Mission Statement:
To Become Saints. 

Vision Statement: 
To help youth strive to become saints
through fellowship, service, prayer, knowledge and engagement of the faith. 

06/26/2020
Greetings to all! 

I think about now everyone is out of school! Yay! And we have finished up our Zoom Youth Group and Creed Study for the 2019-2020 year! It is a well deserved break from the chaos of life. 

But this does not mean that we get to sit back and lay in our beds all day or eat ice cream all day. Summer is an opportunity for rest, but good rest. 

What is the definition of rest? According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, we have about 5 different definitions (and there are even more!)- 

1: bodily state characterized by minimal functional and metabolic activities

2: freedom from activity or labor

3: a state of motionlessness or inactivity

4: peace of mind or spirit

5: a rhythmic silence in music

We have lots of different meanings to choose from! 

But what is missing, is rest defined in Christ. Which can closely be defined in the definition including peace of mind or spirit, but in our faith it’s more than that. It’s full oneness with Christ. 

All throughout the Bible, we are being promised rest in Christ. And rest in Christ, is when we center everything we do on him, and entrust everything to him. 

And we can ask ourselves how does that exactly relate to summer vacation and staying in bed all day? 

I guess the question we must ask ourselves is if staying in our bed all day glorifies Christ? Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t sleep that extra hour, or take that extra nap in your bed. But we should ask ourselves if over indulging, if having too much of something “relaxing” really gives us rest in Christ. 

For example, after a hot day in the sun either playing a sport or helping our parents with chores, a cold glass or water or lemonade or gatorade tastes amazing and refreshing! But if we have that cold drink all day even when we are not working hard and we are in an air conditioned building, it doesn’t give us the cool relief that it does compared to when we are in the hot sun. 

That’s kind of like sleeping in our bed all day. There isn’t rest in sleeping if we never actually woke up and made our bed and changed out of our pajamas. And by sleeping in our bed all day, we are giving into our sin of over laziness and looking to be dependent on something other than Christ to give us rest. 

Now how do we get rest from Christ, or what does it mean to glorify Christ? 

It means we give everything to him, meaning every part of our lives and everything we do. If we get up earlier, we give it to honor him and to become disciplined to become more disciplined in prayer. In sports, homework, yard work, playing with our siblings, we give all of it to Christ, to honor and glory of him, and his sacrifice to us.

We are also called to enjoy life. So when your family goes out to ice cream, eat ice cream because Christ died so we might also enjoy life. 

Think about it as the summer begins, how might you embrace true rest in Christ this summer. 

Many blessings to all! 

Your Youth Minister, 

Catherine

Agape Mission Trips has been cancelled this year, for Summer 2020. 
We are looking to do a service day to support Agape, once we have more information. 
Please pray for the Agape staff and everyone they serve!
Please contact Catherine for more info. 

Please contact our Youth Minister, Catherine Tangen, if you have any questions. 
Email: youthministry@standrewsumner.org
Phone: 206-565-4529

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This past year we have started our Middle School Confirmation Program as directed by the Seattle Archdiocese. Please see the Youth Confirmation website page for more info about our Confirmation program.