Upcoming Youth Events:

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas is a favorite Christmas song but it’s so true as we start the month of December. The lights and decorations are all up, the Christmas music is playing on the radio and everyone is wearing their holiday attire. All we need now is some snow and things would be perfect. You’ll have to forgive me for the snow wish. I grew up in Northeast Ohio and we always had a white Christmas, and even an occasional white Thanksgiving. These sights and sounds are those we associate with Christmas. However, as my thoughts turn to the Nativity story in the Bible, it occurs to me how different the first Christmas looked from the holiday of today. Being a different time, different place and different culture, nothing could have looked like the Christmas season we know today.

On second thought, there may be one thing that the first Christmas has in common with today. One observation about the first Christmas that has always stuck in my mind was that it seemed to include all types of people. Of course, we have the young couple, Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus. But we also have some senior citizens, remember the elderly Simeon and the widow Anna who met the couple when they presented Jesus to the Lord in the Temple ( I always thought that account should be included in the Christmas story). We have the humble shepherds who made their way to the manger as well as the wealthy magi or wise men that bring expensive gifts to the Christ child. Don’t forget these magi were Gentiles and everyone else in the story is Jewish. You see we have people of different age, status and background making up the look of the first Christmas. I think that was one of the ways God reinforced the message of the angel to the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people” (Luke 2:10).

That’s a look we can still have in common with the look of the first Christmas. When we come together as a church to worship our Savior we are made up of all sorts of different people, young, old, rich, poor, Volunteer vans and Wildcats fans (You get what I mean). It’s great that our church is made of all these types of people and that we welcome everyone who comes to worship Jesus. I think that’s how our Christmas today looks like the very first Christmas. You know what, that’s a look we can keep all year round, too.

Merry Christmas and God Bless! Jon

Preparing my first sermon taught me a lot about communication: it is not always what you do say that makes a difference, but it is what you do not say that sometimes matters most. I learned you cannot say or write everything you wish in one sermon; you must be selective. In the same way I find myself struggling to write for this edition of the Tidings. God is doing many good things at Gap Creek and yet I am left with the responsibility of reporting those couple of essential points which are most important to communicate.

First, the Youth Leadership Team has met twice in the last two months. This team includes Danielle Elliot, Paul and Penny Kobel, Heidi Kobel, Justin and Lindsey Fehl and me. We are working together to develop a more effective and organized youth ministry that will best meet the primary goal of helping our youth grow spiritually. We are taking action on several fronts in order to meet this goal. This includes reorganizing our classrooms to better fit the needs of our youth, introducing new curriculum, promoting our congregational strengths, such as missions and Bible study, developing a mission statement to guide our youth ministry, and encouraging quality from all volunteers, teachers, and sponsors that work with our youth. As in every church the youth ministry at Gap Creek will always face challenges, but with God’s help I believe our Youth Leadership Team is helping to make our youth program a quality ministry dedicated to the spiritual growth of our young people, from nursery through high school.

Second, we need your help! Part of growing into a quality ministry is a strong base of volunteers. We need you if Gap Creek’s youth ministry is to meet the goal of spiritual development. We need teachers who are dedicated to teaching one student on a weekly basis. We need prayer partners to take one or two youth under their wings and pray for them daily. We need drivers, encouragers, and sponsors. In short, we need a strong base of volunteers who are dedicated to the spiritual growth of our youth, starting with the nursery all the way through the high school students. All this is to say: be ready to be asked to volunteer with our youth! Continue to pray for Gap Creek. God is doing many good this among us! Amen!

The National Missionary Convention took place on November 16-20. The entire convention was wonderful with hundreds of workshops ranging in emphasis from missions in the local church to recruitment for missionaries to the most obscure corners of the world. More than 650 mission organizations were on display in the exhibit area and in the hallways of the convention center.

Total attendance for the convention far exceeded any of the previous conventions. In fact, almost 9,000 people attended on Friday evening. This was by far the largest night of attendance in the history of the NMC, beating the previous one night record by more than 2,000. Total attendance for the convention was close to 12,000. Contributing to this year’s attendance records were almost 4,000 youth who made the National Missionary Convention’s youth program a part of this year’s Indiana Christian Youth Convention.

Through the course of NMC, 59 people made decisions for missionary service. Included among the sea of exhibits were displays from Jaintia Hills India Christian Mission (Uriahs), Bajio Christian Mission (Hoffs), Johnson Bible College, Cookson Hills Children’s Home, and many others. Johnson Bible College students represented the largest student group from any of our sister colleges.

Now is the time to think about next year. The 2007 National Missionary Convention will be held in Cincinnati, Ohio, November 15-18 and will focus on “Training-Encouraging-Recruiting.” I hope to see you there!

Tyson