Anyway, moving swiftly on, we are into September, schools are starting back after the short 6 week break (I had 3 months off in Ireland every summer at school...) and that must mean that the various breathe groups are getting up and running! Well, almost. Much of my week this week is taken up with meetings and preparations for the new term, so the mid week groups start next week, the dates are below.
There has been a couple of changes to the weekly programme, and we are expanding and developing the Breathe Out side of our Breathe programme. All our events fit into one of three Breathe elements.
Breathe In consists of groups with a mainly social/personal focus - the occasional Costa drop-ins, youth clubs and so on.
Breathe Deeper groups mainly meet on a Sunday evening with more of a faith focus, a chance to dig deeper into the Christian faith, find out more about Jesus, the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives.
Breathe Out is all about a chance to give back. Being a Christian is all about making a difference, doing things for others and for God. For several years now we've given away hot chocolate at Christmas, and will be doing it again this year. We've slept in the grounds of the Methodist church to raise money for Framework and last year went to Zambia to build a house. We've also done some decorating in the Toton area. I'm in the process of planning a few more "giving back" events for the next year, and we are also working on our next overseas trip, with plans to go to the USA in 2014. All being well over the next few months there will be a number of opportunities to meet together to plan some of these and pray for our community.
This Year Breathe will be complimented by Zone activities. Zone is the umbrella for all of our children's groups at Toton Churches, and features a range of events such as Messy Zone, Sports Zone and more. The obvious change during the week is that we are re-naming GYM, the Friday night youth club for Years 3 to 6 Friday Zone to link it with all the other activities we run for children up to Year 6/age 11. I will still be running it, and content won't change very much, but the name will! We have also merged our two teenage youth groups onto the one night, Thursday.
A typical week then will look like this:
Monday is the most likely night for Breathe Out planning meetings, though these will not be weekly.
Tuesday will still be my day off in the week
Wednesday I'm planning to run some training events through the year on Wednesday nights, around my involvement with the Churches Leadership Team and Council meetings.
Thursday is youth club night, at Toton Methodist. 7.00 to 8.30 pm for Years 7 to 9, 8.00 to 9.30 pm for Years 10 to 13. (These times and the style of the group will be reviewed to see how it's going after a few weeks and so may change.) Starts Thursday 13th.
Friday brings Play and Praise in the afternoons for toddlers (and a responsible adult!) and Friday Zone in the evenings, both at Toton Methodist Church. Starting Friday 14th
Sunday sees both Zone and Breathe groups meeting. During the 10.30 am services there are Zone groups for those up to 11 (sometimes at Toton Methodist, sometimes at St Peter's, depending on the event) and there is a Breathe Deeper group for anyone in Year 7 and above, in the youth room upstairs at St Peter's. We also run an evening Breathe Deeper group in the same place, from 7.00 to 8.30 pm. The morning groups start on the 16th, the evening group on the 9th, when there is a combined service for all of us at St Peter's at 10.30.
Please do get in touch if you have any questions, or indeed if you would like to be taken off the Breathemail list. My mobile number is 07791 703480, which is ioften the best one to get me on, or the office number is 0115 9462357. Our Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/breathetoton.
Have a good week, I hope the shock of school starting again isn't too much.
God bless,
Andy
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Breathe - The Youth and Children's programme of Toton Churches
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