Last night we had the privilege of participating in Crossroad’s first youth group meeting ever. We are excited to be youth sponsors and work closely with the teens of our church. We had 3 girls and 2 guys, along with parents and sponsors. The youth group will be meeting every other Monday night and having monthly activities. Our first outing is this Saturday at Tolmachoff Farms. I’m so excited about going to a corn maze! Maybe then I’ll feel like it’s really fall. 🙂 We’re going to be making s’mores too. Yum!

I love the kids in our youth group. They are all so sweet, eager to learn and participate, and they are young in their faith. Last night we played Bible Jeopardy.  It was encouraging to see them learning the basics of the Bible and remembering Bible stories they had heard Pastor Ryan preach on during Sunday services. I learned a lot just by watching how Pastor Ryan made the Bible relevant to their lives by the illustrations and explanations he chose. It was a refreshing look at the true meaning of a youth group. Youth group is so easily a time of comparing one’s self (status, clothes, popularity) to everyone else, showing off in front of the group, impressing others with your Bible knowledge, or just hanging out with friends and having a great time. Instead this time should be for growth in understanding Scripture and how it applies to a teen’s life on a daily basis, allowing teens opportunities to serve others and to reach out to their unsaved friends, and promoting edifying fellowship among the young people.

This is going to be a learning and stretching experience for Stephen and me as we seek to build relationships with the CBC teens and be the examples in front of them that we should be.