The youth group recently traveled to the city of Carlisle, Ohio to partner with The Village Church of Carlisle and serve alongside them for the week. During the week the group spent the mornings helping the church during the kids club at the park. Students helped with groups and ran games. During this time they were able to build relationships with the kids while going through stations such as recreation, Bible, crafts, and snack. They were challenged this week to be very intentional in sharing the Gospel with students and they went above and beyond what was asked of them. Many in our group were pushed out of their comfort zone because of the sharing but that didn’t stop them! In total, we had fifty Gospel conversations, six of which came on Friday while we were at the amusement park and talking with people while waiting in line. It was great to see their efforts in several different areas of the kids club serving and sharing!

In the afternoons during the week, the group served several different ways in the area. They helped out at the church’s ministry center advertising and offering a free car wash two days of the week and helping prepare rooms for painting and other general clean up. We also helped with Headstart, which is a preschool in the area. They are currently switching into a new building so the students helped paint rooms, move tools around to help with those fixing and performing maintenance for the building, power washing the building, pulling weeds, and taking care of larger trash that needed to be carried. And the last company they partnered with was Alistrong which is a resale store where people can come shop and offer a price for different things like clothes, shoes or other household items or they also help those who aren’t able to afford clothes and allow them to come to pick up things every couple weeks. So the students helped sort through clothes, organize, paint, as well as other general building maintenance. During the afternoon time of service, the students did a great job working hard and serving the different ministries in the area.

Overall, the week was a great time of seeing students stretched and pushed out of their comfort zone, becoming leaders and ministering to the younger students around them. We had great attitudes, especially later on in the week as we were running on little sleep. They had very busy days and they continued to serve and continued to stay patient, helpful and upbeat as a group. We are very thankful for the group that went and served and are proud of their efforts during the week and willingness to serve.

The 4th of July.  A church parking lot.  Bottles of water.  Popcorn. Church members.  The community.  And an idea. What is the connection between all of these things?

Love God…. Love People.  This is a phrase we use frequently here at FBCW.  It’s easy to love God and love people in our church building.  We love our Pastor, we love all of our ministers, we love our Sunday School teachers, we love each other.  The question is, do we show that same love to our community? 

It came to our attention that the church parking lot has become a favorite place for families to gather to watch the Wentzville 4th of July fireworks display.  Our Senior Sunday School Class decided we would like to pass out bottles of water not only to our church members but those from the community who come to enjoy the fireworks as well.  What started out being just bottles of water available turned into a multi-class partnership.  One of the “younger” adult Sunday School classes heard we were going to do this and asked if they could partner with us on the project.  Pretty soon other ideas were discussed and as a result we decided to give away popcorn with the water.  This one simple suggestion turned into a project by the two classes.  Labels were made to attach to the water bottles with the FBCW logo and website info as well as scripture and gospel literature available.  Young and old gathered together to put the labels on the water bottles and get ready for the event.

A table was set up at the door with the water and popcorn and some of our classmates walked around the parking lot to the various groups gathered and handed out the water and popcorn.  More than 100 bottles of water were passed out and almost as many bags of popcorn.  If anyone had any questions about becoming a Christian, there were plenty of people there to talk to them.  If they just wanted to know more about our church, those questions could be answered as well.  Most of all, we just wanted everyone to feel welcome and know that we truly do (here is that phrase again) Love God….Love People.

We felt it was important to show our community we do love them and not just those who attend our services on Sunday morning.  

As Christians, we must always remember that non-believers are always watching us. And, it is our hope that someone on our parking lot on the 4th of July saw something different about us and will have a desire to know what that something is.  Jesus said in John 4:10:  “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water”(NLT).  Let us look for opportunities to tell others who Jesus is.  Hopefully they will also learn to Love God…Love People.