College Choices Seminar

I’d like to make you aware of a seminar on college choices held earlier this fall at Covenant Life Church.  You can listen to the recordings of the seminar by clicking on the links below.

College Choices Seminar Part 1

College Chioces Seminar Part 2

College Choices Seminar: Q & A

Hope4Haiti Service Project This Sunday

For those who have signed up to participate in the meal-packing event for the Hope4Haiti service project at 4 p.m. this Sunday, here is information about the location.

The service project will take place at:

Bright Hope International
2060 Stonington Ave. #100
Hoffman Estates, IL  60169

Directions from our area:

1. Take IL-59 north for about 20 miles.
2. Turn right onto IL-58/Golf Road.
3. After about 2.5 miles, turn left onto Barrington Road.
4. After about 1 mile, turn right onto Hassell Road.
5. Turn left onto Stonington Ave.

If you have any questions, please contact Mike Wiersema.

Bob Kauflin on Parenting Older Children

At the last six14 parents + youth meeting, Tab recommended a message by Bob Kauflin.  If you would like to listen to that message, you can download it for free here.

2009-2010 Parent + Youth Ministry Update

Dear parents of youth,

Greetings!  I hope this email finds you doing well!  With the end of the summer now beginning to come into view, I wanted to give you this update on our parent-youth ministry for the coming ministry year.

First, we’ll resume our six14 parent + youth meetings in September.  With both a members’ meeting and children’s ministry training occurring near the end of August, it seemed best to wait until September to start back up.  For the coming year, I’m generally targeting the third Saturday evening of each month.  So for the fall, we’re planning on the following dates for our corporate meetings:  Sept. 19, Oct. 17, and Nov. 21.

To pull off our corporate meetings we’re going to need your help and the help of your youth.  Our goal is to see as many youth as possible serving in this ministry context as a way of “owning” it – i.e., a way of thinking of this church increasingly as their church and not just their parents’ church.  To that end, we have a parent-youth administrative team that organizes our meetings and serves to make them happen.  If you and your (high school) youth would like to serve on the admin team, please contact Andrea about that (andrea@sgclife.org) by August 21.  We may not be able to accommodate everyone who would like to be on this team, but knowing of your interest would be very helpful to us.  Also, if you and your youth (of any age) would like to serve in some capacity during our meetings, know that we could use your help.  There are many ways to serve – greeting, set-up, sound, music, etc. – and we’ll be asking for help for those areas very soon.

Second, if you have high school youth, we are also resuming our High School Growth Group in September.  This context was a great blessing to me as we, together, engaged with God and his word by studying sound, biblical doctrine together while pursuing growth through the means of the spiritual disciplines.  This year we’re going to continue working through chapters of the book Bible Doctrine, in which we’ll study the doctrine of sin, Christ and the atonement.  In addition, we will supplement those discussions with the very practical and helpful book Worldliness.  If you and your high school youth would like to participate this year, please let Andrea know that also.  We meet on a Saturday morning at 8 a.m. once per month, beginning Sept. 19 as well.  I will set future dates in our first meeting, since I’d like to hear from those participating as to what dates serve you best.  For those who are going to participate in Growth Group, you will need to purchase Bible Doctrine and Worldliness, if you don’t already have them.  However, for the September meeting I will email out an article to read for all those who intend to join us.

Third, we will have some Age of Opportunity parents’ meetings as well.  My plan is to primarily work through a seminar taught by Greg Somerville on parenting in the middle-school years.  I’ll let you know about dates and times for those meetings very soon.

Lastly, let me communicate what a privilege it is to serve you in this capacity.  My aim as “youth pastor” is to support you, the parents, in your God-given task of discipleship.  We want to do all we can do serve and support you in this holy task of parenting.

Grateful for you,

Tab

Schedule Updates

After we printed the monthly announcements for May, we made some schedule changes for the parent-youth ministry.  These were announced at the six14 meeting last Saturday, but we wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the updates by posting them here.  Please note:

• The Age of Opportunity meeting for the month of May has been canceled.
• The six14 Parent + Youth meeting in June has been moved to Sunday, June 14 (same times and place as usual).  This meeting will serve as a recap for the year, and some seniors will share testimonies and exhortations.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

How Children Come to Faith in Christ

I saw this post on Justin Taylor’s blog, and I thought the messages mentioned could serve…

How Children Come to Faith in Christ

Ryan Kelly:

In an earlier post I pointed to some resources for wrestling through the issues of the gospel, conversion, and assurance with our kids. One of the best resources I’ve found is the the Family Life Today radio interviews with Jim Elliff, “How Children Come to Faith in Christ.” You can purchase the series on audio CDs here, which I already mentioned. However, in addition I discovered that six of the sessions are available online for free:

1. Genuine Salvation: More Than a Prayer

2. How Children Come to Faith in Christ

3. Taking Our Children to Church: Is That Enough?

4. How to Deal With Doubt

5. Observing Salvation in Your Child: What Does It Look Like?

6. The Family: No Better Place to Come to Know Christ!

Transcripts are also available at the bottom of each of these pages’ links.

I cannot recommend these talks enough to any parent wanting to be thoughtful, careful, and prayerful in the salvation of their children.

six14 Meeting This Saturday!

This Saturday we’ll have another parent-youth corporate meeting: food at 5:30 p.m., meeting officially begins at 6:14 p.m.

We’ll be continuing our series called “My Peers,” talking about how we can be influencers for godliness. We’ll also enjoy some games, food, and fun in the gym; hope you can make it!

Grateful for you,

Tab

six14 this Saturday!

Join us at the six14 meeting this Saturday, Feb. 21, for part two of the “My Peers” series.  We’ll focus on how we can be an influence on others, specifically an influence for a passion for God by cultivating passion for Him ourselves.

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. (contact Mike Wiersema about getting in on the potluck buffet), and the meeting starts at 6:14 p.m.

We hope to see you there!

Ice Skating!

All youth and parents are invited to the six14 ice skating fun event.

• Who: 6th-12th grade students and parents
• When: Saturday, February 28, 3:30-5:00 p.m.
• Where: All Seasons Ice Rinks (31W330 North Aurora Rd., Naperville)
• Cost: $5.50 per person (includes skate rental)

Please RSVP to Rosie Mertens so that she can book the group reservation.  The cost per person may go down, depending on the size of the group.

Fearing God

As we talked about in our last six14 meeting, the fear of the Lord is the key to knowledge and wisdom in the book Proverbs (see the “motto” for the entire book:  Prov 1.7).  Fearing God will help us approach issues like that of influence (Prov 13.20) in a God-glorifying way.  Jerry Bridges’ book The Joy of Fearing God would be a great read for youth (and parents) to grow in fearing and loving God.

I also saw that the GirlTalk bloggers had a helpful post on the fear of the Lord; I commend it to you.

Learning to Fear the Lord

How do we get the fear of the Lord?

The answer is in Psalm 34:11. “Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”

How exciting! God, in His perfect holiness, was once opposed to us because of our sin. But if we have repented and believed in His Son, he has become our heavenly Father. Now he beckons us to come, sit at His feet, and learn to fear Him.

I’ll be honest: gaining the fear of the Lord will not be easy. In fact, if we try to do it on our own, we will certainly fall short. But the good news is that God has promised to teach us.

Learning to fear the Lord begins with prayer. It’s how we respond to God’s invitation to come to Him. “Teach me your way, O Lord,” we must ask, “that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name (Ps. 86:11).

God also teaches us to fear Him through His Word. As one author explains, the Bible is like “a textbook on the fear of the Lord.” If we study it faithfully we will learn to fear God.

If you have a godly mother, God also wants you to learn the fear of the Lord from her. She can help you learn how to apply the fear of the Lord in the every day trials and struggles of teenage life.

The Bible promises that if you make it your life goal to obtain the fear of the Lord, you will find happiness, security, riches, honor and rest (Pr. 28:14, 14:26, 22:4, 19:23). Everything that teenagers are longing for is only to be found in fearing God.

Fear the Lord and you will have no fear for your future. For the Lord “will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure” (Isa. 33:6).