Happy New Year!

I hope that you all had an amazing Christmas! I just want to remind everyone that we will not be meeting next week, we will be starting up again on January 7th. Have a sweet vacation!

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!!

'Tis the Season for our annual Christmas party!

Join us Monday, December 17th at 6:30pm at Jesse & Lisa's home.

Bring a snack to share and a wrapped white elephant gift for our yankee swap.

Angel Tree Christmas Gift Deliveries

Angel Tree Christmas: Mark your calendars for Saturday December 22, 2007 to join us in celebrating Christmas by sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and delivering Christmas presents to children who will not celebrate Christmas with one or both parents this year. This opportunity is sure to bring you and the children receiving gifts much joy!

David Crowder Band Concert

The sold out concert has moved to a larger venue and tickets are available again! Join us November 9 for the concert. We will leave from the church(Time TBA). Tickets are $30 (includes tickets, handling charges and gas). Please give your $ to Lisa, Jesse or Germaine as soon as possible. You don't want to miss this!

Coming soon to a youth group near you

Everybody keep your ears open for info on our Encounter Winter Reatreat. The weekend of January 18-20 we'll join hundreds of other Nashua area teens over at Monadnock Bible Conference for one of our favorite weekends of the year. They have tons to do including laser tag, an indoor pool, inflatable games, snow tubing, the Hillside open mic, and more! For our sessions we'll have music lead by the Arise worship team and messages from Fouad Faris. The cost of $110 for the whole weekend includes food, housing, transportation. If you want stuff from the bookstore or snack shop then bring a little extra cash. Give your medical form and $60 deposit to Germaine to register.

An a-MAZE-ing experience!!

As my favorite time of year is upon us, so is one of my all time favorite activities! On Saturday, October 13th, we will be traveling down to "Lost Vegas" in Sterling, MA at Davis' Mega Maze. It's always a fun time & great adventure. And for the competative types... always a challenge to see which team can make it out first!! :)

We will be meeting at CCA at 11:30am and returning at approximately 6:00pm. The cost is $10 if we get more than 20 people, but $17 if we don't. And food is also available for purchase after the maze is completed at "Caesar's Palette". Don't forget to bring your permission form with you. If you have any additional questions feel free to contact me, G, at 673-8292.

I'll see you at the pole!

It's that time of year again, where thousands of students around the world gather around the flagpoles before school to pray. Wednesday, September 26th is the big day. You can check out their website at http://www.syatp.com/ to print up posters and fliers and stuff. Get the word out, and come out to your flagpole to join the prayer revolution!

The Monday beforehand, Sept 24th, from 6:30-8:30pm we're hosting a Youth Rally at Christ's Church. We've invited youth groups from all over the area so you'll get to meet Christians from your school that go to other churches. We'll have ice cream sundaes, music, prayer, sharing...and did I mention ice cream sundaes! I hope you can make it out to get preped and ready for SYATP.

Labor Day Kickoff Party!

Well it's about that time again. The summer's winding down, nights are starting to cool off, and Back-to-School sales abound. But the good news is, that means youth group is starting up again! That's right, we'll be having our Labor Day Kickoff Party on Monday night, Sept. 3rd from 6-9pm at the Willette's house (30 Hammond Rd, Milford, behind the furniture store). So come on over for some volleyball, croquet, and bring your swimming suits if you wanna use the pool. It'll be a great time to see everybody again and catch up after a long summer. Please bring a snack or drink to share. Hope you can make it!

Sum, sum, summertime!

Well we're off for the summer. I hope you've all had a great year at youth group. Here's a little video for you that I hope will bring back some good memories. Check out the photo archives for more pics and fun times! Have a great summer and we'll be back next Labor Day!!!

End of the Year Pool Party

Celebrate the end of the school year with a stellar pool party at the Nilson's house (directions) this Monday night from 6:30-8:30pm. Bring along your swim suits and a snack or drink to share. Also prepare yourself for one of the greatest games of youth group croquet ever!! There's no better way to kick off the summer than this, so come join us for a good time!

Game Night

This Monday come celebrate Memorial Day at my house (directions) with board games, lawn games, and maybe even some old school kickball!! That's right, no regularly scheduled Bible Study this week, Game Night instead!! So come on over from 6:30-9pm. Bring a snack or drink to share. Games will be provided. C-ya then!

More on Sweatshops

Last night we talked briefly on sweatshops so I thought I'd expand on it here. Sweatshops are manufacturing facilities where conditions are inhumane and workers are overworked, underpaid and often abused physically or mentally. Most major companies contract out the manufacturing of their products to the lowest bidder. So often times, the cheapest bidder is the one that pays their workers only cents a day and makes them work long, arduous hours.

You can cast your vote against sweatshops by how you spend your money. Knowmore.org is a great online resource that rates major companies based on six categories: Human Rights, Worker's Rights, Business Ethics, Political Influence, Environmental Concern, and Globalization. You can look up the stores you shop at regularly and discover how they rate. Keep in mind, some of those stores may be owned by a larger corperation so you may have to browse around to find out who's their parent company. You can also check out www.behindthelabel.org for more info on sweatshops, stores that use them, and how you can get involved to stop them. If you want to buy some guaranteed sweatshop free merch then check out www.nosweatapparel.com. They can even print your own design on sweatshop free apparel so you can make a statement of your own!

Thanks for your interest in helping make a difference in the fight for worker's rights. I hope these resources can be a help to you in finding alternative stores that use more ethical and humane practices.

Sign up now!

Come join us this summer from July 23-28 at the Teen Leadership Conference in Pennsylvania! It's an amazing time with great speakers, a phenomenal worship band, the Underground Cafe, ultimate frisbee, swimming, volleyball tourney, all-you-can-eat every meal, and sooooo much more. Check out last years video to see for yourself what it's like. The cost is only $230 if you sign up before June 15th so get your forms in today. See more details and print off your registration form on the Events page.

Arise Worship Evening

Coming May 12th to a church near you! Those who went on the Winter Retreat will remember the great music team that lead us in worship each session. Some of you may have even caught them at Soulfest last summer. Well in just a few short weeks on Saturday, May 12th, they'll be leading a community worship celebration at 6:30pm at Trinity Baptist Church in Nashua. Tickets are $7 in advance, $9 at the door. Or if you're involved in Sharefest then your admission is free!

Sharefest is a community-wide service day where we will team up with lots of other youth groups and families to help out at some of the elementary schools in Nashua. Your $25 donation will go towards project materials, transportation, pizza dinner, t-shirt, and concert admission. If you want to join us, please return your registration form to Mike as soon as possible.

Game Night

I'm sure I don't have to remind you all that next week is vacation week!! So that means no regular youth group, but instead we're having Game Night at the Griffins house (directions). So get your game on and come on and join us over from 6:30-8:30pm! Please bring a snack or drink to share so we have enough munchies. Hope you can make it!!

The countdown is on

Just a few short days from now we'll be gathering for a common purpose, to help save the lives of thousands of children dying of starvation everyday. You can help by collecting sponsors for our 30 Hour Famine. April 13 we'll start fasting after lunch, then meet at the church at 6:30pm to spend the rest of our fast together. During that time we'll play team games where you'll earn valuable survival points for your tribe, help with service projects around the community, collect food to give to the shelter, and lots of other great stuff.

Even if you can't make it to the event you can still collect money and you can still fast on your own. Or even if you don't collect sponsors you can still come to the event. We'll work with you, just let us know. So keep collecting those donations and we hope you can come April 13!

30 Hour Famine

There's lots of cool stuff going on so be sure to check out the Events page for the latest, but I do want to highlight our 30 Hour Famine. On April 13-14 we will be participating in an international event where church youth groups fast for 30 straight hours to raise money for the thousands of kids who go hungry everyday. Statistically every 16 seconds another child will die of hunger...but you can help. Collect sponsors and join the famine to Starve Hunger. See Mike for your Famine Sponsor kit.

New Videos

In case you haven't seen it yet, we have a video up on the media page from our Video Scavenger Hunt last weekend. It was definitely good times for all involved. (Disclaimer: No cows were harmed during the making of this film.)

I also want to clue you in on the progress of our Invisible Children Road Crew friends who will be with us on Sunday night, March 25th. They've been to New York, Boston, Rhode Island, and are currently in Connecticut. Here's the latest video from their time in Boston.


Fun Times in Boston

NO Bible Study

Since next week is vacation week for most of you we won't be having our regularly scheduled Bible Study. Instead you're all invited over to my house (directions) for game night! We'll have various card and board game options for everyone's enjoyment. Please bring a snack or drink to share so there'll be plenty of goodies to go around. Hope you can make it!

Video Scavenger Hunt

Have you ever had the urge to sing in an elevator, or pretend to be somebody famous, or make a human pyramid with complete strangers? Well here's your chance! This Saturday, February 17th we'll be joining in a Video Scavenger Hunt where you could be asked to do all this and more! Starting at 3:00pm we'll split up into teams for the Hunt, go collect crazy videos, then come back together for pizza and scoring the videos. Please bring $3 for pizza and any of your friends that may want to join us. Download your permission slip here. So come this Saturday to race against other teams and the clock in an effort to collect the most random, creative, crazy videos ever!

They're on their way

The Invisible Children New England Road Team is on their way! Alana, Chris, Brent, and Heather left San Diego with the East Coast Road Team and drove 3 days across the county to begin their tour. They've been in New York and Boston so far, but the anticipation is mounting as we're getting excited for them to join us on March 25th. At 7:00 that Sunday evening we're hosting a screening of the film at Christ's Church and will have a little Q&A time with the IC Road Team. If you're new to Invisible Children you can find them online at www.invisiblechildren.com and www.myspace.com/invisiblechildren. Check out this video of the first leg of their crazy trip, and be sure to keep the Team and their tour in your prayers as they make their way toward NH.


Three Day West to East Coast Road Trip

Winter Retreat

Danielle and Heather battled it out with bloated sumo bellies (Gwen and Kayleen did too), Andrew serenaded the crowd with his sweet melodies, and in the end Mr. T pulled the upset victory over the infamous Chuck Norris. It was a fun filled, non-stop weekend up at Monadnock Bible Conference this past weekend and those were just a few of the highlights. Fouad Faris, our speaker, did a great job challenging us to be strong in our convictions and real in our faith. Overall it was a great weekend building relationships with each other, meeting other Christians from around our communities, and hearing from God. We're already looking forward to what they're cooking up for us next year! You can see all the highlights of the weekend over at the photo gallery and keep your eyes open for a video coming soon. (Afterall we've gotta do something with all that footage Andrew recorded!)

Welcome to 2007!

Well we're back! Hope you've all enjoyed your vacation and your holidays. This Monday we're starting youth group back up again, first youth group of 2007, so come on over at 6:30. We'll start up our new small groups for the year, but you can get an exclusive preview right here! Check out the small groups page for a little glimpse of what each of the groups will be about and how you can come prepared. I hope you're all looking forward to it as much as I am. See you there!