AWAKEN! Young Women's Conference.

For those interested. Awaken is March 4th and 5th and is from junior high to college age women. There is a small group from Bethel Naz going. If any are interested let me know and I'll get you in touch with Andrea Davenport who is taking charge of it. Check out AwakenConference.com for more details!

Element Blog #2

Coming this week, will be a series of posts that will cover some topics I've went over in Sunday School. I think the series on Spiritual Profiling has helped us see exactly how Jesus interacted with different groups of people, and how we may follow His example to interact and witness with the people we come in contact with.

I'll also have various other blog's that just come up that I think we need to talk about. Also, feel free to suggest a topic for me to blog on. I know you just looooveeeee my input! After all, I don't know it all, but I used too!

Tim

Element Blog #1

Greetings Element!


Yes it's finally here! You have waited and waited, but now it's here!


The Basics:
Element is the 18-25ish group at Bethel Nazarene Church (BNC), and a part of the bigger Element group of the South Western Ohio Nazarene District (SWO).


Thoughts about Element:
Strength. Elements in their simplest for are weak. For instance, copper is soft and so is tin. When you combine both of these elements the end result is Bronze. Bronze is much stronger than tin or copper by itself. 


The same can be said about our Faith. Our Faith is something that can be weak on it's own. But when strengthened with His Word and each other's support we can become stronger in Him.




Goals:
Sadly, what we learned in youth group often isn't enough on it's own to keep us attached to church and God. A lot more time is spent to make sure kids have fun and stay involved, which takes away from kids gaining a strong foundation and relationship with Jesus Christ.

I would like to strip our faith and belief down to the basic elements. Why do we believe what we believe? Then I want to build it back up using the Word of God. I want us to have an answer for that question. Then I want us to be able to use that to build confidence in order to witness to the people we come in contact with.

Second, for far too long people have felt abandoned after they have graduated high school. In small and big churches alike, there has been nothing to keep graduated students involved. There are several reasons for this, most of which is getting the age group in the same place at the same time and not having the numbers to do anything with the group.

I want to provide a place for the kids who are graduating, as well as those who have who are working or in college, to experience a relationship with God and each other.

Challenges:

Simply... numbers.

The main challenge is to get the numbers needed to do activities, Sunday school classes, etc. This is hard for small and large churches. This is the main reason most churches don't bother with trying to do something for this age group.

Also we go back to the fundamentals of our Faith and relationship with God. Some of us lacked that in depth understanding that we never gained in high school. Our parents were what really held it all together. Of course in college, our parents aren't there to get us out of bed to go to church. In short, our faith and relationship with God isn't strong enough to get us out of bed. This is one of the reasons so many kids stop coming to church after they graduate high school. Some sources I've read claim as many as 70% of active kids in high school stop going to church once graduated. Look around at our own relationships, of the people who you went to youth group with. How many are still in church on a regular basis?

Answers:

Think of the different churches as basic elements on the periodic table. One church may have 2 people, another 6, another 1. If you combine then you have 9. You know where I'm going with this.

We have a great opportunity to have activities that everyone, not just BNC, can be a part of. We want to partner with other churches, and the district to make this Element thing the best we can. 

We are in the planning phase for a Element Worship Service that would take place on a regular basis, at different churches, usually on a weekend. This would allow for the churches that have one or a few people to be involved in the group as a whole, creating networking and friendship opportunities. 

Also, we want to open up events, like bowling, etc., to all of the element groups. Creating a strong group, of like minded, similar life situations, Christians who can band together and create Godly relationships with each other.

We all enjoyed the SWO Element Winter Retreat right? We had a great time with the West Chest group, as well as the individuals from Xenia, Beaverceek and the other churches who were present. So why not build upon that?

That's plenty enough for now, I think you all get my point.

Tim