New Beginnings in Grace

October 2006

        Wow, where did the summer go? September has gone as well as the official start to new beginnings for our youth.

        To kick-off our 2006-2007 youth fellowship year, on Saturday, September 16 thirty-five of us took a trip up to Hershey Park, Pennsylvania for Christian Music Day. What could be better than free chocolate and roller coasters? We returned on Sunday and had our first official youth fellowship of the year, complete with food and messy games.  It is going to be a great year!

        Along with a new and exciting look to our youth fellowship, we will begin two new opportunities for our youth. One, for our high school girls, is Discipling Young Ladies (DYL). These young ladies in grades 10 to 12 meet at Starbucks on Thursday evenings for “girls only” Bible discussions. This group will be led by Nancy Stevens.

        We also have a newly forming youth council which will be made up of students who express an interest in leadership at FPC. They will meet once a month to provide leadership for ongoing programming as well as community mission ideas, mission trips, fundraisers, retreat opportunities, fellowship opportunities and any other items of interest for our youth group related to youth fellowship, our community and our church.

        Our youth are also providing leadership in Encounter! Christine Beauchene, Sam Brinton, Will Hall, Jack Henderson and Matt Sparacino have joined the Encounter! team. On September 24, we held our first Encounter! Service, led by an intergenerational team including adults and youth.  It was an amazing experience for an amazing God.

        We have much going on here at FPC, but the quantity of our programming and opportunities is not our focus. Rather, that focus remains on the quality of ministry. We are providing opportunities to nurture our youth for discipleship and leadership. Our holistic ministry is accomplished by using approaches that meet these young men and women where they are and nurture them to become who God wants them to be. Shouldn’t that be the goal for all of us?

        By the time you read this article, “new beginnings” will not be so new anymore. We will be in the midst of an ongoing youth ministry that is ever changing, wild and seemingly “untamed,” while at the same time allowing our youth to experience God through loving relationships with each other. May all of us experience that “child-like” faith while sharing it with others.