Thank YOU!

Hello!

I just wanted to take this opportunity to say a HUGE thank you to all of you who gave of your time and talents to serve in the AWANA program throughout this past school year. We are so blessed to have volunteers who will come to church each Thursday night to help these kids grow in their knowledge and faith by memorizing the scriptures. We have awesome teachers that come prepared to teach the children stories from God’s word that will change their lives. And best of all thank you to those of you who come to love on the kids each week.  Again I will say that we are greatly blessed to have this team of volunteers that work with children starting at nursery age and going all the way up through 6th grade.

I would ask each of you reading thing if you would consider joining us in the fall for our next AWANA year. We would love to have you come help these kids learn their verses, sit with them during story time, or help with the games. Please take some time this summer to pray and see if God is calling you to help train up the next generation in God’s word.

While we are on the topic of prayer, I also want to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you who participated in our Pray for Me campaign this year. We had a huge amount of participation here at Liberty and I was excited to hear all of the stories come back to me from those praying as well as those being prayed for.  I am so proud to share with people that I belong to a church that believes in praying for the teens and children of our church. 

This Sunday night we are using the evening service to celebrate the next generation of our church. We will be sharing those who have achieved awards this year during the course of our AWANA program as well as recognizing those of you who have faithfully served in the AWANA program. We will be sharing about our Pray for Me Campaign and honoring those who have taken time each day to pray for someone that is the future of this church and nation. And we will be honoring those who have graduated high school and college, which is also a great achievement.


It is my hope that you will join  us as we celebrate as a church family the great ways that God has been at work during the school year. Even if you weren't involved in any of the ministries I have mentioned, come and show your support to those who were. It is our job as a family to celebrate along with each other, raising each up as they achieve, encouraging as they struggle, and prayerfully, faithfully living life together in unity.

Gratefully Growing at The Grove!

Miss Megan

Tags and Badges

Community of Faith

I had the privilege  of sitting down for coffee with another young ministry leader yesterday. We shared what was going on in each of our ministries, things we were excited about, and even things we worried about. At the end of that time we prayed and went our separate ways.

I was reminded again by this meeting that I am blessed with a rich community of faith. I am surrounded by people who are following God and excited about what he is doing through them. I am also blessed that a lot of the members of this community are of the same generation as I am. We are the "young leaders" of the churches, ministries, and jobs in this world. It is so cool to know that we are carrying on the faith.

A few weeks ago I was able to go to a conference for Children's Pastors and ministry workers. One of the keynote speakers, you may now him, Ryan Frank spoke on how we are all part of a chidden community. It spans towns, states, countries, and the globe. We have been blessed to be in a technological age where community can be built from anywhere. The same is true for us as Christians living today. We can have a strong faith community made up of people all over the place. I personally have a faith community that spans at least 3 states.

I keep throwing around this term "community" and for those of you who don't know what I am talking about, a community is a group of people you go through life with. People that are plugged in to your day to day life, who make an impact, and who have your back.

If you are not plugged into a community, or you really don't have anyone to go through life with, I would encourage you to find a group, build your own. Church is a great place to start, it is filled with people who believe the same things you do. Ask someone out for coffee or to lunch and start building that relationship.  I promise it will be worth the effort.

Continually Growing at The Grove!

Miss Megan

Life Size Candy Land

Join us for Life Size Candy Land! You and your family won't want to miss out on all the fun!

Christmas Eve

I published this post last year on Christmas Eve, and it still holds just as true today!

Christmas Eve Service

One of the traditions I have at Christmas is one that I have gained within the last 10 years, that is the tradition of a Christmas Eve service. In the church I am currently in, and the one I previously served in, the Christmas Eve service was a family service. As a Children’s Pastor I absolutely believe in age specific classes for children on a regular basis, but there is something so special about families worshipping together on Christmas Eve. Just tonight I attended the Christmas Eve service at Liberty and I was reminded again how wonderful it is to have multiple generations of families celebrating the miracle of Christmas together. At first sight you would see a dimly lit, packed sanctuary. You would hear the rustling of people and the cries and talking of children. These things may seem like a distraction or even seem to take away from the “atmosphere” of the holiday. But to me it just makes it even more Christmas Eve. You see we know from the account in Luke 2 that Bethlehem was very crowded. In fact it was so crowded that Mary and Joseph could not find any room in an inn. The light wasn’t good and so the young couple was trying to find their way around the stable to the best that they could. I can imagine Joseph trying to make it seem more like a room for his young bride who was soon to deliver her son. 

Because Joseph and Mary were in a stable, in a crowded town, we can be pretty sure that things were far from quiet. There were probably babies crying out, overheard conversations, and even the animals making noise. It was far from a silent night, and definitely not as put together as a pretty nativity scene that we all observe each year. So hearing babies crying out or squeezing in a little closer than normal in a pew just reminds me of that miracle that happened so many years ago. The miracle of God coming to earth as a helpless baby in a less than perfect situation in a world with "no room" for Him. May these Christmas Eve services always remind me of the simple beginnings of Christmas and not allow me to get caught up in the elaborate celebrations.

It is because of this that Christmas Eve services are one of my favorite traditions at Christmas time. If you have never experienced this type of worship I would encourage you to find a church that does it. I have been blessed to serve in two churches that believe in worshipping as a family on Christmas Eve and it is something that has become very important to me.

Thankfully Growing at the Grove!

Miss Megan

Celebrating Christmas With the Family

First of all let me apologize for not keeping up with my blog posts. I guess you could say that I fell off the edge of the earth for a while. But don't worry I am back and quickly catching up.

Most of you probably know this about me but I love the Christmas season. I call it a season because I celebrate Christmas for at least the entire month of December if not longer.  There is so much to be done that I simply cannot fit it into just one day or even one week.

One of the big things about Christmas for me is celebrating with my family or families as it may be from year to year. I think this is so important because we are celebrating the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. And it is through his birth and eventual death that we get to truly have a family relationship with God. Jesus came to take away our sins once and for all and to reconnect us with God the Father in a real way. We can now have the Father/child relationship that God always wanted with us. And that is definitely something to celebrate.

 I hope that each of you take the time to enjoy celebrating Christmas with your family, whoever that may be.


Continually Growing at The Grove

Miss Megan

Why I Celebrate Advent

I love Christmas, and there are many traditions that I have when it comes to the Christmas season. Celebrating Advent is one of those traditions. I love the counting down to Christmas, and doing it in a way that celebrates the birth of our Savior.

The Israelite people were waiting and looking for the promised Messiah for many years, there were descriptions given to them of what this Messiah was going to be like. And with great anticipation they waited. I believe that we too should have a sense of anticipation when it comes to celebrating Christmas.
Counting down the Sundays leading to Christmas and taking time out to focus on Jesus is a great way to get you and your family into the spirit of the true meaning of Christmas. There are some more traditional ways to celebrate advent that have to do with the lighting of the candles, and then there are devotionals that help us to focus and celebrate in the same way.

Each year I try to supply some type of advent devotional for the families in my ministries so that together they can spend time celebrating and anticipating the birth of our Savior. There was so much that went into the foretelling, conception,  announcements, and birth of Jesus that it is hard to sum it up all at once. Taking the whole month to truly appreciate the whole of these events is a great way to celebrate, in my opinion.

I hope that each of you take the time this month to celebrate the greatest gift of Christmas, our Savior sent as a baby to earth.


Continually Growing at The Grove!

Miss Megan