Thoughts from the Pastor… It’s been a great week to be a Squirrels fan. The football team posted its best record in years and made the play offs for the first time since 1995, even after the division was rearranged with bigger schools like Shanley and Wahpeton. The volleyball team enters the district tournament as the top ranked team in the area after a successful season of play. The cross country team had some of their strongest performances of the year at the state tournament. The music department is sending a huge contingent to the Northwest Music Festival, including 1/5 of its honor band. Finally, over 1200 people attended the musical Grease at the school last weekend, which played to rave reviews. The cast for Grease also entertained the Senior Citizens at their annual luncheon and provided entertainment for the kick off of the Journey Stories Event here in wonderful multi generational events. Many of these teams and casts are comprised of young people from Martin’s and are coached and directed by our members.
It’s also been a great week for the youth at Martin’s. Last Sunday, sixteen eleventh graders affirmed their faith in a service that reminded them to wear “Son glasses” and view life through the lens of faith. In the middle of the week we have our annual Fall Harvest Festival with costumes, as children of all ages celebrate this spooky season with games and fun. It is a great event, as older high school kids that the littler members look up to and admire help and interact with them in the context of church. And all throughout the week, youth are taking part in activities like Confirmation Classes, MYO, and Soul’d Out as ways to bolster and strengthen their faith.
This community and this congregation have invested a lot into our youth. In recent years we’ve seen improvements to the school, the fields, and stands, and an increased commitment to the music program, and those investments have paid off for the community. As a congregation, we also have made investments in our youth and music ministry. We have a full time youth director and we have made increasingly stronger commitments to our music program. When you realize that 91% of the young people confirmed last fall are at worship more often than not, and that on any given week we have countless young people participating in the life of our congregation by serving at dinners, moving tables for funerals, helping lead worship, painting, ushering, shepherding at church school, and participating in our music program, you see how our youth ministry benefits the whole church. And anyone who has been at worship in the past month can’t help but notice the wonderful addition to worship the choir and bell choir have been.
These additions also draw more people to our congregation. We will be taking in new members at the beginning of December, and in conversation with several of these people, it is clear that our commitment to youth and music draws people to Martin’s.
As we have our fall stewardship drive this month, I invite you to reflect on how this investment has impacted our congregation and how you can continue to support it. Our congregation is a lively and vibrant community. Many congregations worry about how they will stay alive beyond the next generation. At Martin’s, it is incredible to see how the young people bring so much to our community, and how bright our future is.
I am proud to be a resident of Casselton for many reasons, but one is the amount of pride that the young people in the community bring to us and how we support the school. I am proud to be pastor of Martin’s for many reasons, as well, but one is the multi generational support we have for our various ministries, and the strong support for the youth, and in turn, their strong support of the church. So Go Squirrels, Thank God for the youth, and give so we might continue to sing out for generations to come.
Peace, Pastor Paula
