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Parents of Rising 6th Grade Students!

Welcome to Whirlwind Middle School Ministry and the non-stop adventure known as "Raising Teenagers"!  This weekend, your son or daughter begins the transition from Children's Ministry to Student Ministry on Move-Up Sunday (June 17th)!

Some of you may have older kids who have been through Whirlwind before and you may have a good idea of what to expect.  However, for some of you, this is your first child to move up into Middle School and Middle School Ministry.  I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and let you know some of what to expect this summer.

My name is Matt Acton and I am the Director of Middle School Ministry.  I have been working in Student Ministry at Central Presbyterian Church for almost 7 years now.  A few weeks ago, I visited the 5th grade students in Children's Ministry to give them an idea of what to expect as they moved up.  Everyone who was there received a packet about Whirlwind Middle School Ministry.  If your son or daughter was not present on that Sunday or if the packet never made it home, please contact me at macton@centralpc.org and I will mail you one.

Move-Up Sunday is what we call the day when all children and students advance to the next grade.  For some kids that's switching classrooms.  For yours, it means switching programs and we want to do whatever we can to ease that transition.

Move-Up Sunday kicks off at 9:00 am on Sunday Morning in the Loft at Central Presbyterian Church.  (Unlike Children's Ministry, Student Ministry programming is only offered at 9:00 am.)  You are welcome to drop them off in the Loft, where we will spend the morning playing games, learning about Whirlwind and Middle School Ministry, and hearing a message on what God might be calling students to this summer.  Move-Up Sunday ends at 10:15 am.  At that point, students are free to leave.  We do not have a sign-in/sign-out policy in Student Ministry.  You may want to talk with your son or daughter about where they should meet you at 10:15, whether it's in the Loft or somewhere else.

In addition to Move-Up Sunday, we have a summer of activities for your new Middle-Schooler.  Every Sunday morning at 9:00 am, we have a time that we call Oasis.  For the new 6th graders, we have a class at this time called the Ring of Fire.  The purpose of this class is to talk about the transitions involved in moving from Childhood to Adolescence, Elementary School to Middle School, and Children's Ministry to Student Ministry and how these changes are part of God's design.

In addition to our regular time together on Sunday mornings, there will also be 2 semi-regular Bible studies, 1 for the guys and 1 for the girls.  The dates of these are being finalized and will be announced soon.

Also, following Summer Bible Camp on Tuesday, July 10th, there will be a big Capture the Flag game at the church for both Middle and High School Students.

Our summer program will conclude with the 5th annual Jell-Olympics on Wednesday, August 22nd...

...which brings us to our Fall Kick-Off and our regular school year program.  We kick-off our Fall with a Weekend Retreat on September 7-9 at North Bay Retreat Center called Momentum.  Registration Forms can be found here on our Whirlwind Blog.

Friday Night Whirlwind will begin the Friday following the retreat on Friday, September 14th.

For more up-to-date information, check the Whirlwind blog regularly at http://www.enterthewhirlwind.com/.

If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to email me at macton@centralpc.org.