Westminster Fellowship
Updates
WF Starts Strong in Fall 2010
Sep 29th
It’s been a whirlwind of events this past month at WF! Starting with the Fall Retreat, which we moved much earlier to the end of August this year, we’ve seen a new wave of energy and committed participation among the youth. For our retreat theme “What is Love? Love, Dating, & Sex” we brought in guest speaker Oliver Hersey. Oliver and his wife quickly bonded with the group, getting right in there to participate in games, worship, and friendly discussions. Oliver taught us about God’s intention for us as young men and women to live out our relationships in a way that reflects the image of God. Humanity has moved far “west” from God’s intention for our relationships with Him and with each other. It’s up to us to return to a restored relationship, by being real with one another and following His will as seen in the Bible. A panel of leaders answered many of the youth’s anonymous questions about dating and we ended with a reflection time for youth to make commitments privately – just between themselves and God – concerning their future relationships. Between sessions, we enjoyed sports, The Wall, and the Rope Bridge together. Everyone had a great time getting to know one another better and hearing what God has to say about our relationships.
Since then, we’ve had three weeks of Girls’ and Guys’ Bible Studies, Sunday School, and Sunday Night Youth Group. At each event, I’ve been shocked by the turnout – not only the numbers, but the youth’s investment and obvious desire to dig deeper in their faith journeys. We’ve been blessed to have 72% of youth on our rosters show up for events (this is a very high number for churches!) and 4 new youth join us on a regular basis.
The worship team, now led by Anson Yeganegi and Nancy Goodwin, has really taken off. Band members are learning new “tricks” and the group is coming together to play as a team. They’ve diversified their repertoire, smoothed out transitions, and made our worship time at Sunday Night Youth Group much more conducive to connections between youth and God.
Our Student Leadership Team has chosen to focus this year on deepening our relationships with Christ and with each other through worship & a fuller understanding of His Word. Sunday School and Sunday Night lessons are intensified and student leaders have really stepped up to the challenge! We hope this is a bug that catches and spreads like wildfire throughout the entire youth group!
Please pray for our youth to have a continued desire to grow ever deeper in their relationships with God.
UNDESERVED Mission Trip to Coshocton, OH
Jun 22nd
Well, another WF Mission Trip is complete and what a week it was. We followed a thundering summer storm into Indianapolis for our Saturday night stay at the Second Presbyterian Church. Luckily we never caught the storm but we were able to drive right into a complete double rainbow. What a great “God Sighting” to start the trip.
We spent 4 and a half days working on homes (painting, building wheelchair ramps and decks, roof repair and some interior home repair) in the beautiful town of Coshockton, OH. This was the first time that Group Workcamps has come to Coshockton so there was a lot of attention on all of the “church kids” staying up at the high school. We received local media coverage from the newspaper (our own Mel Golden was featured on the front page of the Coshocton Tribune) and radio station (see the postings on the church website) as well as love and support from the people who lived and worked on Coshocton. They appeared to really appreciate the impact they group had on their community.
Our theme for the week was “Undeserved” and our Bible study was based on the story of The Prodigal Son through an interesting video series. While we studied all of the characters in the story or primary focus was on the father and his un-swaying and unconditional love for all of his family. We had small group discussion and personal reflection time to evaluate the story from the perspectives of “me”, my friends, my family, my faith and my future. The Tuesday night program allowed us to experience a self evaluation of our lives through all of our senses. It culminated with the sense of taste at the foot of the cross where we experienced the sweet taste of Christ’s love for us. This was a powerful and moving night for many of us as we reflected on our lives, acts, and motivations. The Thursday night program was just as powerful and moving. We witnessed the joyful reception of the Prodigal by the Father. We were able to reflect on the atoning sacrifice Christ made for all of us on the cross and how he is always there to welcome all of us in the same way no matter what path we take to get there.
We held WF small group time every evening as well. This gave us time, as a community, to reflect on the day and the message we heard during the evening program. Each evening one of the adult leaders shared their faith journey with our youth. As you can imagine, the paths varied and resonated with each of the youth in different ways. I felt this was a great addition to the trip. Each night we closed by singing a few praise songs. God was really working at this time. Several youth from the other church’s joined us for this time of praise as the week went on which really added to the feeling of community developed over the week.
It was great to see our youth connecting, and sometimes reconnecting, with each other as they played, served and worshiped throughout the week.
FEARLESS at the Timber-lee Winter Retreat
Feb 28th
WF’s weekend of wintry outdoor fun at Timber-lee Christian Camps in East Troy, WI was a blast! We participated in a broomball tournament (and won second place!!), tubing, tobogganing, foosball, carpetball, horseback riding, leather-shop crafting, karaoking, playing with the animals in the science center, and more. We also had a GREAT band 38 Acres lead worship for us and enjoyed speaker Dave Creek’s challenge to live FEARLESSLY for our faith. Many youth were touched by his challenge to put to death the sin in our lives and make time with God a priority. Thanks for sending your sons & daughters with us!
30 Hour Famine Helps Haiti!
Jan 27th
This year, we had 27 youth and 7 adult leaders participate in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine! This time of fasting is a nation-wide event designed to raise funding for World Vision’s work to combat hunger – a force which causes 13,000 deaths of children under age 5 each day. This year, we designated our funds specifically to Haiti earthquake relief. World Vision has been “on the ground” in Haiti since day 1 of the earthquake, providing food, shelter, and medical care for those injured, orphaned, or made homeless by that disastrous event. Thanks to all the youth effort at our bake sale and through individual fundraising, we raised $2,745 for World Vision!
For the second half of our 30-hour fast, a lock-in was held at the church. Activities included a Survivor-like game where 5 “tribes” competed for objectives needed to survive: food, health care, clean water, education, agriculture, and economic opportunity. In the end, some tribes survived and others did not. This game was designed to be fun while teaching about the difficulties of survival in undeveloped countries and the impact of limited resources, neither of which youth experience in their lives! We also viewed the movie “To Save A Life” at AMC Cantera – an inspiring Christian-produced movie about the various challenges of Christian teen life. I’d highly recommend the movie to anyone with teenage children! We concluded the night with some games of Capture the Flag, hanging out, and watching The Princess Bride. In the morning, we broke the fast with communion led by Pastor Kirbas and a great meal of pancakes provided by some of our parents. Thanks to everyone who contributed to this successful event!
The Year-Long Christmas
Sep 1st
The Fall has been going well for WF! We are blessed to have more youth attending more events than ever before in the last couple years. Also, a large number of youth are invested in developing leadership skills and designing WF events & curriculum behind-the-scenes at the Student Leadership Team. All our youth appear passionate about our community and intent on learning more and more about their relationship with God!
Our 2009-10 theme is “The Year-long Christmas: God’s Good Gifts” with the corresponding theme verse James 1:17, which says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, Who does not change like shifting shadows.” Our focus is on the many gifts that God gives to us and the way we can “tithe back” those gifts by using them to serve and honor Him. Our first series (10/4-10/18) is “Spiritual Gifts”, the second (11/1-11/15) is “Loving God Wholly: Heart, Mind, & Strength”, the third (1/3-1/17) is “God-honoring Relationships: Friends, Family, & Dating”, the fourth (1/31-2/14) is “Fruits of the Spirit”, and the fifth (2/28-3/21) is “God’s Presence”. Individual topics include “Community” (9/20), “Identity” (11/29), and “Prayer” (12/13).
Our goal this year is for youth to learn practical and direct ways to GIVE TO and RECEIVE FROM the God of the universe, while simultaneously developing relationships of Christian encouragement with one another. Keep sending your youth to WF, we truly believe God is working through and with this great group of teens!