The Village Junior High

MercyMe

This Friday the Junior High Students will be hearing MercyMe in concert. Check out this music video.

Didier Farms

For the first time, the Junior High students loaded the bus eagerly waiting to spend their afternoon immersed in Fall festivities. The weather could not have been more perfect for such an event. When we arrived, the farm was filled with people of young and old swarming all over the place. We got our tickets and raced to the first activity we could find, the corn maze. Some zoomed through the maze while others got lost, but all had a great time. The next activity we went to was the tractor pulled hay ride. No matter if a student had experienced a hay ride 100 times or for the first time, all enjoyed the relaxing ride and good conversation. After the hay ride students did a variety of different activities that the farm offered. Some of us made sure to get a cup of hot cider and Kettle corn as we walked and enjoyed hanging out together. All had such a great time and didn’t want to go home so soon. We look forward to another great event of fellowship together.

Friday Night Live - April

Poverty in the AMERICA

World Vision

The List

I know the schedules are insanely busy, filled with soccer practices, basketball games, band rehearsals, piano lessons, etc. You name it and this community offers it to you. Yet, somehow within our crazy schedules we seem to find a small short place where "church" fits into the deep, long list of things to check off. I have often found myself drifting into that category. I used to call my life compartmentalized. It was separated into categories and all had an importance. But I got to a point where I was doing so much that I forgot to ask why I was doing it. Was it to just add one more thing to my college resume, or did it have significance? I believe that we all long to be apart of a bigger plan. We want to feel important, and what we are doing is making a difference. But within my schedule I couldn't find the significance, all I really found was that I was just more tired and more empty then before. People often talk about priorities. I would hear people say, "Make sure your priorities are straight." But what happens when all your priorities are very important? How do you choose between some many different important things. And sure, God has to be the top priority, but what does that look like? Does going to church each Sunday morning mean that you can check that one off the list and move down to the next item? For me that didn't work. Each category of my life was so separated, so distant from each other. My priorities were Church, family, sports, school, friends, and going to church each Sunday morning didn't seem to have any effect on any other aspect of my life. Until I realized that God not only had to be the top priority on the list, but he had to be the very list I was writing on. Everything I was doing had to be filtered through my relationship with Him. I had to ask Him what he wanted me to do. I had to surrender to His plan, no matter how great I thought mine was. When I began to surrender and pray and ask God for direction in my life, I found many things in my life begin to change. God was no longer one thing on my list, but he was apart of everything on my list. Church wasn't something I did just to cross off a list, but it became a influential part to my growth and longing for a faith community. My relationship with my family got better because I was able to have more patience, care, and understanding. When I went to school I was no longer working for man's approval, but my Lords. Pressure and stress weren't as strong and I began to enjoy working hard. Soccer became a way that I worship God with the way I conducted myself on the field, the way I treated my teammates and opponents, and my attidtude to bring God glory in all I was doing. My relationships with my friends got deeper then just surface level. Suddenly I began to see that God was transforming me in every way, and I was beginning to see what it meant to be in a relationship with God. My encouragement to you, is to allow the Lord to be IN all you do. Ask Him how to set your priorities. Surrender to His will and plan for your life because His plan is so worth it.