New Years Eve, Eve, Eve 7:00 - 9ish Open Gym  Family Life Center only! 9:00 - 9:30 Lock-in Expectations and Limitations  Your Limitations are as follows: Do not leave the Church If the area you are in is not climate controlled you are outside the church. No "extra curricular" activities permitted For example, no sucking face with anyone No balloon blowing No cheating If you are looking for a way around a rule, you are probably about to cheat and had best not attempt any deviations until you reach saint hood. Snacks and drinks are allowed in the Youth Center and the Gym only. If you are in transit between these two locations you may not eat or drink. Do not open locked doors If you have to do anything to a door that is more than just gently opening it, you are probably attempting to open a locked door. Stay out of the rafters If you have to climb to get where you want to go and then you feel yourself having to balance on a beam high above the floor, chances are you are in the rafters. Sleep only in designated sleeping rooms. No hiding, food or drink in designated sleeping rooms   Expectations are as follows: Participate as you can Respect others Listen Clean up after your self If you would rather sit out or go to sleep, let me know where you are going and what you are doing. If you want an extra door unlocked  Take the bounce challenge The leader may randomly unlock a door from time to time. Don't beg for a door to be opened unless you have passed the bounce challenge. Have a Blast   9:30 - 11:30 Movie Time Retire to the Youth Center and watch a movie or just hang out. 11:30 - 12:00 New Beginnings Party  Discussion & Celebration Supplies: Bibles, a hat or basket, party hats, noisemakers other party favor. Gather in the youth center and hand out as many bibles as possible. Look up the following 12 new beginnings: Noah (Genesis 6:9-14; 8:15-22) Abraham (Genesis 12:1-9) Joseph (Genesis 37:28; 39:1-6)  Ruth (Ruth 1:1-18; 4:13-22) Esther (Esther 2:1-11, 15-18) Jonah (Jonah 1:1-17; 2:10; 3:1-5) Paralyzed man (Luke 5:17-26) Sinful woman (Luke 7:36-50) Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) Samaritan woman (John 4:1-30, 39-42) Peter (John 18:15-18, 25-27; 21:15-19) Paul (Acts 9:1-19). Say: I'm going to ask you to look up a Scripture passage, the first one to find the passage and to volunteer to read it will get a prize.  After each reading, help kids understand the Bible passages as necessary. Then &ldots;  Ask: How did these Bible characters respond to the new beginnings they received? When has God given you a new beginning? How did you respond? Say: Any time can be a new beginning, but New Year's provides a special opportunity for us to evaluate our lives and, in a sense, "start over." Let's follow the examples of these Bible characters and respond to God's grace and forgiveness in our lives. Wrap this session up by passing out the remaining party things and have a count down to mid-night 12:00 - 12:30 Free Time  12:30 - 1:30 Under Ground Church Session 1  UNDERGROUND CHURCH has been a tradition for the youth of West Heights for many years.  By mixing this exciting game of tag-hide-and-go-seek-sardines-in-the-dark, a memorable experience should take place and with any luck each time they play it, from here on, it will have a deeper meaning.  The Game Players are; Underground Church, Followers, or Guards. There is one "Church" (a group of two or three).  The church is given a set amount of time to go and hide.  The Church will become the Guards for the next round. There are "Guards" (number depends on the size of the "Church").  The Guards try to keep the church from growing.  If a Guard tags a follower the Guard and the follower must go to the jail.  To make it more interesting, have a random guard be a "close to conversion." If a Christian wants to get away from a guard, they witness to them, and the guard can, if they so choose, look the other way and let them go. The follower must remain in jail until at least three others are caught.  After the third follower is caught and brought to jail the group of followers is free to leave the jail after the count of 50. Give each guard a pool noodle. If they whack you you're caught. The "Followers" try to find the Underground Church without being tagged by the Guards or giving away where the Church is.  If a Guard finds the Church the round is over.  But, if the Church has 10 members the round is over and the UNDERGROUND CHURCH has survived! 1:30 - 2:15 Prison M&M Scarf Activity & Discussion Gather in the unfinished proposed addition to the Youth Center. Needed: Several one-pound bags of m&ms Say: You are trying to keep the underground church a secret. In each of the bags in front of you there are contra-banded morsels of truth. The guards are upon you! The only way to keep from getting hauled off to jail is to eat the evidence. However the guards have a way of telling if you have just eaten handfuls of truth. So &ldots; you need to only eat one color for each teammate. The first ones done scarfing all the m&ms are the winners.   Example: First person opens the bag and sorts out all the red colors then passes the bag to the next person while scarfing (eating) his color! Begin the second part of this session with two questions: *Can you think of a time when you felt out of control or lost? *What was the worst experience that you have had? Why? Read Genesis 39:19-40:23  Gen 39:19  When his master heard the words which his wife spoke to him, "This is the way your servant treated me," his anger was kindled. Gen 39:20  And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison. Gen 39:21  But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love, and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. Gen 39:22  And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph's care all the prisoners who were in the prison; and whatever was done there, he was the doer of it; Gen 39:23  the keeper of the prison paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph's care, because the LORD was with him; and whatever he did, the LORD made it prosper. Then ask: *While Joseph was in prison, how did he experience the blessing or support of God? *What special help did God provide for Joseph? *How did God use people to help Joseph? *What gifts did Joseph have that might have helped him in his predicament? *Because of this experience, what might Joseph have learned about God's presence? *How was Joseph changed through this experience? End the session with a prayer. Change, Control, Help 2:15 - 2:45 Free Time  2:45 - 3:15 FOOD!  3:15 - 4:15Under Ground Church Session 2  4:15 - 5:00 Profanity is the Normal  Discussion. "We think it's a crisis...in our schools," says Toni, spokesman for teachers. He's not talking about violence, drugs, or bad grades. Toni's says the rising use of profanity is helping fuel a culture of disrespect in the classroom. "Six out of 10 teachers think the problem is much more serious...than five years ago," he says. When Gallup researchers asked 13- to 17-year-olds to rank a long list of "serious behaviors," they found that "using profanity in public" was considered the least serious offense of all. Not so long ago, foul language was common only in prison cellblocks, HBO comedy specials, and R-rated action flicks. Now there's a blue streak running through algebra class, supermarket express lines, pee-wee soccer games, and even church mission trips What happened? Well, the problem precedes and transcends.  A Short History of Four-Letter Words Yes, there's an actual history to dirty words. Not all profanity is created equal-some words stand the test of time and stay profane, others move back and forth across the line of indecency. For example, the words "Jiminy Crickets," "jeepers," and "gee whiz" were all once semi-scandalous euphemisms for "Jesus." Likewise, "shucks" and "shoot" once stood in for our present "s" word. Sometimes curse words change their colors (from deep blue to pastel) when they cross borders. For example, when the Eliza Doolittle character uttered the word "bloody" in the play Pygmalion, it literally made front-page headlines in England. But when the play ran stateside, no one raised an eyebrow. Or take the word "bastard," a derogatory label no matter what the context when used in America and England, but considered a compliment in Australia. So when is a curse really a curse? Well, maybe the Bible can clear this up. Let's just flip to the New Testament book of... hmmm. Or maybe we can find a "Thou shalt not" about it in the Ten Commandments...or not. Basically, we know it's wrong when we hear it, but how do we convince someone who regards George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" as "quaint"? (Note: You can now hear three of Carlin's seven words regularly on broadcast television.) There are some who defend profanity as cultural slang, but that argument is thin at best. Slang is the colloquial language of a particular group or class of people. Spiritual and social standards clearly prohibit cursing, but what about the "language of the streets"? Here's a practical example. My parents brand the word "sucks" as filthy and denoting a sex act. Growing up as a Gen Xer (or possibly because I'm incredibly naive), I never ascribed such activity to this word. It simply meant "bummer." Whenever an adult objected to "sucks," I chalked it up to the generation gap-they just didn't "get it." My friends and I weren't rebellious; we were simply expressing our feelings in our culture's commonly accepted public language. A current example you might be grappling with is "pimp." For years (I'm old enough to remember), this word dealt exclusively with identifying men who "owned" a group of women engaged in prostitution. Millennials, on the other hand, don't make this distinction. The word means "cool," "hip," or "awesome." I believe the word "pimp" will become a nonoffensive descriptor in 10 years, so telling you it's a curse word seems goofy. The Case for Clean What can I do about profanity outside of purchasing a bulk order of soap? Let's take a page from Jesus' playbook. He typically looked beyond outward behaviors (whether obviously immoral or piously religious), and focused instead on people's hearts. He called the Pharisees "whitewashed tombs" and proved, over and over, that he was interested in real transformation, not facade renovation. Right now in your life and mine, he's working to transform us from the inside out. You can't change your habits by mind-meld, but you can foster purity of speech and thought. 1. Scripture does take a stand on cursing. Though there's no 11th Commandment, there is scriptural ammo for this fight. Ephesians 5:3-4 says: "But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving." There's not much gray there. This passage explains why I spent so much space on the differences between slang and profanity. God makes it clear that obscenity-phrases that remain foul when not in the same cultural and generational context-have no place coming out of the mouth of a Christ-follower. The point is driven home in James 3:9-11: "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?" 2. Cursing is akin to unbelief because it denies Jesus' presence in all things, at all times. how do you think Jesus feels when you drop the "f" bomb in his lap. He lives inside you, so he's privy to everything you say. Do you flinch when Jesus hears you cuss, just like you would if Grandma was in the room? Can you imagine Jesus peppering the Sermon on the Mount with some colorful adjectives? 3. It's impossible to unconditionally love someone using foul language. We've all heard, many times over, the wonderful axiom "They'll know we are Christians by our love." Does profanity clear the "high bar" of love? No way. In a world that's hungering for unconditional love, cursing does nothing to communicate grace. 4. Cursing violates the spirit of humility. Obviously, one slip of the tongue does not doom you to the pit of hell, but it could be a barometer for character. A person who continues to spit curse after curse after committing to follow Jesus shows an unwillingness to submit to authority. Christianity is all about laying down your life for Christ, and for others-it's hypocritical to hold on to a tendency for foul language when humility demands you lay it down. 5. Cursing is a fake alternative to real power (and, for that matter, real humor). The power issue is particularly interesting. I believe young people use profanity to compensate for their lack of power. When they spout taboo words, they feel more powerful. Using normal, acceptable speech will not (in their minds) get people to listen to them or force their desired result. When they use foul language, they're exerting a false maturity. We should be challenged to true maturity, not cheap substitutes. And any idiot can get a laugh using profanity because shocking words produce laughter-but they're not truly funny. Try putting your favorite foul-mouthed comics to the test. Remove the curse words from their acts and replace them with tamer alternatives-are they still funny? Likely not. Real humor is intrinsically funny-it doesn't need fake gimmicks to produce laughter. 6. Cursing undermines integrity. When you use swear words in certain situations but not in others, you're letting yourself play fast-and-loose with your integrity. Throughout the ages, those we've lifted up as heroes have shown their true colors in every situation, and in every environment. We respect integrity, and we disrespect situational character. A word that's acceptable only in limited company or location shouldn't be used at all. 7. The broader culture still labels foul-talkers as ill-educated, uncreative, and lacking in self-control. Society, believe it or not, still looks down on cussing. Foul language is a marker for a poor education, lack of self-control, and a distinct lack of creativity. What are your initial impressions of people who cuss-do you assume they're intelligent, happy, successful, and Christian? Probably not. 8. Clean language is the ultimate counter-culture rebellion. You might find it surprising that I think people who keep their speech clean are out-rebelling the culture's most notorious bad boys and girls. Even a two-year-old can say potty words. The world notices people who refrain from using profanity and respects them for it. If you want to stand out from the crowd and carve your own path as unique individual, clean speech is one way to do it. In fact, pure language might become the new cool (or pimp, depending on your age), much like virginity's rising hip quotient in recent years. For some of you, putting the brakes on your profane speech will be a daunting challenge, much like not smoking, pornography, or gossip. Like any addiction, it must be exposed to the light, where it's almost impossible for shadow sins to thrive. A disciple of Christ has no choice. A clean heart and a clean mouth go hand-in-hand. In a world obsessed with coarse words, a controlled tongue glorifies God. 5:00 - 7:00 Free Time  7:00 Get your Stuff and Get!