Survey

Parents! If you have at least one child in 6th-12th grade right now, so please take five minutes to fill out the FUMC Youth Ministry Survey for Parents at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FUMCYouth

You have the chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card. Your feedback is extremely valuable whether or not your child is involved in the youth ministry program. This is link is only open until May 15. Thank you!!

Amy

Upcoming Events!

Senior Citizens Prom

Our third annual Senior Citizens Prom, sponsored by the Youth Group, will be held Friday, May 13 from 7-9pm at J.I.M.S Place. All Youth are invited to help with decorations, serving, pictures, tear-down, and maybe a little dancing! Plans will be discussed at Youth Group.

Confirmation Breakfast

Confirmation will be held at the 10:45am service on Sunday, May 8. This year’s confirmands are: Megan Riker, Johnny Riker, Lexi Ford, Will Hinkle, and Scotty Krieger. There will be a Breakfast held in the Fellowship Hall at 9:30am for confirmands, their families, and their mentors.

Celebration Banquet

The second annual Celebration Banquet will be held Wednesday, June 1 at 6:00pm in the Life Center. This dinner honors our graduating seniors and incoming ninth-graders. Families will receive invitations in the mail and tickets are available to the rest of our church family for $5 per person.

Reach Workcamp Update

Workcamp is coming quickly! We are just eighty days away from our departure to St. Albans, WV. Our next meeting is Sunday, March 13 at 12:00pm. ALL FORMS and the FIRST PAYMENT of $165 are due at that time. Students are required to attend these meetings.

There will be a SPAGHETTI DINNER fundraiser on Saturday, March 26 from 5:00-7:00pm at the church. Campers and volunteers should arrive by 3:30pm to help.

It's aliiiive!

We took a temporary hiatus from blogging for the past few months, but now we're back at it! Several things have happened since the summer months:

• Our new intern, Jonathan Naylor, is hard at work and loving his time with the FUMC Youth Group
• Small Groups have been created and meet every Sunday morning
• Confirmation Class has five new students and is meeting weekly with Jim Rice
• Several sports ministries are being developed

And...

This weekend, we are taking twenty-four students (including nine first-timers) and six adults to Kalahari Indoor Water Park!

Cedar Point Trip

Wednesday, June 23^rd
$25 per student
(plus spending money for food)
Leaving from J.I.M.S Place parking lot at 8:00am. Returning by 10:00pm.

Please sign up by emailing Amy at youthministry@npfirstumc.org or
RSVPing to the Facebook event page.
You must sign up by Sunday, June 20.
All students (and friends!) MUST have a FUMC medical release form on file. Forms can be downloaded from www.npfirstumc.org.

CAR WASH CANCELLED

FUMC YOUTH: THE CAR WASH HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO THE STORMS. You can get credit for either of these options: 1.) Come to the church to bake cookies to give out with Reach stock sales OR 2.) Help sell stock & distribute cookies after both services tomorrow.

Events on the Horizon...

Our first-ever Celebration Banquet will be held on Tuesday, May 25 at 6pm in our Life Center. This is a dinner to honor our graduating seniors and our incoming ninth-graders (current eighth graders). Families of the honored students eat free; tickets are available to our church community, friends, and extended family for $10. The dinner will be catered by Dantes. Be sure to contact Amy at the church to RSVP!

Our Junior Highers are headed on a road trip! Mark your calendars for a new event! Junior High Mission Weekend will be Friday, June 11 through Sunday, June 13. Our students (current middle schoolers) will travel to Canton to work with Hammers and Nails, as well as the Humane Society and Copeland Oaks Retirement Community. Cost is only $50 but the first half is due Sunday, May 23. Forms were mailed out last month but more are available by contacting Amy.

Brainy Stuff

As many of you may know, I love to read. My coffee table is usually littered with books that I’m in the middle of perusing. (Lately they seem to be grad school text books!) One of my biggest problems with reading is this—I can never seem to finish a book! No matter how interesting and exciting the book is, I never finish it. I’ll even recommend books to other people that I’ve never finished.

Well, I’m proud to say, I’ve finished reading (oh, within about 20 pages) a really great book. I’ve been reading The Primal Teen: What the New Discoveries about the Teenage Brain Tell Us about Our Kids, by Barbara Strauch. This is not a Christian book, or even a parenting book, but it’s one that any parent of a teenager should own! Strauch addresses topics such as the introduction and length of adolescence (now extended to the late twenties!), the role of risk-taking, failure, consistency, and enthusiasm, all from a brain perspective! For example, did you know that the prefrontal cortex of a teenager’s brain is not completely formed until his or her mid-twenties? This is the area that makes decisions, empathy, and controlling impulses. This is also where the personality of a person exists (ever wonder why your kid seems to change friends or personas within a month?).

Fascinating stuff. From a youth ministry perspective, my mind has been blown in regards to how to treat our teenagers and what to expect from them in the area of faith. My friend Adam Lehman read this book as well and created a great description of a 15 year old disciple. He or she will:

• Be inconsistent (but have a growing desire for consistency)
• Be apparently hypocritical (as they learn to match behavior with thought)
• Be moving away from compartmentalized thinking
• Be moving outside their comfort zone
• Have a unique journey of discipleship
• Be teachable
• Be a “rebellious” disciple (challenge and question ideas as they begin to think abstractly)

Sound at all like your child? Relax—it’s normal. Wild, but normal. While we are only beginning to understand how the brain works, research is confirming that this is a WILD RIDE for families. As a parent, you could have said that without reading this book, but it’s helpful to understand the science behind what’s happening in your child’s head.

While not always understanding things like synapses and neurons, I do know the God that created these things. And with every page I read of this book, I became more in awe of That Big Guy that created us. Seriously—who thinks this stuff up?! For me, learning became an act of worship. Maybe it will for you too?

P.S. We will be offering a parent seminar this fall on adolescence and teenage brain development this fall…but in the meantime, put Primal Teen on your summer reading list!