Winter

A lot has happened since the last blog!

Rock Solid is still going really well. We always have a lot of fun with games and other activities and we've learnt about all kinds of things. Its great to see the girls encouraging each other and working together when we set them challenges.

TOAST is now the official name of our Kids Club. Its stands for "Tuesdays Of A School Term". We continue to have lots of fun, stories and toast there too! At our most recent club we learnt how to do some balloon modelling which was a lot of fun, and we heard about a story from the bible in which a man got lowered through someone's roof on a stretcher to get to Jesus, and then Jesus healed him and forgave his sins!

Balloon Modelling at TOAST kids club

 Clusters has been postponed for a while but we hope to get it going again soon.

At YFC we've had Catalyst and Vibe - both island wide events but quite different from each other. Catalyst is an accessible worship evening for young people with a relevant talk and Vibe is a fun evening packed full of activities and madness!

Just before Christmas we ran an AOK cafe in a local secondary school where we made hot chocolate for all the students who wanted some (about 150 in the space of half an hour!).  

Hot Chocolate!

YFC have also been away as a team. We spent a week in Manchester for the annual National YFC Conference. We all heard some great talks and seminars and enjoyed spending the week together, learning a lot and getting closer to God. Some of us also went up to Birmingham to take part in some mentoring training. 

We've had a block week at Moorlands and now just have a couple of weeks of lectures left until the end of term so we're working on our mid-year portfolio submissions.

I've recently started a 6 week programme in a local primary school called 'Bible Explorer' where we teach whole of the Old or New Testament in a really interactive way.

23rd November 2014

Its been another brilliant week at Gunville!

At Rock Solid this week we talked about the fact that just like you cant get anything other than toothpaste out of a tube of toothpaste, only good stuff will come from God. We also played lots of games!

We learnt the same thing at Kids club, and we also talked about rules and had lots of fun with crazy dressing up relay races and other games... (and toast of course!)

Clusters was great too, we asked the girls what kind of questions they want to talk about over the coming weeks... the most popular response was "can we have a sleep over?" !!!

We didn't have Rising Tide this week because we did 'Secret Church' this Sunday morning to help us to learn about and pray for Christians who live in parts of the world where they are persecuted for following Jesus.

This week we also had Emerge at YFC which I presented with Cameron. We had a time for singing worship which was great and we heard a brilliant talk from Ian about trials and temptations.

We had our weekly YFC prayer breakfast on Monday all about being thankful even in tough situations and I've also been writing essays, attending lectures, doing lots of planning and taking part in meetings!

16th November 2014

God is growing our youth work at Gunville Methodist Church and its so exciting!

We've now been running Kids Club and Clusters for two weeks and they've both been really successful.

At Rock Solid we've been having lots of fun making pompoms and cornflake cakes and talking about how God provides for us. 

Rock Solid

At Kids club we've had lots of colour and fun with a great group of kids who we're really excited to spend more time with over the coming weeks and months. We've experimented with all kinds of combinations to spread on toast, and we've learnt about what God has created, from the stars in space, to the things we really need like food and water. We've also had lots of ideas for a name for the kids club... we'll let you know when we decide on our favorite!

Kids Club

We also launched Clusters last week for young people in years 7&8. It's been great to get to spend more time together. Among other things, we've watched a bit of one of the Narnia films and talked about how it is similar to the story of Jesus. 

I've also had lots of meetings (as usual!) and have been going to Moorlands once a week and writing essays.

On Friday 7th we ran CATALYST at YFC where we had a shoe-box wrapping challenge, saw one of the leaders get a marsbar out of green custard with his teeth(!), sang some worship to God and heard a talk about faith in action. It was a great evening and we're looking forward to the next CATALYST on 5th December and EMERGE on the 21st October.

2nd November 2014

Last week we had lots going on and next week there will be even more!

Rock Solid last week was super exciting! Not only did we play crazy games like 'jump the sock' and 'newspaper hockey', but we also had a really great time in our upstairs 'chat time' where we ended up talking about what it really means to give your life to Jesus, and some of the girls that come along decided that that was something they would like to do!

I've had lots and lots of meetings, but some of them have been exciting ones about new groups that we're about to launch. This week we'll be hosting the very first kids club at Gunville, and also the first cluster group for years 7&8!

At Moorlands we continued to learn about working with other cultures, and then about the Old Testament where we studied 'covenant texts'.

On Friday YFC ran Emerge which was a great evening of worship and the first of a series of talks about the book of James. We even got a surprise performance from Phil who decided to play a song on guitar!

I've been away visiting friends and family this week while we've had a break from clubs and activities for half term, but I was back in time for our Light Party today where we had lots of craft activities, plenty of fun games and an abundance of yummy food!

19th October 2014

This week the core team from IoW YFC traveled to Wales for our annual retreat. We spent the week investing time in our relationships with each other and with God.

We took loads of time out to pray, read and chill with God. We sang together, some of us climbed Pen Y Fan, we played some games, went white water kayaking, chatted about our team values, listened to some christian podcasts and just generally enjoyed being 'away from it all' together.

Back on the Island, youth work continued. Some brilliant leaders ran Rock Solid on Monday with lots of fun games, some time for discussion and a craft. 

Today in Rising Tide we're continuing our 'Jesus the healer' theme and looking at a passage from Mark 3.

We're soon planning to launch two new groups - one a kids club, and the other a cluster group. If you'd like to be a part of the team that runs them, we're having meetings about both this week so please get in touch! Its a great opportunity to join a fantastic team of people and to get to be a part of what God is doing among the young people that we work with.

12th October 2014

It's been another busy week here.
Rock Solid on Monday was particularly exciting as we made rice crispy cakes! We also talked about the fact that although we can't see God, we know that he is still there (with the help of a crayon and some water-color paint!)

This Friday some of the girls from Gunville Rock Solid attended 'Rock Solid Night Hike' in Niton with other Rock Solid groups from across the island. We had so much fun walking around and completing lots of exciting 'spy' challenges.

As the YFC team we've been learning a lot about each other with an afternoon of Myres Briggs training on Monday to think about how we can work together even better. This coming week we're all off on retreat together in mid Wales, so we're looking forward to spending lots of quality time with God and with each other!

Moorlands brought another busy day this week with lectures on incarnation ministry and Old Testament studies.
I've also been to toddler group and a couple of meetings talking about future ideas for the church.

In a couple of weeks time we're planning to launch a couple of new groups - its a great opportunity to get involved in youth and children's work, so if you can do anything from making toast to leading games, get in touch and we'd love to welcome you to the team!

5th October 2014

We had a very noisy Rock Solid on Monday with 16 talkative girls! We learnt that God thinks we're beautiful inside, and he cares about what our hearts are like rather than our outward appearance. We also played a couple of games and continued a craft that we'd started last week.

I went into CTK on Friday to chat to the young people there at lunch and saw lots of our girls from Rock Solid and chatted with them and their friends. Its a great opportunity to continue to build relationships and to have a bit more input into their week.

With YFC we ran 'Catalyst' youth event on Friday evening with some sung worship, a great talk from Phil about making good choices, and we even gunged one of the leaders!

I've also been to Moorlands this week and had some lectures on Cross Cultural Studies and on the Old Testament, and I've been writing my first essay of 2nd year all about leadership.
As well as that, I've had a few meetings, including our first church council with our new minister where we spoke about having a vision group for the church which was exciting!

Today in Rising Tide Sunday school group we had a bible study about Jesus healing people and the going off to pray and chatted about how we can pray for others as well as other questions that came up like "did Jesus ever get sick?".

This coming Friday evening will be our Rock Solid Night Hike in Niton. It happens annually for Rock Solid groups from across the island but it will be the first one for Gunville Rock Solid so we're very excited!

If you want to get involved in youth work in any way, please do get in touch!