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Cheers to Wen Ying, Wesley, Yin Fei, Uncle Siew Kiang, Uncle Chan, Auntie Rosetta, Uncle Man Wong, Uncle Wai Mun and Uncle Tat Foong for your service and love invested to this retreat :) ❤️

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House with spotlights (bottle) and a path (earpiece) leading to the house

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1. Photowalk (go out and take photos). Probably going to have one in Jan. All are welcome.

2.Computing lessons on various technology

Challenges and thanksgiving:
-Challenge of children studies and caring for them. To know whats best. Not to get into the rat race.

Challenges in work very busy but still being able to take care of your family.

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Junior
1. Challenges - exams, video games
2. Thanskgivings - passed exams

Young Adults
1. Challenge - working life, battle with sexual sin
2. Thanksgivings - God’s unending love

Adults
1. Challenges - mobility
2. Thanksgivings - God’s hand in their lives, God’s faithfulness

Practical applications
1. Persevere in attending church (i.e. YP)
2. Serving in church, especially in areas that need more help
3. Accountability with prayer and supplication (fighting the good fight, running the good race)
4. Discipleship - training and caring for the younger ones as they grow in the church within the world

Love the church as Christ loved us;

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thankful that God has been good throughout the years, thinking of practical ways for the younger people to help the older ones

small group interactions to bridge the old and young, praying for open hearts to ministries that would bring together everyone

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Thanksgivings

1. Young People (20+ years): Big batches of friends, which is good for support

2. 50+ years: Inspiration for service from fellow elderly saints who despite their health challenges, are not retiring from their service in church!
3. 60-70 years: Mutual understanding of one another’s problems for e.g. matters of health and attendance in church, as it is not easy to physically head down to church.

Challenges
1. 20+ Years: quite a number of youths not coming to church anymore
2. 60-70 years old: Health problems and attendance in church
3. Knowledge puffs up when we read widely sometimes; lack of personal conviction on our faith because we can be swayed by what the authors think instead
4. Knowing how to appreciate truths and applying them to our lives

Practical Ways of Support and Calls to Action
1. Create a Whatsapp Group (Bethesda Book Club) for us to recommend books, websites, articles, and study guides/commentaries to one another
2. Lend books to one another, so as to broaden our range of books: Book Exchanges at the basement book corner after morning worship
3. Create a shared recommended books list accompanied by a reading list, to allow members to put their names into the reading list. This can encourage accountability in reading and conversations among readers
4. Commit to going to the library at least once a month: suggest to open the library more frequently for e.g. on Saturdays (before Youth meetings/Sisters Ministry) to encourage a reading culture in the church

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Discussion:
- working people can play after church on Sunday
- non-working people can join Thursday morning group

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It’s another elephant (and a tee)

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CEP:

Fear in CEP
-Lessons learnt in cep are not very relevant
-Large part of easing fear of the members is by the leaders

Adapting to cep:
-not easy because of the difficulty of curriculum
- very hard to adjust because of the irrelevance of the topics

Church (friends leaving the church):
-Friends leave the church, don't know how to approach these friends and interact with them in hope that they will be able to join the group
-Open house to invite friends to come over to eat
-Young people leaving the church, very hard to reach out to them
-Try not to stick to traditional hymns
- Young people influenced by other churches, by friends invitation, by livelier worship cultures
-Educate the young about church practices that young people may not see as relevant to them
-Some topics not relevant, but insightful, learning from the word of God is so different from getting revved up by music

Traditional hymns in church:
-change the hymns in the book to modern hymns
-have a supplementary hymn book for the modern hymns
-please suggest more modern hymns to the council of elders so that we can have a supplementary book to modern hymns

strengths in church
-teaching is very good
-our teaching is not adhoc, it is a very structured curriculum
-close bonds with each other, like a family
-ministries by our church very vast, very amazing ministry for evangelism
-new ministry, partnering with ymca as a food distribution area, for people to step into church and share with one another
-love for the people in church
-preaching things that people do not want to hear

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Thanksgivings

1. Young People (20+):
Big batches (around 10 per age), which is good for support

2. 60-70 years old:
Mutual understanding of one another’s problems for e.g. matters of health and attendance in church, as it is not easy to physically head down to church.
3. Inspiration for service from fellow elderly saints who despite their health challenges, are not retiring from their service in church!

Challenges

1. 60-70 years old: Health problems and attendance in church

2. Younger ones: not coming to church

3. Knowledge puffs up when we read widely sometimes; lack of conviction on your faith because we can be swayed by what the authors think.

4. Knowing how to appreciate truths and apply them to our lives

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It’s an elephant

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Challenges:
- thought process is different between generations
- different stages of life so face different kinds of problems
Thanksgiving:
- that young people should be thankful and grateful for their parents as they are the ones who will continue to support the young people.
- Thank God that everyone is doing well in their lives be it working or studying.
- Thank the Lord for the assembly.

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discussion:
(by age group)

challenges:
youths
1) adjusting to university, finding friends.
2) difficult to connect to older generation
3) attracted to fellowship in parachurches/other churches, but need to remember that the church is important as well
middle aged — busy with parenting and full time work and ministry.

thanksgiving :
youth
1) not married, have time to pursue interests.
2) having a strong YP/YA here
elderly
1) thankful that elders are open to youth’s input.
2) thankful for her YP days, can grow in the LORD. Can also send their children to YP and CC

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Discuss 3 thanksgiving and challenges/ which concerns your age group.
Pioneer:
Thankful for good mobility despite age, for more time to spend with God and showing one another love through care and concern.
Challenges that are faced are forgetfulness,other health issues and help for carrying stuff.
Concerns are health, financial support or other areas to help.

Working Adults:
Thankful for children that are grown up, time to plan what to do(areas to serve) and more time for spiritual growth.
Challenges that are faced are forgetfulness, aging while caring for children, keeping fit and spiritual growth.
Concerns are caring for aged parents, sibling, family and self.

Young Adults:
Thankful for friends.
Challenges that are faced are work stress, fatigue, how to manage time, a lot of activities or negative influences.
Concerns are covetousness of other people, promotion and others dropping out of church.

Youth:
Thankful for getting into a good school and friends.
Challenges are balancing God with school life, CCA and homework, doing quiet time.
Concerns are spending sufficient time with God.

Name 3 practical actions that your group can carry out to encourage spiritual growth,  support for one another and evangelistic outreach even as you participate in the ‘interest-group’ activities.
- Praying for each other
-Have discipleship classes.
-The old can care for the young and vice versa.

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Challenges:
- Coordinating resources within the church.
- Determining how to gather and understand the needs.
- Catalysts and initiative.
- Cohesion and Communication between age groups.
- E.g. elderlies have trouble grabbing a cab, ... Etc.

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Discuss 3 challenges and thanksgiving in your age group

Challenges
Aunty Janice:
Service for the Lord, when we are young.
Cos of old age, capacity of service is reduced due to the her health. Challenges: physical strain
Thanksgiving:
Quiet moments on the travel to spend time with God

Challenges:
Carolyn:
Support of family members:
Support financially for her parents; and praying for his Brother.
A challenge was to use her time well for the Lord.

Aunty Lina:
Limited time: limited Stamina
Spend time with her children; want to spend time to focus on her sons and thankful that they come to church.

Lily Bok:
Physical Limitations.
If it’s a high energy cost sort of activity, it is a challenge for her.
Time is not a challenge, as God give us equal time. We just need to avail ourselves.

Jebin:
Temptations that most young man experience.
Tamil assembly’s schedule for 2019.

Andrew He:
//culture of the local assembly//
A stranger in the community.

Burden for the Young Working Adults, burden for those lonely people who are in the church.

Temptations, time management. These are things that challenges him.

Tirzah :
Hoping to find ministries to serve in.

Name 3 practical actions

Practical:
Take time to understand and smile.
Interacting with older generations.

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Walking Group 1

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1) Thanksgiving & Challenges

+ Thankful to be able to go back to studying
+ Thank God He showed Himself real to me
+ Thank God for changing the lives of those we are trying to reach out to
- lack of joy at work
- how to show love and care to people regardless of their behaviour
- difficult to show self-control

2) Practical love

- to be aware of the needs of others (prayer diary/prayer meeting another)
- to respond to those needs
- encourage one another
- pray for one another
- small things count, remembering certain information about people (e.g. birthdays, an illness or events that happened and can be followed up on)

3) Call to action

- play guitar together
- attend prayer meeting together
- visitations
- joint efforts with various overlapping ministries