REEL Joy's Around the Corner

Church of the Redeemer, Redeemer Community Partnership and Street Lamp Studios will be putting on our third annual "REEL Joy" program. As I've mentioned in other posts "REEL Joy" is a great opportunity to engage youth in our neighborhood with God through film. We partner with professional filmmakers to teach youth to make their own short films from scratch - they do everything from writing scripts to rehearsing scenes to learning camera work. They've done some awesome, creative stuff in the past which you can check out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWn6TgwuFjI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipubH5IkH44
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQo8ks7KqPE

This year our theme is "Young Heroes" and we'll take a look at some young heroes in scripture. Our hope is that God will inspire faith in our youth that leads to acts of courage, compassion and truth in their daily lives. We want the youth to know that God loves them, has created them for good and has a great plan for their lives.

We'd love to have your prayers. We begin this Wednesday 2/3 and will meet on the following two Wed's as well. Then on 2/20 we'll have a filming day and, finally, a celebration screening event to show the films to the youth, their families and others in the neighborhood. Here are some specific prayer requests:

Youth
- Boldness for our youth to invite their friends and share about God
- New seeds of faith to be planted through our time in scripture and fellowship
- Hospitality, patience and love from our youth group extended to new youth
- An absence of violence and hostility between youth; new friendships to develop

Adult staff
- Wise, compassionate, Spirit-led leadership by our adult staff
- I’ll be teaching a lesson this week about Daniel and the Lion’s Den. The lesson is unfinished and I welcome your prayers for wisdom and diligence in finishing it.
- I'm struggling with anxiety. While there are several things that need to be coordinated before Wed, I think that most of the anxiety is coming from the desire to have an awesome, "successful" program - lots of kids attending, many new YG members, conversions etc. Please pray that our staff and I would serve faithfully and be content with how God moves.

Here are some new youth we’re inviting. Pray for their interest, for trust with their parents and for them to come with an open heart this Wed!
- Jordan, Kimberly, Ibrahim, Malik and two others
- Andrew, Calvin, Enrique, Luis, Ezekel, Joswe, MaryAnnie
- Taye, Devon and Gianni

There are also youth who have been a part of our youth group that no longer attend regularly. We’d love to see them come out again for REEL Joy this Wed.
- Jamie, Robby, Joseph, Jose, Judith, DeAngelo, Oscar, Marvin, Carla, Wendy, Yescenia and Kyrum all used to fairly regular to our youth group
- Jnye, Erskin, Shantiana, Diana, Sabrina, Cristina, Martina, Carmen and Tania have come a handful of times or less

- We’re hoping to have this year’s screening at the an actual movie theater, the University Village 3.

Thanks for your partnership and prayers!

Elliot