Get Involved into something that celebrates Christ this Advent, not something that replicates your or my birthdays. Things to do this Advent to subvert Christmas:

• 61st Avenue UMC & the Last Minute Toy Store: little ole’ 61st Ave UMC is putting together its annual “Last Minute” toy store to help families in hardship provide some toys, food, and sometimes a Christmas tree for over 3,500 children. Toy Store starts at Noon on Friday and goes thru Monday. I am hoping to get a showing of people to help on Friday. Its a long day, so if you can drive yourself that is great (then you can leave as you need to). If you want a ride, we would leave the church around 11am (but let me know by early Thursday you are thinking of that option). Volunteer orientation starts at 11:30. The Toy Store will stay open till around 6:30pm when the last shoppers go thru.
• Send a message of Hope to our growing church in Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa. There is a lot of need, and when there is need a little hope goes a long way. Send some encouragement.
• Check out Advent Conspiracy, get yourself aware of the conditions people live in outside your world. Spend Less, Give More, Love All!
• Maybe you are just a Cool Person who Cares
• Volunteer at the Community Care’s Fellowship or Nashville Rescue Mission
• Become aware of local and global issues.. maybe the world AIDS or water problem
• Will add some Stuff As I generate more ideas.

So You Missed our Parents Meeting earlier this evening. Here’s a recap so that you can be informed.

Youth Meeting

• There were super cool forms to fill out, one being the yearly Health & Permissions form.
• I told you about my youth growing up, finding my own ’strangely warmed’ experience amidst a youth program, but never finding discipleship till God called on me to practice my faith.
• Our shift in programming from a traditional UMYF model to our current set up is a movement back to our Methodist roots of young adult small groups and empowering youth people to practice their faith and grow deeper in discipleship.
• We went over our weekly program set up.
• We went breezed through this cliff-notes version of our calendar for the next 12 months. If you have questions about a specific thing, just email me.
• Different with the calendar you might see, is 2 senior high missions experiences to Long Beach. One during spring break & the other during the choir tour. The plan is to have choir tour come through Long Beach to do their choir performance and the whole group will do a day of missions in the area. The size of the two missions teams will be smaller than our normal, only being 15-20 people for each. Other logistics are still working out on that one, but that’s the dream.
• We need folks to sign up to help with Warmth in Winter, Pumpkin Patch, the Missions Experiences, and Snack Supper especially. If you are willing to help with Snack Supper please email Donna Daly.
• We have added the NWG Choir to the google calendar on our calendar page. If you are having trouble seeing the details of an event, let me know. In updating the calendar viewing permission might not have been set correctly. I think I got it right, but I have been known to screw that up in the past. &:~D

If you have more questions feel free to email gavin(dot)richardson(at)hfumc.org for youth program related stuff or nwgpraises(at)gmail.com for all things NWG Choir.

cartoon via cartoonchurch.com lots of funny stuff there