Un-combined Combined Youth Event

or in other words Pool Party.

Despite a change in plans due to the MASSIVE HEAT we Chilled Down at Annabel's house and pool. It was a great chance to hangout cool down and have some sweet food and drinks. Great to see some people back that have been missing in weeks gone. see you all at Fallout this Saturday 7-930pm

Rock Climbing:

An overall successful night with nearly 20 people gathering to head to Vertical Reality Climbing for some indoor rock climbing! With some quick monkey-like-skills and expert belayers lots of fun (and some sweart) was had as heaps of people reached to top.

What A Month

After a Busy month of School Holidays youth group and kids club it must be time to look back on an expectational Month!

MOVIE NIGHT

To kick off the month after a busy week of Kids club 15 Malvern youth sat back and relaxed by watching movies and eating pizza!


PANCAKE PANDEMONIUM
The end of the holidays brought some pandemonium to the Malvern Church kitchen as we unsuccessfully attempted to create some Pancake master pieces! and in the words of Malvern Staff "those Pancakes look weeks old!" despite the look i assure you the taste was interesting!


WHO WANTS TO BE CHOCOLAT-AIRE?
After a change of plans we set about deciding who could handle the 'hot seat' of Who Wants To Be a Chocolat-aire? with many blocks of chocolate eaten it became quite clear that only the chocolate could not handle the hot seat!


FALLOUT
And to close out the busy month of October we played a few games, 'sung' some songs and listended as Rosalie spoke about how our faith in God shold be Shown through the things we do to others!

Grace and Peace

Hot Chip CHAMPION

Saturday evening. 25 Malvern youths. One mission. Discover the best hot chips on Unley Road, Adelaide. The task ahead was no easy task and required dedication, commitment and subtle taste buds.
Setting off from Malvern Church we explored the 4 hot chips engineering institutes on Unley Road to complete the assignment.
After each institution forms were completed rating taste (with and without sauce), cost, temperature and service. The mission required extensive research and in the end the winner was Broadway Chicken Shop on Unley Road. Fun and food was had by all!
Overall the mission was a success!
See you next week
Guy

40 Hour Famine Sleep Over

Last Saturday we had a lock-in-sleep-in here at the church to support each other during the 40 hours. Some of us gave up food, others gave up talking, some gave up furniture and other did nothing. But all in all it was a fun filled night. There were games of pool, playstation, movies, puzzles and so much more.
There is still time to collect money so please keep asking your friends and family for donations.
Grace and Peace

Bowlarama!

Hey guys,
Man, what a good night on Saturday at AMF bowling. I am sorry if you weren't there because it was awesome. There was plenty of bowling to had all... from seasoned veterans to first time bowlers. Now I don't want people to get confused that we went lawn bowling... that is the less pretty cousin of real bowling.
Some people took it a little more serious than others which is understandable (mainly the boys and amanda) but for the most part I think it was about the enjoyment and not the competition.
We witnessed some interesting new styles of bowling from the windmill, to the eyes closed and finally the get-the-ball-into-the-alley-even-with-the-bumperbars-up bowling style. This one surprisingly happened quite often.
All in all it was a great night of friendship and God filled fun.
Have an awesome week and I'll be seeing you on Saturday for soup making.
Grace and Peace
PS remember there is Bible study this week at 5:45

August onwards...

Hey everybody!
Yip that's right it's me, Guy, and I'm back.
There is so much going on the next two months and I don't know how you all are going to keep up. You should have got your brochures in the mail and Mark F has done a really great job of them.
As you may know we have 40 Hour Famine coming up at the end of the month so please get your 40 Hour Famine booklets from me this weekend of next weekend and start raising money. This year I have roped in the evening service as well and as a team we are all trying to raise $3000. We can do it. Check out the website for more details http://trans.worldvision.com.au/40hourfamine/
God Bless and see ya for bowling this weekend
Guy

Hand painting isn't that messy

As much as we all love the youth room I think it is safe to say that it needed some youth touching up. We needed to give it some personal character and on Saturday night we did that.
A bunch of us got together as a community and we decorated the room amazingly! There is now a 30cm line of brightly coloured hands prints that runs all the way around the room. Except for the occassional mishap most of the hands found their marks and I must say the room looks wicked.

It is so wonderful to be able to come together and share the experience. I really enjoyed being able to talk all you guys on more personal level which I do miss when we do really big events.

This Saturday we have Fall Out and the band will be playing and I am going to be giving a talk about why Jesus had to die for us.

Hope to see you all there
Grace and Peace
Guy

The Month of May

Hello Bloggers,

Apologies for the lengthy gap between posts. Well, on Saturday night we headed off to Two World's Collide laser skirmish. It was an amazing turn out with almost 40 there to play in the largest indoor skirmish arena in South Australia.

A lot of people brought their friends along so it was great to meet some new people as well as hanging with some old friends.

Youth group is about impacting each other, impacting the community and letting God impact us. I saw all three of those on Saturday night. The guys who ran the laser skirmish complimented me on the group of people who were playing. They said we were all very well behaved and that we were a pleasure to host. You guys are awesome!

This week (16th of may) we are going to be based at the church. On the brochure it says that there was going to be a fundraiser but things didn't work out the way I planned but we will still be having an wonderful time.

I have a story for you all...you see I am pretty new to the whole youth group idea. Some of you have probably been going to a youth longer then I have. When I was growing up there was no youth group or anything like that. I think the first time I ever experienced a youth gathering for Christ was when I was 16. It was a camp that some friends look me a long to and on that camp I gave my life to Christ and made a commitment to love and serve God. I have been trying to do that ever since. Yes I fall down and I make mistakes because I am human but the Lord is always there to support me and to give me strength when I need it.

God has placed me at this church to help guide the youth (that is you guys) to discover a relationship with Him. I want you guys to know that I am here for you if you ever need a chat or you ever want to talk about faith. Email me and I will make every effort to arrange a time to catch up (guym@adam.com.au).

Your friend is Christ
Guy

Pool Party

This last Saturday we had a pool party hosted by one of the parents from the church.A massive thank you must go out to that family... THANK YOU!!! There was a heated pool, a lawn tennis court which was perfect for soccer and SO much food. Seems like a weird time to have a pool party but we saw that daylight saving changed the next day. So combining that fact with an earlier start we were still able to get some daylight in. We were also blessed to have a pretty warm day.

We had some kids missing at youth because of Head of the River rowing regatta. Congratulation to all our kids who competed.

After the swim and the pool volleyball we had a wicked barbeque of sausages!! I was completely confused by the already buttered bread that came from Bakers Delight. Technology... I tell you it is amazing. Once we ate as many sausages as possible we were treated to some ice cream which is always going to go down well.

God bless to everyone. Have a wonderful easter and we'll see on the 18th for youth group at the church.

Grace and Peace

March Madness...

Hey guys, sorry it's been awhile since we last posted - it's been a little bit crazy around here!! But now that things have calmed down a little, we can make sure you're all up to date.

Awhile back (stretch your memories...) we had our five senses night! Mark did an awesome job organising all sorts of things for us to figure out. I think the coolest was that awesome magic goo that was hard when you poked it and then turned into a liquid! No idea how it worked though... There was squishy sausage meat, kidneys, four different types of coke and freshly baked muffins - all picked to try and muddle our senses. Well done to those of you who got them right! Congrats to guy's team who won (not that my team wasn't the best anyway) - chocolate always makes an awesome prize.

The following weekend was Fallout! Matt got the band together and did a great job pulling us all into line and getting us organised (depsite a few technical difficulties when the kick refused to stay attached to the stupid drum!). Well done Ewen for playing drums!! Guy gave a talk about what it's like to be stuck in a full on storm; do you remember how he told us about being stuck in the middle of that field when he was at school, with the water up to his knees? Would've been pretty freaky. It was kind of like when Jesus and his mates were stuck on that fishing boat in the middle of a storm. Those guys freaked out too! But in the end, all Jesus had to to was command the waves to stop, and they did. They figured out that it woudl've been better to trust Jesus from the start instead of running around like chickens with their heads chopped off! Then we all drew pictures of our lives - maybe they were stormy, maybe they weren't.

Finally, last week was the big event we'd all been waiting for - MalFUNction!! It was a great week, with community dinners, a prayer night, serving the community, a world record attempt and a massive street party. Thanks to all of the youth who helped serve at the first dinner, and to everyone that came to the second one. Wasn't that magic bible that Hayden Lush showed us cool?! We had 66 people simultaneously playing hopscotch on friday night, plus 33 observers. That means almost 100 people turned up, which is excellent! We're just waiting to hear from Guinness World Records to let us know if we've made the cut. Then there was the big street party. Thanks a million to everyone who came and especially to everyone who helped out! It woudnt've happened without your help. I hope you all got to taste that delicious (free) fairy floss! It was awesome! Did you see the boys running around in their giraffe suit? Or throw some coconuts? Or get dunked? Or how about just chillax by the stage and listen to Compliments of Gus? Don't worry if you missed out - we'll be doing it all again in two years time!! Overall it was an excellent week, it was great to see how well Malvern and a community and our church as a whole responded. Well done everyone!!

Well, that's the blog up to date for now. Don't forget about the pool party this saturday! W're going to Hannah's house for a swim and some games. Meeting at the church at 5pm - SEE YOU THERE!!!

The month of March so far...

On Saturday night we slipped on our ice skate and hit the massive frozen pool with force. Some of the kids had never skated before but those who could skate were really awesome in making sure the non-skaters were shown the way around the ice rink.
It was really cool night (sorry for the pun) where everyone got to get some skating in and also to consume some wicked supper of chips, cookies, and hot chips with sauces...mmm.

So what is happening this coming Saturday night? We will be at the church and we are going to have a 5 senses night. This is going to entail finding out all about our 5 bodily senses: touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. We're are going to be investigate how amazing the make-up of our human form is and how it can't be an accident.

It has been an amazing year so far and it is only going to get better. The new brochures for April and May are going to arriving in the mail soon so keep an eye out.
God bless to all you bloggers out there

FALLOUT - February

The first FALLOUT of this year was pretty awesome! Thanks to Matt who led the band for the first time - he did a great job. Guy gave a great talk about treasure, and about how God gave up everything for us (his treasure). We thought that it was about time we played PlanC, so we had about five round of that before just chilling out until the parents turned up. It was excellent to see some new faces! Guy and i had fun - hopefully you all did too. We'll see you on Friday for DIG IT at CitiBeach!

14th February Youth Group

Good day or night (depending on the time you read this) bloggers in bloggerland,

Well... Saturday night was really awesome. We decided that we were going to Impact the wider so a bunch of the kids brought along old shoe boxes and we started decorating them to be used as Samaritan Purse Operation Christmas Child boxes (http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/index/).

We had wrapping paper, glitter glue (note to self very messy stuff), sticky tape, motivation sticker (which I have no idea why they are called motivation sticker), normal glue, and of course ribbon.

Now the anticipation at the beginning was that the girls was were going to dominate this by using their genetically given ability to decorate better than boys but this turned out to untrue. There was even mix of gifted decorators from both the boys and girls.

What we are going to do with these decorated boxes is in April for 2nd Impact we are going to go out shopping to purchase presents for these boxes and get them sent off to Samaritan Purse. This means that when Christmas comes around kids all over the world are going to be receiving presents when they normally wouldn't have been.

After the boxes were finished completed we headed into the ball for a bit of indoor cricket. Very enjoyable and fairly competitive. The boys often had to be told to not bowl too hard to the girls who had never played cricket before.

After all the cleaning up and packing away was done there was a few minutes spare to play a quick game of Plan C but a long more intense game is going to be on the cards.

Look forward to seeing all the kids back again this Saturday.

Bye for now and God Bless

Welcome To 2009!

Hey Guys,

Happy (belated) new year! Youth group is back in full swing now, so if you haven't got a brochure in the mail and don't know what's going on, give us a call and get into gear or you'll miss out on all the fun!

It all started last saturday night with a Girls vs Guys scavenger hunt. In our teams, we scoured the neighborhood, trying to decipher our clues. We were led to Unley Oval, Claridge Holden, Unley Baptist, BBQ Chicken, Video EZY... all over the place. We took 'tradie' photos outside of Mitre10, climbed trees for extra points and made an awful lot of 'still life' scenes for our photographic evidence.

When we got back to the church and gorged ourselves on Zooper Doopers, we tallied up the results. The girls won by a landslide! No big suprise there, haha. The boys did do a good job though - their photos were a lot more embarassing than ours!!

Hope everyone had a fun night - and if you missed out, don't worry. Tomorrow night is second IMPACT and we're going to be doing something pretty cool and crafty to help out our community. Bring a shoe-box if you can!

See you all there!

2009!

Hey guys, welcome to youth group for 2009!! Well, it's been a busy week! Kids Club and Youth Group have kicked off for the year!

Wednesday was our one-day kids club - BIG DAY OF SPLASH! With only eight kids, it went very easily. We all went to the pool in the morning and spent two hours splashing, dunking, mucking around... the usual. We got out all lovely and waterlogged. It was a ball. Afterwards, we went back to church and ate popcorn while watching Wall-E or Horton Hears A Who. I watched Wall-E - it was so cute (with an environmental message to boot, which is always a plus). We did crafts, played games, and played a few rounds of 20-20-in; carefully this time, so as to avoid anymore accidents! It was a really easy, chilled, fun day - next time we'll have to get a few more of you guys to come along and have fun with us!

Last night we had a movie marathon at church. After eeveryone rocked up around 5pm, we cooked pizzas (after a mad dash home to get more ingredients - men should not be left in charge of the shopping) and watched all three Back To The Future movies. Most of us loved them - they're such great movies! After the three of those, many a game of pool was had. We then played Call of Duty for awhile, then started in on the Ocean's Trilogy. By 9am, Benji had arrived wtih pancakes for breakfast and us older kids hadn't slept a wink. Ouch! But it was lots of fun - i don't think sleepovers could possibly go wrong. We'll have to have another one sometime soon. Any suggestions for the next set of movies?!

NEXT WEEK: Don't forget, next week is BIG WEEK OUT! After that, youth group is back to normal and you'll get a brochure in the mail sometime soon. See you all there!!

End of year Beach Party

2008 has been such an amazing year. We have done some many awesomely wicked things and there was no better way of finishing off the year than by having a beach party. We had a beach party at the end of summer and the weather was not great if you remember but on Saturday the weather was beautiful.

We had people swimming and there were actually waves at Brighton, small, but still waves. We had a huge barbeque cooked for us by a few of leaders. There were hamburger patties, sausages and of course onion. Everyone was very well fed. :)

What else did we get up to? There was some cricket played in the Brighton park but most of the attention was aimed at the MASSIVE hole that youth group dug into the beach. By the end of our time there the hole was big enough to fit the whole group into it. Then, because of safety reasons, we filled in the hole by buried some of the kids up to their necks (at their request)... kinda backfired when we had to try and dig them out of the hole again.

We headed home when the sun started going down and it was a really great way to finish off the year. Thank you to everyone who has made this year possible and it is going to be an amazing 2009!

Schoolies 2008

Dear bloggers in bloggerland,

This last weekend a team of 6 volunteers went down to Victor Harbour is assist in the organisation and running of this years Schoolies event. Schoolies, for those of you who don't know, is the end of exam year 12 party organised and run by a Christian organisation called Encounter Youth. It lasts from Friday night til Monday morning. Now, you might think it strange that a Christian group would organise a massive party at Victor Harbour, but if you remember this church hosted a mean dance party a couple of weeks ago. Basically, Christians love to see people have lots of safe fun... even Jesus was into a good party every now and then.

So while we were down there Malvern was involved with helping on the buses that ran from Victor Harbour to Encounter Bay and to Goolwa. We rode on the buses from 7pm til 3am and we got to talk so many awesome Schoolies who were all having a fun time with there mates in a safe environment.

Schoolies was so much fun, tiring, but fun. We are definitely going to be going back next year and to have a team of over 10 would be awesome. So, if you are 18 and over and interested in volunteering to help run such an awesome event then this could be for you.

Bye for now and remember these words... John 1:4-5 "In God there is life and that life is the light for all people. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has no power over it".

Grace and peace.

Almost Christmastime!

Last Saturday night, youth group flew by - we spend two hours making pizza and christmas decorations. The pizza was yummy, but making the decorations was so much more fun! In one room, a bunch of us were making beaded angels and all sorts of pretty things. In the other room, the table was covered with old christmas cards, scissors, glue, pens and foam - perfect to create super-duper awesome christmas cards. At least, mine were awesome :P

It was a really fun, chilled night - two hours went by in a flash. There's no youth this weekend, and schoolies is next weekend, but after that it's our awesome end-of-year BEACH PARTY! So we'll see you all then!

1st IMPACT

1st IMPACT last weekend was a pretty chilled event. We started by watching a video done by the Black Adder guy (which means very little to me, but apparently he's very funny), as he retold the parable of the seed sowing. You know, where Jesus throws handfuls of seed onto the ground, the thorny bushes, the weeds and the soil - and only the ones that fall on good ground grow. We split into groups and spent awhile talking about all of the different things that the different grounds could stand for - like unsuppotive environments and bad influences could represent the bad ground, and a healthy church life might be the good soil.

Afterwards, we played some music in the church - congrats to the band, because they got the hang of some very tricky songs during practice! After jumping around for awhile, there were a few games of soccer played in the hall.. before everyone practically collapsed on the stage and just hung out: for some reason we were all too tired to do anything much else!

This weekend we're making christmas decorations!! So we'll see you all there, 7pm.

Time To Party!

Last saturday night was the Malvern SOCIAL! I don't know about you, but all of us leaders had an absolute blast. We had a DJ cranking out some rockin' tunes, awesome lights flickering everywhere, a smoke machine and plenty of nibbles. We were good to go.

We had about 40 people rock up - and even though it would've been great to have more people, we did a pretty good job. We spent the evening playing musical chairs (go Alex for winning!) and pass-the-parcel, we had macarena and nutbush competitions (Kieran, Reuben and Matt won those, woo!) and just generally bouncing off the walls and having a good time. We were all sore from dancing by the end of the night!

It was heaps of fun and we'll do it again next year - so be prepared to bring all your friends along, now that you know how much fun it's going to be!

We'll see you next week for 1st IMPACT!

Yuckie, Yuckie Milkshakes

Saturday night provided an opportunity for the youth group to demonstrate their milkshake making abilities... now I use that term very loosely. Some of the milkshakes I will admit were quite nice but the moment that vegemite and food colouring was added to one purply looking concoction that tasted as bad as it looked. After the milkshake session we headed into the church where the kids rocked out some awesome songs. After the music we played a little of PLAN C (greatest game ever) and then everyone went home. FYI massive social at the church instead of final impact!! Bring friends - $10 each!

Time Flies

WOW! It's been ages since we updated the blog - sorry guys! Here's a rundown of what's been happening since camp...

We had KIDS CLUB in the first week of holidays, woo! It was a jam-packed week of beach volleyball, craft, puppets, electives, music, games, bouncy castles, carnival fun and a trip to Greenhills. All in a week! No wonder we were all exhausted. The kids had a great time - and we met lots of new people who we'll hopefully see again soon. Not long now until the one-day January kids club - we're going to the pool!

At 1st IMPACT this month, things were pretty chilled - everyone was wiped out after KC! We painted some glass rocks in all sorts of crazy patterns (there were even a few strawberry shaped ones in there!) and then we played 'Ready... Steady... COOK!'. We (tried to) make scones... but we added a few ingredients and mixed the recipe up a little, so i'm not quite sure how edible they turned out to be! Still, it was lots of fun, and they looked pretty cool! Then Benj gave a talk on our Rock-tober theme.

Last week, it was that time of year again - time to make CRAZY MILKSHAKES! Actually, this time we all ended up making more like Cold Rock ice-creams. Want to know what went into them? There was popcorn, food dye, peanut butter, Vegemite, chocolate, iced coffee, chocolate topping, lollies, spices and herbs, and all sorts of yummy/gross things. The end results were actually quite sickening. I think this year we went for 'most disgusting' awards, rather than 'most tasty'! Then, the band played a few songs in the church, we had a talk from Guy and then we played PlanC for the rest of the night!

Coming up? SOCIAL! It's the Malvern Social next weekend. We've got a DJ, decorations, snacks... Tickets are $10 and we can't wait to see you there!

Kuitpo Camp

This past weekend, youth group went bush!

A group of us, after spending an hour packing huge amounts into a trailer, two boots and a backseat (which was a huge task) drove for an hour up to Kuitpo Forest. By the time we arrived, it was getting dark... so we put up the tents in the dark... which was fairly interesting. Afterwards, we settled into good camping routine. We had a fire, roasted marshmellows, told silly jokes and wrote our own ridiculous song, before heading to bed.

The next day was mainly about biking. Dave turned up with a truckload of bikes, some more kids turned up and we were good to go. The boys spent the day riding through the mud puddles and getting filthy, and the girls did the same - with a little less dirt and a little less distance. By the end of the day, we were tuckered out and had just enough energy to play a few rounds of Killer Bunnies. It got dark very quickly and we burnt the potatoes on the campfire, but dinner still tasted great, as it always the way when you're camping!

After tea, we cracked glow sticks, roasted more marshmellows and played a dozen or more rounds of Block-o, which was lots of fun!! I even won a game or two, woo! We made up another silly song, and then went to bed because it was late and the wind was picking up. Those of us who stayed up later were treated to an amazing lightening storm!

The next day, we went for a short ride, packed up all our gear and folded the tents. It's always sad when you're leaving a camp! We made it back in one piece, unpacked and then all crashed. It had been an exhausting weekend!

Hope you guys all had as much fun as we did!
And next time we go camping, you'll have to make sure that you don't miss out!

1st IMPACT

Hey guys,

For those of you who missed out, here's the rundown... it was Olympic themed (yep, we're running a little behind), and we started by playing some silly games. We split into 'countries' and had to dress ourselves up in toilet paper, plastic bags and our extensive and bizzare costume collection. Then each country had to present their version of the opening ceremony (think chariots, mini-battles and some very bizzare looking mummies).

We had music in the church (woooooo for the band, who did an excellent job!!) and Benj gave a talk... and then we played Plan C for an hour! It never gets old.

Great to see everyone there, and hopefully we'll see you again for camp this weekend - it's going to be a blast!! Otherwise, we'll see you at final impact; Malvern Olympics in a few weeks. And don't forget that Kids Club is coming up!!

REMINDER

Hey Guys,

Just a reminder that the youth group mountain biking camp is coming up in a few weeks. Meeting here at 5pm on fri, back by sunday arvo (details in the brochure). Should be lots of fun! And if you're not too keen on biking, i'm sure we can find you something else to do. Also, if you're not keen to stay all weekend, that's cool too - just come for a little while!

Please let us know ASAP if you can make it - we need to know how many marshmellows to buy!! :P

Hope to see you all at rockclimbing tomorrow!

40hr Famine!

CONGRATS to everyone who managed to complete the famine!! You guys (except Benji...) all did a really great job.

For those who missed out, i'll fill you in - last weekend was the 40hr famine, and lots of our kids participated (and some of our leaders too!). To keep ourselves distracted, we had a sleepover at church. We played board games, sung songs, watched 10 Things I Hate About You (which the boys all liked, despite their whinging that it was a chick-flick), complained about being hungry and had a few rounds of pillow wrestling. There was even a quick game of death ball, which Alex won hands down.

Not all of us gave up food for 40hrs though: Morgan didn't eat for 24; Amy didn't eat for 8hrs; Henry gave up furniture; Alex gave up talking (and Ewen tried to)... and the rest of us stuck it out, all the way through church on sunday morning and all the way through cooking pancakes for the congregation and all the way through watching those pancakes disappear until it was finally 12pm - and we could eat the few dodgy burnt ones that were left...

Well done everyone, you all did a great job and it was for a great cause. It's not too late to still be collecting donations, so keep pestering your friends and just have your booklets back by september.

Hope you all had a great night!!

Feeding The Hungry

Second Impact last weekend was in keeping with our Outflow theme this month. Because the evening congregation is serving at St. Mary Magdelene's Centre, youth group volunteered to make the 40L of pumpkin soup that were needed.

Somehow, with ten or more kids, a few pumpkins, four huge pots and dozens of ice-cream containers, we managed to make a batch of muffins, hot chips, and over 30L of soup... that tasted more like potatoes than pumpkin. But, after deciding that didn't matter exactly how our soup tasted (so long as it was orange and yummy), we filled all the available freezer space. We were quite proud of ourselves.

While we weren't making soup, we played card games and board games, and did our usual mad running around/jumping on beanbags games... it was a good night! But it was lucky for you kids that you didn't have to stay back and do all of the dishes!!!

Long Day

Some of us spent more than 12hrs at church on saturday! Whew!

Thanks to everyone who helped us deliver phonebooks on saturday morning - we got about 2/3rds of them done, wooo! We'd still love your help this weekend (same time, same place - 9am at the church) if you want to help us with the last of them!

Sheila ran a games and pizza afternoon too. Blockus, ping pong, a very competitive game of monopoly... it was lots of fun, and i've decided that homemade pizzas just taste better than those from the shops!

Youth group started at seven. We headed over the the Resthaven across the road and spent an hour or so playing board games and showing the residents how to use fancy (well, they think it's fancy) technology, like the internet, e-mail and playstations on a big screen. They seemed to have a good time - and we did too! Thanks for being so polite and considerate when we were there guys, everyone appreciated it and the residents had a really good time.

Afterwards, we ate all the leftover food from the games afternoon, the band played a few rocking songs in the church - with Jackie and Emma making fantastic new band recruits - and benji gave a talk on helping others. Then, of course, we played PlanC until the parents came to pick their kids up.

It was a fun night (but a long day!). Great to see you all there and hopefully we see you this saturday night, when we're cooking for the Mary Mags centre!

FALLOUT

IMPACT went ice-skating last weekend! Despite a mix-up with timing, we ended up with 35 people!! We spent a few hours skating around the rink; Tom and i made huge improvements in skating ability and some of our boys won the dodgeball competition, woo!! It's suprising how much fun gliding (stumbling) round and round in circles can be! We had chips and hot chocolate before we headed home.

It was a really fun night and it was fantastic to see so many of you there!! Hopefully we'll see you again soon :)

Don't forget - 1st IMPACT this saturday night, and start collecting your 40-hr FAMINE sponsorships!!

Update

We've been on holidays, so the blog has been a little behind the times recently, but here's what you've missed...

KIDS CLUB
KC was awesome - kids and leaders had a great time; bowling, Brickworks, the Aquatics Centre, plenty of crafts, games, movies and fun... boy, were we tired by the end of the week!! Thanks to all of the junior leaders who helped out and to all you kids who were so much fun to spend time with!!

Movie Chill
2nd IMPACT was pretty chilled this month; movies was all we could handle after a super-busy week at KC!

*NEW*
Malvern@6 has a new website! www.malvern@6.com -- there's a link in the sidebar on the right. Check it out!!

Upcoming...
Don't drop the ball this term - we've got a crazy amount of fun and mischief coming up! 40hr Famine in August, so grab a booklet from us (give Benj a call if you don't have one already). We're going camping in September and there's a DISCO in October to look forward to!

See you all this saturday for ice-skating!

FALLOUT

Last weekend was FALLOUT and we all had a blast! It was crazy fashion night, so we raided op shops and dress up boxes to come up with the craziest outfits that we could.

Then, decked out in curtains, sheep puppets, gold necklaces and wigs, with coloured hairspray to add effect, we headed down to the shops. After sending the woman working at the chip shop into fits of laughter and letting her take our photo, we ate our chips as we crossed the road to the IGA - where we stocked up on iced coffee (our favourite!). Yum. It wasn't even that embarassing to be seen in public wearing a gold vest, suspenders, a giant marshwiggle hat, a huge sheep puppet on one arm and a pair of devil horns... to their credit, the shop people at the IGA didn't blink twice when they served us.

We headed back to church, where we ate our hard won foods... then... we played... PLAN C!! Just for something different. However, this time it WAS a little different - because i played too! And i WON! Proving once and for all that i can play sports, i just usually choose not to :P

Despite all being a little embarassed at looking so silly at first, we all got into it soon enough; even Sheila dressed up! Check out the slideshow on the blog for some of the pictures.

Catch you all this weekend for 1st IMPACT!
And don't forget that KIDS CLUB is coming up next week, so hurry up and register if you haven't already.

This is the winner of last weeks IMPACT trophy-
Signing Out.

Mission Group

We had a very productive mission group meeting last friday night; we even came up with a new name! Mission group is officially re-named 'ARK'. As in 'Acts of Random Kindness'.


First on our list of things to achieve is to kick off our fundraising. We're selling chocolate frogs and other Cadbury yummies from the start of July. If you want to help by selling a box at your school or at your work, that'd be great! Just come and talk to Annabel. If you don't want to sell a box yourself, that's fine - i'm sure you'll help us out by buying a frog or two at the upcoming youth groups.


In other news, there's a possible movie fundraiser, and a quiz night in november. We're still working on planning a mission group overseas, possibly to India, and a trip to the APY Lands to help out with the Aboriginals.


Mission group meetings will now be held once a month after church on sunday nights, from about 7.30pm for an hour, rather than on friday nights (not enough people had time to come on fridays, so we're hoping the sunday turnout will be much better).


We're always looking for people to help lead activities to fundraise or plan events - and if you don't want to commit that much time, that's fine, we'd still love it if you could help out with something smaller closer to the date.


So, keep your eyes peeled for the next meeting, we'll be advertising! And, in the meantime, if you want to help out with anything, just talk to Annabel or Helen! Thanks guys.

2nd IMPACT

We had 2nd IMPACT on saturday night and everyone had a blast. We split into a boys and a girls group to make short videos about what God means to us. Of course, that meant making them as silly as possible!


The girls made an awesome video about God being in a savior helicopter that rescued people from the monsters and stuff. It was really funny, they did a great job. The boys made a 'mini movie' about a sheep who strayed onto the wrong train tracks when he thought he didn't need God and he was attacked by giant animals. Then God saved him, protected him from the animals and put him back on the right track. It was hilarious and very clever!


After screening our films, we sang and ate snacks before playing PlanC again! We never get sick of it.


Lots of fun was had by all, and we even had some new people there this week! Hopefully, we'll see them next saturday (no youth this weekend, only mission group on friday night) for our FALLOUT fashion competition!!


We'll try and put our videos up on the blog asap :) Have a great week!!

Girls v Boys

Hey guys!
It seems like a really long time since we've had youth group, but last weekend was first impact. Because Benji has had his baby (a little boy called Charlie) and Guy was in Sydney on a music conference, we did things a little differently. It was a battle of the sexes, so we turned the boys against the girls in a quiz. Not surprisingly, the girls won by a landslide - but the boys did pretty well in the music quiz!

We played PlanC again, it was back by popular demand. We had some new kids and they loved it just as much as the regulars... i'm not quite sure why running around with a bandana-tail poking out of the back of your shorts is so fantastic, but they all seem to enjoy it!!

We watched a Nouma video on identity, which was pretty cool. It talked all about how we shouldn't let the things we have, or the things we do, or the things around us distract us from being the person that Jesus wants us to be; we're perfect the way God made us and we don't need anything else to be complete.

After we downed a few packets of chips and mucked around in the youth room for awhile, it was time to head home. The kids had fun (so did i!) and i think we survived, even without Benj and Guy!! It was good fun.

NEXT WEEK: Saturday 14th, 7-9pm SECOND IMPACT

Church Camp

We spent the weekend and the Mylor Baptist Camp and, despite the rain, we had an absolute blast. It was the (re-instated) annual whole-church camp! We had people of all ages, from 6 months to 90 years, joining us for all or part of the weekend.

For those of you that weren't there, you missed group games, great meals, raft building, rock climbing, games of Marco Polo, craft, a bonfire complete with marshmellows and glo-sticks, bombing competitions in the pool, board games, music and worship... just to name a few of the thing that we got up to!

Tim Hein came to speak to us - he was fantastic! Regaling us with tales of how he didn't know babies didn't have teeth and wondering what it would be like to be a goldfish, he kept us all engaged as he talked about change for an hour or so. We talked about how important it is to get everyone in the church, as well as the wider community, involved in what we do. No matter their age or interests, there should be something for them. A church that isn't growing is dying!! We were pleased to see that many of the things that he spoke about were already things that our church felt passionately about, but there's always room to do much more - and that's what we're going to be doing!!

The weekend was a great experience; everyone got a chance to meet and get to know new people. We had plenty of laughs and made lots of memories - and we're going to do it all again next year! So, if you missed out, make sure you clear your schedule next time the camp comes around because we're guaranteed to have a whole lot more fun!!

The Internet Is Better Than Friends?

We had a debate at youth group on saturday night- is the internet better than having friends in person? Neither side really knew what they were talking about - and eventually things deteriorated into a yelling match. It was fairly hilarious, we'd lost the plot by the end and just declared it a draw. We raised some interesting points though!

My team was arguing that the internet was far better than friends. We had plenty to say; the internet is always there for you, as long as you've got a computer. You can't fight with a computer, they don't cause any emotional trauma, you can't fight with them. You can, however, talk to your friends over the net - and you can leave at any point in the conversation, should things get ugly. The internet teaches you things, you can play games with your friends, lets you keep in contact with friends far away and you can even tour places over the net. Who needs to leave the house? Who needs friends? Everything is just a click away...

But on the other hand, the internet can't hug you, or comfort you. The internet won't come over and hang out, or be able to run around in the fresh air with you. The internet isn't a person! Quite simply, it can't offer anything that a human can in terms of emotions and comfort. The internet is really just a way to escape reality and try to make things easier. Friends are what everyone needs to get through the day. The internet is an incredibly poor substitute! You can't make memories with the internet.

Obviously, that was the point of the debate - there is no substitute for a good friend. Yes, we all love the internet... but if it comes down to it, we'd be stupid to reject true friendship over it.

May - 1st IMPACT

Another good night - we started the evening with a few rounds of out new favourite game; PLAN C! Everyone got loud and rowdy, i think the red team scored a victory this week! After that got old, we headed into the church. We had a debate; is the internet better than friends? It got quite heated, and there was no winner declared, but it was good fun and everyone had plenty of laughs. We did some singing - Chloe did an awesome job, it was her first night singing in the band (finally, another girl to keep me company!!). Then, we scoffed down some pancakes - and then made more pancakes and ate them too... yum! It was a fun night!

We'll see you all at the MYLOR CAMP in a few weeks, or if you want to come to the Out of the Valley concerts with us this friday and/or saturday night - let us know if you want more details!! Have a great week.

The Last Few Weeks

Ok, so i've been slack and not updated the blog in awhile, so here's the rundown of the last few weeks...

We had KIDS CLUB a few weeks ago - that was full on! The kids had an awesome time - we hit up the hahndorf farm barn to see all of the animals (i tell you, having a cow suck on your hand is one of the most peculiar feelings in the world), went ice-skating, had a neighbourhood wide treasure hunt and an end-of-summer party with the biggest, bestest bouncing castle that you've ever seen in your life! It was a really good week - i know the kids had a great time, so did i, and hopefully they learnt something about God while they were here. Thanks to all of the youth group members who came along as junor leaders, we couldn't have done it without you!!

Last weekend was FALLOUT and we had out very own laser skimish... of sorts. Because of the weather, we ditched out plans for fights with coloured water, water pistols and flour bombs, opting for something a little drier. In the end, we split everyone into two teams, and played capture the flag type games throughout the complex - judging from the screaming and the competition, everyone had an awesome time. Even our leaders, who tended to be so enthusiastic that they were the first people to get out!! A bunch of you guys have asked to do it again, so maybe we'll think about it in a few months time.


Lots of youth events coming up this month - don't forget about RECOIL, the youth event that we're having with a bunch of other churches in the area at the end of May. It'll be a great night! First Impact on saturday - we'll see you there!

Lifehouse's Everything Skit

First Impact on saturday night was a little higgledy-piggledy, what, with Phil's farewell service and all. However,we managed to have a good time all the same.

With food, yummy cake, good music from the band, hilarious youtube videos and a bunch of games, like carpet bowls in the church, balloon relays , stare offs and many more, we had a great time.

Benj gave a talk about soldiers,seeing as ANZAC day is coming up, and we watched some of 'Pearl Harbour'.

For lots of us, the best part of the night was the youtube video that Benji showed us (posted above). It was really moving - watch it, tell us what you think.

We'll see you next weekend!

BOWLING!

Last Saturday night, Youth Group went BOWLING! We had almost 30 people, 5 lanes and stacks of fun, all driving down to the Bowling Place at Marion.

Some of the boys started playing 'crazy bowling' - basically, see how many pins you could knock down by doing the nuttiest bowling possible! They were rolling them backwards, upside down, by the tips of their fingers, after windmilling the ball around... they had plenty of fun, despite a few near misses where they nearly sent the ball through the wall/floor/roof... My team was a little less crazy - but we still had plenty of fun! AND i didn't come last!!

Despite leaving with one kid still in his bowling shoes (we had to make a quick trip back to the Bowling Centre), everyone seemed to have a great time. It was good to see you there! As for the rest of you, we'll see you this Saturday at FIRST IMPACT; it'll be a little different because of Phil's good-bye service, but we can still safely say that you'll have a good time!

SEE YOU THEN!!!

Easter Weekend

I think it's safe to say that Easter is one of the busiest weekends for the church! I don't think that i've ever spent so much time in our church over four days. I suppose that makes sense; it is the weekend where Jesus died... and then when he came back to life! It's pretty much what the New Testament is based on.

Thursday Night
Thursday night was the Maundy Thursday Service. It's always a quiet service, very reflective on the life of Jesus. There was some music (Benj and Guy did a great song - Bad by U2), lots of readings and a small homily. The service ended when Jono turned out the lights and we all lit a candle on stage before leaving in silence.

Friday Morning
The Good Friday service is always sombre too - people reflect and keep quiet. The kids had their own program, but the adults had a sermon from Phil (one of his last) and plenty of readings, prayers, hymns and songs from the choir.

Sunday Morning
Dawn Service
At 7am, just as the sun was coming up, there were 20 of us gathered under the gum tree at the front of the church. There's something about a group of people, singing into the still of the morning, listening to a sermon and praying, while people from the rest of the neighborhood walk by. It's always a great service - even better because we get pancakes afterwards!
Morning Service
At 10.30am there's the usual morning service, which is always far more jubilant than the Good Friday service. Everyone is happy and jumping. The kids program was heaps of fun - we had a big easter egg hunt!! And a talk about why easter eggs are used at easter (to represent to tomb and new life). Yum!
Evening Service
The evening service was pretty much the usual; songs, sermon, prayer... awesome band :P Matt played with us again, he's doing a fantastic job!! Everyone was even bouncier than usual, with the great news that Jesus was alive again.

It was a long weekend, but a good one. Everyone seemed to get something from (one of) the services. If we missed you this year, we can't wait to see you next easter!

2nd IMPACT

Hey Guys!

Wow, did we make a mess last saturday night, or what!?!

We started the night by shoving our faces into flour piled high on a table - the search for the hidden chocolate was on! After that, covered in flour, we made use of our mess with water and coloured dye... what a mess! Within minutes, there was blue, green, yellow, pink, purple, brown... squishy dough everywhere!! All over the carpet... all over each other... oops!

Not to worry, we just moved onto the next activity. In two teams, we faced off over bowls of number spaghetti. The aim of the game? Each number matched some letters of the alphabet. We needed to make as many words as possible from the numbers to get the highest score! There was spaghetti everywhere, we were up to our elbows in it. Both teams did a great job... but my team won, hurray!! Only a 7 point difference, both teams did a great job!

While the poor leaders cleaned up, there was a loud game of sockey (in which a bowl of chips exploded across the just-cleaned room...) and a round of crab soccer. Everyone left tireder, slightly dirtier and much more excited than when they had arrived.

It was another great youth group night! Thanks all for coming, we can't wait to see you at FALLOUT in a few weeks!

MISTAKE!!

Oops - there's a mistake on the brochure!!

Sorry guys, but there's been a mix up on the march/april brochure...

* There will still be SECOND IMPACT on the 12th of April.

* The CONTACT: MISSION GROUP will be next meeting on March 14th, then April 18th. The CONTACT brochure has both meeting being on friday the 15th of the month... and those dates don't exist...

If you get confused, just give us a call - 8271 6817.

March First IMPACT

First Impact was last weekend guys and it was heaps of fun! We tied Benji, Matt and Alex to a fence with duct tape (hey, who says we need to wrap our kids in cotton wool?), scrabbled around for lollies in a giant pile of leaves and played an always entertaining game of Roxanne. Guy was our official winner (even though he had to make a speedy visit to the bathroom afterwards)!

The band did an awesome job, rocking out, before we had a pizza-fest. It was a great night, everyone had fun!

See you this weekend at Second IMPACT for games galore - 7-9pm, $2.

Special Congrats to Matt who played fantastically at the Malvern@6 Sunday Night service!! He did a great job.

Beach Trip!

We all headed down to the beach on saturday arvo - and we had a blast! Despite somewhat cool weather, we rounded up about 20 kids (woohoo, new people!! thanks for bringing your friends!!) and 10 leaders and went to brighton beach. We went swimming, played soccer, lost a frisbee, got excited over the super-cool toilets and had a massive BBQ for tea.

Afterwards, some of us went fishing. Even though we didn't catch anything on our fishing rods, we caught plenty of crabs in our crab nets!! Most were undersize... but some weren't! And, either way, it was lots and lots of fun. After disturbing all of the serious fisher-people on the jetty, getting nipped by crabs and covered in fish-goo and seeing a man hook a stingray, it was time to head home.

We all had an awesome time - i think youth group will need to take another fishing expedition soon!! Thanks for coming - and if you didn't, don't worry, there's plenty more fun to be had at FISRT IMPACT this weekend :)

MISSION: Contact Group

Last friday was the first meeting of the new mission group, led by Helen. With a good turnout, we got through lots in the first meeting. We brainstormed ideas and chose the areas that we were most interested in.


We looked at overseas mission, an indigenous mission/connection, random acts of kindness, fundraising ideas and began to organise our trip to the St. Mary Magdelene Centre in August.


If you missed the first meeting, the next will be held on Friday, March 14th at 7pm in the green hall at Malvern. It's by no means too late to get involved - we'd love more help as we take steps to put our ideas into action! We hope to see you, your ideas and your enthusiasm at the next meeting!!

Fishy Fun

Well, i don't know about anyone else, but Guy and i had a great time at youth on saturday night!

The dance off: With our very own version of So You Think You Can Dance, we split into four groups. Each group made up a great dance, full of fishy moves (some of the girls were excellent jellyfish. Matt and Guy did a great job pretending to reel each other in on fishing rods!). We taped it, so keep an eye out -either on this blog or on our facebook account- to see the dancers in action!

After we'd declared the winning team, we created our beautiful aquarium! Now, it's sitting in the Youth Room, with dangly fish hanging from the roof, shells and seaweed at the bottom, a sunken ship in a corner and a huge octopus. It looks great! Well done guys!!

It was a really fun night, and very busy - 14 people! If we didn't see you there, we hope to next time!!

This weekend (friday, 7pm) is the first meeting of the mission group. Next weekend, we're going to the BEACH!!! Can't wait.

WELCOME BACK

Hey Guys,

Welcome back to youth group for 2008! This year's going to be fantastic, we can't wait to see you all at the events we've got planned. For those of you who know Guy, he's going to be helping out this year too.

First Impact last weekend had a good turnout - the band played fantastically (Matt and Alex did a great job learning the new songs in only half an hour!), we played games, we ate... anyone who wasn't there missed out! But don't worry, there's always more fun just around the corner - this weekend, on saturday the 9th from 7-9pm, there is second impact for all of you aged 10-15. It's time for some fishy fun! Games, craft, food and more. Hope to see you all there!

In other new, Malvern Impact now has it's own Facebook account (for those of you who don't know, Facebook is the new MySpace). Add Malvern Impact to stay up to date with all of the fun that we have planned for you in the coming months!

There's new group for everyone aged 15+, to be held on the third friday of each month. It's a LOCAL AND GLOBAL Mission Group. It will focus on fundraising/support for overseas or australian missions, serve dinners at the St. Mary Magdelene's Center sometimes and do Random Acts of Kindness, all over the community. If you want a chance to make a difference, here it is. The first meeting of the group will be Friday, February 15th at Malvern and the group will be run by Helen - but have lots of input from all of you, hopefully!

Hope to see you all soon!

BOUNCE

MASSIVE YOUTH EVENT

Saturday December 1st

Feeding Ourselves

The theme for Saturday Night was 'feeding yourself', which i think we did a pretty good job of when we hit the fish n chip shop and ate a whole bagful of chips, with a few people trying to force feed others...

The message for Saturday night was "feeding ourselves both spiritually and physically"
How are we spiritually fed? We can feed on thing such as Hope, Love, Kindness... Jesus provides that kind of food for us and we can feed on it. In dark times Jesus gives us hope to feed on, to keep us going, the same way physical food gives us energy. When we feel alone, we can feed on Love that Jesus provide for us. But it doesn't last like that forever. Same with physically feeding ourselves, the food is eventually used up, and we become hungry again and want more. We can either eat the food that Jesus provides for us and live a full, nurtured life and even use what we have for others - or we can turn our heads away, be stubborn and not eat only to become more unsatisfied.

Also, its important to keep a balance between being spiritually fed and physically fed. If we don't feed ourselves, our bodies will become tired and we won't be able to do things that Jesus wants us to do. He could spiritually feed us kindness to give to someone else, and we wouldn't be able to do that if we were too tired!!

There's my message for you, (and trying to keep it short!) For a bit more of physical feeding, there's the 2nd impact tomorrow night, which will be some craaazy cooking (and knowing us, messy... =S), so that should be fun! We'll phsically feed ourselves!!!

Cheers!
Hayley

ULTRA-MESSY MADNESS

Sheila thought that friday night was absolutely foul. But i think the rest of us enjoyed the absolute mess that we all got into! It was ultra-messy madness, which gives some of what we had in store away!

We played the ever popular Roxanne and followed it up with shaving cream snow men - which left us with Morgan and Alex covered in cream from the chest up... then we had bowls of custard that we had to fish around in with our feet - or faces - to find smarties in! There was 'pictionary', with baked beans and custard, eating a banana through the stocking that covered your face, as well as a few other messy games. Plus, we filled balloons with baked beans and milk, which the kids had to pop to find the hidden message!

Good fun - but a HUGE mess... it looked like someone had just thrown up all over benj :P we literally had to hose everyone down before we could let them back inside!

Still, i think everyone had a blast. We'll definately do it again next year!

Malvern @ The Mallee!

CHURCH CAMP TO PINNAROO

It's always amazing how many things get left to the last minute when you're going away - no matter how well prepared you think you are, you always realise at the last second that you've forgotten somthing. That's how i found myself in the supermarket, buying baby food, masking tape and spam... but we still managed to leave Malvern at 6.45, only fifteen minutes late! we were very proud.

Three hours and lots of silly songs later, we arrived around half nine and were pretty surprised to find ourselves in the middle of some semblance of civilisation in the middle of the desert. I think we'd all expected a tin shed - not the carpeted hall and air-conditioning! Very cool. We unloaded the bus and settled into our separate rooms (we're never too old to have to separate the girls from the boys :P).

The next morning was shower time (we got some mightly strange looks, trekking a kilometre down the road to the showers in our pjs!), brekkie and then jono gave us a talk on sharing our faith stories.

Group games were a camp-must. First we had the game where you say someone's name and throw something to them, remembering the order and gradually adding more and more things. Then we played Roxanne - you know, where you drink lemonade when the song says 'roxanne' and eat marshmellows/bananas when it says 'red'. It gets faster and faster and people inevitably spew. Always hilarious, this one set of a chain reaction of sympathy spewers. Ew!

Lunch time, then we were off the the museum... yes, very random! We saw all different kinds of wheat (did you know that all the wheats in the different states are named after different things? QLD = explorers, WA = places, NSW = birds, VIC = high points, SA = weapons...), old style farming gear and then printing presses. Did you know that murray bridge got their first computer in 1971 but pinnaroo didn't get one until 1979? I had no idea that printing things was so complicated - nor did i know that it was so recent!

Myself and two of the other girls headed off to door-knock and tell the world of Pinnaroo that we were having a free bbq and concert that night and that they were welcome. It took us the better part of an hour and a half - with breaks for an iceblock and runs through every sprinkler that we saw, to keep cool. It was so hot that we dried immediately! The bbq and the band went down swimmingly. There was a good turn out and the band was awesome. The younger kids that showed up loved it, so did some of the guys who wandered over from the pub. The crown was jumping, screaming and 'woo-hoo-ing'. The band played some decent stuff too, bookending a round of 'who wants to be a millionaire' - we got australia's first millionaire!

We watched the three muskateers before bed and some silly people got up to watch the soccer (go south africa!). The next morning we were all up, showered and packed before the church service that we held. The Pinnaroo-ians gave us lunch and then we were off again, back on the buss of bliss for the long ride home.

It was a massive weekend. It was great to do something for the community up at Pinnaroo. They really appreciated us being there and want us to come back next year!

Ok, we'll admit it... Benj and i have been slack with the blog lately... oops! But, we're sure you'll forgive us! And here's an update on what we've been up to lately!

KIDS CLUB

Thanks to all the helpers that we had, KC Oct07 went swimmingly. We had a visit from the ZooMobile which went off without a hitch - nobody was strangled by the python and the cute little furry friends did their job of making people go 'aw, how cute!' very well. Everyone loved the Mission Impossible First Aid - haven't you ever wondered how to treat burns from a building exploding or what to do if you get bitten by a snake? Greenhills on friday was a hit - the waterslides got a fair bit of use, and we had a great time playing chasee on the giant bouncy castle! BUT, by far the most fun, was the carnival held. We had a dunking machine (some of the leaders got very wet :P), food stalls, face painting and side-shows - not to mention the bungee run! It was a blast! Kids and leaders alike had a great afternoon. Next KC? April 08.

'Hairspray'!

Hi All -

If you've been paying attention, you'll know that this saturday (22nd) is FALLOUT and we're heading to Mitcham Cinemas to catch a movie. After a loooots of thought (ahem... arguing), we decided that we're seeing Hairspray at 7pm. It looks pretty funny so we should all have a good laugh! We're meeting at church at 6pm, pick up from there at 10pm. Bring $15 for a movie ticket and food if you want any. Can't wait!

See you all there!

Annabel & Benji

GUYS! IMPORTANT!

For all of you guys ages 10-15, all second IMPACTS are now on saturday nights, not fridays! Don't forget!

Squashed Banana Productions Presents...

Good Excuse - John Butler Trio

John Butler Trio

Good Excuse


Youth Group this friday night, we'll be working on living out this song in our own lives...

All around I see raining

Things don’t seem to go my way

Got a dark cloud that’s hanging

And it seems to follow me

Oh won’t you just wake upfeel the humming

This cruel world is killing youbetter start running

Catch up with your life, catch on up

Before the whole thing is through

Have you once?

Have you twice?

Have you even considered it be really good for you

To go out and go on take another better look around

You are just another white boy

Thinking you’re so hardcore

Take step outside see what’s shaking in the real world
Go take a step outside see what’s shaking in the real world

But you don’t know how my heart laments

I really got a good excuse to complain

My parents got divorced

Can’t heal the pain

And now there is only cheap regrets

I guess that’s just the way it be

Is it the world or how I see me

Boy now you are really, really bugging

Yes you are bugging me,can’t you just shut right up

Your cup is overflowing, overflowing

And you think it is indeed
You don’t even know what side you are fighting for

Boy won’t you turn your game boy off

Start pretending it’s you against the world

I am sick and I am tired of hearing

I really got a good excuse to complain

My parents got divorced

Can’t heal the pain
And now there is only cheap regrets I guess that’s just the way it be

Is it the world or how I see me

Go take a step outside see what’s shaking in the real world

Almost Summer

Hey guys,

hands up who had lots of fun at the beach on saturday? i sure did! granted, when we arrived at the tram station without benji and couldn't find him/call him, it was pretty stressful. but we all made it to the beach safely and had a wicked afternoon. it was perfect beach-weather (ok, so it was a little too cold to swim). we spent the afternoon wading, skipping rocks, playing beach soccer and jumping over the waves when they crashed to shore.

there were about twenty of us, little and big kids, with some families too. i tell you, buying fish and chips for twenty people is hard enough at the best of times, but when you need to collect money, when some people are vegetarian and when some people don't like fish, it gets a little more complicated :P

it was a really good day. everyone had a good time (as far as i know!) and it was lovely to be out in the sun again, without having to worry about the rain! I think we'll have to go back again soon.

Annabel

Winding Down At The End Of A Day

Gday All,
If you're having problems winding down at the end of a hard day.
Why not try either journalling or just working through this following prayer that based on an ancient prayer people have been using for over a thousand years.
Hope it helps... It's beeter than counting sheep!


Journaling from the Prayer of Examen (by St. Ignatius)
A mix of prayer and journaling.
Jot down/draw answers where appropriate.

1. No matter what I am worrying about… STOP!
God is with me - quiet perhaps, but always there.
Remember God has created all things.
Everything I have is a gift from God.
What would I especially like to give thanks for today?

2. I ask God to shine his light into my heart so that when I look back over the day I may see God working in the things that have happened.

3. I remember through the day starting from when I woke up. The people I met, the things that have happened…
On the whole was it a 'good', 'bad', 'strange', 'exciting'… day?
Who did I meet?
What was surprising?
Does something special come to mind…?
How did I feel about the things that have happened today?
What caused my feelings and did they change during the day?
God guides us through our moods and feelings, His ways are mostly peaceful and consoling.
If our day was uneasy, can you sense where that uneasiness is coming from?

4. What can I be proud of today?
I give thanks for this.
Did I turn away from God during the day, or turn a blind eye when it suited me?
I ask forgiveness for things I have done to ignore or hinder God's love.

5. We are a people of hope, God will be with us tomorrow.
What do I look forward to?
AMEN

40-hr Famine Sleepover!

Recent Happenings!

We've had a fantastic few weeks at youth recently! The other weekend we had our night without electricity - we had a bonfire on the tennis courts! Roasting marshmellows/apples/bread is always so much fun! A few games of spotlight, a bunch of candles and a round of kumbaya my lord had us all in stitches. So much fun! We had a good turnout too, a dozen or more people! Thanks guys, for making it a great night!

Last weekend, more than twenty of us starved ourselves of food (or furniture) for forty whole hours!! We had a fantastic sleepover on saturday night, to try and keep our minds off food. Two of the famine leaders from world vision came to talk to us about where the money we raise goes and what we can do to help. We asked lots of questions of her, and when she left we all felt a real desire to raise as much money as possible for what was such a great cause.

After tanielle and the youth ambassador that came with her left, some of us went to bed... but the rest of us were still to hyped up to sleep, so we watched Star Wars: A New Hope - fantastic movie, hadn't seen it in so long! That said, it was 4am by the time i'd got everyone off to bed... and someone decided to get up at 6.30am the next morning, so i was very tired!

We tidied up in the morning (after managing to drag ourselves out of our sleeping bags), played a few board games and did some sunday school activities, before Imogen and i started cooking pancakes for the congregation! It was torturous, cooking them and handing them out, but not being able to eat them! As soon as it got to 12pm, we all pounced on the pancakes and gobbled them down - you'd think that we'd not eaten in weeks, not days!

We all had an amazing night, lots of fun. Not eating wasn't even that hard! At least, i managed it... just :P Well done guys for sticking it out and raising so much money so far! Keep up the good work and see you on saturday at the beach!!

Annabel

40 Hour Famine

Congratulations to everyone who finished the 40 Hour Famine this morning!

Many of our Impact-Youth-Groupers got together for a 40 Hour Famine sleepover from Saturday night to Sunday morning. We all had fun . . . not eating . . . together. There was much board-gaming and movie watching and shouting at people who mentioned food at all. We also had a visit from two World Vision 40 Hour Famine reps who shared some info with us about Laos, where the money we raise will be going to help kids in extreme poverty. Finally, we ate pancakes (yay!) when the famine finally ended at midday . . . except for Benji, who started late. Poor Benji.

Thanks to everyone who was there, I had a lot of fun, and I look forward to doing it again next year! (And I've eaten a lot since the famine finished. I had no idea how much I enjoyed eating!)

HARRY POTTER marathon!

Last Friday's massive 'Harry Potter' marathon was much, much fun. All four movies in less that twelve hours - i think we can all consider that an achievement! Along with watching all the movies, we also practiced our cooking skills. They were so well appreciated that we decided that we'd post the recipes on our bloggie so that you can all try out our fabulous Harry Potter food!

PUMPKIN PASTIES

1/2 kg of pumpkin

1 tablespoon of butter

1/2 cup of cheese

1 teaspoon of five-spice

ground ginger

2 eggs

splash of milk

salt and pepper

puff pastry

* Boil chunks of pumpkin until soft

* Mash it up with the butter

* Add cheese, spices, eggs, milk

* Salt and pepper to taste

* Cut puff pastry into quarters

* Place pumpkin mixture onto the squares

* Fold over and pinch the edges with a fork

(* Can glaze the pastries by brushing on a beaten egg)

* Cook in oven until brown ar 220 degrees - as per instructions on pastry packet

* Can serve warm on a train

BUTTERBEER

2 litres of milk

1 1/2 tablespoons of butter

15 butterscotch lollies

2 tablespoons of brown sugar

A pinch of ginger or nutmeg

A splash of vanilla essence

* Heat milk in a saucepan

* While stirring all the time, add all other ingredients (to taste)

* Keep heating until the lollies have dissolved and the beer is warm

* Pour into a blender and froth up

* Serve in a mug

Enjoy the recipes guys, trust me, they're yum!

Annabel and Benj

PAC & Annesley Boarders

Tonight we had 170+ boarders invade the church (in a good way)! They came for some games, for tea and for a short service. From what i heard, they thought it was a much better service than what they usually had and they seemed to have a reasonable time. Yay!

Thanks to all of you guys who came to help out, showing people where toilets were and talking to people and everything. It was a great help and the night went really well! Hope you guys had fun too.

Next weekend is third impact for all of those fifteen (or almost fifteen) year olds out there. Come along for a shared tea, some discussion and an all around good, relaxing night. Should be fun! See you there.

All Done!

I'm seriously thinking than Benj and the crew could easily give Piccaso a run for his money. Our lovely Expresso and Chocolate Whip coloured room... the youth room looks great! Nice and warm and cozy. As for our canvases? Very cool. Although we scarred baby Jake when we put his footprint on one of them... Benj and i are incredibly talented, as will be seen when you see our beautiful purple wall canvas. Very cool.

Want to see our cool new (albeit empty for the moment) youth room? You'll have to come to second impact next weekend! Death by Chocolate - you don't want to miss it!

Annie

Tomorrow

Alrite guys, it's 24hrs until the youth room gets a make-over. At the moment, it looks like we're painting in 'expresso' (very elegant :P) and painting the woodwork orange... then we will put up brightly coloured canvases around the room for you guys to decorate.

Make sure you come tomorrow, 10am, to help us make the youth room the coolest place to hang out!

Benji & Annabel

My Blog

Hi all. Because I had to create a blogspot account to post here, I have created a blog for my book reviews! I write book reviews for my English teacher and local bookshop, so I decided also to post them in a blog. It's called 'Samuel's Reading Chair'. I'm not putting all the ones I've done in there - just the ones from now on, so there's only 2 in there at the moment. But still, check it out if you want.

The Youth Room

Hello peeps. The new blog is le awesome. Thanks Benji and Annabel!

I think the idea of having multiple layers of hammocks in the youth room is the coolest thing in the history of cool things! You could cover the floor below it with cushions/doonas in case of kiddies falling out of them. I know there would be major practicality/cost issues . . . but still. If I could create my dream world, it would look something like that.

Youth Wall-Scrawl

If we want to paint verses on canvases and put them up in the youth room, it'd be nice to have some verses that you guys like, or that mean something to you. We've come up with some ideas, but let us know if you have any others, or which ones you like from those that we thought of.

Philippians 2:1-6
Christ encourages you, and his love comforts you... Live in harmony by showing love for each other. Be united in what you think, as if you were only one person... Care about (others) as much as you care about yourselves...

Matthew 17:20
But I can promise you this. If you had faith no larger than a mustard seed, you could tell this mountain to move from here to there. And it would. Everything would be possible for you.

1 Thessalonians 5:9-24
...Encourage anyone who feels left out, help all who are weak, and be patient with everyone... Always be joyful and never stop praying...

Micah 6:8
…what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Matthew 22:37-40
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.”

"Love others as much as you love yourself."

What say you?

More Ideas

Ok, Benj and i've been thinking (always dangerous) and have come up with some more ideas for the youth room. So far, we've not heard much from you guys about what you'd like to do - so it looks like we'll be making the final decision, unless you guys have an input soon!

Latest Ideas:

* Paint all of the walls in blocks of one colour (as in one wall green, one wall blue, two walls yellow, red woodwork, etc).

* Then buy canvases from Cheap-As-Chips to decorate with;

-->handprints

-->bible verses

-->mini-murals

* Get pinboards to cover with;

-->photos!

-->adverts

-->whatever else we like!

* Get a rug to cover the random lino in the corner (IKEA road-trip!)

* Find some beanbags and big pillows (maybe we can get rid of some of the other chairs?)

* Pull down the old blinds and put up curtains.

QUESTION: Do we paint over the Malvern Megaplex? Or do we leave it up in case we decide we still want to use it?

Let us know what you think guys!

P.S. We love Jono's idea about handing out prizes to people who bring along a friend in the month of June. We've decided to go for it. So there's an incentive to round up some friends!

Benji why don't you hand out prizes for all those who bring a friend along in the month of June?

Changing Rooms

Okay, so I really want loads of ideas and discussions about what we can do about our room!
Here's some superbly brilliant ideas, mostly from me.. tell us what you think..


The Word Room:
We paint most of it all smart and neat looking, fairly plain and sophistocated with maybe a boldish red(?) colour for the woodwork. Then we grab a few bibles, rip them up and stick all the pages on some of the walls in a wallpaper/mural type arrangment but in some very neat classy stylysed pattern - like the figure of a man (this being Jesus- The word of God made flesh) plus some letters or inspirational words. Perhaps a very large clean circle. This can be like brilliant meaningful artwork.


The India Room
Dress is up in an indian type theme.


The Gallery
A bit like a trendy art gallery with large cheap as chips canvasses on each wall.


Moons and Starts
Paint the ceiling black then have stars all over it and maybe even go all the way down the walls getting slightly lighter to a horizon at about waist high?


Any others???

The Intro Bit

Alright, apparently I have to write an intro thingy for this new blob stuff. Soo...

Hey up all you e-Kiddies out there in the cyba-ether! It's time to get excited about Face-off (someone just told me it's Facebook-dude so there) and smogs and our-space and e-selling stuff a lot - ohh thats right, e-bay! So, let's all log-in together to make this really exciting and something that we all use to refrain from doing our homework.

What's it for?

This is a interactive modern technological forum to gather together the young people involved in fellowship at Malvern Uniting Church. This forum will consist of a number of innovative methods whereby adolescents can gather and converse on a range of subjects effecting young people in today's increasingly difficult society, using a medium that appeals to the younger generations.

Translation?

Lol, basically, we know you guys are all into the computerised side of things these days. We figured that it'd be easier for you all to tell us what you think about the activities that we run and the things that we do on a blog than it would be any other way. So, for all the youth and young people at Malvern (that's 10 years old, allll the way up to the oldies - like Benj!), here it is; The new youth blog, where you guys have free rein to tell us what you think, read about what we're up to and see what other people are suggesting.

Next semster we're thinking about re-vamping the youth program - all new ideas, all new format. So, now's your chance to tell us what you do and don't like about what we do. What should we change? What do you guys like as it is? Do you guys want to spend more time doing activities at church or so you want to go out more? How could we better learn about God? We're asking for your thoughts, guys. Help us out!

We'll try to keep you up to date with what's happening next, so check back. If you want to write a post and haven't been sent an invite thingy, then let us know and we'll link you up.

Enjoy guys!

Benji and Annie

(your friendly neighbourhood youth pastor and the one who bosses him around alot in a good natured way)