NB: LIVE Jr/Mid Hi Youth Event Leadership Team

If you are in Middle School/Jr Hi and you attended a previous New Beginnings event you may apply for the team.  You can also go to NB again and not serve in the leadership team.

Teen Team Members should have one of the following qualifications:

• Attended NB before
• Attended TEC before
• Been to LIT at Camp Cross

To Join the Team: click this link!

Adult Team Members:

• Safe Church training complete
• Recently active at a congregation in the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane or Camp Cross
• Age 18 and up.

TEEN Team members MUST BE AVAILABLE FOR THE WHOLE EVENT IN CDA

We will be focusing on digital prepwork: email, phone, video conference; instead of an overnight. 

Questions...contact JAG youthministries@spokanediocese.org

NB:5x5 Leadership Team Message 1

Leadership Team Overnight is November 1-2 at All Saints in Richland!!!!

We will begin at 10am.

• We know some of you will still be on your way at that moment!   
• Please keep Jane posted about your travel.   
•  If you need help arranging carpools…contact Lucas K if you are in the Spokane area..and Jane or Colin if elsewhere. 
• We will have dinner available when you arrive.   
• We will finish up after lunch after the worship service on Sunday morning, WHERE THE BISHOP WILL BE PRESENT!!  So 2-3ish.

Where are You Going: All Saints Episcopal Church in Richland, Washington

To BRING

• Sleeping on the floor stuff            
• Comfy appropriate clothes and shoes
• Church clothes  (as you choose)           
• Toiletries and stuff               
• Water bottle
• Mobile device (if you use one) and if you have a TABLET OR NOTEBOOK COMPUTER that you regularly use.  (If you don’t regularly use one then don’t worry about it).
• A paper notepad and writing implements

THEME THOUGHTS FOR YOU

5X5: It is radio code for being all clear.  Sort of like the ‘can you hear me now’ commercials.  For the Buffy fans in the crew it is also something that Faith commonly utters which seems analogous with ‘cool’.  What brings the ‘all clear’ to your life and the lives of your peers? What causes the static and the not ‘all clear’??

The scripture for the event is the parable of the Good Samaritan.  Do you know it as well as you imagine?  Have you really read it?  Can you search for cool online videos of the story?  How about children’s bible versions of the parable??  What is the primary question of the parable and what is the answer??????  How does this speak to the life of young people right now??

Join the New Beginnings Prayer Network

This November 15-16-17 is our annual  

New Beginnings retreat for 6th, 7th and 8th grade youth.  

We would love your prayer support during this event.  If you can remember to hold the event in your prayers regularly between now and the event; and make a special effort to pray during the event..that is all we ask. 

All who desire to hold the teens, peer leaders and adult leaders in prayer are invited to join us.

If you want to join the prayer network...

would you please add your name to the comments section below, offering your initials, a one or two word prayer and where you are from [for example: jag, health & generosity, walla walla]. 

Here are a few BCP prayer suggestions and digital links to the prayers.

• For Young Persons (BCP 829)
• For the right use of God's gifts (BCP 827)
• For guidance, confidence, protection, or dedication (BCP 832)

Perhaps you could try the d365 daily devotion site as a prayer guide.  This cooperative project of the Episcopal and Presbyterian churches is available year round and soon as a downloadable app!

Or you could try the 3-minute-retreat, since we are praying for the New Beginnings retreat.

Whatever prayer method or mode you choose, your support will be known. 

Blessings to you and your community!

Double-Decker Overnight called New Beginnings!

If the first thing that comes to mind when you read the word 'retreat' is monastic, then you might not know what to make of a 'teen retreat weekend.' 

Maybe we could call New Beginnings an 'experience' or an 'adventure'. 

Perhaps we could call it a double-decker overnight with a hearty filling of love and topped with pop rocks! Hmm. 

For now however, we know it is a retreat for young people.  This adventure we call New Beginnings isn't monastic (although it has contemplative parts) and it isn't solitary (NB is all about Christian community); however it is a retreat for middle school or junior high (6-7-8th graders) youth.

It is an offering of two evenings and the surrounding hours to learning and growing as a young teen in Christ's church. A peer-led 'experience', New Beginnings offers young people the blessings of a broad and connected church that no single congregation can offer. Through games, prayer, talks and skits the New Beginnings retreat will play and pray with topics like growth and family and how those complications connect to Christ's call to live with unbounded love.  Furthermore NB encourages young people to return from the retreat with the will to serve God with the local church community.  

We invite you to offer this unusual gift to the middle school or junior high youth in your life.  PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE (or print and mail) with a personal invite to the families of middle school youth in your life.  It is a Christian weekend with prayer, sacramental worship, biblical teaching and more. 

New Beginnings is coming up quickly...November 15-17 at the Cathedral in Spokane. Pre-registration is crucial and can be done online at spokanediocese.org/youth.   If you have any questions please contact Jane Gober via email janeg AT stpaulsww.org  .

W2: JAG is part of the leadership team for this event and she will need to be in Spokane independently of our young people.  Therefore Walla Walla friends...we need to find an adult(s) who can help with transportation of young people for New Beginnings.  Perhaps one person could deliver and another retrieve?  Any safe-church-current adult is welcome to stay with us at the Cathedral for the weekend and help in the background (or the deep deep background). 

Away and Daydreaming

This week I am out of Walla Walla to places as far flung as Lake Tahoe and Spokane.  At Lake Tahoe I am attendin the Western Christian Educators Conference.  This is a joint event of the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (pcusa) and is hosted at the marvelous Zephyr Point Conference Center.  We also have youth leadership from many of the Province 8 dioceses.  This group of Episcopeeps had our own meeting before the conference began in earnest, and it has been a good deal of fun reuniting with old friends and making new companions.  A funny moment happened on Monday.  I had been sending a friend and fellow youth worker a variety of questions.  During a break I checked into my room and discovered not only was this pal on her way to the event, she was my roomie! 

The conference itself is centered on the work of John Roberto and meeting the cultural bleswings of the digital revolutions.  Can we create a local ecclesia that is a life supporting AND a digital network connected to our physical and spiritual community and tradition?

On Thursday I fly back to Washington and then head north to Spokane for the Youth Leadership Event that coincides with diocesan convention.  At the YLe we will be preparing youth to be peer leaders at the upcoming TEC and NEW BEGINNINGS weekends. At convention we will be blessed by the stories of Sarah Miles.  She is a leader at St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco.  An innovative and challenging congregation whose work is worth exploring.  Incedentally I am here at this conference at LakeTahoe with one of the fouding priests and a current priest, both of whom are old friends. 

Fall Youth Events - Spokane Diocese

Leadership Retreat and New Beginnings: Oct. & Nov.

The Leadership Retreat for grades 9-12 will occur on Oct. 18th 5:00pm - Oct. 20th 12:30pm. The retreat is scheduled for the weekend of Diocesan Convention at St. John's Cathedral 127 E. 12th Ave, Spokane, WA 99202. Participants will be trained to fill leadership roles for the T.E.C. and New Beginnings youth events.  

In order to lead at T.E.C. or New Beginnings participation in the Leadership Retreat is required.

New Beginnings, set to take place Nov 15-17th for grades 6th-8th, will explore and strengthen the participants journey with Christ through peer lead discussions, skits and topical talks. This weekend is also held at St. John's Cathedral, Spokane. Previous attendees may attend as Team Leaders.

For more information on any of our Diocesan Youth Events please contact: Colin Haffner (colinh@spokanediocese.org) or Michelle Klippert (mmklip@comcast.net) Or, for other youth event information check out the youth page on the diocesan website www.spokanediocese.org/youth