[Surfers] Daniel In The Lion's Den

This morning in Surfers we looked at the story of Daniel getting chucked in the lion's den, because he thought that God was the most important thing in the world. He wanted to keep on praying, despite the pressure to ignore God like many of the people around him - and the very real threat to him.

In your Grid magazine, page 6 has a quiz to think about what things you think are important. Page 7 has a retelling of the story from Daniel's POV and a survey of the top five fears (strangely, being thrown in a lion's den isn't one of them).

Its Your Move 2008

Each year, Scripture Union run a 4 day camp in August for children going up to secondary school. Its organised by our schools worker, Andrea and I've helped out at the last two (and I'm helping to lead this one).

For those of you currently in Year 6, would you be interested in going?

Its from 18th-21st August at the Oakwood Youth Challenge activity centre in Wokingham.

Details are here:

http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/Summer/SU26It’sYourMove(Berks)/4633.id
(but please note - despite the photo - there isn't a swimming pool)

I am intending to have all camps and activities next year paid out of central funds (mostly covered by grants I hope), so there is nothing to pay. If you are interested and you are fairly certain that you are available, please let me know as soon as possible.

Please note: The camp filled up very quickly last year, so please let me know ASAP if they can come.

Go Underground

Website of the week is Underground - the youth and student ministry of Open Doors.

Open Doors work with persecuted Christians around the world - people who are being badly treated and imprisoned just vbecause of their faith in God.

The website contains lots of information on the situation of Christians around the world. It also has some events coming up and practical things that you can do. You can also sign up for their magazine and get prayer texts sent to your mobile.

There is loads of stuff there. Take a look.

Baptism

If you are considering getting baptised any time soon...

We are going to have a short session after church on Sunday to talk about baptism and think about whether it is right for you.

We are hoping to do some Baptisms on 4th November. But even if that is too soon for you and you are 'just looking' it would still be good to talk about it on Sunday.

The session should be all done and dusted by 1pm at the latest.

More details possibly here.

See you there!

Safe To Grow Policy

Finally got round to uploading the Safe To Grow Policy on to the church web site.

Whilst not very exciting, the policy explains our commitment to children and young people and gives us a benchmark against which our work can be judged. It is taken from guidelines issued by the Baptist Union, which are available here (or you can just go into the Youth Resource Room at church and flick through the big orange book in there).

My intention is to add extra notes to it over time, so that people can quickly view our progress in living up to the standards that we have set ourselves.

You can find our policy here.

Flocking

A Catholic youth group in America has come up with a brilliant fund-raising idea: Flocking.

For $25 you can nominate a friend to be 'flocked'. The youth group then sneaks out late at night and leaves a dozen pink flamingoes on their lawn for 24 hours. You can also take out anti-flocking insurance for $40.

The original news article is here.

A negative view of the idea is here.

Movie Night

As Bruce Almighty worked out so well last month, we figured we'd have another pizza^* & movie night.

The date for that is Thursday 12^th July (two days before the Fun Day). What we don't have yet is a film to show. Any suggestions? (should be PG, U or 12 certificate)

*With vegetarian, gluton-free and any other options you can think of.