(2) Youth Fellowship‏

Greetings to All in Christ,

Thank God that the Jugendgruppe is officially established on our Arbeitsplan. Now the real work begins for US! I really thank God for those zealous heart out there. It is truly a comfort to know that your heart is dedicated, and that we can do this together even if we have our own fears and uncertainties. I know some of you out there may fear certain things in regards to participating in this group, and I admit that I fear certain things also. To tell you the truth, It has been a great burden to me to have this thrown upon me involuntarily. My fear is that this group will not flourish, and there will be very little support, and a lot of questions and doubts. That even though I am excited about the amount of fruit we are capable of bearing and the amount of work we can do for God as a group to further the church, I'm also uncertain of myself being put in the position that I am in. But with some of your encouragements and zeal, I know that there will be support, and that this group can flourish with your zeal for God and the support we will receive from God. Let us work together to further the work of God, and to dedicate our time and energy to do more for God.

"9 Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
10 For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
12 Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken."
~Ecc 4:9,10,12

I know it has been a while since our frist meeting, and we may have forgotten the encouragements we have heard from our future preacher and from our counselor. I think the most important point that we can gather from the encouragements is that we put our heart into this work for God and to establish it as our own, because only then can we be an actively involved participant to support this work.

We were not able to complete everything in the first meeting, therefore, the meeting this week will be a continuation of where we left off last time. This meeting will help to define our goals and direction for the fellowship, I hope that all of you will be present. Please be thinking about your ideas and goals for the fellowship to share during our meeting. Since we did not have a concrete Arbeitsplan until now, some of us have already planned to attend theather. Therefore, please be vigilant in gathering for the meeting after lunch at 1415. We will continue after the prayer session if we do not finish until 1830.

After evaluating our schedule for Sabbath day, I have a recommendation to make for our meeting time. It seems that schedules can be unpredictable on Sabbath. On top of that, some parents may have to stay later and wait to take their kids home, which can be a burden if they want to go home and rest. Furthermore, people may want to have Saturday nights to do other things (e.g. work or play). And after a long day, we may all be too tired to do much of anything else to be active in this fellowship. I am thinking that perhaps we can have some of our meetings/activities on Sundays to allow more time and energy to be dedicated to this important task and mission. I heard the RE classes in Taiwan are held on Sundays. Which means actually, we are lucky in having this extra time to do something extra for God. In my thought, the fellowship should not be just another Bible Study or lesson where we are passive participants, because we do much of that already. My vision is that this be an active fellowship where we not only accomplish projects but have fun also, and not confine ourselves in time and space. In order to do that, we need to be rested enough to focus, and have time enough to accomplish what we set out to do. I will elaborate more on my ideas this weekend, and please also bring your ideas. In the meantime, please think over this and pray for our new fellowship.

By the end of our meeting, we should have accomplished the following:
1) Define our goal and direction
2) Set a time for our bi-weekly fellowship
3) Schedule the contents of our fellowship
4) Select Coordinators for the different types of fellowship events we include
5) Haven't thought of a #5, but I'm sure there is something I'm missing right now...

Please pray for this fellowship so that it can start to grow little by little and at the end bear fruits for God.

In Christ,
~tiana