For those who missed the meeting concerning the National Youth Gathering, look in your mailboxes for a letter from Stacey Gumbert, our registration coordinator. She put information there in September that shares all the details about registration.
This Fall we are giving opportunities for families of the youth group members to host youth group in their homes. Each Wednesday’s youth group will be held at the house of a different one of our youth. If you are a parent of one of our youth, please see the signup sheet in the entrance area of the church to volunteer for your night of hosting. We have had a lot of success so far with traveling to different homes in September. I am seeing youth and adults alike grow closer together and build stronger bonds with each other by getting to know one another better through visiting one another in their homes. Youth group attendance a couple weeks ago was one of our largest attended Wednesdays in the past year! I look forward to continuing this excitement and building on the energy that we’ve begun.
3rd – 5th grades meet the 1st Wednesday of each month at 5:30.
6th – 8th grades meet the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month at 5:30.
9th – 12th grades meet every Wednesday of the month at 7pm.
Youth board meetings are held at 5:30 on the 3rd Wednesdays of the month.
Last month on September 13th, Pastor Brown was invited to share his Breaking Barriers presentation at Peace Lutheran Church in Fremont, IN. It was a great opportunity to share the Gospel and both strengthen current believers and also witness to some who do not have faith in the Lord.
Later this month Pastor Brown will be using some of his vacation time to travel through Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and Orlando on a 2 week tour in Florida. Next month on November 4th there will be a presentation at Concordia in Fort Wayne for their morning chapel. Check the website at www.SinBusting.com for pictures and more information on upcoming shows.
A class on parenting is coming to Praise in November. Beginning on Friday the 20th we will offer “Growing Kids Gods Way,” a Christian based class on parenting. The DVD guided class will meet on Friday evenings and childcare will be available. More information will be made available in the November Pulse. For now, please just mark your calendars.
If you are a person who might be interested in providing childcare for this class, please see Pastor Brown. Also, we are searching for someone to co-facilitate the class. The co-facilitator will only assist the main facilitator and be available to lead as a backup only. Please see Pastor Brown to find out more about what the co-facilitator’s role in the class would be and if volunteering to step into this position might be right for you.
FALL FESTIVAL
By Pastor Brown
On October 30th from 5:00 to 6:30pm we will hold our annual Fall Festival at Praise. This year’s event will again include free food, games, and treats for the children. The affair is open to the community and all those connected to Praise. Because this is such an important event and presents great opportunities to connect with those who are not members of our congregation, I am asking all members of Praise to please assist, if possible, in the following ways:
1. Pray for the event. We are not only asking for physical success of the event, but we also want those who are not connected to Praise, and especially those who do not know Christ, to see the love of Jesus shine through us. May all people be drawn closer to our Lord through what we offer that evening. Pray that His name would be glorified.
2. Come and decorate your cars. We will be lining up our cars (please be in place by 4:30) and handing out candy from our vehicles. Please dress up (friendly costumes only) and help distribute treats to young people. Note: Bible verses written on small pieces of paper can also be dropped into the bags of those looking to receive something good. ?
3. Bring candy. If you cannot attend Friday the 30th, please consider donating some candy ahead of time. A tub for candy will be available in the entrance area of the church beginning the 11th of October.
4. Volunteer to help run the games, activities, and serve food which will be taking place inside the church.
5. We need everyone to come and be greeters. Even if you’re not handing out candy, serving food, or helping with the games, we still need you here. It is important that we have folks available to just sit and talk with our guests. Come and meet some new people and let them see how much our members care for them.
6. Finally, if you can help with planning for this event – please see Alicia Levitt, our Little Praisers director or me, Pastor Brown.
Thank you in advance for all the ways you’ll be serving the Kingdom of God and sharing love with His people.
-Pastor Brown
Thank You to Tracie Luley, who has generously offered to be the coordinator of our youth group fundraisers at Praise. Of course this does not mean that Tracie will be taking on all the burdens and responsibilities of fundraising for the youth by herself. We still need many volunteers to head up fundraisers and to assist with larger fundraising projects. This merely means that all ideas for fundraising and coordinating of fundraising schedules should go through her before any action is taken. This way, if we have a single point person to coordinate, it will help ensure that we don’t duplicate our efforts and/or have them overlap with each other.
The Newsboys are coming to town! Sunday, October 18th, at 6pm at Memorial Coliseum this great band with their new lead singer, Michael Tate, will be in concert right here in Fort Wayne. With some people having to travel great distances to see an internationally renowned band such as this, we should count our blessings that they are coming right down the street from us here in our very own city. Youth of all ages and their friends and families are invited to attend. Cost is $10 plus a non-perishable food item. Watch the October bulletin for more specific details about attending as a group from Praise.
As our church grows, it takes more and more of us working together and in sync with one another in order to make the very most of our time and resources. One way we can do this is to make sure all our events are communicated clearly and properly to the rest of the congregation. Therefore, I urge all of us to make full use of the following methods of sharing information with one another:
Master Calendar: Before planning any event, please check the master calendar on the office door so that we can ensure that programs and activities do not get scheduled on top of each other.
Bulletin: Please submit all bulletin announcements to the office by Wednesday of each week. You may email Chris at office@PraiseLC.org It does help to submit (if possible) electronic copies of all items needing to be inserted into the weekly bulletin.
Pulse: The deadline for the pulse is the 15th of each month. Jennifer Engelsrud is the volunteer that coordinates all of the articles that are submitted for the Pulse. She does not write the Pulse newsletter. Note that all articles must come from us, the congregation. If you want something to be included, please present her with an electronic copy at englesrud@verizon.net
Website: Pastor Brown is in charge of coordinating the www.PraiseLC.org website material and having it posted to the web. Please submit all items to him that you wish to be posted on our site. At least a 2 week window is needed to have material on the website before a certain date. All information is passed on from Pastor Brown to the generous volunteers at Tri-Pillar Publishing. Please make no attempt to submit directly to Tri-Pillar Publishing, as all material posted to our website must first be approved by Pastor Brown. Email all website requests to him at PastorB@PraiseLC.org
Furthermore, it would be a good idea for each person at Praise to look at the website and explore the particular area in which they have a connection to and are involved at praise. If you are a part of a Bible study, committee, board, or any other ministry, please look at the places on the website that tell about your particular area of service and participation. There are still several areas on our website that are blank. Blank pages do not look good! Just like the pulse, the website is not written by the coordinator. We need you, those involved in your particular ministries to submit what you want the website to say about you. If you are involved with a group at Praise and the website listing for that group is insufficient in any way, please speak with Pastor Brown as to how you might be able to contribute to helping us get everything updated.
Of course there are more ways to communicate events and activities at praise, but these are the standard and basic ways in which most people at church look to in order to plan and become informed about what’s happening. Furthermore, you will note that the Bulletin, Pulse, and Website all have deadlines associated with them for information to be submitted. Although it may be “possible” for some items to be submitted late and yet still be included in some of these publications in time, please do everything possible to get your material in without being late. If your items are not submitted in a timely fashion, there is no guarantee that it will be included in the publication. We thank and appreciate our volunteers for the great service they do for us to ensure these vehicles of communication are kept up to date and published on time. Know that it honors them and shows a great deal of respect for their time and efforts when we observe the deadlines they set for us.
So if you have something to say that benefits or concerns the rest of the congregation, please say it loud and clear through one or preferably all of the mediums above. By working together and communicating properly with each other, we can all enjoy a greater level of awareness and joy in the Lord through what God is doing in this wonderful church of ours. Praise our Lord!
Calling all 6th, 7th, and final year confirmation class (normally 8th grade) participants and their parents… Confirmation is kicking off September 13th. Sunday the 13th will be a group meeting in the Silver room for all participants and parents at 9:20.
Regular classes will begin September 20th. 6th and 7th grades will meet in the gold room, and final year students will gather in the Silver room. At least one parent representative is expected to attend the 8th grade classes on an ongoing basis. All classes end at 9:30 each Sunday. Any questions, please contact Pastor Brown.
During the months of September, October, and November, we are going to try something a little different at Praise with our youth groups. Our youth group meetings will still take place as previously scheduled on Wednesday evenings, but we’ll change the location. Our goal is to have a different family of the youth host a youth group gathering each Wednesday.
Our thought is not only to get more parents and families involved, but also that this will provide a great opportunity for the rest of the group to get to know the host family on a more personal and individual level. I believe this will help strengthen the relationships of our youth by having others over to discover and learn more about their lives at home.
There will be a sign-up sheet in the entrance way of the church that will list all the upcoming youth group gatherings and the needs for each family that volunteers to be a host. Please sign up at your earliest convenience, or contact Pastor Brown to schedule a day. Pastor Brown will contact you and work with each individual family to arrange details of snacks, games, and devotion.
A reminder that the youth group meetings are held as follows:
3rd – 5th grade youth – First Wednesday of each month at 5:30. We only need 3 family volunteers for this.
6th – 8th grade youth – 2nd and 4th Wednesdays of each month at 5:30. We need 6 volunteer families.
9th – 12th grade youth – Every Wednesday at 7pm. We need 12 volunteer families to each take one turn.
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