YF this Saturday, Community Impact
Thanks so much for an incredible coffeehouse and inviting LOADS of your friends! It was so cool to see you interact with your school friends and now you've introduced them to such a big part of your life! God is totally going to use your courage to open doors in your talks with them! Follow up with them and ask them what they thought about the people, presentation, sharings etc.
In fact you can even use this Friday (YF is Saturday this week) to take them out to coffee or something and talk! It was super encouraging because I've never seen so many people from outside churches come to a coffeehouse before! You guys did some awesome outreach because your friends have heard more about Jesus and also know a bit more about who we are as a church/fellowship! Definitely keep praying for your friends - we'll have some laid back summer events at homes, so feel totally free to invite them to those! That's what I'm talkin bout! We also took some time to debrief about coffeehouse on Sunday morning, you'll find what we noticed attached. AND That scrapbook is amazing and I have the best wife ever! Thanks for all the notes of encouragement, yeah - i've already read them all and will probably read them many more times. Those kinds of gifts mean the most to me and it's seriously the best gift I've gotten! Love you YF!
There are quite a few things coming up here as per usual!
YF is this SATURDAY (10am - 4pm) here at church, we will be doing community impact projects with the other OCYM churches. We'll be doing a few different projects, gardening (
if you have work gloves, gardening shovels, weed pullers etc, we NEED those!), cleaning up the area, mowing lawns (please bring pushmowers if you have them), cleaning windows etc. In such a small block of time, we will see how we can do acts of service just by being available. YES, you'll also be able to get 6 volunteer hours that I can sign for as a bonus :) Also please fill out the two consent forms attached for the next two weeks. It's required because we need to waive the community agency we are helping on Saturday too. On Saturday evening, we encouraged you to join the Worship and Prayer night at EACO, starts at 6:30pm until 10:00pm.
Next Friday (June 5th) will be our Drive-by Prayer night. Please fill out the consent form and confirm your participation as we need to arrange for enough drivers and cars to run around and hit (as in pray for) as many houses as we can :)
Something cool might open up for July 24-26th keep it open :)
YF Discipleship week (August 17th - 21st)
VBS (August 10th - 14th)
YF Fall Retreat is September 11-13th at Rae-Annès parents lake-side house!!! :) KEEP IT OPEN!
Ouje team: (crafts, games, devos), we will have a quick team meeting after church on Sunday 1:00pm - 2/2:30pm just to catch up on where we are at in the planning and to give you some time to talk in your teams as well. We want to talk about the fundraiser on June 7th as well.
Let us know how you've been doing!
We'll see you Saturday!
YF Coffeehouse this weekend (Fri prep, Sat prep and event)
Hope everyone had a great long weekend! It was cool to be able to see all the talents and prepare last Friday for the coffeehouse, it looks like things are well on their way! I know that we have a freezer full of brownies and berry ice cubes :) Coffeehouse is only 4 days away! 4 DAYSSSS! wow, it`s been really awesome to see how many of you have invited your friends, please pray that they would feel welcomed and that you would be prepared to answer questions they may have and to continue inviting them throughout summer events at people`s homes (and more `friendly` gatherings as a fellowship).
This Friday (22nd) we will have our final prep for Coffeehouse at YF. We will be having a full dress rehearsal (so bring your props and completed music mixes and skits), we want to have a complete run through of the program, from MC`s to transitions... so please come as prepared as possible :) For all those attending, we have asked that each YF member contribute $15 on Friday (or Sat) for the coffeehouse, this money will help offset some coffeehouse budget, (or if we don`t need it, all of it will go to supporting our Ouje mission trip, which is way more expensive than it was last year (shakes fist at vehicle rental places). Please continue praying for coffeehouse and the friends you have invited! If you are able to come earlier (say 6-6:30pm), we can meet to pray before everyone arrives for preparation and Saturday as well. Please pray for all those involved in the skit and Jeff who will be sharing his testimony as well, please pray that God would be glorified in his sharing as well. I`ll ask at the end of coffeehouse that if any of your friends are interested, I would be willing to personally take them out to Second cup, timmy`s etc and talk to them about any questions they have, but it would be even more amazing if YOU could set up a time with your friends. They may appreciate it most coming from you, and I (and adult leaders) would be willing to talk to them with you as well.
On Saturday (23rd) we will try to start as early as possible in getting the place decorated and all the stuff that needs to be moved in, please help as soon as you are available, we will need lots of help moving coffeetables and prepare to stay afterwards for clean up. :)
Coming up:
Ouje teams (crafts, games, devos), please remember to arrange to meet with one another, we will have a team meeting to get an idea of our progress in the next couple of weeks. Please remember that exams will be overlapping with a lot of our prep, so the more we can have prepared and purchased in the next 2-3 weeks will go a long way in our prep.
Next Saturday (30th) will be our IMPACT project for the community (10am - 4pm), the other youth groups will be joining us to do various tasks in our neighborhood. We`ve contacted the Somerset community improvement groups and Maxine at St. Lukes. You can also get community hours from me as well. There is also a city-wide Worship and Prayer event that evening - Manson and other university students have been working hard in preparation for it, it will be at 7pm until 10pm at Emmanuel Alliance.
YF Discipleship week is always a great week to learn, serve and spend together in the summer (August 17th - 21st)
VBS needs more help and is a great ministry to children (August 10th - 14th)
YF Fall Retreat is September 11-13th at Rae-Annès parents lake-side house!!! :) KEEP IT OPEN!
See you on Friday!
YF Coffeehouse preparation/practice this Friday
First of all, a big heartfelt thank you to everyone for making Shelly's surprise birthday basket! It really meant a lot to her, she was excited all the way home and spent a nice time reading letters, getting excited about all the fancy smells and thoughtful things that were in the basket, each gift was really encouraging to her (she had a smile on her face the whole time)! It makes me super happy and we wrote about you guys in our gratitude journal (as we often do!) I have a picture of everyone that I wanted to attach but it's on the computer at home (doh!) :) Thanks for the great discussion on Nehemiah chapter 6 as well. It was a strict reminder about how serious God is about taming our speech. It's always awesome that our group can discuss issues like that with such honesty and wide participation.
YF this Friday is reserved for our coffeehouse prep - It's only a week from this Friday (reality check!). I'm positive that there is so much work to be done before that! So we need everyone to commit to coming with their progress/props/ideas...
I've got the downstairs sanctuary and rooms booked for us this Friday, so we can use the stage for music, drama, dancing etc and we have several rooms to get more planning done as well. We need every bit of time for planning as possible now. Remember that this is an outreach program, this event will only be worthwhile if you invite your school friends! Please continue to pray for the friends you've invited for our coffeehouse on May 23rd! You guys can be extremely powerful examples in your schools.
The
Ouje-Bougoumou mission trip is underway with our initial meeting last week, please keep praying along with us as we prepare for this awesome ministry this summer. There is still a lot of money that needs to be raised, preparations for messages, devotions, music, crafts and games as well as prices for vehicles/food that need to be worked out! This trip is such an amazing ministry opportunity and needs a lot of prayer!
If you remember,
please pray for the Pure Energy retreat for our junior high students this Saturday, I'll be teaching them a few sessions and we'll have a new batch of grade 6'ers joining us too! It's an important ministry age with some of them coming in to YF next year!
YF Discipleship week is always a great week to spend together in the summer (August 17th - 21st). I'm advertising it extremely early to avoid any conflicts with your summer school stuff or work because it's really important! The theme this year will focus on how to get the most out of our Bibles. I know the Bible is a big and intimidating book, but we will look at ways to understand the big picture and get an idea of the themes in each book and how salvation history all fits together. It's going to be a large task to undertake in a week but it will help you get deeper into God's Word! VBS still needs help, it's an important ministry to the children in our church and community and it runs from August 10th - 14th.
Remember, we adult leaders like to make time to meet with any of you (drop us a line via e-mail and we will try and meet you someplace for food, tea, coffee etc.) We love being a part of your life and are here for you for the good/bad times.
See you Friday!
YF Bible study this Friday
This is an extremely busy and exciting time, I've already called some of you about the Ouje-trip, I'll be calling those who have applied during this week and we will have to get going on the logistics of the trip. Regardless of whether or not you are able to go on the trip this year, please commit the ministry and the trip to God in your prayers. We will certainly need it in these 2 months.
This Friday we are continuing our study on godly leadership displayed in the book of Nehemiah. We will be studying chapter 6 this week.
Please bring your Bibles and commit to coming with an attitude to learn from God's Word. I'm really encouraged to see so many people committed to attend Bible studies and we usually have a stinky room by the end of it. That's pretty awesome if you ask me, "that's what im talkin bout." Once again, feel free to bring chips and drinks: this is just another easy way to serve YF.
Coffeehouse is now Saturday, MAY 23rd! This would provide the entire morning and afternoon for setup/practices, hopefully most of it can be ready on the Friday night, but Saturday would give us lots of extra prep for minor details. It's nice to see coffeehouse planning moving, the individual teams were able to get things going. Please commit to bring at least 1 friend and keep them in prayer.
I've had the privilege to be a part of a lot of exciting regional planning committees. It's been a blessing for me to be able to be a part of the big picture of youth min. I've shared with you briefly about the vision of the BGA coming back to Ottawa and we plan to be involved in the schools of this region but we need the students to show the initiative to make it happen. This is a really exciting week-long initiative and we need every believer in the Ottawa high schools to get involved. I've included more details in your e-mail and will talk about this briefly on Friday as well.
Some of you have already confirmed you'll be helping with this year's
VBS (August 10-14), please set that time aside if you can help. Also clear your calendar for
YF Discipleship Week which is the following week (August 17-21).
Have an awesome week, keep praying for YF, us leaders and your friends!
See you Friday!
There are quite a few things coming up here as per usual! YF is this SATURDAY (10am - 4pm) here at church, we will be doing community impact projects with the other OCYM churches. We'll be doing a few different projects, gardening (if you have work gloves, gardening shovels, weed pullers etc, we NEED those!), cleaning up the area, mowing lawns (please bring pushmowers if you have them), cleaning windows etc. In such a small block of time, we will see how we can do acts of service just by being available. YES, you'll also be able to get 6 volunteer hours that I can sign for as a bonus :) Also please fill out the two consent forms attached for the next two weeks. It's required because we need to waive the community agency we are helping on Saturday too. On Saturday evening, we encouraged you to join the Worship and Prayer night at EACO, starts at 6:30pm until 10:00pm.
