• July Summer Sabbath! what is going on & where? Well, this week is a “sssshhhh” surprise, next week is a bit wet, the following is a bit of a messy mystery and the week after moves a bit faster than the rest. (We have many driving opportunities available for these)
• Inked! Marked for Life : our lesson series for the month of July & early August
• VBS NEEDS You! (Youth & Adult Needs) Due to unforeseen circumstances, several of our VBS leaders have had to cancel and will not be able to help with VBS. We need to fill these positions! Please contact Cay Barton, cay.barton@hfumc.org, if you will be able to help July 12-16. We are especially needing volunteers who will be able to be here every day from 8:00 a.m. to Noon. All volunteers will need to be Safe Sanctuaries certified. We have one more Safe Sanctuaries Training opportunity tonight at 6:30 in CLC-250.
• VBS Decorating! are you bored hanging out at home? Give Cay a shout and come help with VBS decorating. It is ongoing work so check it to see what is happening now. Next weekend are the BIG Decorating days!
• Photos from Jr. High & Sr. High Missions (more to come, surprise surprise, so check in later especially for some choir tour photos)
• Youth Outreach Opportunity : Park Place, Senior Living Community, would like to schedule times to have Youth (Jr. High and High School age) come and visit their residents and ask them to tell their stories and listen.  Carol Keller, from Love and Concern, has been working with Debbie (Park Place Activity Coord) on her visits to Park Place.  Carole 822-8386, Debbie 822-6002. (Several of our members are residents at Park Place)
• The US may be out of the World Cup, but that doesn’t mean the Methodists are out of Africa.
• Want some Methodist trivia? or is it?
• For you NWGlee’ers out there!
• I’m not into Vampires but apparently an Eclipse will bring out those who are. &:~)

• Sunday July 4th, come over to the Youth Lounge from 5-6:30 to have a “Surprise” Celebration & Farewell Party for our own Julie Eaton as her and the family move to Virginia next week. Julie has been a wonderful Drive Group Leader & Mentor to many of our youth (especially our girls), Youth Group leader for activity nights, and more. She will sorely missed but us all as we say farewell, but we celebrate as well the new ministry opportunities before her.
• Sunday July 11th is Tennessee Conference Day at Nashville Shores, meet up at the church at 2:30pm as we head over to meet up with other United Methodist Youth and spend the day cooling off while getting crazy! Cost is $15 for your ticket & what money you need to feed yourself. Return time is around 7pm. There will be a sign up sheet this Sunday at CoffeeHouse to help give us an idea of who is coming. We need approximately 10 drivers to help transport our group.
• Sunday July 18th “Mystery” Sabbath! All we can say is. Meet us behind the church by the pavilion at 5pm and be ready to get wet, a bit messy, and bring an extra t-shirt. A towel might be handy. All confirmation & 6th graders are welcome to this sabbath event.
• Sunday July 25th Boat Youth! Join us at Sanders Ferry Park boat docks at 3pm for an afternoon on the lake. We will bring some drinks and eats, but certainly not a meal, so eat a hearty lunch beforehand. We will come off the lake around 7pm. We need a bunch of boats willing to participate, please email me if you are able to help so we can have an idea of numbers.

Shalom, -Gavin

Some of you may know the whole story, others might not. This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday which begins for us as Christians the observed season of Lent. Not all faith expressions observe Lent, but we do as our heritage goes back to formal liturgical traditional denominations.

Anyways, we observe the time of Christ going into the desert by often sacrificing something of our normal day to ‘prepare’ ourselves or to ‘purify’ ourselves for Holy Week and our ministry beyond then.

We in the youth stuff will be doing a couple of things to move into the desert of our normal to ‘prepare’ and ‘purify’ ourselves a bit more.

Lenten Practices

As a Group

• Hard Core Bible Talks : Wednesday Evening at 6:30 – 7:30 – We will get more indepth into the stories and scriptures of the bible than is our norm. If you are game for some deeper talks, deeper questions, then give this a shot.
• Girls Book Club : Wednesday Evening at 6:30 – 7:30? – This is exclusively for girls who want to digest some books that are of interest to them & discuss amongst peers. Cheryll Young will be helping facilitate the group.
• Eikon Photography : Wednesday Evenings at 6:30 – 7:30 – We are looking to bring back our Photog group. How does your photography impact and reflect your spirituality
• Prayer Txts : I am going to start up sharing some of my daily prayers via txt again. If you are interested in getting some reflection from me sign up here.

On Your Own

• Wesleyan Fast : Each Thursday evening, after the evening meal, until mid-afternoon on each Friday, Methodist people are invited to follow Wesley’s example of fasting and prayer. During this time he did not take solid food but fasted and focused much of his time in prayer. (Water is permissible in the fast)
• the H2O project : Water is a global crisis. You might not know this because it comes so easily for us here in the states. Fast from drinking anything but water & save that money you might otherwise spend on cokes or lattes and give it to a global water project to help those around the world have a safe drinking water.
• Examen : much like we do at Drive Groups, ask yourself each evening “Where did I see God today?” “Where was I reflecting God today?”
• Read the Bible : Don’t just randomly read, but pick a book of the bible, spend your Lent reading each day. There are many daily reading options out there (like Nashville Area Journal) that are longer or shorter readings.
• Pray Regularly : Use your cellphone to set an alarm for morning, midday & evening prayers. No need to say something uber formal, but just take a minute to say a prayer in your day. Its what Jesus did most in the desert.

Hey All! Pumpkin Update as of now

1. We have sold over $7,000 of Pumpkins as of yesterday
2. Our 2nd Shipment, a 1/2 Load comes Sunday at 1pm. Come prepared to unload the last of them.
3. Need help filling in spots over the Weekends. I know Saturdays can be Busy, But it is just 3 hours to give.
4. Fall Festival is Coming Up Sunday 25th. We will be hosting some of it at the Pumpkin Patch. I encourage our Drive Groups to Plan for some Trunk or Treat Fun as well!

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

get in the game

Who’s got game?

Spirit days is a gathering of the body of Christ at First United Methodist Church…our church family…our “team!”

What:

A casual day of celebration, encouragement and support for our “team!” A Pep Rally to identify our next steps to get in the game…to follow Jesus! Has the whistle blown for you to get in the game? What position will you play? How hard and long will you participate? What equipment do you need to be successful?

When:

· Sun. Morning on Sept 27^th

9:00 a.m. – light breakfast, inspirational music, Rev. Joey Williams speaking

9am- Breakfast at 9am

9:30am- Program/Worship

· Sun. Evening on Sept 27^th

5:00 p.m. – home-made ice cream competition & tasting, bonfire, children’s games, inspirational music & Rev. Rosemary Brown speaking

5:00pm- All activities, music & bonfire

6:30pm- Speaker starts

· Mon. Evening on Sept 28^th

5:30 p.m. – dinner, inspirational music & Rev. Rosemary Brown speaking

5:30pm- Choir Fundraiser dinner

6:15pm- Children’s choir performances

7:00pm- Speaker starts

Where:

HFUMC campus; on Sunday we will celebrate on the property to the right of the church behind Indian Lake Animal Clinic; on Monday we will be in the gym.

Details:

We will gather in a large tent, tables and chairs provided. We will run transportation by vans, golf carts, etc. between parking and the tent. The food will be under the pavilion area.

Childcare:

Provided inside for nursery age through two years old. (still checking this…it was 2 years old, but I have information that says 3 years old, too) For older children, bring a quilt and toys to family-friendly services.

Food:

Join us on Sunday morning for a light breakfast.

Volunteer Needs:

There are many volunteer opportunities for Sprit Days. If you can help, please contact, Ray or Susan Harrell at rayhar1(at)bellsouth.net, 615-210-7896 or 615-210-7891 or 824-1067.

Opportunities to Serve:

• On Saturday, Sept. 26 at 2:00pm we need about 5 helpers to set-up chairs, signage, etc.
• If your youth needs service hours we can use them.
• Can you drive a golf cart and do you have a good driving record?  We need help driving folks from the parking lot to the tent on Sunday morning.
• We need several greeters for Sunday morning or evening or Monday evening.

We are pleased to bring back our multi-generational spirituality and arts exploration Eikon. This year we will have meeting throughout the year on Wednesday evenings. Eikon, Photography, Improv, Writing &  Visual Arts. I’m excited to start back our Writing group with a friend and published author Matthew Paul Turner is going to come and share his experience and knowledge with us during the month of August. His most recent book is called “Churched” and it is a funny and poignant memoir of his early childhood growing up in a fundamentalist church environment. He is excited to be with us. Also back for another season is our Improv, Photography, and Visual Arts group. Eikon will be on Wednesday evenings from 630pm till 730pm in conjunction with WNT options. Groups are open to all ages and experiences, just come. We will meet on the 3rd floor youth lounge area follow signs.