F.C.A.

This morning I had the opportunity and privilege of sharing from God’s Word with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (F.C.A.) at Andrew Jackson (AJ).  I have been helping out by being a presence there for the past four to five months.  It has been a great opportunity to connect not only with the AJ faculty, staff, and students, but to connect with other local pastors as well has been a treat. 

This morning I shared from 2 Corinthians 5.17 about being a new creation in Christ.  Very similar to what I shared previously from Romans 3.21-22 about Encountering Jesus Christ. 

May the LORD take the seeds that have been sown and those that have been watered and increase them within the lives of those that were in attendance.

To God be the glory!

the last Christian generation and insanity

At the moment I am preparing for our adult training this Wednesday by reviewing a tremendous problem of such proportions that Josh McDowell has written a book about it titled The Last Christian Generation.  That’s right, the problem that we as Christians are facing is that we are “potentially” living within the last Christian generation here in America. 

How can this be?

prayer request

For those of you that come across this message, I ask that you pray for me and my family.  All of us, except Jessica for the most part, have been fairly sick.  Personally, I have been battling the flu over the past 10 days and finally went to the doctor today.  Peyton has fully recuperated and Jude is still battling a runny nose.

Thank you so much for your prayers!     

last night

Even though many were out last night for various reasons, we still had an enjoyable time together through worship, the teaching of God’s Word, and some small group time.  We had plans of rotating the group as we did last week, keeping the 8th through 12th grades together and the 6th and 7th grades; however, since there were not many in the 6th and 7th grades present, we decided to keep everyone together. 

We played a game of “Pass the Card” last night.  Basically you have a group of people sitting side-by-side and the object of the game is for the person on the far right to pick-up one card from the deck and pass-it to the person sitting next to the.  The cards are to pass through every-body’s hand and the person sitting on the far left was to place the cards in a pile next to them. 

This game was played to encourage team work which feeds into “living the ODD life” (more on this at a later time and date). 

I’m always open for someone else to lead the games for the evening, so if you are interested in leading the game, just let me know.  Or, if you would like to suggest a couple of games, please do so. 

I enjoyed seeing everyone last night.  For those of you who are sick, I hope that you feel better soon.  For those of you who are not, well, I hope that you don’t get sick. 

Have a great week in school and I will see you Sunday

amusing ourselves to death

It’s amazing how much “bad” news is reported each and every single week.  Personally, I keep up on national and international events through foxnews.com (yes, I know that I should read the local paper more than I do).  With everything that occurred last week there was one particular story that struck me. 

This past week in Olathe, Kansas, Fox News reported of a 16-year-old teenager who was killed in a fight (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,329827,00.html).  As far as I can gather from the article there were no weapons used of any-kind and the youth lost his life through the injuries that he received. 

This is a terrible tragedy that would not only shock ones family and friends, but a community as well.  But with everything that occurred last week on a much larger scale, why did I decide to write about this particular event?

living as one questions

During our small group time this past Wednesday there were some fairly interesting questions that were asked that I didn’t get to hear a response from.  First, since the questions were interesting and of course thought provoking, I think that it is important for me to say that I can’t take full credit for them.  I used the most of them from multiple books I have laying around my office.  Sorry to disappoint some of you by shattering your creative image of me. 

Moving on. 

I would love to hear back from you what you said, or would have said, in answering these questions.

living as one questions

During our small group time this past Wednesday there were some fairly interesting questions that were asked that I didn’t get to hear a response from.  First, since the questions were interesting and of course thought provoking, I think that it is important for me to say that I can’t take full credit for them.  I used the most of them from multiple books I have laying around my office.  Sorry to disappoint some of you by shattering your creative image of me. 

Moving on. 

I would love to hear back from you what you said, or would have said, in answering these questions.

question from last night

Last night at the Journey we organized our evening a little different than before.  At 6:30 P.M. we kicked-off with worship (thank you John Poole for leading the group) and had everybody together for a few announcements and a game of human bingo. 

Afterwards, we had the 8th through 12th graders together for the lesson and rotated the 6th through 7th graders out for small groups.  When the lesson was over, which took roughly less than 20 minutes, we rotated the 8th through 12th graders out for small groups and the 6th and 7th graders came in for the lesson.

For those of you that are reading this and were in attendance last night I would like to know how well rotating the different grades in and out worked for you.  What did you like best about it?  What did you like least about it?  Is this something that you would recommend for us to do again? 

As we continue to move towards our mission of seeing many youth in the Cross Lanes area and beyond committed to Jesus Christ, His body, and to serving Him, let’s keep in mind that this is our end and the means that we use to getting there, such as Wednesday night, will continually be evaluated, tweaked, and changed.  

Thanks for your feedback.    

living the ODD life: living as one

Last night we picked-up where we left off two weeks ago in our series called living the ODD life.  The first night was just an overview of what we were going to teach from 1 Corinthians 12.12-26.  Yesterday evening we looked closer into 1 Corinthians 12.15-20 and what it means to live as one. 

It’s amazing how Paul, who wrote the letter that we are studying from the New Testament, compared the body of Christ (i.e. a group of Christians) to a human body.  What we saw last night in a simplistic biological study, was that even though our own physical bodies are made up of many different parts, such as toes, hands, ears, lungs, red blood cells, etc., it is still one body all living and working together. 

The same holds true for the body of Christ.  Even though we are all different from each other in some shape, way, fashion, or form, we are still one body, we are too still live and work together as one (read 1 Corinthians 12.14 and 20). 

Not only are we to live our lives together in such a way, but we are not to exclude ourselves from it because of any insecurities that we may have when we compare ourselves to someone else.  We read in 1 Corinthians 12.15-16 that “If the foot says, ‘Because I am not a hand, I am not a part of the body,’ it is not for this reason any the less a part of the body.” 

This means that even though we may not be somebody else, and have a particular gift or ability, such as singing or playing an instrument that we are not any less a part of the body, a part of the group, a part of what is going on (to get plugged in check-out http://www.perrow.org/youth/plugin.html).    

Here’s a couple of quick questions

an interview with Scott Wilcher of the Upstream Project

The following is an interview conducted with the Founder and President of the Upstream Project Scott Wilcher.  Scott has 25 years of experience working successfully with young people.  He has served at two Evangelical Presbyterian Churches during his time and has recently served as an advisor to churches and youth pastors who desire to not only reach out to young people, but to see them committed to the Body of Christ for life.  

Scott is not only a professional colleague, but a dear friend.  I think the world of him and the work that he is doing.  I hope that you not only enjoy what he has to say, but I pray that you are enriched by it as well.

Scott: “I’m not Chicken Little saying “The sky is falling,” but I am the Rooster saying churches better wake up. We are losing 75-88% percent of our young people by age 25, depending on which survey you read. Simultaneously our population is aging. Folks are living longer, so churches are getting more mature members with the money and the influence to steer the church to their liking. Church leaders have to figure out how to shepherd both populations with different worship styles effectively. I think it’s an exciting time for the Church.”

As the Rev. Scott Wilcher talks, he becomes more animated and his speech grows faster. Wilcher is a man on a mission in Hampton Roads. His official title is the Executive Director of the UpStream Project, a ministry to help churches and families of Hampton Roads reach and retain the next generation for Christ.

Why did you call your ministry the UpStream Project?

“It’s a reference to God’s example of the salmon that fights against the current and past obstacles to make sure the next generation gets a good start, even at the cost of its own life. Basically I am trying to get churches to rethink youth and young-adult ministry. I haven’t nailed any theses on any doors yet, but it’s time for a reformation in youth and college ministry.”

“On the whole, youth ministry is not working. Kids are leaving churches faster than ever, even though we have more youth pastors than ever. Understand I don’t blame the youth leaders. They work really hard, but the system they work in is flawed or broken.”

So what’s broken exactly?