Words of Faith, Peace through Games

Dear BYG:
This morning we heard Pastor Yancey tell his story of ministry and faith. He said his central understanding of God in Christ is that he came to bring us life.
This afternoon, Amy, Carson, Miriam and her German exchange student Franzi joined with 14 other youth from Jewish and Christian Science faiths to play games and explore the possibilities for building peace in our world. Thanks to Bill Pryor and Sherman Lee for volunteering to drive.

NEXT WEEK: We will be distributing pamphlets around the neighborhood to notify them we will be picking up food during Halloween for Hunger (4-6 p.m. on Saturday, October 31.) We also need help at church during the blood drive, assisting our blood-givers with snacks and TLC. Anyone who is over 16 can donate blood, with parent permission.
We are missing Pastor Rebecca's story of ministry and faith during education hour, but we will invite her to share with our youth group one day instead.

From today's Gospel lesson in Mark 10:
Jesus said, "Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

All about life this week,
Deb

God's Words of Peace

Today we ate hamburgers (thanks for grilling, Michael!) and chips and grapes, and agreed that beginning next month we will return to our 9:30-10:30 meeting time.
Amy, Miriam, Robert, Sherman and Deb discussed plans for future BYG Sundays and First Sundays.
We read Bible verses about peace, and prayed for peace in our lives, peace in the lives of others we know, and peace in the world.
May you experience peace in your life this week as only Christ can bring.
-Deb

October Events:
Sun, Oct. 4: First Sunday
Movie Day...more info to come

Sun, Oct. 11:
9:30 in Bethel library
Peace Building Begins in Our Hearts
October service event: Halloween for Hunger/Free the Children


Sun, Oct 18:
9:30 in undercroft with Adult Forum
Pastor Bill tells his faith story.

IMPORTANT EVENT:
Operation Cooperation with ENTeam
http://www.enteam.org/html/programs/faithbased-programs.html
2:00 at Principia High School
13201 Clayton Road
We will meet with high school students who are Jewish, Muslim, and Christian Scientist to play games and build a more peaceful world. Brenda Light, Maya's mom, is one of the facilitators. This is the first of four meetings this school year.

Sun, Oct. 25:
9:30 in the undercroft with Bethel's adult forum
Pastor Rebecca tells her faith story.

BYG Week 2: Making Peace

We gathered for pizza and prayers of whirled peace.
www.pinwheelsforpeace.com will take you to the website with the pattern and directions for making pinwheels that we decorated and wrote on with our prayers for peace in the world.
We talked about St. Francis of Assissi's message of peace in relationship and action that we experience in Christ. http://www.prayerguide.org.uk/stfrancis.htm
We also discussed the invitation to join with believers around the world to pray together for peace at noon on Monday...but if you missed it, your prayers still count! Check out the website:
http://www.odysseynetworks.org/Causes/Peace/tabid/178/Default.aspx

Next week: Bethel would like to hire some of you as workers in the nursery during the 11:00 service. If you are interested, there will be interviews at 10:00 in the nursery space downstairs. You would be working two at a time, making $20 each for about 90 minutes on duty. I know we have lots of experienced babysitters in BYG, so I hope you will be willing to offer your gifts to the congregation in this way (and get paid for it, too!)

Many blessings this week! I would appreciate it if you would subscribe to this blog to get weekly updates on BYG.

Upcoming decisions: what to do with our meeting time. Those of us who were there this week are leaning towards returning to the 9:30 a.m. Sunday time. We also need to plan for our First Sunday Fun and choose a mission emphasis for October.

May the peace of Christ rule in our hearts and in our world.
Love,
Deb

Time to Get Going: Be the Change

It is time to resume our school-year schedule for BYG (Bethel Youth Group) and our mission of letting Jesus shine in our lives and our world.
We are trying a new schedule for the month of September:
Sundays from 12:30-2:00 in the undercroft.
We will start with a light lunch and roll from there. This week includes viewing highlights from the Gathering and discussion of goals and hopes for the year. Next week we will do a more detailed survey and schedule for the year.
Peace be with you! I hope we will see you in BYG!
Deb

Bringing Back the Gathering (Sunday 8/30)...

The official date for the youth group to bring back the Gathering to Bethel will be Sunday 8/30.   There will be two parts to that event:

1. 9:30 -- Worship service (the only service that day) -- highlights include sermon/message to be delivered by the youth group, and jazz-themed music for the service
2. 10:45 -- Hospitality Hour with a multimedia presentation by the youth group -- highlights include photo slideshow, videos, music and dancing from the Gathering

Here's an outline of what needs to be done, who's doing it:

1. Organizing the Sermon/Message -- Miriam will be contacting everyone to gather their reflections.  The goal is for the youth to share their reflections and tie them together for the sermon/message.  (We should try to representative of the entire Gathering experience, and include snippets from the bus journey, the Civil Rights Museum, our Servant Event (chopping down trees), listening to the speakers, hotel life, Closing Worship, etc.
2. Scripture Readings for the Worship Service -- To make the service as cohesive as possible, let's use the main texts from the Gathering itself.  [Miriam or Sherman to get this to Pastor Bill]
3. Music for the Worship Service -- The Bethel Band will provide music for the worship service.  The plan is to use hymns from the current hymnal (in Center Celebration style).  In addition to that we'll use jazz charts used at the "Jazz" event at Unity Bel Nor (from June), generously supplied by UM-St. Louis Chancellor Thomas George (who played piano that day).  Musicians from the youth group will join in.  We'll also try to select a couple of songs played at the Gathering's mass events.  [Sherman will coordinate this]
4. Hospitality Food and Beverage - This will be hosted in the Fellowship Hall, to coincide with the multimedia presentation. [This task needs volunteers]
5. Multimedia Presentation Content -- Organizing photos and video into a slideshow, along with other musical selections (dancing optional) from the Gathering's mass events.  [Amy will coordinate this]
6. A/V technical support -- Supply and install the projector (Albert Webster's), set up the playback device (Lilly Webster's laptop).  [Albert and Lilly Webster]
7. Anything else? -- Please chime in (by commenting to this post or emailing Sherman) if this outline missed anything we need to plan/coordinate.

Follow Bethel Youth at the Gathering...

Many thanks to all who have supported the youth throughout the year in the Sunday morning sessions, monthly fellowship meetings, fundraisers and of course, at worship.

At long last, the Gathering trip is about to begin.  And in the spirit of relationship and connectedness, please check out a new sibling youth group blog to follow our Gathering trip:

http://byg-jjj2009.blogspot.com/

In case you need help unpacking that?  It stands for Bethel Youth Group - Jesus Justice Jazz 2009.

Now off for a quick nap before heading to our bus stop (Hope Lutheran - St. Charles)!

What's Still Incomplete?

We're almost ready, but here's a list of what still needs to be completed:

General:

• Everyone -- Read the updates carefully from after the last group meeting.  Click here
• Everyone -- Read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) entry.  Click here

Contact Info:

• Need cell phone numbers for Daniel, Haley, Karl
• Need emergency contacts and numbers for Genevieve, Rebecca and Todd

Forms:

• Need photocopy of insurance form for David Owen
• Need signature from Carson and Haley's mom on one form.  (It's on all the other forms -- just a clerical glitch.)
• Need all forms for Genevieve, Amy, Sherman, Rebecca and Todd.  (*** I'll work on mine as soon as I finish updating the blog! ***)

For the bus:

• DVDs
• Icebreaker activities

Generic stuff to do:

• Wash the t-shirts from Central States Synod, and the STL congregations ("STL NOLA") -- Amy/Sherman to do this
• Mark the Jesus, Justice, Jazz water bottles with Bethel Youth Group labels -- Amy/Sherman to do this.  (Yes, this means you don't need to buy water bottles)
• Make lunches for the outbound bus trip -- Stierholz/Websters to do this
• Buy breakfast/snack supplies -- Pastor Rebecca/Pastor Todd to do this
• Transportation to/from Hope Lutheran Church in St. Charles -- everyone to insure their own transportation or coordinate car pools