Happy Tuesday parents! 

I want to start by apologizing for not being more on top of website updates in the past few weeks. Mondays are my Sabbath now, and Tuesday starts early and is full of meetings. I promise to try harder to make this a priority on Tuesday mornings and keep the schedule page and calendar up to date. 

This past week for Sunday school, we joined the adults for the congregational meeting. I think I may have bored some of them to death, but I have been telling them for a long time that they are not the future of the church, they are the church right now, and I felt it was important to have them hear what is going on in the church as a whole. 

IMPACT was pretty standard! We started with a time of fellowship, heard a lesson about choosing joy from Dynelle, and played some dodgeball. I had some fantastic conversations with some of the people who are volunteering with your students, and wanted to share how impactful they are in our lives. Having that fellowship time at the beginning of every IMPACT has allowed other adults in the congregation to bond with your students. To consistently know what is happening in their lives and what they are struggling with. Seeing relationships form and investment in the group increase has been an absolute pleasure. 

Next week we will have Sunday school as usual, and will be joining about 15 local churches at Engedi for a special IMPACT! Again, I apologize for not having this info out earlier, as we were trying to see if going was going to be possible at all. Our students showed significant interest, and we found a bus driver, so we are going to try it! 

We will be meeting at church in the rear lot at 5:30, and the bus will pull out at 5:45. The event itself is from 6:00 till 8:00, and dinner will be included for your students. We will eat with the other churches, worship with them, and hear from a couple of speakers from winning at home.

The idea behind this event is to start to overcome some of the exclusivity barriers in the Holland/Zeeland area, and encourage students to be bold with themselves and with their faith. We are watching culture shift in such a way that it will not be long before we need to band together as a corporate church and stand side by side. We hope this is the first in a series of events that FRCZ can jump in on and support. 

​Thanks for checking in! 

Happy Wednesday parents! 

This past Sunday, we continued talking about whether or not God endorses violence during the Sunday school hour. I am consistently impressed with the maturity of our students. We are having open and honest conversations that I fear some adults would struggle to have. Different viewpoints are being shared and heard and it is nothing short of incredible. 

During IMPACT, we talked about God's purpose for our lives, and how we live out of God's purpose. We looked at how we spend out time and what motivates us to do the things we do. Lots of us found that the majority of our time is spent on things that are selfishly motivated or encouraged by others. We ended with looking practically at something small we can do this week to make sure that we are prioritizing God first. I would encourage you to ask your student what that thing was, and if they have managed to follow through with it! 

Thank you all for staying up to date here! Your participation is vital to making me the most effective pastor I can be! Have a great week! 

Happy Wednesday friends! 

This past week in Sunday school, we continued our discussion on what it means to be reformed. We touched on how the reformation came about, why it came about, and learned a little about the key players in our vein of the reformation (Calvin and Zwingli.) I gave each student the option of bring home a packet to show you guys, but I think only two or three took me up on that. So I'll upload a fun chart here for you to see if you're interested. 

IMPACT continues to go very well. This week we heard from Sinath Duong about the cool things that God has been doing in his life, and wrapped up the night with some dodgeball. As we move deeper into the program year, we hope to keep incorporating more leader testimonies so that our students know that there are members of the congregation who struggle like they do/did, and are willing to walk alongside them. 

Fellowship Fridays are back on the horizon! As the Zeeland football season is drawing to a close, it is our hope to get those Friday nights back up and running. Those nights served as an invaluable tool to get students comfortable with the group of students that regularly attend youth group, and more likely to attend other church related events. 

As we continue to find new ways to evangelize, there is some good news! After much conversation with the Zeeland schools superintendent, we were able to find a teacher sponsor, and get permission to have a Bible study! While this doesn't allow us to do any sort of evangelistic work, it is a step in the right direction for us youth pastors. Every student that would like to attend should have you fill out THIS form. This also would allow me to take your student out for lunch if they so desired! These are huge steps for us! Thanks to those of you who have been praying for a breakthrough like this. We can say thank you prayers now!

As usual, don't forget to check out our calendar by clicking on the title of this post!