{Snaz Youth}

It’s the beginning of a new year:2012 and who knows what it will contain.

One thing we can be sure of is that we will need to know about respect. Respect for ourselves, each other and the world around us.

What exactly is respect?
Well it’s the acknowledgement that someone or something has value. Do we have value? You bet we do! God values us, and certainly there are others who value us whether that’s family, friends, teachers, or leaders and we need to value them and most definetly we need to value our surroundings, whether they be our home, work, school, church or the world in general.

So…you ask, what has that got to do with Snaz Youth?
Well, all of our devotional topics will in some way reflect on one or more aspect of respect. Our topics are far ranging but relevant to each one of us. You, or someone you know, will have had to or will be in the future dealing with each one. And… they will all deal with respect in some way. How you handle each one of the topics will make it clear how much respect you feel for yourself, others or your surroundings-they may even deal with all of them! As we go through each one you will have the opportunity to think about how they affect you and how you can make positive choices. You can learn how to show respect for yourself, for others and for our surroundings in relation to each week’s topic.

I’m looking forward to these next few months, they will be a challenge but worth every minute.
Talk to you soon.

Our Christmas Celebration is on Dec 14th, meeting at the Church at 6:pm and beginning our Progressive Supper. Make sure you sign up on our face book page and bring 5 loonies for our Sponsor child. See you there!

If you read the last post you will be up to speed on what we did the first weeks of the study on being above average. On our last week we learned about praying above average. Now, generally, one would think that praying is praying is praying, right? Not so. Pastor Bob shared with us the insight that like cell phone conversation, prayer is a two way conversation with texting being God’s choice of communication – just like most of you! His text is the Bible and He speaks to us clearly and often – if we bother to read His texts. If you have a friend and you keep talking to them but don’t bother to read their answers back to you will the conversation last very long? Don’t think so. In texting conversations and facebook comments information and communication bounces all over the place. You may think that reading God’s texts don’t have anything to do with today’s problem or whatever but keep reading and you’ll find a thought, an answer a new perspective that hadn’t occured to you before. Suddenly it all makes sense! The point is, though, that you need to read it if you expect to get to know the writer any better! So get into His texts and see what He thinks about all kinds of things – most of all how much He loves you.

Our devotionals during this Sabbatical Segment are all about the idea of being above average. We discovered a little about what that means in each of them.

From Peter and Anna’s combined session – Pursuing Excellence and Feeling Above Average we discovered that it helps to be have a focus in our lives and the importance of ours and other’s feelings.
Our over all focus would be God and what He would like for our lives but then we also have secondary focuses like our academic lives, our family and friends and what we’d like to do in the future. Having these areas thought through and pinned down helps when the distractions try to make us bounce all over the place, the feeling like we’re not getting anywhere and the frustration that goes with that. It also helps us when we struggle with feelings of discouragement. We also were challenged to be a positive influence in other’s lives by encouraging others and only saying positive things. Being nasty has no place in our lives.

Our second week we talked about Thinking Above Average. Wes gave us an illustration of how when we stand with our feet close together and someone pushes us, we fall over or lose our footing easily. Even if we spread our feet slightly we are vulnerable to being knocked over. However if we focus and spread our feet to meet the oncoming force we are very difficult to be knocked over or even budged for that matter. In the same way, if we keep our focus on God and take time to study His word and develop a relationship with Him along with building friendships that encourage us and and guide us we are strong and are not easily swayed by the ever changing, unhelpful and often dangerous whims and ideas the world wishes for us to adopt.

Last week Anna gave us the opportunity to Care Above Average by talking about things we can do for others even if they don’t know we’ve done them. We put together a Month of Random Acts of Kindness Envelope and chose 30 days of ideas of things to do for others. They were ideas to help us start thinking of what we can do for others. Thinking of what we can do for others helps us to get our minds off of ourselves and on to others. When we start thinking of others more than our selves, the world gets better-one person at a time. Are you up to the challenge?

We have two more weeks left in our series. Check in next week to see what the next one is….

Dec 14 will be our Youth Christmas Celebration. We will be having a Progressive Supper starting at 6:00pm that finishes with dessert and movie. This will be a sign up activity and because we’re contributing a dollar (leave a loonie) to our foster child at each place, will cost $5.00. Yes you can bring a friend but they pay (or you pay for them) too. Hope you can make it!

What exactly does that mean?

Do you feel “Average”? Do you wonder what it might take to be above average and to be able to contribute in ways you never thought of before? We’re going to have a look at what it means and how to become above average. Here is tiny sneak peak at what be our devotionals for the next six weeks will be.

We’re going to look at attitudes first and then go into Pursueing excellence and Bring Out the Best which is about feeling above average, then we’ll check out We Don’t Think Much which is about thinking above average, Attitude of a Servant and what that means, Release the Afflicted which is about caring above average ,and Come home to Prayer which is learning about what it means to actually talk with the Creator of the universe and the One who loves us best and most.

To help us find out we’re using material from Florence Littauer’s book called “It Takes So Little To Be Above Average” and searching out what it means in general and specifically to teens.

We have different speakers each week who will unpack each week’s devotional in their own style. Something new and interesting every week!

Now, just so you don’t think we only have a devotional all night – we also have great games led by members of the Youth group themselves and we have delicious snacks provided by some of the best culinary masters in the church!

Hope this has wet your appetite for a bit of fun, study and food and you’ll consider coming out on Wednesday at 7pm. Looking forward to seeing you!

For those of you looking at this website you’ll have noticed that nothing much has happened in approximately forever.

That’s going to change.

Starting now, we have an amazing lady named Anna running our digital presence.  She will make sure that you are kept in the loop with what’s going on at Snaz Youth!

In the meantime check out our contacts page for the link to our Facebook!

-DM

I still don't know what they were laughing about.

Youth is officially running in the summer every Wednesday except sabbatical weeks!  Contact us to find out what we’re doing!

This blog won’t be updated regularly during the summer months because I plan to spend what little spare time I have out in the sun.  Enjoy the summer everyone!

-DM

The Sanctuary

There will be no youth tonight because it’s sabbatical week!  (Once every seven weeks we take a week off from all church activities.)  We hope to see you next week!!

-DM