Youth Activities
The Youth Fellowship
meets Sunday evenings at 6 PM at the home of
Eric and Dee Ann Harmon.
The youth group hosts a Valentine Dinner for our
church family, and they participate in the
Youth Christmas and Easter programs.
The youth group made a mission trip to serve at the
Backstreet Mission homeless shelter in Bloomington
and the Feed the People outreach.
Care Packages
Each fall the Jr/Sr High class prepares care packages for college students, which include homemade cookies.
There are a lot of pictures — click the buttons or any of the pictures below to see all of them.
Love and Zombies
What if you lived in a world where what was happening in your heart began to show in your appearance? What if this change reached a tipping point, causing you to look something like a zombie?
In Love and Zombies, the zombie "infection" somehow spreads from one young person to another, making hard-hearted behavior more and more widespread. In this dystopian world, normal kids (called "pink cheeks" by the zombie kids) live in a state of tension with their afflicted neighbors. Can the normal kids find a way to reverse the zombie affliction?
Love and Zombies premieres on August 7, 2016 at Paoli United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall.
The following quotes from the Bible speak to the theme of the movie:
John 13:34-35 — "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
Luke 6:35 — "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men."
Ephesians 4:30 — "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."
Director's note:
In the movie, responding with anger or violence to dysfunctional behavior serves only to spread the bad behavior "zombie virus". One means of addressing the problem is to find ways to express genuine love for the afflicted characters. Understanding the concept of Four Loves (Affection, Friendship, Eros and Agapé) helps to provide a system for finding the right way to approach an individual in need of love. For example, Ned, the outcast kid, recognizes that he and Zippy, the zombie girl, share a passion for something else (watch to find out what). Finding this common ground allows Ned to extend the hand of friendship to someone who is otherwise not that lovable. Experiencing this love from another has a transformative effect that dials down the dysfunctional "zombie" behavior.
Another part of the solution is recognizing our own dysfunctional behavior provokes others to behave badly. By turning the light of inspection on ourselves, discovering our own defects, we can take steps to heal our own defects. Since the bad behavior of others is often a response to our own bad behavior, healing ourselves also heals others.
These have been the main themes of our Youth Group discussions for the past year. We are glad to be able to illustrate them with a new movie, titled Love and Zombies.
Eric Harmon
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Cast | Character | Role |
Bela Brewster | Nature | A normal girl |
Connor Henderson | Norman | Nature's normal brother |
Madison Street | Zoie | A zombie girl |
Garret Vincent | Zebby | A zombie boy |
Maggie Vincent | Zippy | Zebby's zombie sister |
Kyle Marshall | Ned | An outcast student |
Clara Henderson | Nancy | A smart historian |
Will Stroud | Neal | A normal songwriter |
Madison Shinkle | Extreme Zombie and Coffee shop extra | |
Haley Owen | Girl #2 | Coffee shop extra |
Catherine Henderson | Crazy Barista | An oracle |
Eric Harmon | Janitor | A sage |
Crew: | ||
Lexi Reuter | Make-up artist | |
Dee Ann Harmon | Food service coordinator |
Love and Zombies production pictures
Valentine Dinner
The youth group hosts a Valentine Dinner for our church family.
Trip to Orange Beach, Alabama
The Community Youth program began in February, 2013:
What a great time we had at our first Community Youth
program on February 23, 2013.
New Hope Christian Church, Paoli Mennonite Church and
Paoli United Methodist had 24 youth in attendance and
8 adult leaders.
Representatives from each church met to talk about
meeting once a month so that we had opportunity
for our churches and youth to meet together.
It is a great opportunity to work together, but it also
gives each church youth group to make friends and have
a larger group of youth with which to fellowship.
Our first meeting included music led by our own Holly
and Billy Vincent and a devotion presented by
Scott McGowan, pastor at New Hope Christian Church.
He talked about what faith is and how God worked
to build Jeremiah's faith, through his struggles.
We can learn from Jeremiah that even when things get
really hard in our lives, that God is still for us
and will help us be strong.
The group was then divided up into five groups which
included kids and youth from each church and led by
members of our youth so that the groups know how to
get around the church.
Each group was given a first clue which sent them
to their next clue.
The laughter was infectious in both the adults,
children and youth.
And Caitlin's group finished first... what a whoop
went up as they made their way home to Fellowship Hall
and realized they were back first.
The pastime of all youth, eating pizza, ended our
meeting.
What fun...and we're looking forward to meeting again
on March 17.
We'll meet back here at PUMC for worship, fellowship
and an egg hunt.
Why not come out, meet our kids, our youth and
see our future!!!!
of Paoli United Methodist Church and our community.
Click here or on any of these pictures to see some pictures from recent youth activities.
Click here or on the picture to see pictures from the Valentine's Day three-course dinner the youth prepared and served. Following the dinner, Daniel Nichols entertained everyone with several songs. The evening concluded with the announcement of the winners of the silent auction, which included many Valentine-themed items donated by church members.
The Christmas Program and the practices dominate the fall youth schedule. The children's program welcomes all children in Kindergarten up to 6th grade. Our purpose is not to discourage any kids from joining us. So if you have a preschool aged child (3,4,or 5 years of age), we ask that a parent accompany them at our events. As always, we encourage the kids to invite a friend!
Below, the children's and youth groups perform in a Christmas program.