10-1-20 This Week in Faith

Children’s Church and Nursery- Beginning October 11 [during the 8:30 service]

We will be starting to offer Children’s church and baby nursery during the 8:30 service on October 11. Kids will leave after the children’s sermon. We will need volunteers to make this possible so please sign up to help one week if you can. Check out Faith Weekly for more info and a link to volunteer!

October Memory for Kids

We have been choosing our memory verses from different CD’s produced by Seeds Family Worship. The music is a great way for kids [and parents] to get Scripture stuck in their heads. Getting God’s Word into the heads and hearts of our kids is one of the most valuable things we can do for them. This year, we are using their CD I Believe. They are also producing an online family devotional for these verses that you can find HERE. If you don’t already do family devotions, this might be a great place to start. 

Scripture Memory- Ephesians 2:4-5

New City Catechism- Question 25 and Question 26

Student Ministry Schedule

Right now we are studying the book of Exodus in small groups.

Middle School- Wednesdays from 6:00-7:30PM at Faith [in the Plaza]

High School- Sundays from 6:00-7:30 at Faith [in the Plaza]

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Helping Our Students Interpret Their Suffering

This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’ve read about it, heard people talk about it, and Kelly and I have been talking through it in regards to our own kids. Our instinct as parents is to protect our kids from suffering at all costs. Yet, the Bible is clear that God often uses suffering to cause us to trust him more and to shape us into the people he longs for us to be. In fact, suffering is regularly pointed to as the thing that most connects us to Jesus. So, what do we do? I don’t think we look for suffering for our kids. Or carelessly put them in harms way. But I do think Scripture teaches that our kids’ suffering provides opportunities to help them understand what Jesus has done for them, and to help them understand that Jesus walks with them in their sufferings. This can be in the most painful experiences of life and in the small, everyday moments of failures, breakups, and setbacks. Our desire to protect our kids from suffering at all costs is actually the opposite of our desire for our kids to know and trust Jesus more deeply. I think this article is a good reminder for us as parents and a hopeful guide for pointing our kids to Jesus in the midst of their sufferings instead of trying to help them avoid those sufferings.

Click here to read the article by Jared Buckholder.

A Theology of {School]Work for Teenagers

“Students often approach school as either a drudgery to be endured or an anxious proving grounds for self-validation.” Whenever I talk to students, and even my own kids, about schoolwork I get a variety of responses, but they are rarely healthy. I often pray for my kids on the way to school that they will work hard to do their best but that their identity will not be in what they accomplish but in who they are as children of God. But that’s easier said than done. This article offers 5 specifics of how what our kids do for school glorifies God. I think it will be helpful for me to have some different ways to talk about important things that they have probably heard me say a lot. I hope it’s helpful for you also.

Click here to read the article by Taylor Sutton.

Why Not Fitting In At Your Church Might Be A Good Thing

This is something I think adults and students struggle with. It can always be hard to feel like you don’t fit in.Or like there is no one else who has the same interests as you. And our tendency, as adults or young people, is to find someplace new, where people are more like “us”. But what if God uses the diversity of people and personalities in the church he has placed us to grow us and shape us in a way that would be impossible among a group of people exactly like us. Whether it’s church, student ministry, a Sunday school class, or wherever else- God brings us together with people from different backgrounds, different amounts of money, different schools, and different interests because of what he can do in us and with us through those relationships. The next time our kids complain about not having any friends in a certain place or not connecting with people, especially at church, this article can help us show them that God has purposely given them this opportunity for their good.

Click here to read the article by Daniel Darling.

Always Ready: Free Online Event for Students

Pastor Nathan has been talking a lot lately about equipping us to share our faith with others. This is a free event that Ligonier Ministries is offering online for students where multiple speakers talk about how to share the gospel with other students. The goal is to give students confidence in their own faith and how to tell other people about it.

Click here to register or find out more about this event by Ligonier ministries.