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SOC Blog from Youth Leader Rick Vantfoort

3/29/2012

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Picture
SOC Lighting the Fuse at their most recent event
A final thank you for the SOCcess at our gathering this past weekend at St. Andrew Memorial Anglican and Redeemer Lutheran in London!
In everything we did, we truly lived the theme “Together We Grow.”  With so many new friends amongst us, I thought I would provide this summary of the event.  Please feel free to use it to share the good news about SOC and your part in it!
We were joined at one point or another in our program from 2pm Saturday until 2pm Sunday byover 80 youth and leaders from across southwest Ontario.
Just so you get the picture, we came from the following churches:

Ø      Bethel Christian Reformed (London)

Ø      Grace and St. George’s Anglican (Ilderton)

Ø      Holy Trinity Anglican (Kitchener)

Ø      Redeemer Lutheran (London)

Ø      St. Andrew Memorial Anglican (London)

Ø      St. Anne’s Anglican (London)

Ø      St. Ansgar Lutheran (London)

Ø      St. George’s Anglican (Goderich)

Ø      St. John the Divine Anglican (Arva)

Ø      St. Paul’s Lutheran (Leamington)

Ø      St. Peter’s Lutheran (Milverton)

Ø      St. Peter’s Lutheran (Brodhagen)

Ø      St. Peter’s Lutheran (Zurich)

Ø      Trinity Lutheran (London)

Ø      Trinity Lutheran (Walkerton)

And to REALLY give you the picture, several actually, I am attaching a few shots that Derek took this weekend.

Our welcome games were a blast, provided by Sarah and Holly, with help from Brenda.
Who would have thought that we would have so many people that we were always ONE CHAIR SHORT!  Sheesh!

Our opening discussion included some awesome presentations by Father Marty talking about St. Andrew’s community garden; Christine talking about what ‘Together We Grow’’ might mean to us; and Kim introducing us to the vulnerable youth in London (street youth, justice system youth, homeless youth, single mothers, young families, and more).  These discussions gave us the insight we needed to consider our activities and discussions for the rest of the weekend.

Our Servant Event at the London Community Resource Centre was a huge boost for them, and the hundreds of dollars of food we donated will help young single mothers and young men from the justice system to learn to cook and continue to provide healthy meals for themselves and their families.

The concert with the band on Saturday was an excellent warm up for the Sunday Worship Service, the ONLY service I have been to where there was a cry for an encore!  I will let you know when we have the mastered audio and video from that concert and will distribute it to everyone as soon as I can.

We totally blew “Da Bomb!” (our scripture studies).
First was ‘Lighting The Fuse’ by Pastor Heather with her story of Community (with a stump, sun, wind, rain, trees, apples, birds, seeds, people and more!).

Then, ‘Tossing da Bomb’ was lead by Tracy and Robbie, who helped us discover how the parable of the wheat and the weeds related to communities. They then directed our creative efforts into how WE would help build our own Urban and Rural communities as Stewards Of Community.
Da Bomb! activities were not only fun, but involved almost all of us at some point in time and the messages they left us with about creation and community were not only thought-provoking  and faithful, but applicable and useful in our lives and communities today.

If you want to know what happened during ‘Free Time’ just check out the facebook accounts of any of our youth!  It was bomb!
Don’t forget to look at Shae-Lynn’s SOC Movie – it’s sure to be a classic (well, it IS the only one so far)!

And the FOOD!  Thanks to all those who brought crock pots for the Pot Luck on Saturday, and for everyone for chipping in at every meal.  A special thanks to Lori and Leigh for their leadership and guidance in, around and out of the church kitchen!

Worship Service Sunday morning was as good as it ever has been.  I am STILL receiving compliments about the ability and faith of our youth to lead a meaningful, clear, and in almost every compliment, JOYOUS worship!  Well done everyone! And the loose change in the offering that Sunday was all donated to 12-4-12 through Canadian Lutheran World Relief and totaled $395 and change!

And thank you to everyone for signing your name and saying a prayer for someone in our community who truly needed and appreciated the Comfort Quilt that was provided by Hilda.  Community always begins at home, and we are blessed that we can support those who are closest to us.  As Hilda said, we can now include in our acronym “Stewards Of Comfort”!

We’re all looking forward to our next meeting in Zurich on April 21 and 22, CLAY in the summer and SOC again at St. Pauls’ Lutheran in Leamington in September!

As always, still SOCd by the Holy Spirit!

Rick.

Picture
SOC Covenant at their most recent event
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