PRIMETIME PREVIEW!!!

Primetime at Court Street is the place to be on Wednesday Night!

Tonight we have all sorts of activities planned, won't you please come and join us?

We begin the evening at 5:30. During this time, the Youth (middle and high school ages) meet in "Balcony West" our very cool IKEA styled room to talk, study, and catch up on our weekly activities with me, Becca (the Director of Christian Education). Also at 5:30 our Kid's Choir (elementary aged children) meet and sing together with our Music Director, Rob.

During this time Kathy Welk will also continue leading her scrapbooking class.

At 6:15 everyone gathers in the Dining room for a delicious dinner. The cost for dinner is only $2.50 ($10 maximum for families). This is a great time for fellowship and friendship, and the food is good too!

at 6:45, we split up again. This time the Elementary Aged children go with me (Becca) to Bible Idol! in our Prime Time room. The Youth go with Rob to practice their singing, and scrapbooking class continues.

Tonight, Bible Idol will feature our second round of competition. Last week Abraham suprised us all with his win over Noah and Sarah. The characters competing this week are Rebekah, Jacob, and Joseph. Who will come out on top tonight??

The evening ends with Rejoice! rehearsal which takes place in the sanctuary. During this time, the kids are in the nursery with Diane (our Nursery Director) and the youth are back with me either sitting around and talking or working on our on-going Resource Room project.

Hopefully tonight the youth will practice for Cabaret!

Join us here at Court Street for Primetime!

This Week at Court Street

Today:
9:00 Quilters/History and Archives
6:00 Bell Choir
7:00 Chancel Choir

Tomorrow (Wednesday):

6:30am and 7:00 pm Fellowship of Christian Men Group
5:30 PRIMETIME!!!
5:30 Kids Choir/ Youth in Balcony West
6:15 Dinner
6:45 Bible Idol/ Youth Choir
7:30 Rejoice! Rehearsal

Thursday:
7:00 Task Force

Sunday:
9:00 Sunday School Classes
9:10 Better Living Sunday School Class
9:30 Lamplighters Sunday School Class
10:00 COMBINED WORSHIP!!!! in the Sanctuary
4:30 Youth Soup-er Bowl party at Forest Hill Lanes in Loves Park.

The Sunday Summary: Sunday Happenings!

Sunday had all sorts of happenings:

• The youth suprised Kathy Welk and me (Becca Butler) with a puppet presentation of "Lean on Me" during the 10:45 service. They wanted to welcome me, and thank Kathy for all of her work with the youth. It was a wonderful presentation and the whole congregation really seemed to enjoy our very talented puppeteers.
• We were treated to music by the kids choir! Our kids sang "I know God Loves Me". They did a wonderful job and really added to the worship experience.
• The Chancel Choir presented "Praise God with Cymbols" during the 10:45 Service. It was a beautiful piece that really showed off the diverse musical talents of the choir members!
• We were blessed by the presence of visitors and friends who shared in God's love with us during worship.
• Coffee hour was wonderful! So many people chose to sit in the parlor and talk with each other and extend the fellowship of our congregation beyond the walls of the sanctuary.

It was a wonderful Sunday at CSCUMC, please be sure to join us here next Sunday for our combined 10 am service! Start your week off right, worship with us here at Court Street!

The Sunday Summary: Prayer Concerns

Here are the prayer concerns as mentioned in our services and at Youth Nite:

• Patty Crow's Neice and Nephew, Jason and Janice and their son Ethan who was just diagnosed with Cistic Fibrosis.
• The family of Patricia Landstrom (her funeral is here at the church today)
• Charlie Scoffield's nephew was killed in an accident in Pennsylvania. Prayers for the family and for Charlie and Carol as they drive to Pennsylvania to be with their family.
• The Youth's friend Rachel in her new situation (house and school)
• Nichole's grandmother
• Kirstie's sister
• Tim Welk's sister, Doris.

There may have been other concerns mentioned, if you have additions please comment to this post or email us here at the church. The Church family that prays together, stays together!

The Sunday Summary: Sermon Highlights

Sunday here at CSUMC was wonderful! We had over 20 children and youth present in our worship services this week and the cold weather didn't seem to keep people away from the warmth of God's love here at Court Street. Here are some of Sunday's highlights:

• Pastor Keith preached on 1 Corinithians 13 (the love chapter) and reminded us that love is a verb. He said that one way to love is to look at others and help them to become caring loving helpful people that dd to the vitality of God's church. He also reminded us that even though we may not necessarily like someone it's important to love them anyway.
• Pastor Keith reminded us of the following story:

On one of her visits to Nordstroms, a minister was on the top floor of the store looking at some of the finest dresses in the world, when the elevator doors opened and out stepped a very disheveled looking woman. Her clothes were dirty and torn, her hair was matted, her stockings were rolled down to her ankles. She just stood there holding a very full and very dirty gym bag in her hand and it was obvious that she probably wasn't going to buy anything—all the dresses were all in the multi thousand-dollar category.
The minister half-expected a security guard to come and show the woman out. But instead of a security guard, a stately saleswoman came over to the woman with the gym bag and asked, "May I help you, madam?"
The woman said, "Yeah! I wanna buy a dress!"
"Any particular kind of dress?" the saleswoman asked in a very kind and dignified manner.
"A party dress!" the woman answered.
"Well you've come to the right place," said the saleswoman. "Follow me. I think we have some of the finest party dresses in the world."
The saleswoman then spent more than fifteen minutes matching the dresses with the woman's skin color and eye color, trying to help her find just the right match. After selecting three dresses, the saleswoman said, "Shall we go and try them on?" They headed into the dressing room. The minister hurried into the adjoining dressing room and put her ear up to the wall. She had to hear what would happen next.
The woman with the gym bag tried on the dresses with the saleswoman's help. But then, after about ten minutes, the woman said very abruptly, "I've changed my mind. I'm not going to buy a dress today!" The minister in the adjoining cubicle held her breath and heard the saleswoman say, "That's all right." And then, in a gentle voice she said, "But here's my card. Should you come back to Nordstrom, I do hope that you'll ask for me. I would consider it such a privilege to wait on you again."

• Pastor Keith also told us about a study from John Hopkins University:

“More than 50 years ago at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a young sociology professor assigned his class to a city slum and asked them to interview 200 boys living there. On the basis of your finds, predict the future for these boys,” he said.

Shocked at what they found in the slums, the students estimated that 90% of the boys interviewed would some day serve time in prison. Twenty-five years passed. . . The same professor asked another class to try to locate the survivors of the 200 boys and compare what had happened. Of the 180 original boys still living, the students were surprised to discover that only four had ever been in jail.

Why had the predictions not turned out to be true? A common denominator was sought in their lives, some value or influence that may have made the difference, changed the equation.

Through more interviews, it was discovered that over 100 of the men remembered having the same high school teacher, a Miss O’Rourke, who had been a tremendous influence on them at the time.

After a long search. Sheila O’Rourke, now 70 years old, was found in a nursing home in Memphis, Tennessee. When told about the survey and asked for her explanation, she was puzzled. “All I can say,” she concluded, “is that I loved every one of them.”

• Pastor Keith challenged us all to remember the importance of love, and the above stories helped illustrate just how meaningful acts of love can be in the lives of others!

ABRAHAM WINS!!

Last night in Bible Idol, Abraham made it through the first round to become our first contestant in the finals. He's one step closer to becoming the Bible's Biggest Star! Abraham found tough competition against Noah and Sarah, but this man's story of obedience to God even in the most difficult of circumstances coupled with his rousing song "Father Abraham" made him the victor! Congratulations to Abraham as he moves on in Bible Idol, and thanks to our most excellent judges Abbi, Marie, Daniel and Lydia who had a very tough decision to make last night!

Also in Prime Time last night, Scrapbookers continued their work and the Men's group had a strong showing. The youth were excited to see our friend Bruce Martin at Prime Time! Of course there were choir reherasals and a delcious dinner.

Sorry we missed you, please join us next week!

Tonight in PRIMETIME!

Primetime at Court Street is the place to be on Wednesday Night!

Tonight we have all sorts of activities planned, won't you please come and join us?

We begin the evening at 5:30. During this time, the Youth (middle and high school ages) meet in "Balcony West" our very cool IKEA styled room to talk, study, and catch up on our weekly activities with me, Becca (the Director of Christian Education). Also at 5:30 our Kid's Choir (elementary aged children) meet and sing together with our Music Director, Rob. During this time Kathy Welk will also continue leading her scrapbooking class.

At 6:15 everyone gathers in the Dining room for a delicious dinner. The cost for dinner is only $2.50 ($10 maximum for families). This is a great time for fellowship and friendship, and the food is good too!

at 6:45, we split up again. This time the Elementary Aged children go with me (Becca) to Bible Idol! in our Prime Time room. The Youth go with Rob to practice their singing, and scrapbooking class continues. Tonight, Bible Idol will feature our first round of competition. The characters competing this week are Noah, Abraham, and Sarah. Who will come out on top tonight??

The evening ends with Rejoice! rehearsal which takes place in the sanctuary. During this time, the kids are in the nursery with Diane (our Nursery Director) and the youth are back with me either sitting around and talking or working on our on-going Resource Room project.

This Week at Court Street

Today:
9:00 am: Quilters, History/Archives
6:00 pm: Bell choir
7:00 pm: Chancel choir

Tomorrow:
6:30 am and 7:00 pm: Fellowship of Christian Men meetings
5:30pm: Prime Time (Prime time is our midweek educational and fellowship time.Dinner is served at 6:15 and costs $2.50 per person/ $10 per family)7:30pm: Rejoice! Rehearsal (this is rehearsal for our weekly praise service)

Thursday: 7:00 Task Force Meeting

Prime time this session (from now until Valentine's day) features a class on scrapbooking. If you are interested, check out our church website or contact us here for more information. http://www.courtsreetumc.org

The Ladies of Lydia Circle

Last night, I had the privilege of being invited to the Lydia Circle dinner/meeting at the Olympic Tavern. What a wonderful time!

The Lydia Circle is made up of a large variety of women...diverse ages and backgrounds...who meet on the 4th Monday of every month. This month, their meeting was held at the Olympic Tavern (http://www.theolympictavern.com/) and the food was most delicious. But better than the food was the company! Over 20 women gathered together and ate and fellowshipped together for nearly 2 1/2 hours. It was a lovely time and the women had lots of great things to talk about. They have thier hands in all of the activities of the church and that was really obvious last night as sign-up sheets kept circulating.

A warning to the rest of Court Street though... watch out at Cabaret, these ladies have a great act worked out!

Bible Idol ROCKS!

Bible Idol was a huge success last night. We had six judges present for our first night of introductions and learning about being a judge while not being "judgmental." The children and I had a great time learning and singing together, although "Simon" might not have given us the greatest of reviews. We hope more judges will join us as we progress in our search to find the "Bible's Biggest Star."

The CSUMC Youth were out in force last night as well. We had a great meeting and Diane presented all of us with gifts from her trip to Florida. She gave everyone WWJD license plate key chains, bookmarks, shells, and sand dollars she had actually found on the beach! It was a special moment and we were very glad to have Diane and Holly back safely from their travels! The youth talked about their dreams and ideas for youth activities in the future and then later in the evening volunteered their time to the "Curriculum Resource Room " project. We made some great headway in organizing and cleaning this important room!

The Men's Fellowship group also met in the Parlor with Pastor Keith and continued their studies together. This is an excellent fellowship with fellow men and they would welcome new members!

Dinner was fabulous as always.

We enjoyed hamballs, mashed potatoes, steamed veggies, sloppy joes and sundaes!!! We of course also enjoyed fellowship with one another as we sat around the tables in our dining room.

The scrapbookers met with Diane last night, as Kathy was at a work related class. They had a good time working on their projects and talking with each other.

It was a wonderful Wednesday night at Court Street! Don't miss the next PRIMETIME!!!

Who we're praying for today: Brady Smith, son of our Church Administrator Betsy, as he faces a confusing time regarding his recent enlistment in the Navy and what appears to be an inevitable assignment in Iraq.

Bible Idol in PRIMETIME!

Bible Idol: The Search for the Bible's Biggest star is LIVE! At CSUMC during PRIMETIME starting tonight and continuing through May 18th. This is "Season 1: The Old Testament" of Bible Idol-- a new program for our elementary school children developed by our very own Director of Christian Education, Becca. Every week, one bible hero will come one step closer to becoming the Bible's Biggest Star!! Our kids will be the judges and we'll eliminate 2 hopefuls a week until we reach our finale in May. This week's lesson is our introduction to Bible Idol and we'll be discussing what makes an idol, our scoring critera, what it means to be a judge, and learnign the difference between being a judge and being "judgemental". And then next week the competition gets underway. Our first 3 competitors are: Noah, Abraham, and Sarah! Who will make the cut? Who will be eliminated? And which hero will go on to be named Bible Idol?? Tune in (or show up) to find out! Prime time begins at 5:30 each Wednesday night. Bible Idol takes place at 6:45!

This week at Court Street:

Today: 9:00 am: Quilters, History/Archives
6:00 pm: Bell choir
7:00 pm: Chancel choir

Tomorrow: 6:30 am and 7:00 pm: Fellowship of Christian Men meetings
5:30pm: Prime Time (Prime time is our midweek educational and fellowship time.
Dinner is served at 6:15 and costs $2.50 per person/ $10 per family)
7:30pm: Rejoice! Rehearsal (this is rehearsal for our weekly praise service)

Thursday: 7:00 Task Force Meeting


Prime time this session (from now until Valentine's day) features a class on scrapbooking. If you are interested, check out our church website or contact us here for more information. http://www.courtsreetumc.org

Who we're praying for today: The Family of Barbara McDonald who passed away on Thursday, January 11, 2007.

The Court Street Beat goes ONLINE!

Welcome to the Court Street Beat...the blog home of the newsletter just for youth and young adults at Court Street United Methodist Church in Rockford Il. I'm becca, the Director of Christian Education at Court Street, and I'll be blogging here on a regular basis. http://www.courtstreetumc.org is our website, feel free to check it out and check back here soon for more information.