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The Church Loves its Children! |
2007-08-02 |
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Laughter. Noise. Commotion. Excitement. Kids outside, inside, upside down! Last week was Vacation Bible School . There were 65 preschool children AND over 100 first through sixth graders, 9 NeSoDak Counselors, various adults and several middle school and high school age helpers in the building throughout the day. From 9am to Noon, we were all together in one place. Think how much fun we had!
We had the blessing and opportunity to work with Central United Methodist Church as partners in conducting Bible School. This is the way the body of Christ should work—together in the community for the good of youth in the name of Christ.
Now this might not sound like fun to you, but it is music to my ears! This is my idea of life in the kingdom: living, active, full of fun, and often times a bit messy. It also takes a lot of people, hours of planning and tons of work to make it happen!
It is unequivocally my favorite week of the year. Our working side by side with Central has been a blessing to everyone. We are better when we serve side by side as partners in the gospel and when we invest ourselves in nurturing the faith of youth.
This is what sharing the gospel is all about. It is also about creating what AJ and Liz Franken taught us about, “a youth culture at American Lutheran”. The goal is for us as a congregation to create a “culture” if you will, where youth are comfortable in the church and consider it to be an important part of their lives. As they get older, our hope is that they begin to “choose” us a comfortable and familiar place where they feel safe. Especially as they move into adolescence, we hope that church will be a priority among the tremendous glut of choices they face. When challenges and difficulties come, we will be here for them, to guide, care and walk with them.
American culture is anti-church, plain and simple. It encourages and draws attention to the self – that the self and our individual needs and wants are paramount. Culture says, “Go ahead, treat yourself, you deserve it, you owe it to yourself”….you get the idea. Jesus teachings are counter to this push from the world. “If anyone would follow me”, Jesus says, “they must deny themselves, pick up their cross and follow me,” and “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves” are just some of the Scriptures that remind us that as followers of Christ, our focus is on the needs of others for the sake of Jesus Christ.
We are hoping to hire a full time youth worker/volunteer coordinator. We have two fine candidates interested in the position. Our hope is that we can invest in the lives of our youth through programs at the church by calling a youth worker. This will take our making an adjustment in the budget to expand from part time youth worker to a full time position.
The council will have recommendations for the congregation when we gather on Sunday, Aug 26 for a special congregational meeting to take action.
Please talk to those on Youth and Ed (Sheila Bien, Doug Dohrer, Amber Scriver), a council member or to the Pastors about your questions . We ask members, particularly those of you who are parents of youth to come and support this undertaking.
We’ll see you in church!
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Summer: starting Memorial Day Weekend
9:00 am Worship Service KMSD Broadcast
10:00 am Coffee and Fellowship
WOW (Worship on Wednesday) 6:30 pm
Winter: starting after Labor Day
8:30 am Worship Service KMSD Broadcast
9:35 am Educational Hour
9:35 am Coffee and Fellowship
10:45 am Worship Service
WOW (Worship on Wednesday) 6:30 pm |
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401 South Flynn Drive
Milbank SD 57252
605.432.5566 |
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