When’s the last time you ever heard of teenagers wanting to spend MORE time in church? Well, that’s what’s happened at PUMC! Our BLAST Youth fellowship used to meet on Sundays from 6:30 to 8:00 PM on Sunday. But the kids wanted MORE time and asked Youth Director Kate Dilks if they could start meeting a 1/2 hour earlier. So, we’re starting at 6:00 now!
Under fresh leadership and under a renewed spirit, our youth group is growing. We’re also keeping busy…
Tuesdays…
Tuesday nights are a really special time at our church. There’s a Bible Study in the morning with Pastor Jim. Then (at 6:00 PM) there’s a dinner. After the dinner we break out for studies, and our BLAST group is one of the groups that is getting together.
On Tuesday nights we’ve been looking at the parables of Jesus. Jesus told a lot of interesting stories… but what do they mean? What are they telling us in our day and age? How can WE put them to use in our lives?
Sundays…
We’re using that extra half hour on Sunday nights to get into real “down to where the rubber meets the road” topics that meet us where we’re living. We’re starting a new study on the Max Lucado book, “It’s Not About Me- Rescue from the Life We Thought Would Make us Happy.”
Sometimes we get all hung up in the idea of what’s in it for me. Even though God loves us and deeply wants a relationship with us, He’s not our magical Genie who stands by to grant our every wish. He knows better! He wants us to walk with Him and discover life to its fullest. It’s not about me… it’s all about God!!! Once we make that shift in thinking we’ll start living a truly unburdened life.
Here are a few quotes from this book:
Pastor Jim introduced our Youth Director, Kate Dilks, to the congregation during the services on Sunday 10/25…
Fun Stuff: Gop and Goo…
On Sunday October 18 (after the CROP Walk), we took a break from our usual activities and jumped into som e”Gop and Goo”!
We split into three teams and competed in a series of messy games. Unconventional use of things like ice cream, Jell-O, pudding, and chocolate syrup made for a gooy and messy… but fun… experience. We filled trash cans with Jell-O and ran a relay game where we had to fish for bouncy balls in the trash cans.We really made a mess… but it all got cleaned up.
The whole thing kind of reminded us that Christ died once and for all, no matter how “gopped and gooed” we are.
If Eugene Peterson saw this mess, he might quote his version of Romans 10:5-10…
Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy — every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story — no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?
The word that saves is right here, as near as the tongue in your mouth, as close as the heart in your chest.
It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God — “Jesus is my Master” — embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!“
(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)
Here’s a look at the mess!
(Don’t worry trustees; we cleaned it all up… just like Jesus cleans us all up!)…
We started by filling a trash can with a special “bath” of Jell-O.
… Sticky, gooey Jell-O!
And once the “bath was drawn” it was time to start the race…
Up and Coming…
We have a lot of activities planned, including a babysitting night so parents can go Christmas Shopping. And on December 13 we’re leading the worship services!
Stay tuned to the website, bulletin, and social media to keep in touch.
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To find out more about how we’re having a BLAST, try this button: BLAST
