This Weekend

Youth Outing 7-10 pm

Friday evening, Adam and I are coordinating an event for youth (Grades 7-12)! If your child is interested in attending, please let me know ahead of time! The more the merrier; however, we are meeting at church at 7 pm before going out for an activity.


Advent Worship

This Saturday at 5:00 is our final Advent Worship. Myself and the worship planning team are really excited about what we have planned. I hope most of you who have really enjoyed the last two worships can make it for this one! If you haven't been able to attend one yet, this Saturday is sure to be a special experience. 


Any questions regrading Christmas Play rehearsal this week, please send me an email.

I hope all are enjoying this holiday season with their family and loved ones.

Christmas Play, Christmas Party, Youth Gathering

I would just like to post some friendly reminders:

this Saturday! ~ Christmas Party for kids (Grades 1-5) at St. John, from 1-4 pm. See post below for details!

Christmas Play ~ While holiday schedules are crowded and crazy, parents, please try to run lines with your children before our second last rehearsal, this Sunday, at 9:30. We will be rehearsing in the Sanctuary.

It's ideal that, for this rehearsal, we only minimally refer to scripts. We'll be practicing our songs for the play, "Silent Night" and "O Come All Ye Faithful", which will take some rehearsal time from reading lines. Costumes will be ready for our Saturday Dec. 20 rehearsal.

Parents, please see your child attends remaining rehearsals with their copy of the script.

Youth Gathering ~ We need to register our youth for the gathering by the end of this year! Please see me or contact me about the required registration form.

Any questions or comments, please submit to this post, or please email me!

Elementary Youth Christmas Party at St. John

Saturday, December 13th 1-4 pm

Christmas Party at St. John for grades 1-5!

Parents, please check out the event details on the Organic Youth website.

I will be attending the party and helping the Senior High leaders with the fun activities they have planned!

Organic Youth is a team of fun, energetic, well-experienced youth leaders. 

Consider this Christmas party as an opportunity for kids to participate in a service project, along with games and good old cookie decorating! Why not also take the opportunity to get some holiday errands and shopping done :)

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions; you can always post to this blog or send me an email.

Rescheduled Rehearsal and Overnight

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving!

It's almost hard to believe it's already time for Christmas parties and gatherings. 

While we hoped to have a 7th-12th grade Christmas overnight at St. John on Friday, December 12, due to too many schedule conflicts, I decided we would try to postpone. Hopefully December 19th could work better. Christmas cookies, movies, pizza, capture the flag and games alike would make for an awesome evening! Kids are invited to bring a friend or two, too!

It was also brought to my attention that in years past, the Saturday Christmas play rehearsal has been held earlier in the morning. Especially since our play is the last Saturday before Christmas this year, I can absolutely understand why this rehearsal is more convenient if held earlier. While more reminders will be cast, please take note we will now be meeting on December 20th at 9am for our last Christmas play rehearsal. (9-1030). I hope this agrees better with most schedules!

Our next meeting to practice the Christmas play will be December 7, 930-1030.
This will be our first rehearsal running through lines together! Also, for those unable to be in the play, please feel welcome to help us with making props and eventually helping with costumes!

Lots of baking and fun were had last Friday! 

Thank you for your pie purchases and donations! You've given us a solid start to our fundraising for the Youth Gathering! Happy Thanksgiving to all. 

This Sunday, November 23

Along with our apple pie sale (see previous posts), this Sunday is the first meeting for all Sunday School classes to receive parts and scripts for the annual Christmas play!

The Christmas play is open to all those who can lend their talents and time and participate! Roles in the play are not only for Sunday School students grades Pre-K-6th. For those who would like to be involved but don't care for any lines, or are only able to attend one or two rehearsals, come to our meeting to see how you can help!

Christmas play rehearsals: 

Sunday, November 23rd 9:30-10:30
** No Meeting Sunday, November 30th ** Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, December 7th 9:30-10:30
Sunday, December 14th 9:30-10:30
Saturday, December 20th 9:00-10:30
Sunday, December 21st (FINAL practice, with instruments, props, etc.) 9:30

The Christmas play will be Sunday, December 21st, 10:30 am, followed by a pizza party!

If you have not yet done so, please email me (or just submit a comment to this post!) if your child would like a bigger role in the play. Actors with several lines should be able to attend almost all, if not all, rehearsals. 

More December event details coming up! While I love this blog, I have to resist going on about too many things in one post. Stay tuned! Subscribe to our blog so you're always in the loop. Please don't hesitate to send any comments, questions, or suggestions my way! I'm here to help establish a place for kids to learn and grow in Christ and community. Ideas are always appreciated!

Let us pray that the snow lets up for our South towns and those stranded will be returned to safety!

Apple Pie Sale & ELCA Youth Gathering

This Sunday, pick up your apple pies between 8:30 and 10:30 services. If you didn't get your hands on a pre-order form, don't you worry! We are making plenty. They go for $10, and all the money raised will fund getting our youth to the annual Youth Gathering, which is in Detroit. 

I am very excited to go to the Youth Gathering next July- it will be my first time! Until I started becoming involved with youth gatherings, retreats, and events of that nature, I had no idea what this annual Youth Gathering looked like or was even about. I remember when I was in high school, spending summers at LCLC, and noticing other kids wearing "ELCA Youth Gathering" t-shirts. When I would ask what their shirts stood for, I always got something to the effect of "you had to be there" or "you wouldn't understand". After viewing this video, I'm realizing maybe those kids weren't just trying to sound cool and exclusive. This is an amazing example of the power and beauty in faith and action.

ELCA Youth Gathering 2015

Here we go!

Hello members and friends of St. John!

You are now reading the very first post of St. John's brand new blog! Visit this blog when looking for Sunday School updates or details about upcoming youth events. This blog allows communication between parents, members and myself, (your youth director) to be better received, accessed and interactive! 

I want to thank all of you who have been so patient with my (sadly, several) failed attempts at establishing a method of communication that works best for all members of the church. Your kindness and encouragement are what make my job rewarding... and possible!

A special thank you goes out to Rob and Amanda Zdrojewski, who have been beyond helpful getting me set up with this blog, and other areas of communication. Your generous assistance and advice will benefit all of us at St. John!

Subscribe to this blog via the little box in the top right corner of this page. By subscribing, you'll receive no more than one email a day, which simply notifies you of any new blog postings that have been published in the last 24 hours. 

I hope I get the chance to know more of you, especially with the eventful holiday season upon us!

Mary Braisted

Christian Ed. & Youth Director