The youth group of Central Baptist Church of Italy and the youth group of First Baptist Church of Milford joined together and participated in the “Discipleship Now” program (this program teaches youth how to grow in Christ) and had quite an adventure over this past weekend.

The youth met at the Cornerstone Friday night, April 3rd at 7:00 p.m. for Bible study and praise music provided by the praise band of Ferris Avenue Baptist Church of Waxahachie. They then broke up into groups and spent the night with families from Central Baptist Church of Italy.

Saturday they started their day with Bible study and then it was back to Central Baptist Church to eat burritos, tacos, super nachos and desserts. They needed a lot of nourishment for the task ahead of them – “Amazing Race for Discipleship” – a different kind of scavenger hunt.

This scavenger hunt entailed clues, bible scriptures and lots of fun. The clues were to different businesses and landmarks in Italy such as: The Corley Bell Tower, R.A. House, Dunlap Library, Varner Fina, Uptown Cafe, Italy Cemetery and Cornerstone. When they figured out the clues and arrived at their destination they then had to collect items on their scavenger list and perform a task, such as; at the library they had to do the Bunny Hop all through the many rows of books, at the Uptown Cafe, they had to wash windows while they sang praise songs, at the cemetery they had to find a grave of someone they knew and write down everything on the gravestone, just to name a few.

After the scavenger hunt it was time to go to First Baptist Church of Milford for food, fellowship, Bible study and praise music. This adventure packed weekend ended on Sunday morning at Central Baptist Church for worship.

Chris Talleri, (the Youth Minister for Central Baptist Church) said before the event, “We are having a Discipleship Now weekend. We have a praise band, a speaker and lots of fun. The speaker is Steven Mathison, a member of our church. He is speaking to the youth on how ‘Love is a Verb’ and how we need to put our faith into action. Today we are eating lunch here at the church and we are going to do a scavenger hunt throughout the city of Italy. So all the kids will be out about two or three hours to find all the different things on their list.”

Early Saturday Steve Gilley youth minister for First Baptist Church of Milford said, “So far they have enjoyed worship, and now they are going to have a scavenger hunt this afternoon. They have been having a lot of fun so far. Everyone is looking forward to the time we have together and getting to know kids from a different community. It has been really good so far.”

“It was such a blessing to see my kids having such a great time. They learned some local history and burned a lot of energy in the process,” said Karen Mathiowetz (Central Baptist Church member).

Keep the faith, keep searching…