Youth Group Tshirts

Super exciting news!!!


We officially have a Spiritfire design created by a Graphic Design Artist and we have receiving pricing information. I'm loving the design and I'm excited about the low prices offered! We have sizes and requests from a few of you already, but if you wouldn't mind please respond to this email (even if you've already signed up!!) Parents and anyone else interested are more than welcome to purchase Spiritfire gear as well!



So here's what we need you to do:

1. Check out the emblem that will be printed on black shirts/pants, etc.

2. Reply to me (by Wednesday) with the items you would like to puchase (tshirt/sweatshirt/sweatpants) and the sizes for each.

3. We will let you know when we need the money.

4. Wear your Spiritfire gear with pride. :D



T-shirts - $7.00 ea.

Hoodies - $19.00 ea.

Zip Hoodies - $21.00 ea.

Sweat Pants - $17.00 ea.



Pricing is for sizes Small – Extra Large add $1.00 for every x past xl

Packing list for SBC Service Week

• Bible
• Sleeping bag/extra blankets
• Pillow
• Clothing changes for 5 days plus extra
• note: girls must have bra straps covered by tshirt or thick shouldered tank tops
• Shorts must be modest (fingertip length preferred.) 
• If any item of clothing is not deemed modest by the youth leaders, the student will be asked to change
• Sweatshirt
• Jeans
• Socks 
• Tennis shoes
• Sandals/flip flops
• Pajamas--  warm and cold weather
• Bathing suit (no two-pieces, no low cut--cover-ups may not be white)
• Beach Towel
• Sunglasses
• Water bottle (labeled with your name!)
• Bath towel & wash cloth
• Personal medication—prescription or OTC (Please make Kevin or Melanie aware of these)
• Cell phones & chargers 
• Toiletries
• Soap
• Shampoo
• Hair Brush/Comb
• Deodorant
• Sunscreen
• Bug spray
• For personal time (optional):
• Journal/pens (for Bible/devos)
• Books
• iPods & chargers
• For recreational time (all optional):
• Spending money for the “Trading Post” (snack foods & SBC gear)
• Frisbees
• Baseballs/Softballs/Mitts/Bats
• Tennis balls/rackets
• Basketballs 
• Footballs
• Kickballs
• Personal snacks or snacks to share (OPTIONAL)
• Feel free to bring any additional food items you wish to have on hand for your own use or for sharing with the group--keeping in mind you will be getting three great meals a day from the camp!
• S'mores stuff or other fire roasting items 
• chocolate bars
• marshmallows
• graham crackers

----------------------------
*If an emergency arises, you have questions or concerns, or you need to contact your student for any reason, please don't hesitate to contact us.

*In addition, if any need or emergency occurs concerning your student, rest assured that you will be contacted immediately.
Contact Info: 
Melanie's Cell: 440.813.7025
Kevin's Cell: 440.813.5380

email: melanieeccles@gmail.com

Somerset Beach office: 517.688.3783

Directions and Contact info for SBC:
http://www.somersetbeach.org/index.php/contact/ 

SBC Details (and a little quizzing)

Kevin & Mel's Summer Plans. In case you missed the announcement this past Sunday, Kevin and Melanie are going to be working at Somerset Beach Campground for the duration of the summer. Since substitute teaching doesn't exactly pay during the summer months, we needed to find alternatives. This is the perfect one! We'll be back every Sunday for church and regularly scheduled youth group. During the week, Melanie will be working in the office at SBC and Kevin will be working with the youth programming staff. SBC is the camping ministry of our Southern Michigan Conference of Free Methodist Churches--so we hope to bring even more awareness to our teens and families about this great camp!

You will still be able to reach us at our cell phone numbers and our email addresses. Contact us if you need that info! 

Summer SERVANThood Experience. If you didn't read all the details about our summer service week at Somerset Beach click here.  To nail down our plans, we're going to need your registration forms asap. If possible, return your registration forms (signed by a parent) by this Sunday, May 30th. If you need more time to decide, please let us know.

• Pick-Up Times. We had had questions concerning "pickup times" at the end of the week. We would like invite ALL our parents to attend the Friday evening service at 7pm and then take your students home after they finish their nursery/kids' church duties. If you would need to just pick them up at the end of the night, the service will be over around 8:30/9 or you can make arrangements with us to pick them up earlier in the day. 
• COST.  The camp is generously going to cover the costs of each student's lunch and dinner meals!  How awesome is that?!  This will leave breakfast for us to supply.  Each individual will be responsible for packing desired breakfast items. (i.e. cereal, granola bars, fruit). There will be a small amount of refrigeration available for storing milk or yogurt, etc if needed. Any questions on food necessities, let us know!  THIS JUST IN: ALL of your meals will be covered for each day we're at camp. This includes those adult leaders who attend with us. Praise God for his provision. This means a week of service at SBC is FREE! 
• 
  
  
  Help NEEDED! Two full-time adult volunteers are still needed to attend this week of service at Somerset. Kevin and Melanie will oversee activities, but with their job responsibilities, the camp would also like 2 other adults on hand for the students to check in with during their free time, to spend the night in the gender-specific tents, as well as to work alongside the students on any given projects (i.e. assisting in morning VBS, working where needed in the afternoon, working in the nursery and children's service in the evening.) In addition, these adults will be a great help to have on hand as our teens process their service and leadership experience. 
  
  
  Please please consider working with our teens for the week of July 11-16. Anyone over the age of 19 is eligible to help.  Your meal costs will be covered by the camp as well and you would be staying in the tents with the teens. 

  
  
• For a detailed packing list as well as some important notes about dress code and essential contact info be sure to check out the SBC Service Week Packing List.
• Directions to the camp can be found on the website here. 

Bible Quizzing: Materials are IN!  We can get you hooked up with the listening cd as soon as you get us a blank cd or your person mp3 player. And be sure to get us your $5 if you haven't yet!

SpiritFire Tshirts: We are going to be ordered youth group shirts very soon. They should cost between $7-10.  A fantastic design was submitted by our graphic design friend and the students who came Sunday loved it!  They will be printed on black tshirts. Please get us your tshirt size asap if you'd like us to order you one of these great shirts!

Summer Quote Schedule

We will be delivering each quizzer a copy of this list, but we wanted to make sure you had the quote memorizing schedule as soon as possible!  The basic goal is to memorize three (3) quotes each week through the summer. Not at all an unreasonable goal veteran quizzers! New quizzers, memorize the first five (5) quotes this summer--or more if you're ambitious!

The dates given are all Wednesdays as that is the day we will have our weekly practices starting August 18th. You can memorize the verses at any point throughout the week, but you could also choose to have your personal practice time on Wednesdays from 7-8 just as we will in August and you should definitely be able to get the three quotes memorized in an hour of concentrated study. 

But do whatever works for you!  Memorize one on Monday. Another Tuesday. Another Wednesday. Review through your days Thursday and Friday. Review in the shower. Review on the bus. Review over breakfast or lunch. Review during tv commercials. Don't move on to new verses until you have the current quotes down pat!  

Have parents or friends or siblings quiz you. They can give you the reference (i.e. John 1:1-2) and you quote. WORD FOR WORD. It has to be perfect to get full credit for a "quote" during a real quiz. :) 

Or they could say, "Give me the reference and quote the passage beginning 'For God so loved'." 

We'll be ordering a listening cd and extra study materials to help you! Good luck! And don't be surprised to get texts from us asking you to quote such and such a verse then and then. :) :) 

May 
26 
John 1:1-2
John 1:12-13
John 1:14

June 
2
John 3:3
John 3:16-17
John 3:36
 
9
John 4:13-14
John 4:24
John 4:34-35

16
John 6:27
John 6:35
John 6:68-69


23
John 7:37-38
John 8:12
John 8:31-32

30 
John 8:36
John 10:9-10
John 10:14-15

July 
7 
John 11:25-26
John 12:25-26
John 13:34-35


14
John 14:1-2
John 14:6
John 14:12

21
John 14:23
John 14:26
John 14:27

28 
John 15:1-2
John 15:5
John 15:7-8

August 
4
John 15:13
John 16:13
John 16:33

11 
John 17:3
John 17:17
John 19:17-18

18 
John 20:21
John 20:28-29
John 20:31

25 
John 21:25

our summer SERVANThood Experience

First of all: 

• Bible Quizzing. We will be placing an order this Wednesday for quizzing materials. If you are definitely wanting to commit to this for the fall, let us know by then!  
• Coaches needed. We're going to need 2-3 adult coaches for our abundance of quiz teams!  This is a rather low-maintenance job that would require attendance at our monthly quizzes as well as at all (or most) of our weekly practices. 
• Drivers needed. Our little vehicles simply won't cater to the large number of quizzers we're going to have for fall, so we are definitely going to need parent drivers each month to our quiz meets. 
• Spring concerts/sports. Keep us posted on your activities. We'd love to be a part of as many of them as we can!
• School photos. We'd love to start a wall collection of all our awesome teens' school photos!  So bring 'em in!  
• Cork board/magnet board/dry erase board. If anyone has one of these items or finds one cheap at a yard sale, let us know. We need places to hang photos and such in the youth group. 

Our summer mission trip plans have taken many a turn in recent weeks. As you know, we were planning on attending LifeChangers: Detroit, but after surveying the group of teens, we were saddened to discover almost everyone had major schedule conflicts with the dates of this event. We started brainstorming alternative service project ideas and came up with this plan:

Where? Somerset Beach Campground

When? Family Camp--July 11th-16th

What? Summer Servanthood Experience:

Full time volunteers helping the conference-wide family camp run smoothly! 

About Somerset Beach: SBC is a camping ministry of the Southern Michigan Conference of the Free Methodist Church located on Chicago Rd/US-12 just an hour away from Monroe in Somerset, MI--near MIS. Each July, the camp hosts a conference-wide family camp where hundreds of adults, teens, and kids enjoy a week of activities, relaxation, church services, prayer, worship, Bible study, and all the fun that comes with camping. 

Here's the deal: Our church (Monroe FMC) is having a potluck picnic out at SBC Sunday July 11th where everyone is encouraged to attend! This time of fun will be followed by an enormous baptism service for all of the churches participating. After the service, families will either say goodbye OR set up camp for themselves,  and our participating teens will set up camp on Kevin & Melanie's site for the week. Students will be full time volunteers during this huge camping experience. 

Student responsibilities:

:::help college-aged counselors lead the children's morning VBS services. 

:::be ready and willing to help with any needs that arise during the afternoon 

(cleaning, cooking, assisting where needed)

:::work in the nursery or with children's church during each evening service.

In addition to working, there will be lots of opportunities for fun! Wednesday evening the teens will participate in the HUGE youth service--complete with campground-wide activities and worship.  Throughout the week they will have time for making new friends, enjoying the beach/lake, roasting marshmallows in the evenings at Kevin and Mel's campsite, and more!  

Leaders Needed:  We will need adult volunteers as well!  We would love to have at least one male and one female leader for this event.  Kevin and Melanie will oversee activities and projects, but having another set of leaders to keep tabs of the students would be totally helpful. Please contact us asap if you are willing to camp out with us for week! 

We don't have a quoted cost as of yet from the director of SBC, but we know it will be very reasonable. And we will get that information to you as SOON as possible! 


Click HERE to open the Registration Form or pick one up from Kevin or Melanie. 
Return them next week or ASAP. 

Quizzing and BIG CHANGE in Summer Trip

Quizzing. We will be placing an order for our Bible quizzing materials Monday, May 17th. Be sure to talk to us before then to secure your place on a team for the Fall.  Your cost will be $5 (for your quizzing book/portion). We will be starting practices back up August 18th--the first quiz won't be until October 9th. And remember, we will be memorizing quote verses over the summer!  

Questions?? Talk to Kevin or Mel asap! 

Summer Missions. Our summer mission trip plans have taken many a turn in recent weeks. We were planning on attending LifeChangers but after surveying the group of teens, we were saddened to discover almost everyone had major schedule conflicts with the dates of this event. We started brainstorming alternative service project ideas and came up with this plan:

• Where? Somerset Beach Campground
• When? Family Camp--July 11th-16th
• What? Full time volunteers helping the conference-wide family camp run smoothly! 
• 
  

Here's the deal: Our church is having a potluck picnic out at SBC Sunday July 11th followed by an enormous baptism service for all of the churches participating. (SBC is a camp ministry of the Southern Michigan Conference of the Free Methodist Church located just an hour away in Somerset, MI--near MIS.)  After the service, families will say goodbye (OR set up camp for themselves!) and teens will set up camp on Kevin & Melanie's site for the week. Students will be full time volunteers during this huge camping experience. They will:

• help college-aged counselors lead the children's morning VBS services. 
• be ready and willing to help with any needs that arise during the afternoon.
• work in the nursery or with children's church during each evening service.

In addition to working, there will be lots of opportunities for fun! Wednesday evening the teens will participate in the conference wide HUGE youth service--complete with campground-wide activities and worship.  They will have time for making new friends, enjoying the beach/lake, roasting marshmallows in the evenings at Kevin and Mel's campsite and more!  

We will need adult volunteers as well!  We would love to have one male and one female leader for this event--as Melanie is working in the SBC office and Kevin is working with the youth camp programming staff.  Kevin and Mel will oversee activities and projects, but having another set of leaders to keep tabs of the students would be totally helpful. Please contact us asap if you are willing to camp out with us for week! 

We don't have a quoted cost as of yet from the director of SBC, but we know it will be very reasonable. And we will get that information to you as SOON as possible!