Category Archives: Grove Events

12.12.12
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4 Reasons ALL Parents should attend the Parent/Leader Luncheon

PARENT LEADER LUNCHIN

On Sunday, January 6th, the Grove will be hosting what we call a Parent/Small Group Leader Luncheon. This is for all parents and small group leaders who are connected in the Grove student ministry. If you are not signed up for the luncheon, I want you to consider R.S.V.P. right now! Here are 5 Reasons you should attend:
Here are 4 reasons why you should R.S.V.P. today for the Parent/Leader Luncheon:

  1. To Get fed physically- We want all parents and Leaders to come and leave full! We will have tons of food as we always do, and we need you to come and eat up. I would recommend not eating on Saturday, January 5th to save up some room for the pot luck meal :) We do ask that each family sign up to bring a dish when you R.S.V.P.
  2. To get fed spiritually- One thing that we do is share a quick thought from God’s Word. I try to always be Bible centered in our student ministry, and I want this to be true in the way that we approach students, but also in the way that we approach parents.
  3. To get fed practically- One thing that we do at the luncheon is share something pertaining to student culture of today, and discuss it, and how we can handle it with our students. This time, we will be discussing “My student and the media they consume.” We will be discussing social media, pornography, television, music, etc. It all falls under the area of media, and we want to see from the Bible how to handle our kids and the media that they consume.
  4. To get fed relationally- One of the favorite things for me and the luncheons that we have is the relationships that I am able to build with parents and leaders. Also, I love to see relationships forming and strengthening between the parents and their child’s small group leader. If you are unsure at the other points, let this one convince you to R.S.V.P. and meet new people. Let me say that I believe it is important for the parents to have a strong relationship with their teenager’s small group leader and youth pastor.

The luncheon is held on Sunday (January 6) from 12:15 (after the 11:00 am service) until 2:00 pm. The cost is free, but we ask that each family bring a dish for the meal. You will be asked what you are bringing when you R.S.V.P. Childcare is provided free of charge! You can check us out on Facebook if you would like by going here. You can R.S.V.P. below:

10.03.12
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Events Without Purpose

I finished reading the book, “Twisdom” by Matt Lawson. This is a recent book that was published by Group publishing through Simply Youth Ministry. Matt puts together many practical thoughts for student ministry and leadership that he has gained over the years through twitter. He regularly uses the hash-tags, #stumin, #youthmin, #studentministry, and #uthmin. This is a must read for all those in student ministry.

In his book, Matt gave some great thoughts about events in student ministry that really opened my eyes about a few things. In student ministry, it is easy to get used to doing games and events for the sake of doing them, but do they have purpose? Here are a few thoughts Matt gave in his book about events without purpose:

  • Events without purpose dilute the impact of the organization
  • Events without purpose diminish resources are best spent elsewhere. 
  • Events without purpose can’t be measured for effectiveness. 
  • Events without purpose can’t be accountable to Biblical stewardship. 
  • Events without purpose foster a babysitting youth ministry mentality. 

Make every event that you do have purpose and meaning!

About Matt:
Since 2000, Matt has been engaged in student ministry believing students can love Jesus with all their heart and will change the world for Him. He’s served as the high school pastor at First Baptist Woodstock in Atlanta, Georgia since March 2006. He’s contributed to several books and numerous student ministry resources. Matt lives just outside Atlanta with his wife, Laura, and kids, Deacon and Eden.

Connect with Matt:
Twitter        Facebook        Blog        Buy Twisdom Here

09.07.12
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Get Connected- Weekly Grove Newsletter

Good Afternoon!

I trust that this email finds you doing well! We are so excited about what God’s doing here in our ministry, and the opportunity we have to impact students lives’ with the gospel of Jesus this coming year. Our goal is to keep you as informed as possible, so here are a few reminders and upcoming events:

Quick Reminder to Parents: We ask for parents to bring in drinks for us to use throughout the year on Wednesday nights. We ask for each student to bring a 12 pack of drinks. We ask that no students bring diet drinks. Also, we ask for parents to sign up for snacks on Wednesday evenings throughout the year. If you would like to sign up for a certain Wednesday night, please contact Lori Beard to choose a Wednesday by emailing her at mom2kidz1@triad.rr.com or calling her at 336-414-1622. Also parents, if you were unable to attend the Parent Meeting on August 15th, we have provided our entire parent packet available to you online. Please go here to download all of the material and resources.

Our Featured Resource: This week’s featured resource is a website designed to help educate parents on youth culture! I think it is important to know what students are into regardless of if we agree with it or not. The youth culture report provides you with music updates, movie updates, and fads that students find attractive and popular. It can help you as you parent your student to be a committed follower of Jesus!

Our Featured Event: ”Love Our City” is one week away. We’ve been intensely planning for this event and are working with several organizations in the area. We’re coordinating with The Genesis House, The Children’s Home, and North Davidson High School. We will also be doing door-to-door visitation and distributing what are called “Life Books” to people in the community. Since we will be camping out, we are in need of a lot of tents. If you could bring a tent to this event, it would help us out tremendously! Please contact Pastor Josh, or myself if you would be able to help us out in this way. Also, we are in need of parents, leaders, and students to come early on Friday to help set up the tents before it gets dark. We will be meeting at the church at 6:30 pm to serve RU. If you cannot be there due to soccer games or something, you can meet us at the Garrow’s house when you get back. You can sign-up today, and the cost is $20 per student. Leaders/volunteers go for free! We just ask that every leader bring a 12 pack of can drinks. This is going to be a great event that will allow our students to serve people, and show them the love of Jesus Christ. I have attached some further information about Love our city to this email or you can go HERE to find out more details and a few FAQ’s.

Our Upcoming Events: 

  • September 8 – Family Fun Festival - This is an annual church wide event, and we would love for you and your family to be a part of it. It will be from 3-7 P.M. and it is absolutely FREE! We will have inflatables, games, a petting zoo, a hotdog meal, live music, and more! Also, if your student is in the 10th-12th and is interested in volunteering for this event, please let Pastor Josh know ASAP. R.S.V.P. on facebook and feel free to share the event HERE.
  • September 12 – Word of Life – Our weekly Wednesday night services meet in the gymnasium from 6-8 P.M. We serve food from 6-6:30, and will then have a time of worship, games, teaching, and small group discussion. We encourage your student to be a part of this on a weekly basis, and would love for any parents interested in visiting our services to come join us one night!
  • September 14-15 – Love our city - You can R.S.V.P. for “Love our City” HERE! Check out our featured event information above for more details!
  • October 6 – Service Opportunity: The Miracle League. This is a high school (10-12 grade) only event! The Miracle League is a baseball league for handicap kids. Their desire is for every kid to be able to play baseball so the Miracle League has given them a chance! Our high school ministry will have the opportunity to go and encourage these kids and be a buddy to them. We will meet at the church at 8:15 am and return at 1:30 pm. Bring money for lunch!

 We are trying to keep you as informed as possible and keep the cost as low as possible. If you ever have questions or want quick information regarding the Grove, check out our facebook page or check out the website here. You can also follow us on twitter (@ugbcgrove) for instant information regarding the Grove. We love and appreciate you. We count it a privilege to partner with you this year. If you have any questions about our student ministry, please contact Pastor Josh anytime with the info provided below.

In His Service,

Josh Evans

Student Pastor, Union Grove Baptist Church

Web: ugbconline.com Blog: joshhevans.wordpress.com

W: 336-764-2103 C: 336-953-6427 F: 336-764-8657

Email: jevans@ugbconline.com

09.06.12
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Family Fun Festival- 2 Days Away

Our annual “Family Fun Festival” is only 2 days away! You might be thinking, what is the family fun festival anyway? I am glad that you asked. It is a community wide festival held on our church campus. We invite the community to join us at our church for an afternoon of fun, fellowship, and food! Some of the activities include:

  • 12 Inflatables
  • Rock Climbing Wall
  • Cotton Candy
  • Petting Zoo
  • Princess tent
  • Popcorn
  • Snow Cones
  • Live Music
  • Hot Dog Dinner
  • MUCH MORE

The best part about the afternoon is that it is completely FREE for the entire family. Everything that I mentioned above is completely free. It is a great family event, and it gets the church being the church in the community. The date for the festival is Saturday, September 8th from 3-7 pm. The address for our church is 2295 Union Grove Rd. Lexington, NC 27295. We look forward to seeing you there! R.S.V.P. through facebook here.

08.24.12
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Get Connected- Weekly Grove Newsletter

Good Afternoon!

This is Mark (Student Ministry intern with Pastor Josh) sending out this week’s newsletter! Hope you all are doing well and had a great week as most students went back to school this week or will be going back soon. This past Wednesday we started back our Word of Life program, and had an amazing first night! Pastor Josh shared his vision for The Grove this coming year, and there was tons of energy and just an all-around great environment! Also, we had a total 105 people last Wednesday! We are so excited about what God’s doing here in our ministry, and the opportunity we have to impact students lives’ with the gospel of Jesus this coming year. Our goal is to keep you as informed as possible, so here are a few reminders and upcoming events:

Quick Reminder to Parents: We ask for parents to bring in drinks for us to use throughout the year on Wednesday nights. We ask for each student to bring a 12 pack of drinks. We ask that no students bring diet drinks. Also, we ask for parents to sign up for snacks on Wednesday evenings throughout the year. If you would like to sign up for a certain Wednesday night, please contact Lori Beard to choose a Wednesday by emailing her at mom2kidz1@triad.rr.com or calling her at 336-414-1622. Also parents, if you were unable to attend the Parent Meeting on August 15th, we have provided our entire parent packet available to you online. Please go here to download all of the material and resources.

Our Featured Resource: This week’s featured resource is a blog post by Austin McCann. Austin is a good friend of Pastor Josh’s and myself, and a fellow youth ministry worker. He recently posted a blog titled “Tools for Understanding Teen Culture.” You can read the post here. This post gives a few practical ways and resources for parents and youth workers to stay up-to-date on current youth culture. In order for us to effectively minister to our students, we have to understand their culture. That doesn’t mean that we approve of everything in their culture, but we have to know what our students are into so we can effectively engage their ideas, opinions, and lives.

Our Featured Event: ”Love Our City” is our next youth event that will be taking place on September 14th-15th. We’ve been intensely planning for this event and are working with several organizations in the area. We’re coordinating with The Genesis House, The Children’s Home, North Davidson High School, and the Salem Pregnancy Center for this event. We will also be doing door-to-door visitation and distributing what are called “Life Books” to people in the community. Since we will be camping out, we are in need of a lot of tents. If you could bring a tent to this event, it would help us out tremendously! Please contact Pastor Josh, or myself if you would be able to help us out in this way. You can sign-up today, and the cost is $20 per student. Leaders/volunteers go for free! We just ask that every leader bring a 12 pack of can drinks. This is going to be a great event that will allow our students to serve people, and show them the love of Jesus Christ.

Our Upcoming Events: 

  • August 29 – Word of Life – Our weekly Wednesday night services meet in the gymnasium from 6-8 P.M. We serve food from 6-6:30, and will then have a time of worship, games, teaching, and small group discussion. We encourage your student to be a part of this on a weekly basis, and would love for any parents interested in visiting our services to come join us one night!
  • September 8 – Family Fun Festival - This is an annual church wide event, and we would love for you and your family to be a part of it. It will be from 3-7 P.M. and it is absolutely FREE! We will have inflatable’s, games, a petting zoo, a hotdog meal, live music, and more! Also, if your student is in the 10th-12th and is interested in volunteering for this event, please let Pastor Josh know ASAP. R.S.V.P. on facebook and feel free to share the event HERE.
  • September 14-15 – Love our city - You can R.S.V.P. for “Love our City” HERE!
  • October 6 – Service Opportunity: The Miracle League. This is a high school (10-12 grade) only event! The Miracle League is a baseball league for handicap kids. Their desire is for every kid to be able to play baseball so the Miracle League has given them a chance! Our high school ministry will have the opportunity to go and encourage these kids and be a buddy to them. We will meet at the church at 8:15 am and return at 1:30 pm. Bring money for lunch!

We are trying to keep you as informed as possible and keep the cost as low as possible. If you ever have questions or want quick information regarding the Grove, check out our facebook page or check out the website here. You can also follow us on twitter (@ugbcgrove) for instant information regarding the Grove. We love and appreciate you. We count it a privilege to partner with you this year. If you have any questions about our student ministry, please contact Pastor Josh anytime with the info provided below.

In Christ,

Mark Etheridge

Student Ministry Intern, Union Grove Baptist Church

Email: metheridge@ugbconline.com

Twitter: @grovemark

In His Service,

Josh Evans

Student Pastor, Union Grove Baptist Church

Web: ugbconline.com Blog: joshhevans.wordpress.com

Email: jevans@ugbconline.com

08.17.12
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Get Connected- Friday Grove Newsletter

Good Morning!

Josh here just sending you a quick update on the Grove! I hope that this email finds you doing well! I want to say “thanks” to all of the parents who were able to come out this past week to “Parent Night @ The Grove.” We had over 50% of our parents there which was awesome. It was the highest parent night/meeting that we have ever had. If you were unable to attend, I will be sending out some information via email. Also, you need a student registration packet that we gave out this past week. It contains some important information such as our mission and vision, registration form, medical form, and calendar of events. You can download the entire packet of information for your computer here!

Quick Reminder to Parents: We ask for parents to bring in drinks for us to use throughout the year on Wednesday nights. We ask for each student to bring a 12 pack of drinks. We ask that no students bring diet drinks. We will provide the diet drinks. Also, we ask for parents to sign up for snacks on Wednesday evenings throughout the year. If you would like to sign up for a certain Wednesday night, please contact Lori Beard!

Our Featured Resource: This week’s featured resource is a blog post that I wrote yesterday entitled, “To Parents: We want you here From: Student Pastor!” I normally do not share my personal posts in this section of the newsletter, but this post is a quick post to parents about how they can be involved in our student ministry. I encourage and challenge you to read it as you will find my heart in partnering with you and your family! You can read the post here. I hope to see you more involved this year!

Our Featured Event: WOL Kick off @ The Grove (August 22nd) - This coming Wednesday is our Word of Life (WOL) kick off @ The Grove! It is always a huge night with tons of energy and excitement as we kick off the new school year. We will begin small groups, share vision for the year, and certainly have pizza to kick off the first night! I want your student to attend! Make plans to have them there if at all possible. It is going to be awesome. Don’t forget that we start at 6:00 pm and end at 8:00 pm. Leaders please be on time promptly ready to go at 6:00 pm. Also, leaders do not forget to bring a dessert for opening night!

Our Upcoming Events: 

  • August 22 – WOL Kick Off – This is the opening night of WOL @ The Grove for our student ministry! Students will find out who their small group leader is, and this night will be huge. We have pizza ready to go, and we will cast the vision for the Grove. Make sure that your student is present for this night!
  • September 14-15 – Love our city – We have been intensely planning this event since we got back from Jamaica. This event is a community service project in our city. It is like a mission trip to our own community. We have entitled it “love our city.” We will be doing various community service projects and door to door visitation on this weekend, and we want your student to be a part of reaching our community with the Gospel. We are going to need many leaders and volunteers on hand so parents/leaders, sign up with me today! The cost for this trip will be $20 per student. Leaders/volunteers go free, but we do ask that you bring in a 12 pack of drink for the weekend! Let’s reach our community with the life changing power of the Gospel! R.S.V.P. for “Love our City” HERE!
  • October 6 – Service Opportunity: The Miracle League. This is a high school (10-12 grade) only event! The Miracle League is a baseball league for handicap kids. Their desire is for every kid to be able to play baseball so the Miracle League has given them a chance! Our high school ministry will have the opportunity to go and encourage these kids and be a buddy to them. We will meet at the church at 8:15 am and return at 1:30 pm. Bring money for lunch!

We are trying to keep you as informed as possible and keep the cost as low as possible. If you ever have questions or want quick information regarding the Grove, check out our facebook page or check out the website here. You can also follow us on twitter (@ugbcgrove) for instant information regarding the Grove. We love and appreciate you. We count it a privilege to partner with you this year. If you have any questions about our student ministry, please contact Pastor Josh anytime with the info provided below.

In His Service,

Josh Evans

Student Pastor, Union Grove Baptist Church

Web: ugbconline.com Blog: joshhevans.wordpress.com

08.16.12
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Parenting & Small Group Leadership Videos

Recently in our student ministry, we have had some big meetings with our students’ parents and the small group leaders. In these meetings, we decided to do some humorous videos to kick things off. I hope that these are entertaining, but also possibly something that you guys can use for fun with your leaders sometime. The titles of the videos are:
The 5 Keys to Effective Parenting
&
The Small Group Leader’s 5 mottos

Enjoy!!!

08.03.12
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Get Connected-weekly Grove newsletter

20120803-123304.jpg Good Morning Grove Leaders!

This is Mark sending out the weekly newsletter on behalf of Pastor Josh being on vacation this week. I hope that you all had a great week and are enjoying the last few weeks of summer. The new school year is almost here, and a brand new year of Word of Life is coming up, so that means that we have lots going on around The Grove! Here’s a rundown of what’s coming up over the next several weeks!

Our featured Event: Hoedown at the Hege’s: This coming Wednesday (August 8th) we will be having our 2nd annual Hoedown at the Hege’s! This event was a blast last summer as we ended our summer program strong with games, food, worship, and testimonies. We don’t expect anything less this summer, and we hope that each of you will be able to make it! We will be having games such as volleyball, basketball, corn hole, and more! We’ll be serving hot dogs for dinner and will have a special service with testimony times from our students and Pastor Josh will bring a back to school message to us. We’ll also be showing the final episode of Summer Slasher! You won’t want to miss it! The hoedown will be from 6:30-9:00 P.M. A bus will be leaving from the church at 6:15 P.M. You can also drive to the hoedown or get dropped off if you choose to do so.

Ø August 10 – Leadership Seminar – If you are interested in being a Grove leader for the 2012-2013 year, please make plans NOW to attend this meeting. The times of the meeting are 5 pm until 10 pm at the fellowship hall. This is for prospective college and adult leaders. I hate to use the word mandatory, but we need all leaders at this meeting! If you miss, it is likely that you will get behind. We will have fun, food, and sessions. Please R.S.V.P. by responding to this email!
Ø August 15 – Parent Night @ The Grove – This is for all parents who have students who attend on Wednesday nights or Sunday’s. It is important that you make plans to attend, because we are starting some new things this year, and we want you informed. Let’s pack out the night with parents! We will meet in the fellowship hall from 6:30-8 pm. We will have worship, a time of Q&A, food, and fellowship. Hope you will join us.
Ø August 22 – WOL Kick Off – This is the opening night of WOL @ The Grove for our student ministry! Students will find out who their small group leader is, and this night will be huge. We have pizza ready to go, and we will cast the vision for the Grove. Make sure that your student is present for this night!
Ø September 14-15 – Lexington/Winston Salem Mission Trip – We are still working on the logistics for this trip, but we want every student and leader to make plans to attend. We want to be missional and intentional in the city that God has us in so make plans now as we take the Gospel to our city! We are working up some work projects, visitation, and service at different organizations in our community. We will let you know a final price asap! Plan on sleeping in tents! It is going to be Crazy!

We are trying to keep you as informed as possible and keep the cost as low as possible. If you ever have questions or want quick information regarding the Grove, check out our facebook page or check out the website here. You can also follow us on twitter (@ugbcgrove) for instant information regarding the Grove. We love and appreciate you. We count it a privilege to partner with you this year. If you have any questions about our student ministry, please contact Pastor Josh anytime with the info provided below.

Josh Evans
Student Pastor, Union Grove Baptist Church

20120803-123304.jpg