Element - are you in it?

As our church continues in it's process of refocus and revitalization one major change is in our youth ministry. Over the past 6 week many developments have taken place. I had a time with our students last month (Pizza with the Pastor) which gave me a lot of insight about the needs of our student ministry. A parent's meeting took place the following Sunday as we discussed the strategy of change and development in our student ministry.

The first big development was to allow the youth ministry to change it's name and develop a logo. The students chose the name ELEMENT and a student designed the logo (with a little help from Andy Joslin to polish it up!) Next, the "youth room" is being transformed by the students to reflect their taste and likes. I stopped by the room yesterday where I found Danielle Shannon painting the design on the wall - it looks fantastic!

The group has established a blog site - Click HERE to visit it. Soon there will a link on my page so you can easily go there.

A beach retreat was on the calendar for the youth but the rumors began to circulate that the youth ministry had really suffered and the retreat would be cancelled. I am so excited to report that 27 students and 8 adults (35) went on the retreat this past weekend. I was able to show this picture of the group to our congregation on Sunday morning as we prayed for the group on their retreat.

These are the beginning days of the revitalization of our youth ministry. I am very excited about the plans and strategy for the days ahead. The parents meeting this past Sunday went well but was limited in participation from the parents. A great activities calendar was distributed. This is going to be a GREAT SUMMER for our youth ministry!

I believe it's time to bring our head out of the sand and begin to see the works that God is going to do around us. We can't do it alone, we need friends around us to sometime help sweep the sand away.

These are new days at North Raleigh. I am excited about what I believe God is doing.

This coming Sunday I am planning to bring the final message in our series on Extreme Home Makeovers for Families with a message entitled THE PITFALLS OF PARENTING. It's going to be a great day at NRN!