New Philadelphia has a tradition of raising exceptional young people.
Our Youth Committee oversees both the Youth Fellowship and Sunday School Programs for Middle and Senior Highs, and each compliments the other. Weekly meetings, weekly Bible Studies, Mission Camps, and Mission Trips are all planned to educate, to grow in faith, and to challenge.
The photograph above was taken during the 2022 Children|Youth Lovefeast.
Sermon – June 4, 2017 – Rev. Joe Moore
Today is Confirmation Sunday. At the 11:10 service, 8 young people will confirm their faith in God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit- and they will state their desire to follow God with faith, love, and hope. This year’s Confirmation Class has been meeting together for several months as we talked about who God is, what God does, and how God calls us to respond. It has been a joy for me to be with them and lead them in this part of their faith journey.
One of the things that I love about teaching Confirmation is getting to choose each kids Confirmation text. It is something that I give a lot of thought and prayer as I try to find the perfect Scripture to serve as their own personal watchword, as a passage that they can keep in their hearts and minds as they go through their lives. Hopefully the texts that I have chosen for this year’s confirmands will be as meaningful and memorable to them as my Confirmation Text is to me. On Palm Sunday 1983, Craig Troutman gave me Philippians 1:6 as my Confirmation text- I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
Over the years, as I have taught confirmation, I will often also choose a Confirmation Text for the class as a whole; a text that serves to capture the experience of the class as they came together and formed their own unique community, a text that really says something about them, about who they are and where they are in their life and faith as a group. I remember one class at Fries Memorial that left me no other choice for a Confirmation Text than that shortest verse in the Bible- John 11:35 “Jesus wept.” But that was all in good fun, they didn’t really cause Jesus to weep, at least they hadn’t at that point in their lives. It was also easy for me to choose a text for this Confirmation Class- “Be still and know that I am God.”
Now, you may chuckle and think that I choose that text for this class because they had trouble “being still” and while that may have been the situation at times, it is not why I chose that as the class Confirmation verse. One of the things that we did every week was to think about, and talk about, the ways that we had seen God at work among us, how we had experienced the presence of God as we went about our lives- moment by moment, day to day. We even had a group text message that we would use to share those times that we had seen and experienced God’s presence.
But it wasn’t always easy. It is often hard to be aware of how God is present and working in our lives. That is why we need to “be still” and pay attention to what is going on around us, to allow us to know that God is God and God is present with us. “Be still and know that I am God.” is one of God’s ways of telling us to “Pay Attention.” That’s what Pentecost is about. It’s about God telling us to pay attention. The followers of Jesus had gathered, after his crucifixion and death, after his resurrection and ascension, they were all together in one place. And God told them to pay attention. It wasn’t in a silent, peaceful, reflective, “be still and know” kind of way. But more like a shout of “Hey! This is important!” The sound of a rushing wind filled the place and tongues of fire appeared and rested over each one of them. And they were suddenly able to speak in languages that they had never spoken before.
And that was a pretty good way to get people’s attention. It was a pretty good way of letting people know that something important was happening. It was a pretty good way to let them know that the Holy Spirit was among them. I imagine that if the same thing happened here this morning- if the sanctuary was filled with a rushing wind, if tongues of fire appeared on each of us, if we suddenly began speaking in languages we had never spoken before, I think that we would pay attention.
Pentecost was when it all came together for those followers of Jesus, it was when they became the “church”. It was when they realized that God was with them- God the Creating Father, God the Redeeming Son, God the Blessing Spirit. It was when they knew that they had all that they needed to do what God was calling them to do- what God had created them to do, what Jesus had redeemed them to do, what the Holy Spirit would bless them as they did, it was when they knew that they had all that they needed to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
Pentecost and Confirmation is when it all comes together for us, too. It is when we are reminded to Pay Attention, for the Spirit is among us. It is when we are reminded
to Pay Attention, for God is creating, God is redeeming, God is blessing — right here and right now. We are called to pay attention to what God is creating, to who God is redeeming, to how God is blessing. God creates in faith, God redeems with love, God blesses in hope. God’s faith is in us, God’s love is for us, God’s hope rests upon us. God is here- God is creating. God is here- God is redeeming. God is here- God is blessing. God is among us, God is calling us, God needs us. And God is blessing us with all that WE need- to be who He has created us to be, to become who He has redeemed us to become, to do what He has blessed us to do. God is here. So Pay Attention.
Director of Children’s and Youth Choirs: New Philadelphia Moravian Church is seeking a Director of Children’s and Youth Choirs. The director is expected to lead the choirs for children (K-2nd grades, 3rd-5th grades) and youth (6th -12th grades), to promote participation in the children’s and youth choirs; to teach children about music and developing their voices and hearing for music; to plan age appropriate songs, some sung by separate choirs, some sung by combined choirs; to have the choirs sing in worship 1-2 times per month and for Easter and Christmas services and other special events. The time commitment includes Sunday mornings from 8:30-12:00 and Sunday afternoon rehearsals from 4:00-6:30 PM. Send inquiries to Rev. Joe Moore; email joe@newphilly.org or call (336)765-2331.
Since 1957, as the Moravian Unity celebrated our 500th Anniversary, the Unity Prayer Watch has assured that prayer for the work and witness of our world-wide Moravian Church is being offered somewhere in the world 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The Prayer Watch is a renewal of the “hourly intercession”, begun in Herrnhut in 1727 which continued uninterrupted for 100 years.
New Philadelphia’s assigned date and time for the 2017 Prayer Watch is January 2 from 4:00 pm to midnight. Starting this Sunday (December 18) there will be a sign-up sheet in the Commons Area for our members to choose their time to be in intentional prayer on behalf of the worldwide Moravian Church.
Please sign up for a 30 minute time to pray on January 2. We will share the list of suggested topics for prayer with those who sign up.
Blessings,
Pastor Joe
Join us on Sunday, October 2 in the Fellowship Hall
Film Screening – 4-5 p.m.; tickets $5 per adult (to be collected at the door)
Meal & Panel Discussion – 5:15-6:30 p.m.; $5 per person for meal
About the film:
Are you watching kids scroll through life, with their rapid-fire thumbs and a six-second attention span? Physician and filmmaker Delaney Ruston saw that with her own kids and learned that the average kid spends 6.5 hours a day looking at screens. She wondered about the impact of all this time and about the friction occurring in homes and schools around negotiating screen time—friction she knew all too well.
About the filmmaker:
Delaney Ruston is a filmmaker, Stanford trained doctor and mother of two. Along with Screenagers, her award-winning feature documentaries include Unlisted: A Story of Schizophrenia (PBS), about her father, and Hidden Pictures (PBS) about global mental health. Delaney has been invited to speak and screen these and other films to hundreds of audiences in diverse settings around the world–such as at primary schools, conferences, medical centers, universities, the United Nations, the TEDx stage in Seattle and the World Health Organization. For her work in using film in launching advocacy movements, Delaney has won several awards. She has provided primary care in under-served clinics for over a decade.
Senior High just set dates to go on their mission trip to Alaska! We are currently planning on taking two work teams to the seminary in Bethel from 6/30-7/9 and 7/7-7/16. The youth have been working hard to meet their participating requirements in and around the church and are getting ready to gear up for several fundraisers on the horizon.
We would like to go ahead and thank the church for their continued support of the youth program. If anyone would like to be added to the senior high youth e-mail list feel free to e-mail me at RMcNeil513@gmail.com. There are a many fun and exciting events coming up so be sure not to miss out.
Our Middle High youth are going to Washington DC 6/25-6/30 for their mission trip.
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