I had the privilege of meeting with our confirmation
students, parents, and mentors over lunch this past weekend. What's a
confirmation class, you may wonder. Well, in our tradition we include all
children in the life of the church and recognize God's grace and love upon
them. The visible sign of this is baptism. When parents
welcome a new child into their home we welcome the child into our church family
through the sacrament of baptism. When we witness the baptism of a baby or child it is a wonder worship service, indeed.
We recognize the importance of parents and church family in teaching
the faith to our children. We also recognize that as children mature there is a
point in their lives when they have personal responsibility for claiming the
Christian faith as their own. That's where confirmation class comes in. We put
together a class that, over a six month period, provides a systematic teaching of the faith to our young people. It culminates with the question, "Do you say, "yes"
to Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Will you be a disciple of Jesus?" If the answer is yes, then one of two things happen. For those not already been baptized
they go through the waters of baptism for full inclusion into the church
family. For those who have been baptized they go through a ceremony to confirm their
baptism.
We have eight young people whose faith will be confirmed. We'll do that at our
10:30 worship service on April 11th. I share this because I want you to know
the powerful and effective ministry you are a part of, as a member of the Turning Pointe
family.
One of the best recipes for a good relationship is going
after a shared goal. Accomplishing a goal feels great. But accomplishing
a shared goal feels twice as good. My husband is very good at
setting and reaching goals and he helps our family reach them, too.
We moved to a new house in the fall and our new shared goal is
finishing the unfinished 2000 square foot basement. This means that we get
plenty of forced family fun on the weekends - going to Lowe's, carrying lumber
and drywall, and assisting Keith with completing the part of the project he has
laid out. If he didn't have the vision, we could not do the work. If he didn't have the tools and knowledge, we could not do
the work.
My role as Children's Ministry leader at TTP is much like
Keith's role in the basement project.
I have a vision for what Children's
Ministry can be if the "family" catches the vision and puts in the weekend
time! I have the tools and the knowledge to help us accomplish our shared
goal.
My boys and I know that when the basement project is finished
we will have a wonderful place to spend time with each other and with friends.
This is why we are willing to get our hands dirty. The shared goal for families at TTP is guiding children's growth in
the Christian faith so they become real followers
of Jesus. I pray for more adults to catch the vision and be part of this
shared goal.
The vision I am
laying out includes 8 adults sharing their faith at Kids Pointe by leading a
workshop 2 weeks in a quarter. My
part is asking and giving the tools - your part is praying and saying yes.
I woke up early this morning, hoping to get a jump-start on
my day and on my long list of “things to do.”I hurried downstairs to start the coffee, start breakfast, and pack Abby’s
lunch.There were so many things to get done, and seemingly so
little time to do them all.
Quietly, a voice whispered, “Remember me.”I recognized the voice and the
reminder, but I had too many things to do….so I pushed it aside and hurried
along, rationalizing that I could “pray in the car as I ran errands and headed
to work.”I finished a few more
things on my “to do” list, rushed around getting ready to leave the house, and
again I heard, “Remember me.Sit
down and spend some time with me.”And, again, I brushed the reminder aside and
hurried along.
Getting into the car, I remembered my list of “people to
call.”So, I reached for my cell
phone and starting making a few calls. I had forgotten my plan to pray in the
car, so making calls seemed a good use of time.The first person I called wasn’t home.The second person I called didn’t
answer, and the third person’s voicemail pleasantly announced that the person
was “unavailable” at the moment.Humm….three people and not one of them was available to talk with
me.Gently, the voice
returned and said, “I’m
available.”And that’s when
it dawned on me……how rude and selfish I was being. I was completely ignoring God’s personal invitation to
spend some time with Him this morning.
How often do you hear the call of our Creator to come and
sit with Him for a while?How often do you stop your busy day and intentionally spend time talking
with Christ?Are you too busy to
take the time?I thought I
was…..but not anymore.
This reminds me of the scripture, “I can do all things
through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) When I take the time to be
in Him, then He can work through me, and then all of a sudden my list of "things to do” seems possible, maybe easy, and definitely a lot less important.
So, from now on, I plan to spend more time sitting and less time hurrying
about.Won’t you join me?
Thursday morning was the Old North Pre-School Christmas Program. I went early to get a seat because I wanted to see my three year old granddaughter, Jinnis. Leave it to children to bring the real meaning of Christmas back into focus! The staff at Old North chose to make the entire program about the birth of Jesus Christ and they left out all the rest! This opened a door for those little children to minister powerfully! It was amazing! But isn't that how God works? If we work within a solid Biblical message, even three and four year olds can spread the Good News! Happy Birthday Baby Jesus! Thank you for using your little ones to remind me of the real meaning of Christmas!
Last night at Youth Group we were
talking about being thankful to God for who He is.It is wonderful to have gratitude for all that God has given
us, but we of often forget to focus in on the goodness of God.
Since last night God has already
given me two wonderful examples of His goodness!I am definitely not a morning person!However this morning at 4:30 a.m., I
was lying in bed with my husband laughing!We haven’t seen much of each other lately because he has
been working a lot of extra hours.After my husband left for work, I was marveling at how God has changed
both of us over the years.We really love and like each other and
yet we both know it is all because of God ‘s presence that we have the
relationship we do.It had to be God that could cause me to
be awake and laughing at 4:30 a.m.!
Around 7:30 a.m. I headed over to
Turning Pointe to clean up some leftover mess we made at Youth Group last
night.Several of our high school
youth have recently mentioned feelings stressed because of their workload at
school.After our devotions
they went outside dressed in very large trash bags, armed with shaving
cream.One of our youth closed our
group in prayer last night by thanking God for our “shaving cream shenanigans!”
I walked around the TP yard this
morning picking up empty cans of shaving cream, laughing to myself as I thought
of the smiles on the faces of our youth last night!Again, I felt appreciation for how God can show up in the
strangest of places!I also
thanked Him that it is going to rain today and wash away all of the mounds of
shaving cream covering the TP yard!As I type this blog, I see that mounds of shaving cream out the window
of Faith Pointe and I am filled with the joy of a God who loves to see his
kids laugh!
Remember to pray and ask God how you can use your time, talent, and treasures to further the work we are doing at The Turning Pointe!
Can you volunteer to work with kids, serve communion, greet people as they come to worship, pull weeds, cook food at the Caring Shelter or help young women learn important life skills at the United Methodist Youth Home? These and many options are available for you. God will show you where to volunteer...just ask Him!
Remember to turn in your "We Are The Body" volunteer packet during worship services the weekend of November 21/22. If you can't be in service that weekend, please drop your completed packet in the mail or bring it to service the following week!
I'm excited to see how each of us fits into the Body of Christ!
Are you interested in learning more about The Turning Pointe?
Come join this Christian Book Study going on now.