Youth Group

Welcome to the Meadows youth group page! We are intentional about restoring the home as the training ground for teaching children how to be completely committed followers of Jesus.

The Meadows church of Christ is blessed to assist in this work. We have chosen John 8:31 (abide in His Word), 13:35 (love one another) and 15:8 (bear much fruit) to guide this ministry into disciple-keeping.

From monthly devotionals to doing service projects, these concepts are evident in the activities we do today, and will be in future endeavors. So come and join this ministry, where mom and dad are back in the home and the youth are 4 Truth.

Youth-Led Worship Recap
Two Sundays ago, our youth-led us in our Sunday evening worship with singing (Jaden Keller), praying (Elias
Leyva, Paxton Jones), r eading Scr iptur e (Matthew Case, Kaleb Trumps, Brady Hailey), pr epar ing our
minds for the Lord’s Supper (Rolan Phelps), and preaching (Jaden Keller) the Word of God. Thank you to our
members and the Village Creek congregation for coming and supporting our young men. For those who were
unable to be there, let me briefly share the message Jaden delivered. The world defines a teenager as a person
who is free from responsibility and has low expeditions between 13 to 18 years of age. Some of those low
expectations include: cleaning your room, doing the dishes, taking the trash out, doing your homework, etc.
However, as Jaden said in the message, God has four expectations He wants young people to reach. First, God
expects young people to be an example (1 Timothy 4:12). Contextually, Paul is writing to Timothy on how
Christians need to behave in the church (3:15). When Paul writes chapter four, he wants Timothy, as a young
minister, to act a certain way—an example to believers (4:12). Timothy must be an influence in his conduct,
speech, faith, love, and purity. Young people can serve as a godly influence to others in these areas by paying
attention to the reading of Scripture, exhorting, and teaching (4:13), as well as paying close attention to oneself
and one’s teaching (4:16). Second, God expects young people to accept str ict godly tr aining (1 Corinthians
9:24-25). In this chapter, Paul compares what he does in his ministry to what athletes do in their day to win the
prize. Athletes win by demonstrating self-control (9:25). Paul will do the same thing to win the heavenly
reward, but he calls it discipline (9:27). Parents, discipline is not just something God requires you to do, but
your children want it from you. In other words, discipline shows your care and love to your child in their eyes
because they see you will not let them run around and be an ungodly influence on others.
Third, God expects young people to have Chr ist-like character (Romans 12:2). In this verse, Paul wants these
Christians to transform themselves by renewing their mind. If they do this, they will not blend into the world
(“conforming to the world”) and will prove God's will is perfect, good, and acceptable. To accomplish these
things starts with the mind. Whatever comes out of your mouth, it was first in your mind/heart (Matthew 15:10,
18). Therefore, feed your mind by setting on things above (Colossians 31), for our citizenship is in heaven
(Philippians 3:20). Fourth, God expects young people to give up childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11-13).
Contextually, Paul calls the miraculous gifts (1 Corinthians 12:4-10) childish (13:11). The Corinthians were
obsessed with whose gift is better. This obsession led to no love in the church. They needed to understand that
whatever is childish, it needed to go away for something to come to maturity. Young people are gifted with
many talents, as you saw two Sunday nights ago. However, they should not intentionally use their abilities to
lessen the ability of others. For this is immature and needs to go away. The mature thing to do is love the talents
of others—those who may be more talented than you or only has one talent—by allowing them to use them and
get recognition from members since everyone is a contributor to the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12-25).
Let us put these kinds of expectations on our young people instead of what the world places upon them.

Check out our Youtube page to watch the service.

Remy Afre 11/7/21

Haunted Hotel
Last Sunday evening, Village Creek CoC and Meadows youth went to the Haunted Hotel in downtown Beaumont. We enjoyed our time with one another by getting scared together and fellowshipping with the young families at Village Creek.
We want to thank the Village Creek Church of Christ for coming down and supporting the leadership skills of our youth while they led us in worship this past Sunday night. When we entered the Haunted Hotel, scary characters approached us with spooky items, came near us, and jumped at us. We were able to escape by running past a person with a chainsaw. But to get in the place, everyone needed a ticket.Likewise, to go into the heavenly place (John 14:2), spiritual admission is necessary. How does one enter into heaven? To answer this question, let us make connections in John 14. Jesus says the words “dwelling places” in John 14:2. He says these same words in John 14:23 in the form of “Our abode.” In John 14:23, notice what Jesus says at the beginning of the verse for Him and God to dwell with an individual:

He says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep my word.” “Love” here is selfless and sacrificial. It is the idea of putting someone else’s needs before yours and wanting what is best for another. To get into His house (John 14:2), we must put the needs of Jesus first and do what is best for Him. The question is, what is best for Jesus and what are His needs? So many things can suffice as the answer. If we keep it in context, we can say belief in Jesus is what is best for Him and what He needs from us (John 14:1). But what does Jesus mean by that word? It is not defined as faith only but obeying (John 3:36) and receiving Him (John 1:12). Following and accepting Jesus is only accomplished through immersion (John 3:3, 5; cf. Rom. 6:1-4; Matt. 28:18-20; Mark 16:15-16). If we want to dwell with God and Jesus eternally, we demonstrate our selfless love to them by putting aside our preconceived ideas about the Bible and doing what He commands us to do—He says to get in the water (Acts 10:48), so we need to get in there! This kind of love is our ticket into heaven (John 14:23). Though Charlie and his grandpa say “golden,” in the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, can you say, “I’ve got a spiritual ticket”? -Remy Afre October 31, 2021

Do Hard Things: Outside the Comfort Zone

Brett Harris tells a story about going from taking baths to showers when he was eight

years old. When his parents instructed him to start taking showers, he threw a fit. The

showerhead looking down at Brett and the water hitting his eyes, nose and ears was the

reason why he did not want to take showers. However, the funny thing that Brett admits from this occasion was, he took a shower the next day, not thinking twice about it. What seemed impossible to Brett became enjoyable to his everyday routine. This story leads to the question: What are some things that are outside your comfort zone? Whatever it may be, did you know that

our comfort zones are built out of fear—fear of weakness, discomfort, failure, humiliation? Another question then must be asked: Can we live by fear and faith at the same time? Those individuals in Hebrews 11 could not live by fear, but by faith, in order to accomplish the big, hard things for God (Heb. 11:6). In addition to that, “Fears are usually just well-concealed”

(Harris, pg. 69). How do we step outside of our comfort zones in order to break our fears?

First, God must be allowed to wor k thr ough our weaknesses. In Galatians 4:14-15, Paul stated he had a bodily condition. This health problem he had might have involved his eyes (vs. 15). Perhaps this was Paul’s “thorn of the flesh” from 2 Corinthians 12:9-12. Whatever pr oblem Paul had, he did not let this weakness stop him from planting churches and sharing

the good news while on his missionary journeys. If we let our weaknesses stop us from accomplishing God’s big plans, we are saying He does not have enough power to help us do what we cannot comfortably do on our own (Harris, pg. 71). God wants to use everyone, especially when things are out of place.

Second, we must act despite our fear s. If we continue to fear , we will never try at all. We are sitting there in our fence of fear. When we do this, how long will we wait to stop feeling afraid? We will always be in our comfort zones until we refuse to let fear control our actions, for this is true

courage (Harris, pg. 77). The people in Matthew 6, who worried about food, clothing, and shelter in Matthew 6, showed distrust in God, though they controlled these things. We overcome our fears by accepting who we are (Matthew 6:26), attain more faith (Matthew 6:30), and taking one day at a time (Matthew 6:34). Once we take the hard step of getting out of our comfort zone with the help of God—and keep going forward—we will never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God (Harris, pg. 84).

-Remy Afre October 17,2021

Recap of Wednesday Night Class:
This past Wednesday night, the youth and I studied some verses in
Ephesians 3. In this chapter, Paul repeats the phrase “The grace God has given me.”; the first occurrence is in vs. 2. The question is, what does Paul mean by the word “grace”? Go to verse seven. The grace that was given to Paul was making him a minister. To whom is he ministering?
Go to verse eight and nine. Paul is ministering to the Gentiles by preaching the mystery of Christ. Paul
has mentioned the “mystery of Christ” previously in Ephesians 3 (v. 2-3). So what does this mean and why call it “mystery of Christ”? The mystery of Christ is found in Ephesians 2:13-16—Gentiles can be Christians; they can be added to the church; and they can go to heaven (Ephesians 2:19; 3:6).
This plan had yet to be revealed to the world—hence why it is called “mystery” of Christ; angels did not even know about this plan (Ephesians 3:10). God was waiting for the perfect time to let it be known (Ephesians 1:9-10; Galatians 4:4). When the perfect time came, the apostles and prophets were the only groups of people who shared this redemptive plan (Ephesians 3:5), which is why they were the authority of the day since Jesus was not walking on the earth anymore and they were inspired (2:20).
Likewise, God has given us the grace of being a minister (servant). His Son, Jesus, has called all of us to preach the gospel to the whole world (Mark 16:15). What we need to preach is the impact of the blood of Jesus (Ephesians 2:13); we are no longer under the Law (Ephesians 2:15); and there is one church which Jesus built and bought with His blood (Ephesians 2:16).

There is no time like the present (2 Corinthians 6:1-2).

We cannot claim divine authority since we are not inspired but we can represent His authority. We can make sure every word and deed is done in the name of the Lord(Colossians 3:17).

While respecting the opinions of others (Romans 14), we can implement what
has already been bound and loose in heaven upon the earth (Matthew 16:19). This is the grace whichhas been given to us. What are you going to do with it? -Remy Afre

YOUTH GROUP UPCOMING EVENTS