Kids For Christ: An Evening Just For You!

Attention all Kids for Christ students~

Are you ready…
to make a difference in the world?

… to become a voice for someone who doesn’t have one?

… to be the change you want to see?

…to bring heaven on earth?

If you are at all interested in what it is this is really all about, you and your fun friends need to come to our church, First Presbyterian Church, on Friday, April 24th, from 6:30-8:45 pm.

This evening is an evening dedicated to you, Kids for Christ, your friends and gives your parents an opportunity to go out on a much needed date!

What are the particulars you ask? Well they are quite simple really. We will be gathering together for worship at 6:30 pm and from there, we will break off into age groups/grade levels and we will participate in VBS type activities. There will be snacks but NO FOOD/DINNER! The evening will conclude with a sending which will encourage you to love everyone, no matter who they are!

We are asking that each student brings 2 canned goods or old clothing to be donated to the HELP Office. Also, this event is being run by the senior high of our youth group and we are encouraging donations for their time and efforts and the money will go towards their mission trip in the summer. A sign up sheet will be hanging at the base of the stairs leading up to the upper youth room! All those who plan on coming are encouraged to bring their friends and be signed up by Sunday April 19th.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email Adam at: youthdirector@firstpresbyterianowensboro.com or you can call me: church-(270) 684-1467 or by cell phone (270) 313-9375.

Again, this night is for you Kids for Christ. Although we will be learning and doing ministry, we will also have loads of fun and laughter is guaranteed! So please come and lets learn together about what it means to be the church and taking on Poverty!

With Love and Peace,
Adam R. Quine

April 2009 Newsletter Article

One of the most difficult aspects about community is being open and honest with each other. For months now, well a year really, we have been engaging ourselves in a conversation about what does love look like in context of a community? On our journey together we have done many activities and participated in many different styles/types of ministries which have allowed us to be stretched, and indeed we have been. We have laughed together, prayed together, worshiped together, we have hugged one another, we have cried together, we have been frustrated together, and we have even experienced God together! Although, these aspects of our community are difficult, nothing is as frightening, scary and hard as being open and honest with each other.

Perhaps we have legitimate reasons as to why we cannot be “authentic” with each other. I mean, they are junior high and we are senior high. Or, they go to DCMS and we go to OMS. Better yet, we can’t really be honest with each other because I really only see them once, maybe twice a week. Is this really enough time to be real with each other?
Love is scary. Think about it for a minute. When we become close with someone, sharing with them EVERYTHING and trusting them to care for us, we are risking lots. What if they don’t tell us everything and they lie to me? What if they tell others what I told them? What if they break my heart? What if…

What if as a group we became more intentional about loving each other? What if as a youth group we became more intentional about being honest with each other? What if as a group we become more intentional about praying for each other? What if we put away our cell phones, stop texting others and truly listened to each other? What if we became truly present with each other and meant it when we asked how each others weeks were? What if we actually confessed to each other our struggles, our doubts, are fears, our joys, the things that make us happy, the things that make us sad, the things that alarm us, the things that frustrate us? What if…

God on numerous occasions tried everything to bring reconciliation to the world. In creation God tried, through a great flood God tried, through a walk through a desert that lasted forty years God tried, through prophetic voices God tried. Yet through all those occasions, although they almost “got it”, these people ended up wondering and murmuring to God. God then decides to do it “right” and this is where we see the story of Jesus the Christ unfold in the Gospels. Christ comes to show the love of God to God’s people. Christ comes to show the way to God and shows that God is not in some far off place, but rather, God was with them, is with us and God will always be there! Christ showed them this. In the end, literally, Jesus was with the twelve and told them this: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Jesus showed the disciples how to love and what love was. The disciples took a risk, a great one, to follow this rabbi around for three years. At times it did not make sense to them, they could not understand the reasons why they left their lives to live this one, following Jesus and eventually becoming a part of the movement known as, “The Way.” Again, it wasn’t until later did the disciples come to understand what it was that Jesus was all about.

As Easter draws near and as we draw even closer to the cross on this Lenten journey, I encourage you to look at where we have been as a group, where we are and where you would like to see us go. Once the disciples were alone, they relied heavily on each other. They found themselves being the outcasts in the cities and noticed how people weren’t too fond of their ability to love one another. May we also on this Lenten journey look for the new life that lies within Christ Jesus who is no longer dead but alive. May we look for renewal and fullness of life in Christ together, hoping for the day when we can fully be who we are meant to be with one another.

God be with you friends.

Let us joyfully sing out how Christ has risen, Christ has risen indeed! Alleluia!

April 2009

Well what does April have in store for us? Quite a bit actually, take a look see:

5th—KFC Easter Egg Hunt following 10:30 am service
Kirk Night from 5-7 pm All YOUTH INVITED

9th—Lord’s Supper Re-enactment at the church 5 & 7 pm

10th—Good Friday Service 12 pm and 5 pm

11th—Great Easter Vigil 6 pm

12th—Sunrise Service Breakfast help all youth must help!
No youth group that following night
Happy Easter!

17th,18th&19th—Camp Kum Ba Yah! We will leave from the church at 4:30 pm the 17th and return @ 4 pm on Sunday

24th-25th—Senior High Fast that Last and Fundraising Event for mission trip. Fast starts @ 1pm and you need to be at the church at 5 pm!

26th—Senior high breakfast at the Cracker Barrel 8:15am
Youth Group 5-7 pm!

A Letter to the Church

A Letter to the Congregation of First Presbyterian Church which will be on the front of the church newsletter:

For more than a year now, the youth of First Presbyterian Church have committed themselves to each other in a way that has lead them to begin to truly investigate what community is all about. We’ve laughed together, we’ve had “run-ins” with each other, we’ve cried together and now we are learning how to truly love each other. We are presented this summer with the good opportunity to engage in a conversation and extend this love to a people who are all too familiar with negligence, hatred and oppression.

Beginning June 20, 2009, nine of our senior high students and two chaperons, along with ten others from Henderson Presbyterian Church, will be making a 1,000 mile trip to Rosebud, South Dakota to be in community with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe who resides on the Rosebud Reservation. Here are some facts about this community:

• Approx. 20,700 people live on the Reservation
• 80% of the work force lives below the poverty level
• 82% unemployment rate
• 27% of people over 25 have no high school diploma
• 212 of homes (7.6%) are heated by wood only (no gas or electric heat)

With the help of YouthWorks (the organization we are working with), we will be placed within this community and participating in two different capacities to provide assistance. Our first opportunity to engage with the community will be leading a VBS type program entitled Kids Club. We will work with children, leading them in games, crafts, skits, songs and interactive lessons which are all designed to help kids learn about Jesus. Our second opportunity to assist this community will be offering helping hands in home renovations. We will be working with 3 other churches to refresh the exteriors of homes by painting, doing yard work and any other tasks our hands can help with.

Our main hope as a youth group is to go and take what we have learned and worked for (authentic community) and extend it to our brothers and sisters on the Rosebud Reservation. We want to love them and be Christ to them without removing any part of their culture, while learning more about them and looking past any stereotypes we may have. As the days roll off the calendar, we are preparing ourselves in many ways, so upon our arrival to South Dakota, we can be fully present and begin truly being of the discipline of compassionate listening.

We are aware of how we cannot do this alone and how we are in need of your support. There are many ways in which you can offer support for the youth of FPC as we prepare to embark on this journey which starts June 20th and ends June 28th. First, we are in need of financial support and there will be many opportunities for you to offer assistance/donations throughout the coming months. We are hoping to raise around $4000 and as of March 1st, we have $1300. I ask that you please look in PresbyNotes for fundraising events our youth will have to help raise money for this trip. These fundraising events include: a Saturday dedicated to picking up sticks and debris in your yards, a night planned for Kids for Christ and their friends, Sunrise Breakfast, a “Boot Sale” and a carwash.

Also we are in need of water bottles. Because we want to be good stewards of “Mother Earth” we do not want to take plastic bottles on our trip, thus we are in need of environmentally friendly water bottles.

Finally, the most helpful way you can support us is through prayer and praying for us. We are aware of the difficulty of this trip and know we will be stretched and challenged in ways perhaps we never have been before. We ask for your prayers as we prepare for the trip, for safe travel to and from South Dakota, for those whom we will be sharing life together for those few short days, and courage for our youth as they begin to demonstrate to the world around them, another way is possible. I will have a roster of those participating students made available if you are interested one to aid you in your prayers for us. Peace, unity, love and healing, this is our prayer.

My hope for our youth this trip and for our church is that we will begin to lift up in prayer, the people of the Rosebud Sioux tribe. It is my hope that we may be of the ministry of reconciliation and demonstrating God’s love to a people whose voices have been silenced for many years. May we as a congregation support and love our youth who have committed themselves to God’s love and preaching the Gospel with their lives, and using words when necessary. May God be with us as we prepare to send our youth out into a broken world bringing the Kingdom of Heaven even nearer.

Thank you and shalom!

To visit the website of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, click here.