Club Santa Rita!

Have I talked about our awesome youth ministry before? If you want to hear my shaky voice speak about it in front of our congregation, go here. If you'd rather see awesome pictures with awesomer commentary, read on!

I really wasn't sure about this ministry when it began. Not because I didn't like the Morgans, but because I loved Jacob so much and he played a very influential role in my life, and it was hard to "let go" of that relationship, as I saw it.

But I let go of my expectations and I was pleasantly surprised when I put effort into the ministry and allowed myself to enjoy being a part of it instead of sulking over the "loss" of Jacob. (Again, as I saw it. He is still around, just not as present in my life these days.)

So last semester, we talked a lot about love and how to love people. We defined it as four things: Go, See, Have Compassion, and Act. And Jesus did each of these things throughout his ministry on earth. We talked about loving people and seeing them the way God sees them and pursuing relationships withe people, not because we want to convert them. But because we love them. Because God loves them. And because as Christians, Christ's love ought to overflow out of us and into them. And it is a beautiful thing when that happens.

The Morgans encouraged us to use these four aspects of love in our relationships with people and work on building a few new relationships. So we did.

And then this semester, we're doing a crazy awesome event called Club Santa Rita! It is based a lot off of the young life model. We play games, sing songs, do funny skits, and in the end, there's a short little message.

But the whole thing is all about the relationships. It's all about loving our friends the way God loves them. And it's been a lot of fun.

 We've done three club nights so far! A disco night

 A regular club night.

 And Country/Hick night!

 Jake looked amazing in his country get-up! It was difficult to take him seriously!

We've been meeting on highschool campus and it has been LOADS of fun just being goofy with the kids. Everyone is a great sport! This week we played "Do you love your neighbor?" "Mad Gab" and we had a Cricket Spittin' competition.We do crazy stuff and it's awesome!

This whole ministry has really grown on me over the last year and I have learned a lot while participating in it. I am so grateful to everything the Morgans have done for us and all the effort they have put into it. Youth ministry is so cool!