Message from Maya
As summer begins to wind down and the school year approaches, I wanted to share some upcoming opportunities for our younger congregation members.
First, our yearly Gather In Fair is taking place on Sunday, September 7. This is a time for all the various FCCB affiliated ministries and committees to share the work they do and ways for folks to get involved. I will be there with info and registration forms for Church School, info about Youth Group, and plenty of games and sidewalk chalk for kids and kids-at-heart.
Speaking of Church School, we will have our first meeting during worship on Sunday, September 14. Also known as Sunday School, church school is a space for FCCB members ages 4-11 to connect with God and each other. Each week we will have a biblically based lesson (curriculum will mostly follow AUCE’s Faith Practices lessons), an activity or craft, and time to pray, sing, laugh, and praise God! After the “time with children” portion of worship, any kiddos who want to attend Church school will join myself and an adult volunteer in the children’s area of the Social Hall, and will reconnect with their grown ups immediately following worship. On communion Sundays, we will join the worship service towards the end to partake in communion with family and friends. If your child hasn’t attended church school before, or it’s been a long time, please reach out to myself or Cydne in the office to get a registration form!
Another exciting opportunity coming up is the return of FCCB’s Youth Group. Youth Group will be held on the second and fourth Sunday of each month, 11:30 am-12:30 pm in the Fireplace Room. Youth group is an opportunity for the tweens and teens of our congregation to gather for spirit, service, and fun. This is a time to fellowship with other youth, find opportunities for service work within both the church and in the wider community. and go deeper into the bigger questions that often pop up in adolescence. Our first youth group meeting will be September 14.
There are a few youth service opportunities that I’d like to put the word out for now; first, we have a Service Sunday worship coming up on August 24. There will be lots of different service projects available for any and all folks who want to help.
Moxxy, our Worship Media/AV Queen, has space for older youth volunteers (13+) to help out with AV/tech during worship. This includes running lights, operating the livestream cameras used for our Bigger Balcony, keeping audio running smoothly, and more. More info and sign-ups will be available at the Gather In Fair.
Finally, we have a dinner and concert fundraiser for the Bellingham Food Bank on October 4. We are looking for youth who are interested in helping out with serving dinner. To quote the wonderful Scott Ward, “they’d get dinner and a show!”
I know that was a LOT of information, so if you made it to the end of this novel, thank you! Hope you all these last precious weeks of summertime bliss. I am so excited for this school year!
Yours in cat snuggles and cold brew,
Maya McEachern (she/her)
Church School & Youth Coordinator
