donations of school supplies for Kershaw Elementary School

Part of the game plan for Team Church is to reach and impact the community. As I was delivering the school supplies that we’ve collected through the month of August to the Kershaw Elementary School, I was thinking of the ways we’ve tried to reach and impact our community in Lancaster County.

We started off with a bang by providing a huge community Easter egg hunt.  We’ve served the town with the Springathon, and provided support to Youth Serve during its two weeks of community service project.  Also, we’ve volunteered for other youth events with the community ministry called YIELD.  Just last month we provided another large event with the free outdoor community movie.  And as we’ve entered into the fall, we are sponsoring the Andrew Jackson High School sports program, plus we weekly provide the football players with small treat before each game.

And today was especially gratifying as Grant, David, and I delivered the school supplies that were donated for the Kershaw Elementary School.  The principal and school counselor were elated over the donation, and knew that the supplies were really needed.  Back when we asked about the needs of the school, Principal Jennifer Etheridge was moved when she thought of the increasing financial need of our area.  Extra supplies are crucial for the increase of students that can’t afford even the basics.

If you think about what connects all the things that we’ve been about since the launch, you’ll find a couple of words are key:  community and serve.  Our game plan is to reach out…to the community…and do what?  impact…make a difference, and we do that by serving!

Way to go, Team Church!  That’s showing Christ to those around us…and it will make a difference in the lives of those families that we’re reaching and impacting!

Susan Hammond,School Counselor; Jennifer Etheridge, Principal; Steve Miller, Teach Church Pastor

The outdoor movie event was a smash last Friday!  I was afraid that we might get rained out, but the weather was awesome for the event.  The ball field was packed with movie-goers, and I’m really glad to say that everything came off without  hitch!  Already people are saying, “When are you going to do it again?“  Well, I don’t have plans right now, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do it again real soon.  There are great pictures of the event on our Facebook page.

Setting up just before dusk in the Kershaw Ballfield. Soon 450 people will be in attendance!

The luminaries made it so festive...and there's Deeda, our picture-taker! Thanks

Take a look at the movie night photo album…you might be in there.

The only thing is how could we beat the popularity of such a family-friendly exciting movie like Race to Witch Mountain?  I know…we can make it a whole night of Betty Boop cartoons!  Just kidding, Scott!  We’ll just have to see what else might be a good time and choice.  Regardless, Team Church will be up to something in the community.

At Team Church, we believe in reaching and impacting the community, but events aren’t the only thing we hope to inspire people to participate in.  Our desire is to continually point people to an active faith in Jesus.  That is why we began our latest message series, Activate.  Sunday I explained that one area is to Activate Up…with transformational worship.  This Sunday we’ll be learning about Activate In…joining “in” a community of people who care, who will love, who will love enough to confront, who will help with accountability, healing, growing, learning, …living a faithful life.

Team Church will be having Home Team sign-ups this weekend.  Home Teams are what we call our the small groups that meet in homes during the week.  This is where we do most of our discipleship, fellowship, and have lots of fun together.  I hope that you will be ready to sign up to join in a group as you Activate IN.

We’ve had some unique and awesome Sundays these past two weeks with a poolside talk on baptism and sharing the Lord’s Supper together for the first time at Team Church. We’re soon approaching the end of our first semester of Home Teams (we’ve got just two more meetings), and the launch of our Fall Teams (Aug. 20). Yep, that’s right, fall’s just around the corner and that means SCHOOL’S back.
To usher in the first day of school (aug. 17) Team Church is throwing the community a movie party! In just two-1/2 weeks we’re going to show an outdoor movie in the baseball field next to the Kershaw Elementary School. This will be a lot like our Easter event where our mission is to provide a fun environment for families. We want people in Kershaw to relax in their lawn chairs, have a bag of popcorn on us, and enjoy a movie. The movie is pretty exciting too and will start up at 9pm. It will have just come out on DVD, “Race to Witch Mountain.”

I’ll be asking for volunteers to sign up to help us on Friday August 14. So I hope you’ll help make this great night. Plus, you’ll hear more about how you can donate needed school supplies to the Elementary School kids.

As the Fall comes quickly we’re staying busy with Team Church because we really expect God to help us reach out to more people. Once school starts I believe God will begin multiplying some of the efforts we’ve put in during the summer. Teenagers are going to be sharing their experiences with Youth Serve and Team Church, and we could see a lot more of them on a regular basis. Teens will be talking to their parents about coming to visit, and we will see God transform lives as He leads people to salvation and full devotion. It’s really exciting what’s coming up soon.