| |
|
Country Club Christian Church Youth
Mark Your Calendars!
Will and Chloe played BINGO during Backyard Bash.
|
|
This Sunday
Join us for our livestream worship service at 9:01, 10:00, or 11:00am by visiting cccckc.org. Each hour features the same service, blending our worship styles and including music, scripture, a moment for children, communion, prayer, and sermon. We invite you to grab some bread and juice before to share in communion.
Join us for our first backyard youth group this Sunday night! Middle schoolers (completed grades 6-8) will be invited to join us from 5:00 to 6:00pm; High schoolers (completed grades 9-12) will join us from 6:30 to 7:30pm. Please bring a mask and a lawn chair or blanket. More information below.
|
|
|
 Reflection from Tyler
Many of us know the story of the woman at the well in John 4. Jesus was traveling with his followers when he paused at a well and met this woman as she came to draw water. Jesus saw not only her bucket but the other things, social burdens, she carried. This woman was unmarried and had an unconventional past. Furthermore, she was Samaritan, part of a people group looked down on by their Jewish neighbors. Samaritans were thought to be misled in their religious practices and to be descendants of impure ancestry. Someone like Jesus wasn't expected to talk to someone like this woman- it astonished Jesus' own followers (John 4:27). But Jesus saw her for who she was: another human, beloved by God.
During their conversation, the woman asked a question about where one ought to go for proper worship. Jesus responded, "you and your people will worship God neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem... the time is coming-and is here!-when true worshippers will worship in spirit and truth" (4:21-23). The woman's question was rooted in one understanding of how the world works. She understood there to be hierarchies of people and places and forms of worship. Jesus' response challenged that framework; he said that God plays on an even field and that true worship is based not on form or location but "in spirit and truth."
This year has shown us how to worship in spirit and in truth. Over the past few months, we've adjusted our regular rituals of worship and community and have learned to worship in new places and in new ways. Over the past two weeks, we've been reminded of the hierarchies imposed onto our society that go against God's dream that the oppressed might be freed (Luke 4:18). It's been a challenging few months and a harrowing couple of weeks, yet the Spirit has been showing us that the time is coming- and is here!- in which we worship in spirit in truth.
While a fresh pang of missing Sunday morning worship comes each week, I am grateful for the ways I've discovered the sacred spaces in my home- the daybed in my upstairs nook is, too, a pew; the sycamores outside my window tell holy stories along with the stained glass that colors our church sanctuary. Furthermore, we have found ways to spend time together in person through service. These moments have been the pure forms of church: making meal packets for Something to Eat, packing lunches for Crosslines, gardening in our front yard together, delivering candles to our church members as a sign that God's presence is indeed with them in spirit and at home.
And last week, some of us worshipped together with others demonstrating and speaking out against racist violence and injustice in our country. On Friday night, a group of youth and young adults joined together at the Nelson to walk over to a peaceable demonstration at the Plaza. Wearing masks and keeping our distance from each other, we marched, led by a minister at Unity Southeast Church and kneeling for a few minutes in honor of George Floyd. Afterwards, we sat at Mill Creek Park listening to an open mic of speeches and poems from Black neighbors here in Kansas City. We were told stories that showed us the difficult realities of racism in our own city; we heard motivating calls to make a real change; we listened to difficult truths and words of cathartic hope. We found solidarity with people crying out along with God's spirit that anoints Jesus in Luke 4 to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, and to let the oppressed go free.
After her encounter with Jesus, the woman at the well overflowed with good news of salvation fit for the whole world (John 4:42). She was filled with joy and hope and shared with others the word of this God who is spirit and of Jesus who teaches of worshipping in spirit and truth. Our lives are getting busier again as restrictions lift, and many of us are finding renewed fervor in our conversations about and work against the social injustice of racism. May we, like this woman, be filled with fresh sight of God's spirit among us, even and especially in this moment.
|
|
Senior Spotlight
We celebrated six of our youth who are graduating high school this year with our Senior Spotlights
! Check out information about each of the seniors
online
or by checking out our
Instagram
.
|
|
Prayer Line
If you would like to record the meditation and prayer on our daily prayer line,
sign up here. You can find instructions on how to do this
here.
|
Updates and More Information
Youth Group:
We're so excited that on three Sunday nights in June, we'll offer backyard youth group for a chance to get together and connect face-to-face while minding social distancing guidelines. June 14, 21, and 28, we'll have separate hours of activities for both middle and high schoolers that will let them get together, see friends, play a game, and catch up. We'll allow for 30 minute in-between to allow for time to rotate between groups & sanitize anything necessary.
Middle schoolers will be invited to join us at 5:00pm; high schoolers will join us at 6:30pm. We'll have more signs and more information about where to meet and other safety regulations next week. After the first week, we will reassess our activities as necessary. I will be looking to recruit one other adult leader for each hour of youth group. If you'd be interested in joining, please let me know.
TogetherKC Summer Service-Learning Week: This summer, instead of our out-of-town service-learning trips, we will have an in-town service-learning week for both middle and high schoolers from July 19 to 24. This week will offer us a chance to serve with our mission partners like Micah Ministry and Cross-Lines and to learn about their work, especially in response to the crisis of this year's pandemic. We will also partake in projects that benefit individuals and ministries within our church, like making gifts for or visiting homebound members. This will be a fun chance to connect with each other and to God's work of creative transformation in our church and in our city. This week will be open to all current 6th through 12th graders, and friends not yet involved with CCCC are welcome and encouraged to join. Stay tuned for more information about the framework, details, and how to register.
Texting Updates: Stay tuned with all of our activities via text reminders! Sign up here.
High School Social Hour: High schoolers join in games & conversation together every Tuesday afternoon at 4:30. Reach out to Tyler for more information!
Pastors' Class: We will have a closing ceremony for Pastors' Class on Wednesday, June 24, at 7pm, and will plan baptisms for when we are worshipping in person on Sunday mornings
Senior Lunch & Recognition: Our graduating class of 2020 will be gathering with their families for a senior lunch and celebration on Sunday, July 19, with a recognition included in worship the same morning. Contact Tyler for more information.
|
2021 Community Camp
July 17-24, 2021
Join families and individuals from our congregation for a week of hiking, horseback riding, fishing, crafting, relaxing and fun at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park, Colorado. The group of 60-90 folks from all generations stays in a lodge with lovely mountain views and enjoys the home cooked meals provided by volunteer chefs from our church. If you don't like to camp but you love the mountains, this is the place for you. Register early as space is limited!
Participants who registered to attend camp in 2020 have priority in registration through June 30, 2020.
Find more information
here. Register
here. We anticipate there being a waitlist for 2021 so register early!
|
|
Parenting in Today's World Book Group
 Parents, grandparents, teachers - really anyone who is connected to children - are invited to participate in a book study of
Raising White Kids: Bringing Up Children in a Racially Unjust America by Dr. Jennifer Harvey.
This book provides the foundation for wrestling with our own bias, prejudice and leads us to examine the racism prevalent in our society along with sharing tools that we can use to support our children as they develop their racial understanding. Rev. Catherine Stark-Corn will facilitate the groups. Two groups are scheduled, group size will be limited, you can sign up
here. Additional groups can be created as needed. All parents are welcome to join but we want you to know this book's content is more geared towards Middle School age and younger.
Sundays June 21, 28, July 5, 12 4:30 - 6:00 pm
Tuesdays, June 23, 30, July 7, 14 7:00 - 8:30 pm
Questions? Interested but the schedule does not work for you? Contact
Catherine.
|
Rev. Tyler Heston
Minister of Youth
|
|
Hear about events and receive reminders through text updates with the software Remind.
Click
here
to sign up.
|
|
|
