The Knight-ly News: Youth Weekend

I know I'm always running 2 or 3 weeks behind on this thing, but we might as well all get used to it. Its the same way with laundry, Christmas shopping, dusting, and cleaning all of Kevin's junk out of the car...it all keeps getting shifted to the bottom of the to-do list. The weekend of November 13th was our designated Youth Weekend (I know you've slept since then but so have I so hang with me). This can be classified in the "good" category of blog posts. The TNU group "Rooted" drove over from Nashville on that Friday afternoon and set up their band equipment in the sanctuary and then joined us for pizza in the fellowship hall. I've discovered that youth gatherings of any kind are really similar to middle school dances....everyone separates into gender-based groups and the two sides never meet. Mingling is a completely foreign concept when it comes to junior high kids meeting new people. Lookout Valley Church of the Nazrene brought about 16 kids up for the Friday night service and we loved having them! Friday night's music was really loud in our little sanctuary so the kids had a hard time following along but we got all the kinks worked out in time for the Saturday evening service.

Saturday morning at 7:30am we met 9 of our kids at the church to take them down to the Chattanooga Rescue Mission. We don't have a church van so some of our parents joined the mayhem to serve as chauffers for the day. A few of our friends from Lookout Valley got up early to meet us down there. We spent the morning cleaning the laundry room, organizing the food pantry, mopping, sweeping, raking leaves, and lugging in supplies. I'm sure it sounds like we worked them to death, but believe me when I say they had a good time (and I have the blackmail pictures to prove it!) The mission is in the process of remodeling and moving into a recently purchased school building. They were running behind schedule so there wasn't too much for us to do that day. Right now the mission is cramming about 75 people a night into a place meant to house about 35 at the most. Until they can move into the new building they'll continue to put mattresses on the floor in the chapel and hallways to get people out of the cold.

On Sundays, Sunday School begins at 10am and morning worship begins at 10:45am. At about 10:15am some people in the parking lot heard a loud pop and the lights went out all over the neighborhood. Yep - a transformer blew. So we had Sunday School in the dark. The TNU kids came to my class and after a short lesson on "joy" I gave them all a chance to talk and get to know one another better. I think it shed a little light on some options my high school kids hadn't every considered. Most of them have never even visited Trevecca. Although its not for everyone, we want them to have the option of seeing what its all about. We're planning a trip in February to take them all to a TNU basketball game.

After Sunday School we were preparing to have church in the dark and the musicians were going to play acoustically since the electric guitars, bass, and keyboards were out of commission. Just as things were getting started the lights came back on and everyone cheered. I think the kids enjoyed experiencing a new music style and having a speaker focused mainly on them. The parents and older folks in our church enjoyed it also and were faithful to support our youth throughout the weekend. We look forward to more events like this in the future.

Regrouping once the lights came back on

Sure Dylan, Matthew, and Brandon (aka: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil) look innocent...but don't let them fool you.

Group shot in front of the mission

What's raking without a little air guitar?

Josh (pastor at Lookout Valley) and me being stupid with the camera.

I know the tree looks pretty but its FAKE. Who plants fake trees in the front yard?

Chattanooga Rescue Mission: The building on your left is the mission kitchen and housing for the men in the Christian Discipleship Program and the one on the right houses the women.