Happy Thanksgiving!

OCC packing and fun!

We had a great night packing over 120 boxes for Operation Christmas Child.  What a great way to serve kids around the world.



Mid month we enjoyed a great lesson on when we give to God we get even more back from him. We studied what Luke 6:38 really means.  Then we had a little banana relay race.

Operation Christmas Child

Please remember to sign up to bring a few items for the Operation Christmas Child Collection.

HERE

Better Late than Never!

The weeks got away from me this October!

In October we had the kids complete a Spiritual Gifts Survey to see where they have talents. It was interested to see how many kids had different gifts some had were surprises, yet many were totally predictable.  It would be interesting to do this survey again in 5 years!







We also took time to do a service project for Holland Rescue Mission. We created sick packs that will be used by Holland Rescue Mission. It is good for our kids to serve others in many ways.

Being the presence of Jesus to ...

Our Mission statement at JRC is "Being the presence of Jesus to each other, the community and the world." This week in Crossroads we talked about being two of these areas.

Each Other
As youth we can serve each other at church in many ways. Youth of JRC help in the nursery, children's church, VBS, and even in worship during the service.  Amy, our worship coordinator came and talked about including the youth in our service on Sunday mornings.  We welcome the youth to get involved, just let a leader know and we will plug them in by singing, playing an instrument, or helping with projection on Sunday mornings.

The World
We also worked on preparing for our big project of Operation Christmas Child. Crossroads has worked with the Outreach Team to be the presence of Jesus to the children of the world by filling shoeboxes for kids all over the globe. This year the kids picked  goal of 135 boxes. With the help of the congregation we think we can meet that goal.

Sign up to bring items for OCC HERE (link coming)

No photos this week, sometimes it just gets busy....what can I say!

Amazing Race: Jamestown

Amazing Race is always a favorite activity that the JRC Youth Groups do. This year was just as great as the past years. We are so thankful for people from our congregation that are always willing to host a pit stop and drive crazy kids around!  Enjoy the photos from the event.

Making an Impact

We talked about how we, as youth, can make an impact the world around us.  We talked about how we can have just as much impact in today's world as many famous people due to social media. However, to make a good impact we should think of 7 things we can do to make an impact.

1. Love Others - John 13:34-35.  It is when we begin to love others, not preach at them, that we begin to make an impact.
2. Determine our area of Influence - Know who you connect with (neighbors, co-workers, bus mates, etc) and do a simple act of kindness.
3. Get Involved - Do some Kingdom work with your church, neighborhood organization, charity, etc.
4. Use the Gospel in your daily conversation - Make talking about Jesus second nature in your life. Remember it is about sharing the gospel, it's Gods job to lead them to Jesus.
5. Forgive - We can't be very fruitful in making an impact if we hold onto grudges and have hearts of un-forgiveness. 
6. Pray for Others - Always be in prayer for others, regardless of their beliefs, health, or anything...just pray for everyone.
7. Stay In the Word - God uses his Word to transform you daily.

Notice each one of these ways to make an impact is not a huge feat, but together if we all practice these imagine the impact we could have on the world around us for Christ.

Before we  got started we played fruit salad - to shake up into small groups.

After our lesson we played a fun game of SNAP, CRACKLE, POP.