{"id":7920,"date":"2015-07-15T08:47:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-15T12:47:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=7920"},"modified":"2015-09-04T14:12:07","modified_gmt":"2015-09-04T18:12:07","slug":"youth-lead-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/?p=7920","title":{"rendered":"Youth Lead the Way!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes adults think of youth as “so and so’s son or daughter” or of a demographic that we somehow need to attract and create programs for.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

But the people we call “Youth” are a dynamic part of our church.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Recently we have seen three examples of their leadership and how they have contributed to our church and its mission.\u00a0 The list could go way beyond these three items, but here’s a taste of the contributions that they are always making…<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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1:\u00a0 Feeding the Poor…<\/span><\/h3>\n

Back in March, the Youth at the Trinity UMC in Clayton challenged <\/a><\/span>our BLAST Youth group to raise 400 lbs of food for the Pitman Food Pantry.\u00a0 That goal was met within a few weeks!\u00a0 One month into the challenge we had raised over 800 lbs.\u00a0 We then raised the bar to One TON!\"BLAST<\/a><\/p>\n

It was recently announced that this seemingly overambitious goal was met.\u00a0 Thanks to the leadership of our Youth, our church collected over 2000 lbs of food which was used to help stock the shelves of the Pitman Food Pantry, and then to feed the poor of our community.<\/p>\n

Our church, Our Father’s House, and others donated the food, but it happened because of the energy and leadership of our Youth.\u00a0 And- because of this- people in other communities will be fed.\u00a0 Stay tuned for when BLAST issues its own challenge to another church’s youth group!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2: Stewards of our Tools…<\/span><\/h3>\n

Like any home or other organization, a church needs some basic tools to tend to its building and grounds.\u00a0 Since our building opened, we’ve been using tarps to store things like our snow blower, rakes, and\u00a0 shovels.\u00a0 They’ve been exposed to the elements and left unsecured.\u00a0 \"Shed<\/a><\/p>\n

Yes- we need to funnel our resources towards spreading the Gospel and taking care of the needy. But in order to do that,\u00a0 we still need to take care of other rudimentary needs; such as clearing our sidewalk of snow and weeding our gardens.\u00a0 And we need\u00a0 tools to do that.\u00a0 If we don’t take care of these tools we’ll have to replace them,\u00a0 and that will take away from our resources to directly fulfill our church’s mission.<\/p>\n

And so one of our Youth, an Eagle Scout candidate, took on the project of raising money to build a shed.\u00a0 Thanks to his leadership, the shed was constructed, installed, and painted.\u00a0 And now we are able\u00a0 to be better stewards of the tools and resources God has given us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3: Stewards of our Building…<\/span><\/h3>\n

Our building is a tremendous resource.\u00a0 Not only do we use it for our own Sunday activities (worship and Sunday School), we use it throughout the week for a whole slate of ministries.\u00a0 And, our building serves as a community center, of sorts; Narcotics Anonymous, Scouts, NAMI, and even the fourth of July parade use our building and grounds.\u00a0 We host community concerts, blood drives, flu shots and even elections.<\/p>\n

But it is a huge expense to care for our building.\u00a0 Many maintenance needs continually arise.\"Parking<\/a><\/p>\n

One of\u00a0 these is something as seemingly as simple as the lines on our parking\u00a0 lot.\u00a0\u00a0 The building (and the lines painted on the parking lot) are now 8 years old.\u00a0 That period of time and all of the exposure to snow, rain, and sun has worn out the lines.\u00a0\u00a0 They needed to be repainted, and it\u00a0 would have cost a lot of money to hire a professional company to do the work.<\/p>\n

But thanks\u00a0 to the leadership of our Youth, the Youth of our church rolled up their sleeves and did the work\u00a0 themselves.\u00a0 It may seem to be only be lines painted on a parking lot, but because of our Youth other resources were freed up that will be used to tell people about Jesus and to help the needy.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

God has given all of us- regardless of age- gifts that can be used to help build His kingdom.<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0+\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 +<\/span><\/p>\n

To learn more about our BLAST Youth group, Click Here<\/a><\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes adults think of youth as “so and so’s son or daughter” or of a demographic that we somehow need to attract and create programs for. But the people we call “Youth” are a dynamic part of our church. Recently we have seen three examples of their leadership and how they have contributed to our […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,10,55,22,29],"tags":[98,74],"class_list":["post-7920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church","category-evrpt","category-mission-aroundtowns","category-youth","category-umy","tag-churchfamily","tag-feed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7920"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7934,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7920\/revisions\/7934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pitmanumc.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}