May Newsletter

For Parents on the Go:

1. Saturday, May 9th 9:00 am-12:00 pm: FREE car wash to thank the church for supporting our upcoming summer trip to the Journey Camp in Georgia.
2. Saturday, May 30th 9:00 am-11:30 am: CREW will be going on mission to a neighborhood near downtown Winston Salem to host a backyard Bible club for Hispanic children. 
3. June 6th: GRADUATION DAY for all high school graduates. We are proud of each of our graduates.
4. Sunday, June 7th: Graduate Recognition Service in both services for ALL high school and college graduates. If you are a graduate I will need a baby picture, Senior picture, and your plans after high school or college.
5. Saturday, June 20th 11:00 am- 4:00 pm: Helping work booths and games for Old Vineyard at Tangelwood
6. Monday, June 22-Friday, June 26th: The Journey Camp in Toccoa Falls, Georgia. Watch the bulletin for information on an upcoming parent meeting

Dear Parents,

We had an exciting April filled with a human ice cream Sundae fight and exciting lessons through the Gospel of God asking Who is Jesus as well as beginning a new series entitled The God Who Saves which focuses on the role of the church in our lives and how Christians are to gossip the Gospel wherever they go. Every Sunday I have an object lesson which is pulled from a trunk. Make sure to ask your teen each Sunday what the object was and what it represents. 

In the weeks leading up to the human ice cream Sundae fight I was asked by several individuals what the "point" was for playing so many games during youth group. Here are 5 reasons why we play games in CREW...

1. Play is a unique, God-given, universal, human experience.

One of the first things a baby does to express her humanity is to play and laugh. That first game of peek-a-boo not only melts a parent’s heart, it establishes a uniquely human connection. Play is basic to being human. As Jackson Lee Ice puts it:

Man is the only animal that weeps and laughs and knows that he weeps and laughs, and wonders why. He is the only creature that weeps over the fact that he weeps, and laughs over the fact that he laughs. He is the most play seeking, play making, and play giving species that has walked the earth, ever ready to provoke or be provoked with play; even in the midst of fear and pain he is capable of incongruously ameliorating his misery by a smile, pun, or joke. He is the jester in the courts of creation.[1]

2. Play is a vital part of most meaningful, healthy human relationships.

The ability to play well with others is one of the first social expressions we look for in human development. Although we tend to forget how to play as we “mature,” it remains a vital quality in the most edifying relationships.

3. Play tends to be seen as either frivolous or an end in itself.

Play, especially within sport, tends to be dismissed as meaningless, worldly, and contrary to sober Christian living. On the other hand, Christians can be pulled into the idolatry of sport and leisure as an end in itself to be sought at all costs. A biblical understanding of play as given by God for his glory and our good, but never an end itself, will help coaches, athletes, and soccer moms appreciate play and use it as a conduit of glorifying God. Such a re-orientation will give perspective to our lives as intended. "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (I Corinthians 10:31).

4. Christian maturity should develop a godly sense of play.

As all other areas of our lives, play should fall under the sanctifying effects of the Holy Spirit’s work.

5. Ministers should help people play well.

A Christian who takes his role as a minister seriously must be able to lead people in godly play. As a pastor of middle/high school students who generally have a deep hunger to know God, I’m convinced that helping God’s people survive in a broken world requires a well developed ability to play. A minister of the gospel must be able to cry and mourn, laugh and play with godly gusto, and lead others in these as well.

Play is not a major emphasis in the Bible, and it can be unhelpful to encourage play in a culture that so often and easily trivializes God and life itself. Yet I do believe that a sense of play is necessary for a healthy Christian perspective on life. The failure to appreciate play in the Christian life could easily turn piety into sanctimony, reverence into rigidity, and sanctification into stuffiness. We must take God as seriously as we can, but never ourselves.

God invites us to approach him as his free, forgiven, secure children. We are to approach our holy God with healthy fear and hearts broken by our broken world. But God’s people are also called to rejoice, sing, play, and laugh because we know that the owner of all things is working out his perfect plan that ends with a wedding banquet and perfect resolution and rest. This sure hope in God’s sovereign power and loving-kindness enables us to play with reckless abandon, even before the Great Wedding Banquet begins.

In conclusion, I love to play games and will continue to play games. On the surface it may appear to be frivolous fun; however, through play we are teaching teenagers to survive in a broken world and how to develop a healthy Christian perspective on life.

Thank you for entrusting your son/daughter to the youth ministry at FBCS.

Reaching, Teaching, & Releasing,

T Welch