Basically a normal schedule on Sunday, September 11th except:

4:30 pm: Youth choir starts!

7:00 pm: 9/11 Service of Remembrance. We will go to this service as a youth group and encourage families to attend.

8. Don’t miss out on the first “regular” night of Connect on September 14th! 

9. Finally, our first High School Friday Nigh at the Keller’s will be September 16th from 8:00-11:00 pm. Come for the whole thing or stop in when you can!

I think that’s all for now! Have a great weekend!

At youth this week we spent some time talking about things that break up Christian Unity. There is a movement going on in the blogosphere this week called the Rally to Restore Christian Unity which seeks to help us look past the things that divide us as Christians; not to ignore them, but to seek a better way to talk about them. Our discussion led us to the reality that the Bible is one of the big things that divides us as Christians. 

Of course, it’s not really the Bible itself that divides us, but our interpretations of it. We talked about how we all bring our own experiences and situations with us when we read the Bible, all things that might lead us to widely different interpretations than someone sitting right next to us. We discussed why that makes it so important to do all we can to understand context: the context of the passage we read within the larger context of the Bible, the socio-cultural context of these writings and their authors, context, context, context!

To show how important context is, we watched a couple of videos.

These are obviously not horror movies; but when we take a little from here, a little from there and put some different music behind it (in other words, when we change the context), we get a completely different outcome. Taking things out of context is dangerous, but we do it with the Bible all the time. Memorizing scripture is great, but when we add context to that scripture, we do even better. 

The Bible is a great and powerful thing, but it can be used for terrible purposes. May we continue to figure out how to use it well.

Small group questions:

Of the parts of the Bible we talked about tonight, what’s your favorite?

How have you seen the Bible used inappropriately? How can we keep from doing that ourselves?

What’s the best way to make sure we’re reading “in context?”

 What can you do when reading the Bible by yourself to for “the best” interpretation?

“Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he blowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

Hebrews 12:1-3 (the Message Remix)

Last night, we met in the sanctuary for our worship time at youth, which is what we normally do. However, we’re in the middle of an HVAC overhaul at Campbell, so it was stifling. I thought about moving us somewhere else, but since our topic for the night was persistence, it didn’t seem right to move. So we stayed. And we sweat.

But we had a great talk. There are so many things in life that it would be easy for us to give up on: classes, particular homework assignments, sports teams, a musical instrument. Giving up is easy. But there are bigger things that we want to give up on as well, and we talked about a couple of them last night. 

Like peer pressure. I feel like a guidance counselor every time I say it, but we all know peer pressure is a very real thing (at all ages, not just middle and high school!). For the most part, we’ve got really “good” kids at Campbell that fight the good fight against peer pressure every day. But sometimes that fight gets really hard and it would be so much easier to just give in and forget it. 

I know we have students who wake up every day in mental, emotional, spiritual and even physical pain. And they fight the fight against that pain to keep their heads up and live a “normal” life. Wouldn’t it be easier to just give in and let the pain take over? Or do something stupid to make the pain go away? 

And a lot of times, we find ourselves saying something like, “Nobody knows what I’m going through. Nobody knows how bad it hurts, or how hard it is.” But these verses from Hebrews suggest otherwise. Too often, we forget to consider Jesus’ humanity in light of his divinity. Jesus felt the humility of rejection, the betrayal of friends, and the pain of crucifixion. Even when we think nobody else “gets” it, Jesus does. And yet he persisted.

We finished by talking about what Lent teaches us about persistence. Six weeks doesn’t seem that long, but when you take on some form of Lenten discipline (adding a time of worship to your day, giving up pop, etc.), six weeks can get long. But if we look over the horizon, we can see the new dawn of Easter coming, the new dawn of the Resurrection! In the end, our persistence is rewarded.

Small Group Questions

What are things you’ve given up on in the past you wish you hadn’t at this point? What about the opposite? Are there things you wish you would have given up on a long time ago?

Kris talked a lot at the end about always looking forward to Easter, to remember that everything around us is temporary and will be changed at the resurrection. What does that mean?

Is there something you’re about to give up on, but you know you shouldn’t? How can we encourage you?

How can we make Easter/resurrection happen here and now?

Don’t forget, we’ve got a planning meeting tonight at 5:30 for the Easter sunrise service for any youth who want to help lead or plan the service! See you at church!

As we find ourselves in the middle of Lent, we’ve taken the opportunity to discuss two things that seem to go right along with the season at our last two youth group meetings. Fasting and confession are both interruptions in our daily lives; to voluntarily choose not to eat, but rather to spend time in prayer and worship is a BIG thing. Feeling the pangs of hunger during a fast can be a physical reminder for us of our very real need for a relationship with God. Fasting also allows us to remember what it’s like to feel hungry when we spend so much of our time living in excess, whether that be food, stuff, sex, or something else. 

Confession also seems to be something that typically goes against the grain of what we “do” as a culture. But true confession, whether with a friend, a group of people, or personally, allows us to move on from our sin; to leave guilt behind and continue to become more like the people that God wants us to be. We know that God knows our sin before we confess it, but to bring it out in the open allows us to be made new.

These are two great things to incorporate into our “regular” lives, and Lent is a great time to start. Why not fast from a meal, but at a time when you could really get away for a time of worship, either by yourself or with others. After you’ve tried a meal, think about fasting for a day. As for confession, find a confessor. Is there someone in your life that can handle your deepest, darkest, most secret sin? Someone you feel you can be completely transparent with? If not, why not? 

May we all continue to keep a holy Lent.

How do you fight off apathy? In life? In school? In faith?

Hey! We’re going ice skating Sunday from 2:30-4:30! Meet at church with $5.50 (if you’re a student) or $7.25 (if you’re an adult). Let’s get our skate on!

One of the things we did in our small groups last week was to discuss some rules for dating. Of course, these rules were developed by age group, but I was impressed with what y’all had to say. This is just a selection, but as families deal with dating in different ways, these may prove to be helpful in coming up with rules of your own.

Spend as much time with friends/family members as your boyfriend or girlfriend.

Go on group dates!

No making out! Keep it to “casual kissing.”

No skipping class to take a girlfriend/boyfriend to class.

Think about what you are getting into before it happens.

Date someone your parents/friends like!

Don’t spend too much money on your relationship.

Don’t be afraid to end it if things aren’t going well. Pretty good start, right? What would you add?