The Real Easter

Have you seen the ‘Real Easter Egg’? It’s a fairtrade Easter egg that includes both delicious chocolate AND the story of Jesus. What a great way to remember the real reason we celebrate without taking away the fun of eating large amounts of chocolate! Usually, when it comes to passing on the good news of Jesus, Easter eggs are a bit of a distraction. Along with the Easter bunnies and lambs and flowers they provide a backdrop of ‘new life’ symbolism that’s almost as sickly sweet as the chocolate itself! The real story of Easter is a bit more edgy! Jesus did come to bring new life...because there was such a massive problem with the old one! Jesus didn’t just come with a message of bunnies and flowers and ‘everything’s fine’. He came because the world isn’t fine. When Jesus was criticised for spending time with some of the less accepted members of his society, he explained, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor, but sick people do. I didn’t come to invite good people to be my followers. I came to invite sinners.” Yup... I’m afraid the real Easter story starts with sin – real, horrible, deadly sin. But in his incredible love, God responded to our sin by sending Jesus to die on the cross. It’s not an image that fits with the cute, cheap niceness of commercial ‘Easter’. It’s not ‘nice’ but it is ‘good’ and Jesus sacrifice on Good Friday paved the way for his glorious resurrection on Easter Sunday. We too can share in his new life: the real, resurrection life that lasts forever!

For an account of the real Easter story designed to appeal to teenagers and young adults see 'The Third Day' published by the Good Book Company. (See the trailer below) Definitely no bunnies in sight and you'll have to provide your own chocolate!

It's a wrap!

The filming portion of the youth video project is finished...at last! It took several weeks longer than we planned and involved a lot more gaffer tape and barbecue skewers that you might imagine but the footage is finally ‘in the can’. Now we’ve just got to edit it all! Some of the outer-space scenes were filmed on a green screen, set up in St Aldhelm’s church centre. Assistant editors William and Matt have helped transform some of those scenes into truly intergalactic experiences (see the clip below).  The crew of the starship ‘Destiny’ are currently in Catharine’s computer, having their voice recordings matched with their puppet performances. They will be launching off on their adventures in time for the children’s holiday club at Emmanuel church during the Easter break. It might not sound as if it has much to do with the Easter story but actually Captain Adamson and his crew will be illustrating some really big ideas like sin, salvation, forgiveness and eternity!

Teens record new song

A couple of our young people have recorded a song to be used alongside the youth video project at our various church holiday clubs this year. The tune is Katy Perry’s ‘Firework’ but Catharine has written some new lyrics all about God’s great, cosmic plan to save his people. The recording was done at St Aldhelm’s church centre by singers Maisie and Tabby and our own amateur music producer Pete Evans-Jones from St John’s. The track is receiving the final tweaks before being released (initially at Emmanuel church before Easter). Watch out for ‘The SpaceQuest song’ making an appearance at a church near you!

GSUS Live!

GSUS live in Secondary schools begins in Weymouth and Portland on 24th February at Budmouth before moving on to All Saints on 3rd March, IPACA on 10th March and Wey Valley on 24th March.

If you've found this site because you saw the link on a flyer from Gsus live...WELCOME!
I hope you had a great experience. If you want to find out more why not go along to one of your local churches or groups. This is the site for some of the C of E churches in Weymouth, particularly St Aldhelm's, Emmanuel and St John's. You'll find some details about that we do on the 'What's on' tab. You'd be most welcome to come along to any of our services, groups or activities any time or if you'd just like to talk to a minister or youth leader or you have some questions you want to ask then just send us an email and we'll get back to you to arrange something.

If you want to go a bit further with the GSUS live experience, have a look at their website. 

Reaching for the Stars!

The youth video project in now well underway...although it's changed a bit since we announced it just a few weeks ago. The stars who appear on screen in 'SpaceQuest - the miniseries' are not, now, the ruggedly handsome/enchantingly beautiful teenagers of our parish but some rather surprised looking puppets made of garden wire and polystyrene! Meet the crew of the starship Destiny:

Captain Troy Adamson and the rest of the crew will be voiced by the aforementioned lovely teens who, in the meantime have been hard at work creating sets that resemble the inside of spaceships. We've begun experimenting with 'green screen' effects to see if we can get our spaceships to zoom off into outer space. But mostly we've been spending hours stopping the miniature crew from falling over and going cross-eyed!

Hopefully by the time the children assemble for the first of our Holiday clubs at Easter at Emmanuel church the videos will be all filmed, voiced and edited with all special effects in place. Any young people who would like to come and help with the remaining filming are welcome. Please contact Catharine for times and dates.

Repositioning the captain

Preparing the spaceships for the greenscreen

Tuesday Homegroup

The Tuesday homegroup for 11-14s will be taking a break until after the spring half term holiday. If you or someone you know is interested in joining the group or if you just want to ask about it please get in touch with Catharine, the Youth Minister. In the meantime check out the latest video project. Could you take part? Sunday groups for young people continue as normal at St John's, Emmanuel and St Aldhelm's.

Youth Video Project

Anyone aged 11-18 is invited to join in with the latest youth video project. It's called 'SpaceQuest' and filming begins in February. For more details download the letter which tells you more about how, when and where we will be filming. You can also read and/or download the script. Any adults who would like to help us explore strange new worlds and boldly go where no man has gone before would be very welcome. Do get in touch with Catharine if you can offer assistance. Thank you. The finished videos will be appearing on a screen near you sometime this year...watch this space!

The Ups and Downs

What was 2013 like for you? What were the high points? What were the low points? Perhaps you had a brilliant holiday or made some new friends. On the other hand perhaps you had to say goodbye to some loved ones or face failure or disappointment. At this time of year we often look back over the ups and downs of the past year and wonder if the next will be better or worse. Jesus has promised his followers that he will be with us whatever happens. His love for us stays strong in the ups, the downs and the kind of boring bits in between.

In Romans 8:28 we have a really encouraging promise to hold on to in the ups and downs of life. It says, “...in all things God works for the good of those who love him...” God is at work for our good in ALL things, fun things AND miserable things. Even things we thought were a complete waste of time: somehow God is using them for good. How great is that?!

So let’s remember God’s promises as we get stuck into 2014. There may be things ahead that we are dreading. There may be things we’re really looking forward to. Perhaps there are changes coming up in your school life or your home. God will be with you every step of the way, working for your good. I wonder what HIS plans for you are this year? I guess that we can trust him to use all the ups and downs of 2014 to make us just a little bit more like Jesus by the time 2015 rolls around!