We’re on our way to a great year!
Rally Day was September 11, and we’ve started we great energy. Our Sunday School classes are coming together with wonderful teachers and students. If you haven’t already, please join us – the opening is at 9:10, and the official Education Hour is 9:20-10:20, ending just in time for 10:30 worship. There are opportunities for children, teenagers, and adults.
We’ll be busy in October…
We’re starting October with a Mission Trip Celebration, especially for families and our official Mission Trip Sponsors. Thanks are due to the entire congregation for your love, prayers, and support. From the outside, mission trips may look like just another summer excursion, but from the inside they’re life changing events for the youth and adults who are blessed to serve.
We have two additional events on the Youth and Family calendar for October. The first is October 22 from noon to 3:00. It’s called the Citizen’s Tour, and it’s a Synod-wide World Hunger event featuring music, fun, snacks, and hunger awareness activities. All ages are welcome to attend – tickets are $5 in advance and $7 at the door, all proceeds to ELCA World Hunger. Luckily for us, it’s nearby at Abiding Christ in Fairborn, one of the churches that is now in our conference. I’d love to take a big group from First Lutheran – if you’re interested, please sign up in Wittenberg Hall.
Last, but never least, our annual Children’s Halloween Party (a.k.a. the Pumpkin Painting Party) will be the following Saturday, October 29, starting at 10:30 a.m. Wear a costume if you like, bring a pumpkin to paint, and plan to have a great time! We’ll have snacks, games, activities…. and, of course, lots of paint. Bring your neighbors, your friends, or your grandchildren – all are welcome!
…and beyond?
Another event on our radar right now is the high school Lutheran Youth Organization retreat at Camp Kern this January. The registration deadline is in November, and it’s especially important that we sign up on time, because space is limited. We also continue to work on our plans for summer 2012, and by the next newsletter I should be announcing something definite. And, as always, we’ll have quite a few regularly scheduled activities in the months to come.
There could be room for something more, and that’s where you come in. One thing I know for sure about First Lutheran is that there are always people out there with ideas, hopes, and dreams for our youth, our children, and our church. We want to be God’s church, and learn to do what God asks in Micah 6:8… “to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with [our] God.” Yet there’s only so much I can do, and only so much the Youth Committee can do, and by ourselves we have limits. God’s church does not, so my challenge to you is this: if you have an idea, a suggestion, or a passion to share, talk to God about it, talk to us about it, and join the team to find out what we can accomplish together.
I can’t wait to see what will happen in the months to come!
Yours in Christ,
Erin