Personal Narrative: I Grew Up In Pelzer

I also enjoyed teaching little kids about agriculture through our Elementary Ag Day. I am also involved with many services through the church. I am a mass server, eucharistic minister, and involved in various youth group activities. Being a mass server and eucharistic minister, I was able to help my community and church celebrate the mass. I was a helper at VBS and Christmas school helper through the Youth Group.

This deaconship lasted two short years. A few times each year a deacon is assigned to supervise the church for an entire month. This was an enormous amount of responsibility but it was satisfying to know that my elders trusted me. The jobs of the deacon of the month included opening the church, assuring the service went smoothly, and then closing the church. While I was a deacon, a small group within my church traveled twenty hours to New York City to help mend the wreckage brought forth by Hurricane Sandy. I spent ten days in New York, working with several familiar and unfamiliar faces from sun up to sun down. We aided families that were without food by working at a homeless shelter. Many of the people we were feeding had very interesting stories. We also prepared care packages and delivered them to families that could not travel to the shelters. As a group, we finished tearing down a home so a new one could be rebuilt. Our small group of twelve people also cleaned two churches that were affected by the hurricane. I learned many things while on this service mission; helping others is incredibly rewarding, and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life, giving back and expecting nothing in return is an extremely virtuous feeling, and finally sharing ideas and thoughts with others is the most rewarding blessing of

Living in a strongly religious community, I was given many opportunities to provide service to fellow church members and also under privileged youth of the community. When I began high school I was given the opportunity to become a counselor during Vacation Bible School and

After middle school, I attended Eureka High School. In my early high school years my family, including myself, became disconnected from the church because we got busier with academics and sports, which left less time for Church. However, I did go on mission trips with the church, one to Virginia Beach in Virginia and the other to Joplin in Missouri. In Virginia Beach, we helped fix up a nursing home and interacted with less fortunate children. In Joplin, we helped to rebuild homes due to the devastating

Growing up in a small town from texas in not a unique quality. I’m sure by now you’ve read many essays that sound more like travel brochures to small towns across the state. I haven’t always lived in a small town. I was born on August 20 1999, and lived in Cedar Hill, Texas for the early years of my childhood. My family then moved to Celina, Texas when I was in the 4th grade. Upon first moving here I hated it. I hated the football games and didn’t understand the mums. However, as I’ve grown up I’ve started to appreciate this town. I’m sure there’s a small town out there better than mine but I think Celina was the best city for me. The friends I’ve made here are friends I’d be lucky to have all my life. As I climbed the ranks of grade school

Throughout my life I have always been drawn to theology and church. In my family I have been called the family “Chaplin”. When grace is said at family dinners my family looks to me to lead the prayer, if we have sick family or friends I am the one that is leading a group prayer for that person or family. We have helped many people, believers and non-believers, with death and sickness. Doing this it has strengthened not only my belief in the healing powers of God but has strengthened my family and has helped some non-believers open their hearts to learning the word.

I grew up in the small, Dutch, Christian town of Sioux Center, Iowa. I walked 2 blocks to a local Reformed church right across the street from my house. I attended Sunday school and catechism every Sunday and Wednesday. In middle school and high school, I attended many church camps and did countless service projects. Two of my favorite partnerships was with ViBella Jewelry. ViBella is a Christian organization that works with women in Haiti by giving them jobs making jewelry from old plastic bottles. The women color the plastic strips, but first the bottles must be organized and cleaned which often my job. I also very much enjoyed having the chance to teach a Sunday School class for one week. Both my junior and senior year of high school I paired up with a friend to teach a 4th grade girls class. Not only was it an opportunity to teach but also an opportunity for the kids to interact with older kids. I believe that the experience was had a positive impact on both our lives and theirs.

My mother was very active in women's ministry. When I was very young I used to attend with her all the meetings she went. Most of the time she hosted them in our house and asked us to help set up for the meeting. Some of my fond memories are meeting the ladies from the Church who loved us so much.

My dad is a deacon in our church, New City Fellowship. His main responsibility as a deacon is _ He served in the Marine Corps for four years. Currently, he is a manager at Truckin’ Thunder and an assistant manager at Sweet N Sassy BBQ Company.

At my church I help clean, watch the kids, organize the youth group, plan plays, plan trips, and serve communion. Helping out at the church is one of my favorite things to do because I get to do so much. My favorite things that I do at the church are with the youth group. I organize who all needs a ride, what we will be working on that day, and the activity afterwards. I also plan the trips in the summer and which camp we will go to. And at church events I keep an eye on the kids for their parents and find things fun for them to do. I clean up after church, meetings, and events. Usually it only takes a little over an hour and a half to do. On Sundays I serve communion and sometimes I even read scripture. We do an Easter play and a Christmas play every year and I help decide what play we will do and organize the meetings and the performance

I grew up in the church. My father was a deacon and my mother was a Sunday school teacher. I never remember a time that church was not the center of my life. I experienced great hurt in my young life and nobody knew pain I endured. I would not realize until much later in my life the affect that one event would have on me. My teenage years were turbulent. These years were a time that was marked by poor choices and rebellion. I developed two lives. One I projected in the church and the other outside the church. I never really gave the fact that I was living a double life much thought.

In a world of noise, there are yet many who have no voice, whose cries go unheard. The world looks at them from afar, rarely embracing them. As for me, actually seeing, touching, and living among those with no voice, so near my childhood home, marked an awakening in me that transitioned my idyllic childhood to adulthood.

The thing that I have probably enjoyed the most as a deacon is the role of teaching, both in a formal Sunday setting and everyday informality. Theology and thinking about God has always been at the heart of my spirituality. I can always find myself available with a complicated answer to a simple question. My questions as a Christian came at an early age. I wanted to truly understand where I came from and why I was created. Searching for a spiritual place in my life has always intrigued me and I always had a gnawing feeling in my gut that my purpose was greater than myself.

Church has always been part of my life and with that, came singing! Again, I remember watching my Mom sing from the green Lutheran hymnals. I was amazed to hear the sounds that she was able to belt out and I

It began at an early age. I was a sophomore in college interning in the youth department at my home church, Grace United Methodist, in Hastings, Nebraska. My senior pastor, Jim Miller, was an incredible man of God who really showed me what it looked like to live Jesus out in the flesh. He saw something in me, which at the time I blew off completely. Jim saw my gifting’s, and strengths for ministry. I remember one specific afternoon when I was preparing for a youth Bible study that he came in and started talking to me about Seminary and the process of becoming a United Methodist Pastor. At this time in my life I had a plan for my future, a plan that included the medical field, not a full time ministry job. Although, now after much time in prayer and pursuing the heart of God like Barton discusses in her book “Sacred Rhythms” I look back and see that this was the beginning of Jesus’ pursuit for me to serve within the local church under the United Methodist umbrella. Barton writes, that it is in this place of intimacy with God where we are lead to a place where we are not in control, but are fully rendered to Him (Barton, 67). It was from this deep intimacy with the Father in prayer that helped me navigate this call that God had put on my life.