Grace Book Club November
Alternative Gift Market: November 13
This year’s Alternative Gift Market is Saturday, November 13, at Hillside Christian Church. Our cause is “Plant for a Sustainable Tomorrow” and over the course of the next several weeks, we will highlight ways we can support the reforestation of forests in Haiti.
We can use help staffing our table. You can sign up on the bulletin board by the coffee bar or call the church office. For safety precautions, we have been asked to have only one volunteer at our table at a time.
Gen Z and How to Talk to Teens
Some of us are podcast people. Some of us aren’t. Some of us don’t know what podcasts are.
Podcasts are conversations that you can listen to anytime. It’s a bit like a radio show on demand. In the last two years my sermon prep changed from reading to listening as two groups of Biblical Scholars I respect started making podcasts. I get to listen in on conversations about the scripture for the sermon I’ll preach. Sometimes what I hear makes it into the sermon. Sometimes it doesn’t, but I still learn.
Some of us are ‘youth’ people. Some of us claim we don’t know how to relate to youth. Some of us aren’t willing to try.
My best friend from seminary, Sara Hayden, works for the national PCUSA with new churches. She has a podcast called New Way. While she’s a dear friend, I don’t listen to all of the podcasts, but I do listen to some. The most recent is a conversation between Sara and Gina Yeager Buckley.
Gina is the head youth person for the PCUSA (not her official title). I met Gina 20 years ago when I was 22, and she was in her 30’s. I was helping with a national middle school conference, and she led our planning retreat.
Gina has incredible gifts for youth ministry. She never makes anything about herself but redirects the focus to the youth. She takes things that sound complicated and finds a way to make them clear. She’s someone who I’m around, and nothing she does seems that spectacular, but when it’s over, I can’t believe what she’s led a group to do.
In the podcast with Gina and Sara, they have a simple conversation about youth, particularly GenZ. Nothing they say is particularly revolutionary, and I think that’s what makes it work Gina never tries to do “10 tips that will make your youth group grow.” Instead, she talks about the small ways we minister to youth You can listen below:
[button url=”https://www.newchurchnewway.org/podcast/home/2021/9/26/gina-yeager-buckley” target=”” size=”small” style=”orange” icon=”” popup=”” title=””]Listen[/button]
Most of our congregation does not live with teenagers. For us, this is a helpful insight.
-Catherine Neelly Burton
Trunk or Treat: October 27
Jacob’s Learning Ladder and Grace host a Trunk or Treat Event in the Grace parking lot on Wednesday, October 27. Set up time is 5:15 pm with the event time from 6:15-7:15 pm. Sign up to park your car in one of the designated spots and hand out candy, prizes, stickers, etc. to all the children that pass by.
You may decorate your trunk – no scary themes please – or just sit and share treats! Candy donations are appreciated! Place donations in the tub by the coffee bar. Contact Jennifer Snook jennifer@mygpc.org for more information.
And if you can’t hand out candy, just come and enjoy a hot dog dinner! We eat and enjoy fellowship and want you to be here!
Sewing Machines
There is a room on the second floor of Grace that is filled with sewing machines. In different seasons, ministry teams have used them. One sewing team iteration made tote bags for various groups. Another team made pillows. Most recently the quilting group used them.
Through our connections with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), we’ve learned that sewing machines are in demand in the local refugee community. In the refugee community, the women primarily stay home with children, and a sewing machine is of high value in the home.
Most of the sewing machines in our church were donated over the years We plan to give away the majority of them to the IRC. If you donated one and would like it back, please let the church know, 316-684-5215. We donate machines by November 1, if we do not hear from anyone.