8-21-20 This Week in Faith

Pray for Me 2020 Campaign

In September, we will begin year 2 of the Pray for Me Campaign. This is a great way for our church to pray for our young people, and connect our young people to the adults in our church. Prayer is a powerful means by which God works in the hearts of our kids. And research shows that relationships with multiple adults in the church are one of the strongest indicators of whether or not students will hold on to their faith after high school. Our goal through this campaign is to have every young person, kindergarten through 12 grade, prayed for by someone in our church. Our hope is that you will participate by praying for someone also. Not only is it a privilege for us to pray but an opportunity to fulfill our vows to help each other raise the kids of our church in the fear and admonition of the Lord. You can sign up to continue to pray for your prayer partner from last year, get partnered with someone new, or join the campaign for the first time by CLICKING HERE.

August Memory for Kids

Even though we are not doing Sunday school right now, we want to continue offering monthly memory verses and catechisms for you to work on as a family. 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.

John 3:36- Click here for the song.

New City Catechism Question 21 and Question 22

Student Ministry Schedule

We are meeting for small groups in the month of August and will reevaluate around Labor Day. The session voted to cancel the church’s retreats for the fall so we will not be going on our annual End of Summer Retreat but we are working on what we might be able to do in town for some extra connection with students.

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

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

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What Happens if You Stop Being Bored?

“Boredom opens the door for us to contemplate rather than consume—to reflect instead of rushing.”

“I’m bored!” How often have you heard this statement from your kids? How often have you heard it 10 seconds after you finished doing something? How often have you felt it yourself? The ability to constantly be entertained has caused us to lose some things. Those moments of quiet boredom are what often lead to reflection, creativity, and relief from the constant influx of information and stimulation. I struggle with this too- to be ok with a few minutes of quiet without listening to something, reading something, or watching something. Scripture calls us to “Be still and know that I am God”. But this is not our instinct. Our natural inclination is to be entertained. So it will take work- work on our part and our kids’ part- to practice stillness and quiet in order to benefit from how God can use that time in our hearts and minds.

Click here to read the article by Justin Poythress.

Christians: Don’t Date Non-Christians

As I talk to students, or even my own kids, about what to look for in someone to date, it can be hard to simply explain the reason why God encourages us not to hitch ourselves to unbelievers. Even for many Christian students, this is not the first thing they look for in someone to date, yet it seems to be one of the most foundational things God’s Word encourages them to consider. I think this article does a good job of starting at the beginning with why dating and marrying a Christian is so important for Christians. It may be something worth reading with your teenager, or at least using as a good starting point for you in this kind of conversation with them.

Click here to read the article by JD Greear.

RESOURCE: Between Us Guys: Life-changing Conversations for Dads & Sons

This is a new guide for dads to go through with their sons. It includes 14 conversations for you to have with your son over multiple topics including friends, identity, love, failure, money, girls, sex, heaven and more [as well as appendices answering questions like “What is the Gospel?” and “How do I share the gospel with my son?”]. Each conversation includes Scripture, questions for dads and their sons to answer, and ideas for fun things to do to reinforce the conversations. This is a great way to begin discipleship between dads and sons. I’m looking forward to starting this with Carter and he’s looking forward to the chance for us to have some meaningful time, just the two of us.

**There is also a version for conversations between moms and daughters called Between Us Girls that Kelly enjoyed doing with Emily awhile back.

Click here to check out Between Us Guys by Joel Fitzpatrick.

KIDS MUSIC: Jesus Kids

If you are looking for some good music to listen to with your kids, this is a great album that includes catechisms, a song for all the books of the Bible, and original songs. I really like Jesus Only! Below is the Spotify link but you can also listen to it on other streaming services or purchase the music.

Click here to listen to the Jesus Kids album by Shai Linne on Spotify.