Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Girls Retreat | for 9th-12th graders

Hey girls! Our retreat is this weekend and we'd love for you to come! Join us for a time of fellowship and restoration as we take a look at what it means to be a daughter of the King.

The retreat is being held at a lake house (82 Shore Road, Pascoag) we've rented for the night. Please arrive on Friday, October 5th at 7:00 pm and arrange for pick up on Saturday, October 6th by 10:00 am. 

The cost of the retreat is $20.00 and includes snacks and breakfast. Please pay Amanda, Missy, or Tara by Friday! 

Make sure to bring a sleeping bag, your pillow, and your favorite snack to share!

For more information, contact Missy Lindsey @ 829-6950, Amanda Matteson @ 439-6948, or Tara Celeste @ 714-8221.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Junior High October Activity | the Corn Maze

It's that time of year again! We're heading to the Salisbury Farm corn maze on Saturday, October 13th. We'll meet at church at 3:00 pm, head to the corn maze to get lost for a while, and then stop for dinner on the way back to church. The cost of the activity is $5 plus money for snacks or hot chocolate at the farm and food at the restaurant on the way back. The leaders for the activity are Mike and Jackie Woodward, John and Rachel Snavely, and Matt and Tara Celeste. All seventh, eighth, and ninth graders are invited. We hope you'll join us for a fun time! 

Watch your mailbox for an invitation and permission form - return it to Rachel or Tara along with $5 by September 30th!

image via

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Vertical is Back! Friday September 14th



Vertical is back
September 14th!
Neon-
Night
Wear your craziest colors
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Glow sticks/Lights
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Road Kill Taco Bell
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Friday Sept. 14th  7-1`0pm

Monday, July 9, 2012

Woven | a new ministry for teenage girls

It's finally here! Our new ministry for high school girls debuts this week on Wednesday at 7:30 pm. We're so excited to begin this program and hope you'll come along side us and pray as we prepare to kick off the summer! 


Woven is targeted at ninth-twelfth grade girls and is part of our strategy for meeting the needs of all our students midweek. We intend to continue to lead the girls in developing a genuine and growing relationship with God. We'll guide them in studying the Word daily, cultivating a rich prayer life, and reflecting through a personal journal. It is our intention to encourage the girls to go deeper in their walk with Christ. 


Woven will begin on July 11th with a Bible study titled A Daughter's Worth. The study will continue for thirteen weeks and end on October 3rd. Each week we will study Biblical truths that deal with modern struggles – realizing self worth, dealing with emotions, handling the pressures of comparison, sharing beliefs, and following God’s direction are just some of the topics we’ll cover. 


The study will wrap up with an overnight retreat in Newport on Friday, October 5th. Together we will reflect on what we’ve learned and share our thoughts and insights. More information about the retreat will be provided in early fall. This doesn’t mean that the ministry of Woven is over! The retreat will just signal the culmination of our first study. Now please join us in prayer as we prepare for this ministry!


Note: Handouts will be provided; however, if you would like to purchase a personal copy of A Daughter's Worth, it’s available on Amazon. Click here to order.

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Revolutionary Parenting Part 1


 Did you know that there are currently more than 75,000 books on parenting available on the market?  That would be 10 new books per day for the last 21 years on the topic.

I am assured that I have read my few hundred of those in the last decade. 

Well, as always, I am staying busy about my homework as a youth director this summer. One of the assignments I have challenged myself to do is to read and blog weekly about George Barna’s “Revolutionary Parenting.” I am doing this in order to better assist parents, but I am also doing this to better equip myself as a parent.  

But yet, here is another book on parenting as I mentioned in my intro.  Another book on parenting?  Why should I bother?  Is this going to be another book about the kind of personal attributes one needs to be a good parent? Or is this going to be another 320 pages of the nifty, new agey, earthy-crunchy parental practice that I need to start employing or my kids will be lost forever, or perhaps even worse, uncool?  Is this going to be another book of parenting assumptions, parenting systems and parenting-oh-that-is-how-its done stuff but re-packaged?

Barna begins with the point of view that most of the parenting books on the market are based on observation and assumptions and “very little of the content is based on objective, projectable research.” (Barna, 2007, xii)  He writes, “Most of these guides promote a particular point of view or parenting strategy, even though [the] approach has not been empirically tested or validated through some type of scientific process.” (Barna, 2007, xiii)  He writes that many of the books are in actuality the isolated leading the desperate. 

Why does that ring so true?  I know that I have heard and read some seemingly innovative sounding strategies in the last few years but I will agree that the material itself was mostly disconnected from real evidence and too often disconnected from God’s design for children and parenting as well.  Furthermore, I have certainly watched parents overjoyed with a book’s new method, telling everyone about it, but then later on admitting that it was out of touch with real world results in the home.

Do we talk a better parenting game over the savvy parenting books we read than we actually play?  I definitely think so. After just a decade of youth ministry and nearly decade of personal parenting, I know so. 

Okay, George, what have you got for us? What is this book all about?

George Barna, world-renowned researcher, set out to learn the secrets of those who've raised spiritual champions.  He conducted a series of surveys and thousands of personal interviews with both young adults and their parents.  In the process, he was able to uncover a number of common denominators to parenting success.  Revolutionary Parenting is the result. 

He writes:

“In this parenting model, God’s Word provides the perspective and the marching orders on how to raise a young person.  The goal of such child rearing is to raise children who make their faith in God and relationship with Him, their highest priority in life, and proceed to live as intentional and devoted servants of God.  The role of parents is to guide the child to understand the principles and outcomes that honor God and advance His purposes. Success in this venture is measured by transformed lives.” (Barna, 2007, xv)

If you get the chance, check it out.  Here is the contents:

Table of Contents from the book:
part one: Reasons
A Crisis in American Parenting
part two: Research
Conditions for Revolutionary Success
Revolutionary Parents Put First Things First
Revolutionary Planning for Spiritual Champions
The Rules of Revolutionary Engagement
How Revolutionary Parents Behave
A Revolutionary Faith
Training Up Spiritual Champions
part three: Relevance
The Bible's Revolutionary Parenting Rules
How Studying Revolutionary Parenting Changed Me

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Quest: OSBC Youth Summer Program

“God…Who are You…really?” 

Have you ever asked God this question? 

 Have you ever encountered God? 

These are the questions that this year’s youth summer program will go after. 

This is the quest we will go on. 

God is our Quest this summer. 

Quest will start on Thursday, July 5th and will finish on Thursday, August 16th.  Quest will take place every Thursday. 

Quest will be a very creative experience in finding, encountering and worshipping God. 

Quest will include small groups, sacred weekly readings, daily “text” messages, exploratory and creative worship/devotional times in and outside, lots of devotional art, music and it will include recreational events and Church service projects. 

To enter this community called Quest you will need: 
1. Texting Capability (or be able to provide a parent’s cell number) 
2. One Journal (more than 100 pages; not a notebook, but a journal) 
3. Have a good backpack, water bottle, Off spray, good shoes. 
4. Write one, no less than 600 words, prayer to God concerning how you want to know Him more.  Here is a structure to follow in your written prayer:
• Adore Him first in the letter 
• Confess to Him where you have been at spiritually. 
• Thank Him. 
• Supplication: Ask Him to guide you, and to reveal Himself to You more than ever this summer…don’t forget, TELL HIM WHY. Why do you want to know Him more? What are you after? 
• Get this to Michael or Missy by JUNE 17th. 

5. Await an invitation that will give you the full summer itinerary and extra info needed.

                                                                              Q  U  E  S  T


                             “Leading youth into a genuine and growing relationship with Jesus” 
                                                                          O S B C Y O U T H

Thursday, April 12, 2012

God, How Am I Made?

I really got into the reality show The Biggest Loser during the last two seasons.  It is an encouraging show about people who get a restart on life after losing the battle over food addictions, overeating and enormous weight gain.  Like many of the reality TV shows that are on TV today, the Biggest Loser carries the same underlying motif: People want to be something else, something better, something worthy. 

I think that we all have this innate drive within.  We all desire to reach goals, see how far we can go, and at the bottom line discover who we are ultimately.  

In that drive to achieve it is easy to see how different our pursuits may be.  Not everyone desires to be a world class weight lifter, or a news anchor, or a professional musician, or a poet, or a business owner, or an actress, or a technician, or a surgeon.  The list can go on and on.  The point I am making is that we are all unique in what we pursue to define us or give voice to who we are in life. 

But, the fact is there are some things that Scripture tells us that we are in God’s sight, especially when we are in Christ.  It is important to see what these things are and to take stock if we are living them out at the heart of our pursuits and desires, especially in our spiritual formation.

In this next series, I want to answer this question with our teens: God, How Am I Made? 

Now, all of our students would like to know in specific detail how and what they were created to be and do; what school should I go to, what books I should read, what state should I live in, what will I become? etc. 
However, I am going to go further than that and look at some of the essential spiritual realities in the Scriptures concerning how God has "made us."  
 
Number One (Week One): God, How Am I Made?
You are Clay.  

 “But now, O Lord, You are my Father.  We  
  are the clay, and You are our potter.  All of us are the
  work of Your hands.”  Isaiah 64:8


We are literally made of clay.  All of us are made of this material.  Human bodies share the same essential elements and compounds that are found in the dirt outside.

However, in week one, we will explore the deeper reality pictured here in the Scriptures. I am going to be reaching for the spiritual point in these Biblical metaphors and images.  

Spiritually, God says we are to know and understand that we are like clay in His hands. 

The point here is that God wills to shape us.  God desires to shape our very lives.

But are we pliable and willing to be shaped by God?

How should we respond to this image given to us in Scripture?  

Truly, every teen and every person alive were made to be shaped by God.  

I will be sharing two things about clay that teenagers can apply to their own spiritual development in the first message.    

(Week Two: You are Sheep. Week Three: You are Salt.)


-mjw