SPRING SCHEDULE for Youth & Families with Jackson Community Church
Spring youth and family schedule: Friday fun nights, service opportunities, Sunday morning activities and lessons, Sunday afternoon hikes, end-of-year Youth & Children Sunday plus summer camps for families and work camps/advocacy trips/retreats for high school youth.
APRIL
- Sun, April 8 – 9am • Road to Emmaus activity & walk: Meet at church and wear outdoor clothing for a spring walk. Focus on people who met God on their walk and didn’t recognize their companion. How do we see and meet God in our world? Walk includes lessons on shared meals, communion, and breaking bread together. Also it’s Holy Humor Sunday … bring a joke to tell!
- Sun, April 15 – 9am • Planting Activity with Lisa White at JCC. Preparation for Mother’s Day and anticipation of Earth Day. Meet at JCC for this activity.
- Sun, April 22 — 10:30am • Worship
service includes presentation by Lauren Orsini from Starting Point about being aware of domestic violence and ongoing initiatives for safety for local children and families - Sun, April 22 — 1pm • Afternoon Earth Day Hike – Intergenerational outdoor hike to be led by church youth. Bring proper equipment; route to be announced. Allow 2-3 hours for this activity.
- Fri, April 27 — 5:30-7:30pm • Friday Fun Night
Spring Fling with Pizza & Games at JCC. - Sat, April 28 — 9am-Noon • Spring Cleaning at JCC
Come prepared to work inside or outside. We’re organizing closets, cleaning windows and hard-to-reach areas, touching up spots inside and outside the church, changing light bulbs, and sprucing up the church grounds. Wear old clothes, sensible shoes, and bring work gloves. We’ll add more info about any tools or equipment you should bring from home, such as buckets or rakes or brooms. - Sun, April 29 – 10:30am • Worship includes traditional Sunday School. Parents may attend worship and children will have interactive lesson during portion of service.
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Scriptures during Times of Challenge & Struggle
Inspired by recent ski races, upcoming Olympic games, and today’s Superbowl Sunday, we discussed how we might pray during competitions or periods of conflict, stress, and struggle. We discussed forms of prayer or reflection that might center us at these times:
- For Preparation (becoming focused and ready to engage in the experience)
- For Support (intercession for comfort, strength, gifts and resources to go through the game, the contest, the stressful or conflicted situation)
- For Others (teammates, competitors/opponents, allies/friends, families/fans, coaches/teachers/mentors, colleages, etc)
- For Gratitude (thankfulness in the midst of challenge)
People sat at tables during brunch church, picked a scripture from among the collection of Bible passages in baskets at the table, and discussed their selected passage’s potential as a resource for prayer or reflection. People discussed how they might categorize the text among the four possible prayer opportunities above (prayers for preparation, for support, for others, for gratitude).
Here are the scriptures below. They were selected based on themes of athletes and contests, strength or vigor, images of body, gifts and blessings, victory and triumph, weakness or loss, and other such key ideas that might intersect with times of competition and challenge, conflict and struggle.
Is there one that resonates for you?
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