First Baptist Festivities

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I am so thankful to have this church that provides so many ways to celebrate the holidays by having fun while still keeping "the main thing the main thing."

Here's a couple pictures of me with my co-servers of Latte Moon!

This year we added aprons and buttons, which I thought were really cute.

One Wednesday night, we all made cookies and Christmas cards to give out to people to share the true love of Christmas!  We had so much fun, and you can check out some more of it on instagram by searching the hashtag #EquipCookies

Above are the 4 that I made.

This is crazy Rob, our youth pastor!

He is all about serving and taking/posting awesome pictures.

My friend Tessa took this picture to capture the variety of cards created by the girls at my table.

These are the people I gave my #EquipCookies to!  Up in the right top corner, I promise I didn't give it to the dog.  I gave it to the dog's owner, my neighbor!

Peanuts always has a way to work some Christian ideas into almost everything it does, especially in Christmas themes.  Pastor Dean also found a way to work Peanuts into his sermon.  How cute!  Poor Chuck, though...getting yelled at by Lucy once again.

FBCMTN has done the Living Christmas Tree as many years as I have been alive! 
They it one weekend before Christmas, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  The lights and music are amazing, and it is great to hear so many songs of the season along with the Christmas Story.

Pastor Dean opens and closes and shares his love.

Baby Jesus, Joseph, and Mary

Mom and Dad got some extra tickets so I could take a couple friends.  These girls are Megan and Rachel!  After watching the tree, we went to TCBY to have a holiday treat.  Even though it may be cold outside, we all agree that it is always a good time for frozen yogurt.

Equip Senior Night

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Every year after school is out for summer, my youth group has one Wednesday night at our property on the lake at Harrell Park.  We have a cookout, play games, sing worship songs, then any seniors who want to share can tell the rest of us whatever is on their heart.  Then we hang out and have dessert of some sort.

This is my friend Trey who went to UT last year but is back here for the summer.  He's like me!  Short! I'm not actually taller than him; in this picture, I'm just in front of him. 

Meals outside are always so pretty, but it's even better when it can be at the lake! 

You never know what kind of games you will be playing when Rob Walters is in charge, but you can bet on it being interesting and original.  The one we played at Senior Share Night was what he called foosebultimate:  a cross between fooseball and ultimate Frisbee, played with a football.  In the middle of our game, some random wet dog decided that he would join and chase the ball wherever it flew!

This is Will, who graduated from East.  He is also my cousin and the brother of my other cousin...of course!  Just kidding; his sister is also one of my best friends from church.  They are both great athletes and students, as well as Christians and role models for other kids.  They seem quiet, but are really great when you get to know them and hear them talk.  This was actually the most I'd heard Will talk in my life!  He talked about how important building relationships is, with people to influence you, be by your side, and for you to influence people.  It is also crucial that we love people!

Over the years that I have been in youth, this amazing girl has become one of my good friends, supporters, and role models.  Not only is she gorgeous, but also has a beautiful singing voice and heart for serving the Lord!  Everyone in our youth looks up to her for her life and knowledge.  She is someone who would send out sweet surprise texts some days, that would be just what I needed to put a smile on my face!  Her dad is the children's pastor at our church, so she is there often and is always ready to help.  Last year she was a counselor at Camp Bethel in Wise, Virginia, and she left the very next morning after our cookout to go again this year for most of summer break!  She reminded us how important it is to "recklessly abandon" the cares of this world, because they don't really matter;  God's got our life planned out, and as Christians, it will end in eternity, so life is all His!

Tyler and Josh led worship before and after the seniors shared.  It is so nice to have church outside in God's beautiful creations!  Tyler is in college now, and working toward being in the music ministry.  One of the other senior girls that spoke made a good point about not only working to do good things, but God's things.  "We can have good intentions but miss God's intentions."

After all this, we gathered around all our seniors and prayed especially for them as they go into the next chapter of their lives.

Campfire time!  My favorite!  There is just something about roasting marshmallows.

I got creative with my smores.  The one on the left has a York Patty in it, and the one on the right is with dark chocolate Reese's!  Dark chocolate is the bomb, but try adding some other things, too, and smores get even better than we thought they were!

Here I made a mini one with a piece of Reese's.

I also ate several plain marshmallows after I roasted them!  A warm, slightly golden one is perfect.  Smooth outside, gooey inside.

"May Your Love Increase and Overflow..."

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Every once and a while, my youth group chooses a book of the Bible, and we spend a week, Sundays and Wednesdays, per chapter.  The most recent one we did was 1 Thessalonians, and one day, our youth pastor Rob had a great illustration to use with chapter 3, verse 12.  I wish I had the pictures he used and a video of his demonstration, but I don't know what he does with them after he records each day.

The verse says, "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other, and for everyone else, just as ours does for you."

This is not just to increase within ourselves.  What good is a cup that is filled and filled, until it overflows like this one above, if it only spills out into the floor?  Yes, it is great to have others pouring into you, but you also need others that you are pouring into.  Erin, a college student and intern at FBC refers to this as having a Paul, Timothy, and Barnabus.  We all need at least one of each.  We need someone who is more mature than us in the faith that can teach us and pour into us. (Pual).  We need someone younger than us, who needs someone above them in the faith, so that we can share with them. (Timothy).  We also need a Barnabus, someone who is with us along the journey to understand and grow right along side us. 

This is what our overflowing faith should look like!  One person pouring into another, all encouraging each other and building each other up in the faith.

May your love not only increase within yourself, but may it also overflow into the world!

Wonderful Wednesdays

Guess what day it is!

 

I love Wednesdays.  I have the blessing of getting to start every Wednesday morning out with a group of some of my favorite girls.  My cross country team meets at Chick-fil-a for breakfast and Bible Study around 7:15.  Recently, we have all been bringing a verse to share each week.  It is so encouraging to hear things that speak to other Christians!  Someone may know or find a verse that I just love, but have never heard before that day.  We all have positive attitudes going into the school day.  Of course, getting some of their yummy coffee is always motivating for me in first block at school, too.  We also take prayer requests for anything and pray together before we leave.

 

I am so thankful my Dad is willing to take so much time each week to drive us and sit in CFA since our team is so young!  We have only 2 other drivers, and one of them can't go to school first period because of dual enrollment.  Lately, we have been having an over-full car!  Here we are last week!  9 of us total, including my Dad!

 

 

This Wednesday was also a great day at school!  I got so much done and felt confident in my midterm exams.

 

Cross coutry on Wednesdays is very predicatable.  Almost every week, we do what we call in park road run.  It is a 10k through the road of the park, campground, and boat ramp.  This is no easy run!  There is one especially killer hill!  I love it anyways.  Sometimes, however, we do group indian runs on the trails, which is what we did yesterday.  I was so hungry before practice, I was shaking.  It began to worry me, but Coach Farmer gave me a few Gatorade energy chews that he keeps in his truck.  That helped a little bit.  Sometimes we do themes on these runs for the next person going to the front, and this time we did rhyming words!  It was pretty funny; these themes always make the time pass faster.  The last mile was on our own, and I felt so strong through that hilly mile loop!  Every Wednesday we also do accelerations around a triangle of trees in a large, almost flat field next to the parking lot.  We go slow around the two short legs, and go hard like we are finishing a race around the long one.  We only did 4 accelerations today, but they felt terrific too!

 

Now I just had to wait on Dad to pick me up and get home to be in the biggest hurry of each week.  On Wednesdays that I have time (which I try to force time), I go to church after practice.  However, of course I have to eat first.  I like to have pizza on Wednesdays (I make my own). Monday night I had extra time, so I went ahead and made my sauce and mixed the cheese in with it, so tonight all I would have to do is warm up the sausage, put the mix on, and stick it in the oven.  Now I was off to the shower!  After cleaning up super quick, I stuffed my face with half of a pizza and fixed a bowl of cheesecake pudding with pumpkin, cinnamon, and graham crackers for dessert.

 

Now for the finale of my wonderful Wednesday:  church!  I just love going in and worshipping with my friends in Equip (our student ministry).  We also got our new shirts with the logo on them tonight.  I also love hearing Rob and our other leaders preach the Word.  Positive feelings always flow from my church family!

 

I look forward to every Wednesday!

 yummy dinner and dessert, church