March 27
One of the new features of parksideyouth.org v2.0 is Twitter. This is a piece of social software that allows you to keep up with what is going on in the lives of your friends, but we are hoping to use it in a slightly different way. When you become a friend (follower) of parksidems you will periodically get text message updates on important items. For example, if you look at the bottom of the homepage right now, you will see that an update was sent out earlier this month letting everyone know that the worship services at Parkside were canceled on March 9th due to that really bad snowstorm. If you were a follower of parksidems, a text message would have been sent to your phone containing this information. Among other things, we will use Twitter to give updated return times for trips that we are on (yes….eventually the Clueline will be a thing of the past, minimal tears please).
Moment of honesty: It can be a little challenging to figure out the registration process for Twitter and begin following parksidems. We promise that it will be worth the effort. So we had a Twitter Tutorial (thanks Nick B!) put together that gives you step by step screen shot instructions. So download the PDF and start Twittering!
Download the twitter tutorial.
March 26
The first country of the week is, not surprisingly, India! While I was over there, I had a chance to spend some time with some Christians from the Delhi Bible Institute, and in addition to giving my friends and me beds for the evening, they told me all about what God was doing in North India. And they shared some really exciting things! So, I thought we could join in what they are doing by praying for them…here is a picture of some girls that attend their summer Bible camp!
About India: Did you know?
- Cows are considered sacred, or holy, in the Hindu religion. Unlike the USA, where we turn them into hamburgers and steaks, cows wander freely around India, even downtown in the middle of traffic!
- During the month of March, many Indians celebrate a Hindu holiday known as Holi. And to celebrate, they walk down the streets of the cities, throwing dye on one another! Some throw colored powder on one another while others throw water balloons filled with colored liquid…talk about a fun and messy party!
How can we pray?
- Believe it or not, there are groups of people in India who have never heard about Jesus before. We can pray that God would send missionaries to those people to let them know about how He loved them enough to send His son Jesus to die for them!
- In India, there is something known as a caste system, where certain people are considered better than others just because they were born into a certain family. People born into a high caste family look down on those born into a low caste family and those in the low castes don’t have the same rights as those in the high caste. We can pray that God, through the Bible, would teach people that everyone is of equal value to Him, because He created us all.
March 24
As many of you know, I just got back from India on Saturday, and while my body is still trying to figure out what time it is (they are 9.5 hours ahead of us!), t
he trip was really a great experience, although the food kind of did a number on me! Anyways, I’ll tell you all about it at Club on Tuesday (here’s a picture of my friends and I at the Taj Mahal, a famous place there), but I was thinking it would be cool to start something new on the website called Country of the Week where we can learn about a country together and how we can be praying for that country. When I was in India, I had a chance to spend some time with some Christians over there, and it was really neat to hear about what God was doing in the country… how Indian people were hearing the good news about Jesus and following Him! I was reminded that God isn’t just God here in Ohio, but is actually God of the whole world…
So, here’s how it is going to work: every Monday, I’ll pick a different country and write a post about it, including some random facts, and how we can be praying for that country. And then when you read the post, you can both learn something cool and say a quick prayer for that part of the world. Sound good? And since I don’t know what country I’ll pick next week, are there any countries you would like to learn more about or pray for? Post a comment and let me know!
March 8
All services at Parkside have been canceled for Sunday, March 9th.
Spread the word…
March 7
Due to the weather, both the Girls’ (Friday) and Guys’ (Saturday) Warehouse Nights are canceled this weekend. They will be re-scheduled for sometime in May.
March 4
It’s that time of the year again…time for the NCAA Tournament! Think you can guess how the bracket is going to play out? Sign up for the Tournament Pick ‘Em and show us what you got! There are some sweet prizes for the winner…
Here’s how to play:
- Sign up for a Yahoo! account if you don’t already have one
- Go to the Yahoo! Sports Tournament Pick ‘Em Page
- Click “Join a Group”
- Click “Join Group” on the left of the screen
- Enter in the following info: Group ID is 19627 and password is warehouse
- Select “Save & Continue”. You are now officially part of the competition!
The bracket will be announced on Sunday, March 16th. You’ll have until the start of the first game on Thursday March 20th to make your picks. So, after you have registered, be sure to go back to the Pick ‘Em page between the 16th and 20th to fill out your bracket (under “My Picks”). Keep things real by talking smack to each other and stay tuned to see if you’re smart enough (or lucky enough!) to win it all! Oh, and go Blue Devils!
