Archive for January, 2009
3 Things
Three things to share with you really quickly this morning:
1. Today I am leaving with 5 other men from church for El Paso where we will spend the next couple of days building a porch onto the house we built during our mission trip last summer. I’m really excited about going and seeing this family in their new house! And it’s a great reminder for me about how much God has blessed me and my family with. You are a HUGE part of that blessing in our lives. Thank you.
2. Speaking of El Paso, I want to make sure you have the dates for this year’s Kids’ Heart El Paso trip…JUNE 20-26. It looks like we will be doing construction and sports camp together again. I hope you and your kids will be able to go with us!
3. Our Super Bowl party is Sunday. I’d really like for as many parents as can to join us for some or all of the party. We will be showing the game on a giant screen. We will also have volleyball and basketball going as well as other games. The party will get started about 5:00 or so (kick-off is at 5:18 I think). For food, I’m asking all our girls to bring a sweet snack and our guys to bring a non-sweet snack. I’ll provide drinks.
Have a great day!
Youth Camp 2009!!!!!
I can’t believe youth camp is only 4 months away!!! Camp this summer will be June 1-5…go ahead and mark your calendars now. Here are the details you need to know:
Date: June 1-5, 2009
Location: Bonita Park, New Mexico
Speaker: Pat Cammarata
Band: The Justin Cofield Band
Cost: $190 by April 30; $210 after April 30
Who Can Go: All students currently in grades 7-12
This is going to be an awesome week and an incredible way to start the summer!!! I can’t wait!
If you would be interested in going as a sponsor, let me know. You won’t regret it!!!
Bible Club this Sunday
Since August we have been doing a Bible Club every fourth Sunday of the month for the children at our local children’s home. We will be having the Bible Club this Sunday, beginning at 3:30 and ending at 4:45 in the gym. This has become an incredible ongoing ministry for our students. Please encourage your teen to be here, and as always, you are invited too!
Sexting…You Need to Know About This
I have become increasingly more aware of the term sexting and the practice of sexting among teenagers. This blog addresses it well and includes a video from MSNBC. Please take the time to check it out and talk to your kids about it.
Escape Tonight and Prayer for our President
As part of our series called “God and Life” that we are going through this semester, tonight we discussed in Escape how we as Christians should approach praying for our new president. My goal and prayer going into tonight was for this to be a spiritual discussion and not a political discussion.
I read several Christian blogs and a couple really caught my eye earlier this week. Yesterday I came across a link to this article entitled “Pray Obama Fails.” The argument here is that all godly Christians have a biblical obligation to pray that President Obama fails. Today I came across this article entitled “My Prayer for President Obama.” The writer here states that although she won’t pray for his success where she strongly disagrees with his intentions, she will pray for “his his health, his safety, for wisdom, discernment, patience, good judgement, for his family, and above all for his spiritual condition and growth.”
I don’t endorse either of these websites/blogs. I don’t know what other content they might include. And to be honest, this is the first time I’ve paid attention to an article on either one of these blogs. I don’t know anything about the character or the faith of the authors. But I do know that as Christians we have to approach the fact that we have a new president from a from a Bible based point of view. And I do know that as Christians we are to be a people of prayer. And my belief is that the Bible would lead us to pray for wisdom and discernment, for strength and health, and above all else for openness and, where needed, brokenness towards the voice and leadership of God in our president’s life.
We had some really good discussion tonight with our high school students. I hope these types of discussions would carry over to your living rooms, dining tables, and car rides. Thanks for allowing me to hang out with your kids!
Iron Chef TM 412
Middle School parents: Here’s the challenge. Prepare a snack for about 25-30 middle school students in under an hour. Your secret ingredient: Love (that’s really cheesy…let’s just say a secret ingredient of sugar, salt, or even cheese…shoot! Cheesy again).
Seriously, one of the things that makes TM 412 so appealing and fun is having snacks. So, we may be contacting you soon to see if you could provide a snack one Wednesday.
Tim Tebow, John 3:16, and Google
The NCAA BCS National Championship game on Thursday, January 8 featured the University of Oklahoma playing the University of Florida. The game included the 2008 Heisman Trophy winner, Sam Bradford, playing against the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner, Tim Tebow. So not only is this the biggest stage in college football, it is now the biggest stage featuring two of the brightest young stars of college football. If you watched the game, more than likely you saw many close-up shots of both star quarterbacks. And if you paid attention to those shots, you saw the eye black under Tim Tebow’s eyes with “John” written in the eye black under his right eye and “3:16″ written in the eye black under his left eye. If you’re like me you probably noticed, but didn’t think much about it…After all, John 3:16 has been on posters, billboards, and faces at almost all major televised sporting events for as long as I can remember.
Okay…skip ahead 24 hours. January 9. The top search on Google is…you guessed it…”John 3:16.” So, on the one had I think, “wow! What a great witness! Think about how many people are reading John 3:16 today…many of the probably for the first time.” But, really? I mean we’re talking John 3:16 here! This was the first Bible verse I learned. And I was probably 3 years old when I learned it. Everybody knows John 3:16! Right? Apparently not any more.
I’m not real sure just when it began to happen, but at some point in the past 20 years our culture has forgotten the value and importance of the Bible. As a leader in the church I want to make sure our church doesn’t forget…and specifically our youth. This Wednesday in TM 412 we are going to be taking a look at the Bible. We will go through a booklet I’ve written that will guide us through the books and sections of the Bible. We will talk about how we got the Bible and where the different translations and versions come from. And hopefully we will help to make sure that our Middle School students aren’t having to Google John 3:16.
Journaling For My Daughter
I was first introduced to the idea of journaling for my daughter after reading Steve Wright’s ReThink several months ago. This is a common practice in Steve’s youth ministry and can be an incredible way to leave a spiritual legacy for our children. I left the book fully intending to begin this discipline for my daughter. I even have two brand new journals sitting at my desk. But it’s become one of those things that sounds like a great idea, but I haven’t practiced the discipline it takes to make it work (kind of like jogging everyday).
Today I was reading and came across a brief essay on the subject of Solomon and Proverbs. I never realized, but the book of Proverbs is actually a journal Solomon wrote to his son. Take a look…he calls the recipient of this book “son” 39 times, and 23 of those times actually reads “my son.” It was a not so subtle reminder for me of the intentions I had of journaling for my daughter not so long ago.
The beautiful thing about keeping a journal for our kids is that there are no rules. We can be as creative as we would like. I’ve heard of a dad that kept a journal for his daughter that he presented to her when she got married, of parents that gave a journal to their children when they graduated high school, and of parents who kept a journal and gave it to their kids annually (first of year, birthday, Christmas, start of school year, etc.) It can be done for specific purposes over a short period of time, such as band camp or a mission trip. Or it can be done over a long period of time. I personally like the idea of journalling knowing that my daughter will read these words when she is older, more mature, and will appreciate the significance more than she might as a child. I also like the idea of sharing my thoughts and prayers for her on a regular basis as she grows and matures.
Have any of you practiced the discipline of journalling for your kids? How is it going?
Teens and Music
Walt Mueller is one of the leading thinkers, speakers, and authors on contemporary youth culture. I came across this article today called Teens and Popular Music–Should We Turn It Off or Talk About It? It’s a pretty long article, but definitely worth the read, especially if your teen listens to music…(By the way, your teen does listen to music)
E3…More than a Logo
Every once in a while it’s a good idea to think about what we’re all about. It’s so easy to get caught up in the activities and events that we forget the purpose. So I wanted to post a few thoughts about our purpose. it is reflected in our logo and can be summarized quickly by saying “E3.”
Obviously, there are three “E”s. They are Encounter, Experience, and Express.
Our first purpose is to help students Encounter God. We want students to have a meaningful encounter with God and fall head-over-heals in love with Him.
Our second purpose is to help students Experience genuine Christian community. The Bible calls this “Koinonia.” That’s the fancy New Testament Greek word for authentic Christian fellowship. It goes beyond fun and food. It is a intimate sharing of life between believers…we share our hurts and struggles as well as our victories. We pray for each other, hold each other accountable, and help each other. You can read about this happening among Christians in Acts. We want students to experience this type of community within the fellowship of believers, and specifically in the context of our youth ministry.
Our third purpose is to help students Express their love for God. This is done through serving others. We want to provide opportunities for our students to express their love for God through serving…to be the hands and feet of God to a lost and broken world.
So next time somebody asks you what E3 is…you can tell them that it’s definitely more than a logo!
