Friday, October 31, 2008

The dog days of October?

This month was straight up craziness! We had 3 large events and then 3 regular Wednesday nights. Wow I can't believe we made it! We have had a great month with the Hay stack dinner, to the all nighter, to this Wednesday's Harvest Party! God is good, and we are so thankful for everyone who stuck with us this month and gave and gave and gave! Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart! The Youth staff to the Parents and to the youth for going on this Awesome Ride with us!

In November we are going to be having regular youth Wednesday nights for 3 weeks and then the last week of November we are not having youth group so we can all be with our families that night for Thanksgiving! MMMMMMM turkey!

Thank you everyone so much for everything you have given!

Please be in prayer for our youth. They are on the battlefield every single day in their schools, work, and sometimes even at home. Please Please Please be in prayer for our youth. Also if you could be praying for the youth staff we have a lot on our plates with so many students coming we want to have strength and wisdom to help and understand some of the students that join our ministry! Thank you again!

P.A.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

The Harvest Party!

Last night was amazing guys! It was so cool to see everyone there having tons of fun. We had over 80 students that came last night. God is doing some amazing things in this youth group.

We don't have any pictures from last night and that was my fault but we are soon to be getting more and more pics.

Last night we got there and we started with the look at you game, a game where everyone puts their heads down and when I count down from 3 they look and if you and another person make eye contact you are out. It was really fun and competitive. Then we sat down and Kate Schultz prayed for us and then we went and ate potato soup, Hot dogs, Chips, and some Hot apple Cider. The students loved it. Then we started with the hay maze and let me tell you the Smuckers run a great hay maze you need to check it out if you can! So we started with Seniors and Juniors heading in first and worked down the grades from there. Then we all gathered together for some Worship lead by Nate Hickox and Robbie Rasbaugh (sorry if I spelled it wrong Robbie). Worship time went great. Then I got up and talked about choices. God was pressing on my heart to call out students who were making choices to live 2 lives, one at school, and one at church. God started working on kids and we had a great time of prayer at the end. We gave a time of response at the end to accept Jesus for the first time, and there were 6 students who accepted Jesus for the first time last night! PRAISE GOD!

God is doing some amazing things here. Please keep praying for this youth group!

Just a friendly reminder that all 3dyc stuff needs to be turned in as soon as possible!

God is Rocking!

P.A.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Tonight its going down!

Hey there everyone this is just a little friendly reminder that tonight is the Hay Maze Harvest Party!

We will be leaving at 6pm and getting back at 9pm so Please make sure your parents know so they aren't waiting around for a long time!

Dress warm, bring a flashlight, and every single friend you have because we want to have as many people as we can go out to this thing tonight!

I am excited to be talking tonight over Luke 14 so make sure you read over that tonight before you come and if you want to bring your Bible thats awesome! Cant wait to see you tonight!

-Adam

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Luke 14:25

I am going to be teaching out of Luke 14 this Wednesday and I think its one of the coolest stories ever!

Christ is walking down the road with a bunch of people with him and He knows that some of their hearts are far away from Him and that they really are only there because He is doing miracles. So He calls them out (I love when Jesus calls people out, because its normally always straight to the heart) and tells them that if they don't hate their family and give everything up that they should pretty much go home because He only wants sold out Christians!

My jaw dropped! I loved it. It pretty much kicked me in my junk because man I need to live sold out for Christ Everyday! I need to be making choices in my life to be sold out for God.

He then goes on and tells us in story form for some of us who need stories to learn from (ME!)

He then talks about how back in the day they used to make towers in their vineyards so that they could look over and make sure no one is seeing them steal their harvest. So Jesus takes their culture and their stuff and tells them an amazing stuff using that. He says don't you laugh at the dude who builds like half a tower because he didn't plan first and count the cost?

He hits them again and says if a king would go into battle with out planning it out first He would get destroyed and we would look at that king and say " King.......Your a moron!"

Christ is telling us to count the cost when we make the decision to follow Him! He wants us to be sold out for Him. He wants us to be committed so 1) We can spend the rest of eternity with Him, and 2) He knows that we will look stupid to people if we start following Him, and then decide not to follow Him, then decide to follow, then fall away. People will start telling other people that we can't make up our minds and are stupid!

Jesus is giving us a swift kick to our face here, more powerful then then the mighty Chuck Norris.

Lets choose to be sold out for God today! Lets choose to count the cost of our commitment to Christ. God wants our all, and if isn't going to get our all. Then man He tells us that is a very Dangerous place to be!

Lets make the right decisions here!

Monday, October 27, 2008

The coolest harvest party ever

The harvest party is this coming Wednesday!

Do not forget that we are leaving at 6pm and getting back at 9pm. Please make sure you tell your parents. Get there early we are going to be leaving at 6pm. I do not want to leave you at the church.

Things to bring:
A flashlight! It will get dark out there so please bring that
A friend! We are going to be giving away some cool things!
Prayer! We are going to be talking about choices and giving an invitation to accept Christ so please be in prayer. We need to emerse this night in tons of prayer so please be in prayer!

Cant wait to see ya on Wednesday!

-Adam

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Life or Death

So this is a call to all prayer warriors. God has pressed on my heart to really push some of our students in some area's of their lives that might be hard to let go or even talk about!

In Duet 30, it talks about how God gives us a choice to choose life or death in our decisions.

There have so many people in our youth ministry that has been choosing death, and I can't do that!
We have to care about choosing life every day! I can't tell you how amazing it is when we do choose life, I know I don't do it all the time, but I want to seek after life in Christ, I want to seek after God with everything I have. That might mean I give up things "I" want and do things that "God" wants.

If you don't care about whats going on you slip into the "Who cares" attitude. YOU HAVE LOST! GAME OVER! Satan has won, and you will fall on your face. You need to listen to truth, and if you hear truth and don't do anything with. Paul says when you fall on your face you will look stupid to everyone! (Well that is my paraphrase of it). I am telling you right now when you come on Wednesday nights and you hear the word of God being spoke into and over your life and you still choose to not care and live your life without the direction of God. Then you are a fool Paul says.

I am letting you know guys I am tired of hearing about our students doing things that shouldn't be! This choosing God encompasses all area's of life. Texting, talking to your friends, myspace, facebook, the way you do homework, worship, relaxing, EVERYTHING! We can't let Satan get a foothold in our lives, and in our youth group.

Choose life today!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

One of the coolest books

I am reading a book right now called "Growing Souls" By Mark Yaconelli and it is changing the way I am looking at Youth Ministry. I know that we as a youth group have tons of fun, but I believe that we need to focus in on what is our identity?

Who are we in Christ?

Do we claim what God tells us is true? We are sons and daughters of the most High! We have to claim that. Everyday we are faced with stepping into our identity by choosing what is right with our marriages, relationships with the opposite sex, our relationship with God, our worship, our words, our everything!

We need to awaken our desire for God. We need to arise to challenge to claim that in every single day.

I wanna challenge you guys every hour be aware of your identity in Christ. Please do not step out of that identity and into the one you think you wanna have.

Desire God More! Love God more! Love others more through that identity!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Don't Forget

Hey tomorrow we are going to be helping with the childrens ministry by running different games, and really helping them with all the students that will be there! So please come around 6 and get a game and we will go from there. Esther and I will be there and most of the other leaders will be too so come and hang with us and help out for the night! I promise there will be tons of candy and things for you to eat. So be there.

Remember we are inverting ourselves to think of others.

Pastor Adam

The new and Improved


Hey there everyone we are going to be doing alot more blogging on here because we know as a staff that we need to be more involved in the lives of our students! I am so pumped to start doing this more, we are going to work on posting things on here so make sure you put this as your favorite and check it often.

Also comment as much as you want and I will check to see if you have questions and I will put up notes and outlines from that nights service and we will hopefully put up funny, series, awesome, and orignal videos from the youth group.

Keep up the awesome job at being you guys!

Pastor Adam!