AO - 12/2/10 - week highlights

My first official Thursday night as Full time Middle School Director of Bethel Church.

We had a week break for the thanksgiving holiday, so after the kids being off school and not seeing each other for a week the excitement in the room was very high. Here are just a few highlights of the week.

1. Riot Time- Frozen Turkey Bowling- It is what it sounds like, we bowled usinga frozen turkey instead of a bowling ball. Every student waited in line to bowl. Awesome.

2. Give Back opportunity- we are giving the youth ministry an opportunity to give back. We passed out around 200 baby bottles to the students for the purpose of filling it with change and returning it to the local womens ministry. Inside of every bottle was a name of a baby to be praying for. Very cool idea. Here are a few of the middle schooler putting their bottles to good use.

3. Debrief time- Every Friday Pastor Jim and i will be getting together to debrief the evening. This is such a great opportunity to keep refining our program. Programs are great but many times they veer away from their intended purpose. This meeting was a perfect example of that. Jim and i were able to discuss both the middle school and high school youth group nights and discuss ways to continue to improve them.

Overall this was a great beginning to prayerfully a very God honoring and fruitful ministry.

Week 2 at Bethel

Another week as i start visiting Bethel Church just on Thursday's as i finish up my position at Northeastern. The Plan- Plan and teach Middle School Youth Group. Share my testimony with the students and Youth Leaders that i will be working with.

The drive down to Bethel was beautiful. Sunny and chilly, perfect to drive with the moon roof open. Just chilly enough to keep you awake without freezing you.

I arrived around 10:30 a.m. and checked in to say good morning to Jim (youth pastor), but oddly enough he wasn't there. I later found out that he had throw out his back and had been out all week.

Around 11 Jim calls me to inform me of his back situation and that i would need to plan both High school and middle school AO (youth group) and still just teach middle school. Sounds good, great experience.

A little later we get a tip that the man that is supposed to teach high school is unable to teach tonight. Being that it was lunch time Intern Anthony and I go to lunch to come up with a plan for what to do.

Over some wings at BW's we decide to combine High school and middle school and I teach both. Good Solid Plan.

A couple of hours later we find out that the tip we had received about High school teacher wasn't true and he was planning on teaching tonight. With just a few hours till AO, Anthony and I scramble to get things back as they were originally. We are able to get things back to normal and youth group starts with very few knowing any knowledge of the confusion.

Middle School AO was a blast-

Topic- God's Will / Your life's purpose

Riot Time (Fun Element)- lead by Intern Anthony- Pop can theme minute to win it- Very fun. While contestants were playing another youth leader was throwing candy into the crowd.

My favorite part of the night- The praise and worship was incredible. One youth leader lead with his acoustic guitar and then three middle school vocalist. They did two sets with a total of 5 songs. They were so good and Christ honoring. I truly worshiped Christ :-)

Every night they do a prayer element in the service. This was also very neat as every row gathered together with a youth leader to pray for the evening. It was awesome to see about 80 middle school students and 10 -15 youth leaders circled up throughout the room praying to their God.

I also loved sharing my story with the Middle School students. The were very attentive and respectful. I just hope i did my part well.

Overall a great day. There is no greater joy in life than Serving Christ.

First Day on the Job

Thursday, November 4th, was my first official day as the Director of Middle School at Bethel Church. An absolutely incredible way to start.

I arrived at Bethel Church around 10 am CMT, after about a two hour drive through blinding rain. My car (96 Accord) has a defrost problem. I'm not sure what the problem is, but for some reason the car fogs up like crazy on the inside. It is almost impossible to drive without a window open. That made it very difficult during this drive due to the blinding rain. My options were stay dry and unable to see or wet and see clearly. I choose to see clearly.

After arriving i had two meeting right away. The first was to take care of paper work. It went well and it was neat because the lady that the meeting was with was also a mom of a middle schooler. She talked to me about her love for the youth ministry and her sons passion to use his gifts and abilities (skateboarding) to reach his friend for Christ. (Awesome) The second meeting was with a head pastor who as he says is in charge of "the folks, funds, facilities". An amazing man with an awesome testimony and love for people. After going to some info he handed me my keys and showed me my new office. Walking in their was a huge care package sitting on my desk filled with tons of awesome stuff- (a Red Crown Point Jacket, a coffee shop gift card, etc.)

Then Jim (YP) came and got me from my office and took me on a few errands.

1. To go see a house that is available to rent/buy/use.

2. A very necessary errand to dick's sporting goods- Jim with a very serious face told me we were going to get something that i had to have to do my job. Keeping his poker face he took me to the hunting section and grabbed an airsoft gun/ glasses and bee-bees. While telling me that this will definitely come in handy often.

3. Lunch.

Following our errands we went back to Bethel to finish prep for my first official AO (youth group night). I meet with Jim for a while working on details for the evening, went up to the youth room to meet the band who was performing that evening and then headed to my office for set up.

About an hour into getting my office set up and checking email and stuff i experienced my first airsoft sabotage. I was on my phone and a youth leader ducked his head into my office and let off a few rounds in the direction of my head. I quickly grabbed my before mentioned new pistol and ducked behind my desk. Something must have distracted said youth leader, because he was now hiding from someone else right outside my door. Foolishly his armed hand has right in front of my door. I took aim and shot him in the wrist. The battle ended as quickly as it had started.

My first official AO was amazing. The night started at about 4:15 when about 10 students arrived in the youth room. These students are LT's (leadership team). They meet early to do set up, a book study as well as eat together and learn leadership strategies. I had a great time just sitting in and watching this all take place.

The Night featured a band named "Winters Halo". Jim Pitts, the youth pastor, set up the concert very well, by having an element of fun at the beginning and then focusing the 200 students attention by showing a video about worship and then leading a small bible study on Mary of Bethany. Following the Bible study "Winters Halo" had about a 45 min. concert with included worshipful songs, and fun songs. Overall the event was amazing and a great night for the students to learn, fellowship and worship their God. I'm not sure, but i might have even done a little crowd surfing. This is no job in the world like youth ministry.

Thank you Bethel Student Ministries for allowing me to be apart of this.

A New Chapter In My Life

As of November 4th, i have started a new chapter in my life. I started a new youth ministry position. Director of Middle School at Bethel Church in Crown Point, IN.

Due to the new chapter, i have decided to get my blog back up and running. Simply for the purpose of keeping a ministry journal. I did not do a good job at this at my past position and desire to keep this a active part of my weekly routine of my new ministry.

My goal is to blog weekly about the weeks events as well as things i have learned and experienced. I hope for this to be fun and interesting to those who are interested, but most importantly something for me to look back at years from now.

So, just to get this started.

My first post-

-I sit in my office of the position i am leaving, packing up my office as well as trying to get things ready for the youth ministry to continue on after i depart.

- I have about three weeks left before i am officially done, but have started my new position, but just on Thursday nights.

- I have learned already that leaving a ministry is very difficult. Telling those you love, care for and have ministered to and with that you are switching ministries is horrible, because you don't know if they understand why. You try to explain it, you try to show it through your continued love, but their faces say that they feel like you are abandoning them.

- I am very excited about the new position

Reasons i am excited

- Working on a youth ministry team has always been a dream

- Working specifically with Middle Schoolers is a exciting challenge. I love their energy and authenticity.

- Not being "the guy in charge"- their is a lot of perks to not being that guy.

- Working on a large staff. I will get to just enjoy normal church stuff instead of leading it.

- There is so much more, i just can't put it in to words yet.

Thoughts from starbucks presentation.

Interesting presentation by the director for digital of Starbucks. They have 10 million Facebook fans and are the #1 engaged brand online. There is some great thinking going on over there that I think apply to a wide range of organizations.

A few highlights – I feel like I could do a blog post on each of them:

• It’s about relationships (human connection), not marketing
• social fits within a larger digital, integrated strategy
• build a coalition / thoughtfully deputize
• Become a content archeologist
• Enabling personalization
• Relevant mobile experiences

Here is a link to a full video of the presentation

Funny Read- Kinda Christianity````

Just received this book from a good friend. Very funny satire mocking a new kind of Christianity. A great light hearted read.