Christmas Parties

We have two Christmas Parties coming up this weekend:

The Junior High (7th & 8th grades) is at the Kirbys' tonight from 6-8 pm.

The Senior High (9-12th grades) is at the Lesters' house on Sunday Night from 6-8 pm. If you are interested in helping to bring food, contact Leanne.

The gift theme for both parties is "Your favorite..." so bring something that has to do with your favorite team, or band, or show, or whatever. Keep the gifts under $15.

Palmetto House

Tonight (Tuesday, Nov. 27th) we will be delivering a meal to the Palmetto House, a local shelter for homeless families here in Summerville. We will be meeting at 5:30. Parents are welcome to come serve alongside their children for this event.

Canned Food Drive

Next week we will be collecting cans of food in the Briarwood neighborhood for Thanksgiving baskets. We need kids to knock on doors and collect the food, and we need parents to help drive vehicles. We will be collecting the cans on Tuesday, Nov. 6 and Thursday Nov. 8 from 6:30 until we're done (probably around 8:00).

Unlimited Unity Night

This Friday, November 2nd, there will be an all-night lock-in at the church for all grades (7-12). Over the course of the night we will be focusing on what it means to have unity as a Church body - and of course - having loads of fun. Kids need to bring something to sleep on and $5 to help pay for food. It begins at 7 pm on Friday night and kids need to be picked up at 10 am on Saturday.

New Eating Schedule for Cell Groups

10-24 Moe's
10-31 Sonic (on Berlin G.)
11-7 Arby's (on Trolley Rd.)
11-14 Zaxby's (off N. Main)
11-21 No Cell Groups
11-28 Burger King (Bacon's Bridge)
12-5 CiCi's Pizza
12-12 Chick-fil-a (off N. Main)
12-19 The Gathering
12-26 No Cell Groups

Random Acts of Kindness

This Sunday (October 28th), the Youth Ministry will be looking for interesting ways of serving people in our community. Teams will compete in a scavenger hunt to serve complete strangers around town. Our hope is to share in some small sense the love that God has served us with. We will be meeting at 1:30 pm at the church building.

If you have questions, then please contact Chanel Garland or Kelsey Tucker.

Important Reminder

Wednesday is the last day to sign up for Oasis. You can sign up online here. You can mail your registration payment to the church office at 413 Old Trolley Road, or put it in the pink box on Wednesday. If you choose to mail the registration check, please make sure you note on the check that it is for Oasis, and leave a comment on the on-line sign up form letting me know that you are mailing it.

Oasis Sign Up Sheet

You can now sign your child up for Oasis online. You can also still sign them up the old fashioned way by signing them up on the sheet in the back of the youth room. Once your child is signed up, you will need to have their registration fee and medical release form turned in by October 24.

Parenting Resources Poll

I am trying to find ways to provide parents with more resources to be successful in being the parents that God has called us to be as Christians. Not being a parent of a teenager myself, it is sometimes difficult to know what might be helpful to parents. Or to know what parents may or may not have time for in any given time period. I've tried to think of some options that might be useful - but I need your help in deciding which ones are worth pursuing.

Please visit this site: http://www.summervillechurchofchrist.com/scoc/parents_resource_poll to let me know which (if any) of the resources sound appealing and feasible to you. It shouldn't take more than a minute or so.

Thanks

Oasis and the Fall Retreat

This year we will not be attending the Fall Retreat. Instead we will be opening Oasis in November up to all grades in the Youth Ministry. If you have made payments toward the Fall Retreat, then the checks can either be returned to you, or put toward Oasis, if your child plans to attend. For more information on the Oasis trip, click here.

Bible Bowl

This coming Sunday night instead of having a lesson for the teens we are going to be having bible bowl. The reason for this is to help our youth group strive to know more about the bible. So the teens are gonna be put into teams and compete each other for some awesome prizes!

6 pm on Sunday Night in the Youth Room. Please be on time so we can get started right away.

CSU Information

Carolina Salt University (CSU) is this weekend. We will be leaving at 4:30 pm on Friday and we should be back by 3 pm on Sunday. Each student will need money for six meals. We will staying at the Ocean Dunes Resort that is right on the beach, so they should bring swim wear. Sign-up for this event is closed. If you would like to know whether or not your child is signed up for this event, please feel free to email me.

Girls' Night

On Friday night, September 7, Cortney Seaton will be hosting a sleepover for the girls in the youth ministry. The girls need to meet at Cortney's house at 7 pm and they need to bring $10 for dinner. Contact Kelsey Tucker if you have any questions.

Eating Schedule for Cell Groups

Just in case you may have been living under a rock for the last month, I'll announce it again: Cell groups have moved to Wednesday Nights. It has been a staple of our youth ministry to eat out after Wednesday Night Worship for years. With cell groups meeting at different locations in and around the Summerville area, this tradition will become even more important for the unity of our group. If your child is in a cell group, please let allow him/her to come to the restaurant with us, even if they only stay for a few minutes and don't eat anything. This will be a great chance for the students in the youth ministry to stay connected to the group as a whole. And... if you have multiple children that meet in multiple locations for cell groups, it will provide a good central location to pick them up from. You can work out details with me or your child's cell as to how they can get to the restaurant. Below is the schedule of where we will be meeting each night.

9/5	Arby's (Trolley Rd)
9/12	Chick-Fil-A (Main St)
9/17	Sonic (Berlin G)
9/24	Fazoli's
10/3	Burger King (Bacon’s Bridge)
10/10	Zaxby's (Main St)
10/17	The Gathering (meet in youth room)

9/5 Arby's (Trolley Road)
9/12 Chick-Fil-A (Main St. Summerville)
9/19 Sonic (in Summerville by Berlin G. Myers)
9/26 Fazoli's
10/3 Burger King (Bacon's Bridge)
10/10 Zaxby's (Main St.)
10/17 The Gathering (In the Youth Room)

The Gathering is a periodic event where all the cell groups will meet together for worship and to discuss strategies for making our cell groups effective.

If you have questions about cell groups please feel free to ask them in the comments of this blog.

Guys' Paintballing

This Saturday, September 8th, the guys will be going to play at Paintball Charleston. Ethan Summers is the person to contact to get more information. All students must have a waiver filled out and signed by a parent to be able to participate.

Welcome

This blog is designed to help parents and teens know what's going on in the youth ministry and how they can get involved. My suggestion is to subscribe to the rss feed on this site so you'll know when things are added or changed. I personally use the Sage add-on with Mozilla Firefox to keep up to date with blogs and news. If you have no idea how to do that, send me an e-mail and I'd love to help walk you through it.