Archive for December, 2008
TM 412
I want to end 2008 by letting you know about our really exciting new Middle School ministry for 2009! TM 412 will start Wednesday, January 7 at 6:00 PM for all 7th and 8th graders!
TM 412 stands for 1 Timothy 4:12 which says, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity.”
TM 412 will be every Wednesday from 6:00 to 7:00 PM in the Middle School room upstairs. We will have snacks most weeks, games, contests where students can win insane amounts of points each week for things like bringing a first time friend and bringing their Bible, music, videos, a lesson in the God and Life series, and small group activities.
I’ve used this type of ministry for Middle School students before and seen incredible results in both the number of students who are excited about coming every week and in changed lives! So, I’m really excited about TM 412 and seeing how God is going to use it to grow His Kingdom!
Here’s the catch…for this to really, really work, I want and need your help. Here are some of the ways you can get involved:
- Be an adult presence with us on Wednesdays to help with small group activities, get to know the students, help with games and snacks, and help with “crowd control”
- Help provide snacks
- Be an adult sponsor on some TM 412 trips from time to time
There are no special qualifications for helping with TM 412…just a willingness to serve and to love. I hope you will join me in praying for our Student Ministry in 2009 and especially for TM 412 and how God may want to use you.
Happy New Year! It’s gonna be a great one!
God and Life
One of the greatest joys of being a minister for me is to see an individual integrate their faith with the rest of life.
A lot of people separate faith and life. That’s actually our human nature. And popular culture constantly reinforces the “need” to keep God out of the rest of life. That’s why it’s so important for us as parents to stay educated on culture…and especially teen culture. A great resources for staying on top of what’s going on in teen culture is the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding website.
This semester we will be doing a series on Wednesday nights with both our high school and our middle school students called God and Life. This is a series that will be defined by what is going on in current teen and pop culture. The goals are to:
- Take a look at what is currently going on in teen/pop culture and as a group discover how to approach that specific cultural event with a biblical worldview
- Teach students how to develop a biblical worldview
- Help students learn to live out their faith everyday
I’m really excited about this series. It will keep me on my toes as I will be studying popular teen culture each week. We will be looking at things like the current number one songs and movies, current events, quotes from celebrities, and controversial statements, articles, and people. Some examples would be proposition 8 in California, the new image of Barbie, or the Twilight movie/book series. This series will also give us an opportunity to talk about issues that are current and relevant in our students lives. Then we can discover together how incredibly relevant the Bible is when it comes to these issues.
Our format will be a little different beginning January 7. 7th and 8th grade will begin TM 412 at 6:00 in the Middle School room upstairs. High School will have Escape at 7:00. Please keep encouraging your students to be here on Wednesdays. And you are always invited to show up as well!
The Goal of Christian Parenting
As I continue to read Steve Wright’s ApParent Privilege I am so glad I invested in this book, both as a parent so that I can apply the thoughts and biblical principles he shares in raising my daughter, and as a youth minister so I can share these same thoughts and principles with other parents. Over the past ten years in full time ministry I have asked a lot of parents about their primary goals for their kids. Overwhelmingly the most popular answer is, “I want my kids to be good kids, to stay out of trouble, and to go to college so they can provide a good life for themselves.” As a human being I think that sounds pretty good. But as a Christian I constantly wonder where the redeeming work of Jesus plays a role in this goal.
Wright put into words in his book what has been on my heart and I had to share this:
“The goal of Christian parenting isn’t to simply avoid today’s trouble. Biblical parenting is more than keeping our kids from having sex, using drugs, or going to jail. It is about fostering an awe of God in our children. It is about showing our children their need for a Savior and introducing them to Jesus who alone can rescue their lives from sin and give life that lasts forever.”
What an incredible privilege and responsibility God has given me as a dad to “foster an awe of God” in my daughter. The truth is, I can’t do that on my own. I must daily walk with God and grow more and more in awe of Him myself. I have to grow in my personal relationship with Jesus and put my complete trust in Him…even in the face of trouble. My prayer for you as a parent is that you would also grow more and more in awe of God and that your kids would see that and want that in their lives!
Here’s Where We’re Going in ’09
9 Days! That’s all that’s left of 2008. As we come to the close of another year I tend to think about what the coming year will bring for my family and for my ministry. Isabel will turn 4 and begin her last year of preschool before going to “real” school. Stacy will turn 29 and spend a good deal of the year talking about how “old” she is getting. We will have completed our first full year in Levelland. I will welcome my second group of 7th graders into the youth ministry here. We’ll get to see God do some really cool thinks in our youth ministry and in our church.
One of the things this new year will bring is new teaching focus as we dive into a new curriculum in our Sunday morning Bible groups. For the first 16 weeks of 2009 we will be going through a curriculum called Beneath the Surface from Inquest Ministries. The goal of this material is to introduce our students to the why and the how of spiritual disciplines. The first thing that got my attention was the title of the material…Beneath the Surface. There are only a few things that I really don’t like at all. At the top of the list is surface level Christianity. There are just way too many people who wear the title Christian like some kind of badge of honor or accomplishment. We forget, we didn’t do anything for this. According to the Bible, all we deserve is death (Romans 6:23). Sometimes people think “becoming a Christian” is something they need to do in life to avoid going to hell when they die, and once they “take care of it” they can get on with life. Again, the Bible clearly says that once I give my life to Christ, my life ends and from that point forward, Christ lives in me and through me (Galatians 2:20). And there are others who think that being a Christian is a one day a week gig. Once again I have to defer to the Bible: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). I think probably God isn’t too crazy about surface level Christianity either.
And the best way (really, the only way) to grow as a Christian is through practicing the spiritual disciplines. These include (but aren’t limited to) prayer, Bible study, personal worship, corporate worship, fasting, stewardship, and serving. For a great read on spiritual disciplines, I highly recommend Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline. This is one of those books I read at least one time every year. (I’ll make sure our church library has a copy).
So the title “Beneath the Surface” captured my attention and the content is incredible. I’ll be blogging each week about the lesson for that week. I’ll also be providing additional resources and tools to help our students (and their parents) start putting these disciplines into practice. My prayer is that during these first 16 weeks of 2009 (and beyond) all of us will take a step forward in our spiritual journey through the genuine practice of the spiritual disciplines.
High School Party Plans (Have Changed)
A quick update: Our High School Christmas party has been modified just a little bit. Here’s the scoop:
Party will begin at 7:30 (not 7:00) in the high school room at the church. We will have snacks and games in that room before going to the Runkles’ house for our white elephant gift exchange and yummy hot cocoa! From there we will make our way to the Vests’ house for cheesecake and other sweet treats. We will finish up at the Vests’ at about 9:30.
We won’t be eating a full delicious and nutritious 3 course meal as originally planned. So you might want to make sure your high school student eats a little before the party. We will be having snacks that will fill the FDA’s RDA of sugar and carbs.
The Best Christmas Gift to Give Your Kids
I read this today and had to share it with you.
Party Weekend!
Just a reminder…our youth Christmas parties are this weekend.
Middle School will be at my house Friday night from 6-9. We will be eating dinner, playing games, watching a Christmas movie, and exchanging white elephant gifts. Every student needs to bring one wrapped white elephant gift ($5 price limit).
High School will be immediately after the dinner theater performance Sunday night. We will be having a progressive dinner. Stop one will be the youth room at the church where we will have appetizers. We will go from there to the Vests’ house for our main dish. Then we will travel to the Runkles’ for dessert. We will end up at my house for hot chocolate, and, yes, a white elephant gift exchange. Every student needs to bring one wrapped white elephant gift ($5 price limit). I am going to allow those with a driver’s license and a car to drive if they have their parents’ permission, but we will also have the bus.
Sunday School Lesson
This week our students will be discussing prayer in Sunday School. We have been walking through the entire book of James this semester. Our scripture Sunday is James 5:13-18. I encourage you to talk with your teens about prayer and spend time praying with them (what a great new years resolution…to pray with your teen every day in 2009!)
Finally Got my Copy!
I had pre-ordered this book as soon as I found out about it and I finally got my copy last weekend! Steve Wright wrote ApParent Privilege as a follow up to his book reThink, which challenges pastors and student ministers to rethink the way we approach student ministry. The new book is written for parents as a source of encouragement and practical application in the opportunity and responsibility we have to be the primary influencers in our children’s lives.
I have only gotten through the first chapter. One thing stood out to me in some of the research Wright has been conducting. He surveyed about 900 teenagers in 16 different states and shared the top responses to one of the open-ended questions: “I wish my parents __________.”
The answers that appeared over and over were:
I wish my parents…
- would take my Christianity seriously.
- would pray with me every night.
- would start family devotions.
- read the Bible with me more.
- helped me understand the Bible.
- would stay faithful to each other and God.
- would spend time together.
- would relate problems in life to Christian stories.
- would read the Bible with me more and pray with me more.
- did more things with the family.
- would stay the same forever.
Does it surprise you what didn’t show up in the responses? Nothing about friends, cars, rules, money, or other material possessions. Wright answers the question “Why?” “Because God wired our children to hunger for it [a family spiritual emphasis].”
I look forward to reading the rest of this book and sharing more with you. If you would like a copy of the book, they are available now. If there is enough interest, I can order them in bulk and make them available for as little as $13 apiece.
Discovering the Meaning of Advent
We always had the Hanging of the Green at church when I was growing up. Then we would have the wreath with the candles up front and various families from the church would go light one of the candles during the service. I don’t remember if we had banners or not. Regardless, it was all just a fun show to watch for me as a young boy.
Over the years as I’ve been a part of various churches it seems that all churches have the Hanging of the Green or some other time of decorating the building at the beginning of December. All churches have the wreath with candles. It’s still fun to watch and participate. The services are a little different than our Sunday morning services the other eleven months of the year. And all in all it has become more or less a habit…I just expect that we will include each of the traditional elements that I was first introduced to as a young boy during December at church.
This year I decided to dig a little deeper and discover why it is we do these things at church in December. I’m really glad I did. “Advent” literally means “coming” or “arrival.” That seems right, as we are celebrating the arrival of the birth of Jesus.
But historically, Advent was not just a time of celebration. Originally it was a time of preparation for Epiphany (the early-January celebration of early events in Jesus’ life). Epiphany was a time for new Christians to be baptized and welcomed into the church. So Advent was the 40 days before Epiphany during which believers examined their heart, fasting, and doing penance.
After the date for celebrating Jesus’ birth was declared to be December 25 by Julius, bishop of Rome in the mid 300s, Advent became a time of reflection as Christians await the coming of the Messiah. This was still very much a time of fasting and penance as the birth of Jesus was so closely connected with the crucifixion of Jesus in the liturgical church calendar. The first part of Advent was to be a time for this personal reflection and confession (as symbolized even today with the 3 purple candles in the Advent wreath). In the fourth week there was a shift towards celebrating the coming of the Messiah (as symbolized by the rose colored candle).
In modern times Advent has become primarily a season of celebration awaiting the coming King. This does not eliminate the need for examining our hearts and confessing our sins during this season. With the focus on the Advent, or coming, of Jesus we remember that we are awaiting His Second Advent and we need to be prepared for that coming.
If you think about it, as Christians we should always prepare for, anticipate, and celebrate the Advent of Christ…His birth and redemptive work on the cross and His Second Coming. For me, this makes our congregational celebration of Advent much more meaningful to me. I hope Advent means more to you and your family than decorations and candles.
I’ll be teaching on Advent tonight at Escape. Yikes!!! I get the task of turning this historical lecture into an exciting and relevant discussion for a room full of students. I better get to work.
The Advent Candles
