Experiences. We all have many different faith and life experiences. Growing up in Lexington, I experienced a UK football loss every fall to UT. Unfortunately, that is an experience that has continued well into my adulthood. I did not grow up in the Methodist tradition and I can’t remember not ever being at church. Perhaps you have been a life-long Methodist or you may have just started coming to church and are new to FCUMC. You might experience God easier in a traditional style of worship or maybe you find it easier to worship in a contemporary style like the Journey service. You might enjoy God’s presence serving behind the scenes on your knees or traveling to a place where you don’t know the language and getting your hands a little dirty. Either way, we all have different faith and life experiences.
To help our youth experience all that Fountain City UMC and the Christian life offer, we hope to encourage them through Christian friendships. We want to teach them what the Bible says about faith and life. We want to provide opportunities for them to serve and express their love to God with their lives. This might happen at a Bible study when our Middle School youth are studying “Who is God?” or the high school youth spending this school year reading the Bible “one minute a day.” It could be by inviting a friend to a youth group activity so they get to know other youth and experience God’s grace for themselves. It might even be by blowing bubbles in a yard full of children in Nicaragua or replacing windows on a home in Memphis. Let’s not forget all the many ways that Andrew Duncan provides for our youth to experience their faith through music. Again, we all experience the Christian life a little differently.
This coming Sunday morning you will get to see and hear how our youth are experiencing their faith. Just a few of the ways our youth will be serving on Sunday are by singing in the choir, providing special music and leading us in prayers. You will also get to hear firsthand from high school seniors Sarah Beasley, Garrett Chapman, Tucker Bolus, Rachel DeHart and Beth White about how their own personal experiences at FCUMC have helped them experience their own faith.
This Sunday, I truly believe you will get to experience what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote to his young protégé Timothy, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”
I hope you join us this Sunday so that you might experience God in a new way and to help make this Sunday a special “experience” for our youth.
- Coop
