Tonight, we had the first gathering of the Saint Matthew youth group for the 2009-2010 school year. I was excited with the turnout, which included three sixth graders joining us for the first time.
After having pizza, we considered three Bible passages pointing us to five important goals for Christians, the Church, and our youth group: Loving God, loving neighbor, serving others in Christ's Name, telling others about Christ, and worshiping God. Being a disciple isn't always easy, but it doesn't mean that it can't also be fun! (The passages we looked at were Matthew 22:34-40, Matthew 28:16-20, and Luke 14:26-33.)
We then brainstormed about some of the things we want to do this year. The first thing we discussed was a local "mission trip" in 2010. During the past two summers, we've gone on Group Workcamps Foundation mission trips. (In 2008, we went to Grand Rapids, Michigan and this year, we went to Nashville, Tennessee.) In 2010, we're going to take four to five days, live in the church building, then perform service projects right here in our community. I loved the excitement the youth evidenced for this as they suggested both projects we might take on and fund-raisers we could do to help finance Saint Matthew's youth ministry. (We also have planned to go on a Group-sponsored mission trip again in 2011.)
We also talked about participating in the Southern Ohio Synod Bible Bowl next March and going to a Christian music festival at one our regional amusement parks.
It should be another great year!
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