New location

So, it will be a new month this sunday and that means a new location for youth group. We've been meeting in the wheelersburg church for the last month and now we will meet in the sciotoville church for november. All our meetings have been going well. The games are fun, I'm getting to know the youth better, and the messages seem to be going well. However, it's time to start planning events. Each church have their own events which they are used to doing, so my first step will be to simply combine them into our calendar and make sure there are a good number of events that the youth can attend.

I moved 4 couches today into the sciotoville church. The room we are going to use for the scene has no youth stuff at all in it, so I'm starting from scratch with the room. It's really three rooms with those sliding dividers between each room. When they're open, one big room. This gives ample room for a praise band, but the permenancy of the room might be a problem. Other classes use these rooms and we can't just set up a youth room and leave it. So, that will be frustrating, but managable. It reminds of the importance of pushing the new building.

See, next door to the sciotoville church is a run down building which they own. It is perfect for youth ministry and community outreach. The trustees of the church decided to spend some money fixing the room and bricking up the windows. Once this is done, we can come in and do all the free fixup work that is possible. (by free, i mean not hiring a contractor). We can clean up the place, demo walls, lay carpet, even build a stage in this place. It will make a great permenant location, but that is a long way off. Currently, the room leaks and our insurance company won't let the youth into it. But, I did make a video walkthrough of the building where I talk about my ideas for using the building and it was received very well at my first youth board meeting. The board has people from all three churches on it and I gave them an update on what the youth group has been doing and where we're going. I also showed my video walkthrough and it seemed to make a lot of them excited about the possibilites. I have to also be willing to get my (and the youth's) hands dirty with this project, to really help see it get finished. But that is something exciting for the future and I know that the youth will somehow be involved, even if we don't get to use the building.

Here's a little bonus story: I was going to make some lunch today and thought I would finally make some hamburger helper. I had bought a pund of hamburger and decided to whip it up. So, I warmed up the skillet and opened the hamburger. The hamburger looked fine, but I immediatley smelled death. You know when you come upon a dead animal and you smell death? Well, that's what I smelled when I opened the package. Then I laughed, because it WAS A DEAD ANIMAL. I put it into the trash, then took the bag immediately outside to the trashcan. I didn't even want to give this thing a chance to stink up my house. So, I didn't make hamburger helper today :-(