A tweet from Jimmy Fallon.

#1 – The on-campus recreation activities. They have a 3 man swing, zip line, goliath swing, rock wall, foam pit, paint ball, a mountain to climb, and more. The fun never stops!

#2 – Rafting down the Ocoee River. Back in 1996 when the olympics where in the USA they went here to go rafting. Don’t worry we will be on the easier part of the water. I am huge chicken and I had a blast when I went a couple of years ago.

#3 – FOOD! Snowbird is the best camp food you will ever eat.

#4 – Worship and Teaching. I was blown away by how moving our time was with not only the teachers and worship, but also the small group leaders. They have a staff full of college age people who are ready to listen and pour into students.

#5 – It’s a high school retreat! We all deal with some similar issues, but this will be just for high school students. You will get to hang with people your age.

This is our first high school retreat and I am SO PUMPED! You should go talk with your parents right now about coming.

I pray you will join us for some of these summer events.

For more detailed info please visit the Statesboro First Methodist Youth Page.

Hey everybody,

Remember that nursery rhyme the Farmer in the Dell? It was a simple little rhyme that taught us so much about the process of farming, economy, and life. The Bible is full of examples drawn from agriculture. Jesus knew that it would connect and resonate with so many people.

This summer during Sunday School, we will be taking a look at some the things we should be growing in our life and decide how to yield the biggest harvest.

Do you remember playing with Legos as a child? I can remember spending hours building, creating, and having a good time. One of my favorite parts was actually building Legos. You got these really cool directions that showed you how to do everything one step at a time. Even if it was a long process to build, having the ability to see things coming together was enough of a rush to keep you going. Wouldn’t it be cool if our faith was that way? Sometimes it doesn’t seem like that is happening. We feel like everything was coming together, but for some reason we hit a spiritual wall. I’m looking forward to this Sunday as we talk about what happens when get frustrated in faith and how we can expect God to still be there for us.

This video is of Adam Hamilton, Sr. Pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. Now he is dealing with adults instead of youth which is a big difference than students, but it got me thinking, how can we push that human connection more to communicate we care and value our visitors.

Coach Meyer resigned this week.

This week Urban Meyer the University of Florida head football coach resigned at the age of 46-years-old. It came unexpected but not necessarily surprising as he contemplated retiring after last season. He has talked about wanting to spend more time with his family and has some personal health concerns.

This is a great opportunity to talk about sustainability. Obviously you can reach a point where it is not possible to keep moving forward at the same speed you are going. Whether it’s in football, education, or ministry we have to keep in mind the race (see Hebrews 12:1) set out before us.

We have to decide what direction and speed is best to manage. We have to makesure we don’t set the cruise control to high or we will be prone to accidents like forgetting to call a family member back or miss an opportunity to impact someone outside of your “work life”. We can’t go to slow because we only have 1 shot at this life and don’t want to waste it playing video games. We have to find our speed and set it.

Fitzhugh at training camp

Also this week Keith Fitzhugh an undrafted professional rookie football player who is not on a team and is working as a train conductor turned down a chance to play football again. The New York Jets, a team some think may make the Super Bowl, offered him a chance to be on the practice squad. Fitzhugh turned them down. When I first heard this I thought it was crazy. I figured he had probably seem that Denzel Washington movie about trains (Denzel does make everything look cool) and wanted to do that. It turns out Fitzhugh loves his job and said this according to the New York Post, “I wanted job security,” he said. “There was the chance to get a Super Bowl ring, but I just didn’t want to go up there and be a body. I’m thinking long term.”

Sounds to me like he was going for something more sustainable.

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Here’s a look at some of the information that went out over the Thanksgiving break in case you missed it. I’m so excited about our December schedule and the upcoming Holiday season. We have so much going on and we know that you do to. To make things easier we are doing our weekly service during Sunday School. We will have worship, games, and a great message in our Sunday Morning Surge Series – Christmas Stories. We will be taking a look at what it means to celebrate Christmas.

Also we will be having different activities on Sunday Night. Check out our calender and weekly mail out card.