There's a lot coming up this week as summer wraps up and we prepare for a new school year here at UCC.  Tomorrow our middle schoolers will be swimming at Burger's Lake, this weekend Youth Ministry Architects will be on site leading focus groups and working closely with our staff and lay leaders, and on Sunday night our Summer Interns have planned and will be leading The Search and we'll thank Carol Elliott for her service at a reception afterward.  Read below for more info on all of these events.

I also wanted to share a note about about Youth Ministry Architects that I think is worth repeating.  As the Youth Committee was thinking about partnering with YMA, one of the steps in the process involved checking with other churches who had been through the same process.  Stacy McCoy contacted a friend at First United Methodist Church here in Fort Worth, a congregation that had partnered with YMA in the last year.  Stacy's friend endorsed them enthusiastically, saying that partnering with YMA is one of the best things their church has done and that their ministry is healthier than ever before.  In fact, she said that UCC is very wise to do this when things are actually stable in our youth ministry.  Most churches don't partner with YMA until their third youth minister in four years has resigned and they don't know where else to turn.  By contrast, we're not trying to rebuild out of ashes but taking what we already have in place at UCC and making it even stronger and more durable.

Thanks in advance for your participation as we begin that process this weekend.

Grace and Peace,
Russ

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