So I have been on a rampage of cleaning while Esther has been gone for a little bit. So now I am tired and smell like cleaning supplies! Gross.

Anyways this will be short update because I have some a friend and his wife coming to stay with us this weekend.

Just a little reminder that before next class tomorrow please read John 2. We are going to be talking about Jesus life and start seeing how He lived His amazing life and what His story is all about. So read John 2 and be familiar with what is going on because I want to have a discussion about it tomorrow.

Well have a great Saturday I will see you tomorrow!

P.A.

Its FRIDAY! Whoop whoop.

So I hope today is going to be awesome for ya, I know today I have a pretty full day meeting with some other youth pastors at lunch and then hanging with Jamin and Amy tonight, and then tomorrow my college friend and his wife come to town to stay with us for a night and watch the super bowl with us! I am pumped.

This Sunday in Next class we are going to start looking at the life of Jesus, since we just finished our story, we are now moving on to His story. So I am encouraging you guys to read John chapter 2 for this Sunday, and then also bring your Bible to next class so we can all take a look at what is written and that amazing stuff!

So this Sunday bring a Bible and maybe something to write with if something sticks out to ya!

I can't wait to see ya Sunday!

P.A.

For the Parents

Alright so this is important info.

On February 25th we are going to be having a purity ceremony. During this ceremony we will be having a time for parents to pray for their teen and give them a purity ring, bracelet, necklace, ect...Anything you would want to give them to represent a pledge to sexually purity until marriage would be great. Please take time and think about what to give them and maybe ask them if they would be willing to wear something or recieve something. I believe that it might spark some good conversation if asked at the right time.

Now if your son and or daughter already have a ring, necklace, bracelet, ect... This will be a great time for you to pray another blessing, maybe have a time of confession, a time of just recommitting them to Christ in this realm. I believe that this portion of the night will be the most important part. So for the next month will you please be in prayer for this night. Prayer that your son or daughter hear you heart and love for them at this time, and also be praying that you will have wisdom on what to say to them as we give you an opportunity to talk openly about sexuality with your teens and then pray with them.

Please be in prayer for this month for our youth ministry, we have been praying for this month for a while and want our students to be challenged to live differently then their generation. I believe that God has called our students at crystal valley to start setting a new standard of living in the sexual realm and I believe that us as leaders, and parents need to model that for our teens. So please be prayer with us this month!

I want you to know this going into this loved filled month of February!

Have an amazing night tonight!

P.A.

Road Trip!

Well today everyone I will be heading out to a couple camps to look at if we want to go somewhere this summer to camp or next winter for a winter retreat. We are just looking into things nothing is set in stone or anything. We are just exploring some options since our group is growing and seeing what we can do to tailor our events to more of our needs. I think its going to be awesome

So Last night was really fun I am glad that we got to talk about goals and setting them. I really hope that you guys shared your goals with your small group leader and start putting them into practice today! We will be praying for all of you guys this next year to accomplish your goals.

This coming month is our purity series I promise you it will be like no other purity series ever! We have got some amazing things planned. One thing that we are planning is on February 18th, we are going to be having a parents discussion on purity. We have a lot of parents who are getting into the hyper-dating stage with their teens and we want to be able to have resources, and discussion for all parents. Then the next week we will have our purity series on the 25th. I am excited so parents please come to that night all the students will be out and in their own talks that night. So it will just be adults in the discussion. The discussion will start 7:30 and end at 8:30.

More information to come!

See you later.

P.A.

Tonight will be the night that I will fall for for my goals over again!

So tonight is our last night of our goal series, and we are going to be talking about how can we set our goals and attain them.

This is important though, we need everyone tonight is bring a pen and something that you can take notes with. Like a journal, or notebook, because we are going to go over very specific things you can do to make sure your goals are reached.

Tonight we are going to have a great time Jessica Baylis had a great game idea! Also we are going to be playing a game where the who goal is to not break something! I love when we can find games that go right a long with our message :)

Tonight will be the first night I believe that we are recording the message and hopefully be able to put it up on the blogspot tomorrow for all those who miss tonight to hear and make their own goals!

I hope you guys have a great day!

Last thing......Who ordered the snow because I am sick and tired of this stupid snow!

That is all!

See you tonight 6:30 - 8:30!

P.A.

Tuesday night means American Idol night!

So everyone I am proud to say that last night I went to my first Notre Dame basketball game. It was pretty cool, I went with my father-in-law and we had a great time! It was a close game the whole way through but Marquette won in the end. One thing I was impressed with was the student section because they had so many cheers that were complex, not just regular we are ND cheers but dancing ones, arm moving ones, guy and girl part cheers, they were intense! It was pretty cool.

So it got me thinking if God watched our life with the angels like a basketball game. Like they all get together and they are cheering us on to make right decisions and stuff and when we blow it or make a bad decision they are all booing and upset, but when we make a right decision or seek after God, they go nuts and do cool chants for us. The angels are all standing on the bleachers yelling at us and encouraging us to do better.

But the most interesting part was afterwords when we were walking out everyone was talking about how disappointed they were from losing and they were talking about specific players that they probably will never meet or talk to but they were calling them like horrible, or I cant believe that did that. But I was thinking that our God never leaves the gym of our lives. He is always right there cheering us on, wanting us to do the best we can. Our God never leaves and says I cant believe them, they are horrible, or I dont know why I come anymore! Our God just loves us and wants us to do the best we can do! Yes of course God is disappointed with us when we make a mistake but He never ever leaves us! He never walks out on us and says well we tried!

God wants us to our best, but the thing that we have to do is look up to Him and say "God what do you want me to do today for you!" That could change our whole perspective on how we live our life for God!

I hope to see you tomorrow night when we get to write out our goals! Please be praying about your goals!

P.A.

A cool little video

A call to prayer and change

So last night we had a leaders meeting and it went really well. We got a lot of things planned for the next month and some really cool things to come!

One of the things we talked about as leaders is we need to get back to praying regularly for the youth group. We are wanting all who are in the youth group to take time out each night and pray for the youth group. The only way that we are going to move forward as a youth group is through Christ and prayer.

As students in this ministry you guys need to be praying for your youth group to move forward in Christ. I believe that if you guys as students pray for the youth group with pure motives, and hearts that really honestly want to see the youth group move forward I believe God will continue to show up over and over again!

As leaders and parents we need to model this for our students! It starts with us leading the charge and helping develop the students hearts, while they seek Christ on their own, we can come along side and encourage and pray with them for change in our church and youth group!

We need to be on our knees praying and face down before our God, crying out for Him to lead us and direct us! I hope that you all have an amazing week. Please be in prayer this week for the youth group!

P.A.

Hey there everyone Esther and I are at the crossing right now being intercessors of prayer for people and no one is here so I thought I would write some cool things we have been learning from the Bible as we are sitting here.

We have been reading all about what it means to be holy, and what the priests had to wear when they went in to the temple to pray. Did you know they had to have holy is the Lord written on everything before they went in to the Temple to pray? That is insane. Even their undies had it written on them. They wore like a plaque on their forehead saying Holy is the Lord! That is awesome.

That is an amazing picture of what our lives should be like! Can we honestly say that we have holy is the Lord written all over us? Man what would that look like if we said I want holy is the Lord written on my heart and so I want to love God with all my heart and love others like Christ loved them! That would be an amazing thing. Then what if we moved from our heart to our hands, and we said we want Holy is the Lord written on our hands, and so instead of playing video games with our hands we went and we helped out our parents, we helped the guy off the side of the road that needs help, maybe you hold bible in your hands and pray asking God to make this amazing love story more real.

Let us strive after being holy for the Lord.

Tomorrow for our next class we are going to being talking about your stories so please please please write them so we can talk about them and next week we are going to be going to start the life of Jesus.

Cant wait to see ya all tomorrow!

P.A.

I am in a meeting all morning, so I will update this hopefully later, please pray for me this is a district meeting and we are discussing some fun things :)

Talk with you all later.

Cool little video

For those students, and parents that have students in the next class. I was reading one of my favorite magazines this morning, and they had an amazing article on about telling your own story. The article was titled "Why knowing your own story will keep you from ripping someone else's"

This article went into detail about how important it is to know your own story and to tell your story before you force it down so deep that you start copying someone else's story that might seem more interesting.

To the students: I understand that there might be things inside of you right now that you do not understand, or in all honesty you might be afraid of. But you have to start to dig through the darkness to understand the light. So it might difficult to wade through the thoughts you might have about God or about life, but do it! Ask questions, write your story on paper, cry out to God who is leaning forward on His throne waiting to hear and whisper to you. God has created an amazing story inside of you, so let it out before your story gets lost in all crap that this culture throws at us!

For the parents: Take time to talk to your students about your story, and their story. You are a large part of their story. Let your sons and daughters be creative with God. Maybe they are learning from God in a different way then maybe you did or do, but maybe that's ok. Let God write their love story, and stand back and watch it unfold. I know I am and its amazing.

Let us take a step this weekend and lets start an authentic community at crystal valley. Where we can speak into one another lives because we honestly know one another. I believe that God wants to work through a community and not through isolated lives! So next class I challenge you to write your story and lets start the authentic community with the 15 -20 people we have every Sunday morning.

Hope you have an amazing Day

P.A.

So we had a good time last night with battling each other with pillows and then talking about battling for our minds.

I want to stress even more for our students that our minds our so important in our growth with Jesus. If we can slow things down and really take our thoughts captive for Christ, we will make so many good decisions. Please remember to take time to concentrate on Christ, make a goal to just sit for like 5 minutes a day and just try to concentrate on Christ and just tell Him you love him.

When we take time to concentrate on God, and we take time to clear out the junk in our minds and totally concentrate on God we will be able to start taking our thoughts captive for Christ. Please take time to do this I promise you it will blow your mind when you start taking time to love Christ fully with your mind.

Also please remember for those students who are in the next class WRITE YOUR STORY! This is the last week we are going to talking about it, and next week we will be starting the life of Jesus!

*** All youth staff we have a meeting this Sunday at 6pm***

P.A.

So I am ready for tonight because we have some new things we are unveiling tonight with some worship stuff, and also a new challenge I am going to put out there for our students! So come ready tonight have tons of fun, and more importantly be challenged to live with a more Christ centered heart!

We are going to be talking about the greatest battle you could ever fight tonight. I am so geeked for this tonight its hard to wait. I love being able to talk to you about things that could change your life and allow you to hear Christ speaking more into your life!

Please be here ready to go at 6:30 because we have some amazing things we want to kick off and do! I love when we get to come together as a youth group and get to hang out, and worship!

Can't wait to see you guys soon!

** For the Parents. I am meeting with my youth staff this week to discuss the possibilities of having a night aside from the purity ceremony night to invite parents in and do a little 30 minute seminar on different sexual signs to look for in your dating teenager. We are also going to be discussing some good guidelines for those students are now entering the hyper-dating stage. Things to discuss, watch for, and some helpful tools. So look for more information to come on this blog! When and Where.

Thank you parents!

See ya all later
P.A.

Tuesday the 20th

So today is kinda of a cool day we say good bye to president bush and say hello to president Obama. Its going to be a interesting fun day to see all what occurs!

Anyways, so tomorrow we are going to be having YOUTH GROUP! No weather is gonna stop us! Not even a flock of geese could take us down! So tomorrow come ready to worship God, learn from God, and talk with other people about God! We are here to serve Christ and to love our Lord.

I am pumped to see all of ya tomorrow! We have some pretty amazing games we are going to be playing tomorrow night! Also we are going to be talking about the greatest battle ever! It's gonna be awesome.

We are going to be learning a new song also tomorrow night, so come prepared.

Be here a little bit early because we have a funny video to show!

6:30 - 8:30!

P.A.

Sorry I didn't update the blog this weekend, we were pretty busy with things, and I couldn't get sometime on the computer to update!

Anyways today at noon Esther and I are leading worship at the crossing in middlebury! I hope some of you could join us today out there! I hope you all have a great day.

I will update more when I get back from the crossing!

P.A.

Its Friday

It is freezing outside! I honestly have never been in temps this cold this is insane!

Anyways please do not forget what we are doing this Sunday. We are going to be talking about your God stories and how you view God, and how God has shown up in your life.

This is really important because I want to go back to the basics of our faith, because I want to re-focus on why we come to a church and why even believe in what we believe in. And this also gives you a chance to ask the questions you might of had about God, that you might have been confused on you simply you just don't know. I know that when I was in high school I had so many questions, and even to this day I have so many questions about God. So this is a chance to ask those questions, and tell your story on what God means to you!

Also I have gotten lots of questions from people and so I have compiled them into the top 10. And I am going to be asking you those questions to see how you might answer them, and then we are going to discuss them together.

In about 2 weeks we are going to shift from our story to God's story and we are going to be working through the life of Jesus, and the different things He did and how that impacts our lives today!

So there are some really cool things to come in our Next class! Also on Wednesday we are going to be talking about making goals for our mind, and how that is huge battleground!

So come ready for next Wednesday because its going to be intense! See you all later. Stay warm today.

P.A.

So this snow is insane! We have so much of it, and its so cold! Wow make sure you all are safe!

Anyways! This sunday morning we are going to continue our discussion on our stories with God! So for those who didn't write their story with God write it this week and bring it to Next. So we can hear it and discuss it.

The 4 questions I want you to write on are:
1. How would you describe God
2. What is a Christian
3. What are the roles of the Holy Spirit
4. Explain a time in your life when you felt close to God.

Write about those and bring them to class on Sunday morning because this is crucial in our growing closer to Christ and all coming together with a common language about Christ, and really understand that we have an amazing story that God is writing.

I cant wait to see you guys on Sunday! Don't forget to write those stories!

P.A.

Tonight is Cancelled

Sorry guys but tonight we are going to have to cancel Youth Group.

The roads are getting to bad, and I dont want anyone getting hurt. Middlebury schools have canceled everything for the night too. Please be careful going home and please be sage tonight its cold and snowy so be careful.

I hope you all have a great night, sorry guys I just dont want anyone getting hurt on the way here tonight!

See you all on Sunday!

P.A.

Still up in the air

We still dont know what we are going to be doing for tonight. The roads are "ok" not the best and I do not know how much worse they are going to get with all the blowing snow and the lake effect that is still to come. I would like to have youth group tonight and everything is set up for youth group tonight. My only concern is students driving in this weather. We are still going to stick to the 3 o clock check and see how the roads are and how the radar is looking.

I will post on here if we are still having youth or not. Right now we are still 50/50. Please pray that it gets better we would really enjoy having youth group tonight!

P.A.

Blizzard shimmizzard

No blizzard is gonna stop us from worship God and coming to Youth Group!

LOL....ok maybe it will but if we do have to cancel because of bad weather I will post it on here, and also on Facebook and we text people. So please be checking this regularly because this is where all the information will be. I will be making a decision about it right around 4pm because there are lots of times if the school closes and then its nice by the end of the day, but if the school doesnt close it gets really bad at like 5pm then it would be bad for people to drive in bad weather.

So main point is, keep checking this site tomorrow for updates! Also pray that it doesnt get all blizzard like so we can come tomorrow and hang out and worship out Lord together!

Hope everyone is having an amazing day, try to stay warm!

P.A.

This has got to be the best looking youth group of all time! I am just putting that out there!

So anyways this Wednesday night has the makings to be life changing! So please if you can make it this Wednesday do it because its going to be awesome!

We are going to be diving into the scripture of 1 Peter 1:13. We are going to be talking about how we wage war for our minds and some goals that we can set to take back control of our thoughts!
So please be in prayer for this Wednesday because I believe that if we can really understand how to take every thought captive for God, and we can be disciplined in loving God with our mind, and put into action what God places in our hearts and minds we can change this town! We can change so many people's lives by just loving others and be disciplined our minds.

Keep working hard at praying for these goals, because at the end of the month we are going to set our goals up and help each other be accountable for those goals.

Read through 1 Peter 1:13 and bring your bibles this Wednesday so we can start marking verses to help us to remember things!

See you all Wednesday!

P.A.

Hey there everyone!

I was blown away by your guys answers to some of the questions. Thank you so much for taking those questions seriously and I love getting to talk with you guys about knowing God more.

Please remember though what we talked about. Please be honest with yourself about where you are with God. And its ok to ask questions! Please ask questions because that's sometimes the only way we learn.

I can't wait to see you all on Wednesday. We have some really cool things we are going to do this Wednesday! So I can't wait to see you all there.

Also please be in prayer for our leaders, They put in so much time and energy please be in prayer for them for strength and wisdom as they help lead.

Thank you

See you Wednesday

P.A.

Hey there everyone another short update.

Tomorrow for Next class we are going to be going over our stories about God and how He influences our lives.

I am excited to hear how God has taken your lives and molded them, and also for those who don't know Christ as well I want to hear how you view God and how you look at Christianity.

I will see you all tomorrow we will start at 9:15am.

Have fun playing in the snow today, if you wanna say up a little prayer for me I am sick today with strep throat. I am not a large fan of being sick, and I don't do well being sick because I still want to do things.

See ya everyone!

P.A.

Friday Friday Friday

So today's post will be short because I have to take off.

I just want to remind the next class to have their stories ready for this Sunday! I am excited to hear what God has done in your own story. I just finished mine last night so I am ready to share mine with ya'll. Write it out so you don't forget anything.

For those students who weren't there last week write out your love story with God. Write out how you know your a christian, and how you view God. Because we are going to talk about how our story influences our relationship with Christ now. Include how you grew up in church or maybe didn't grow up in church. Because the way your parents view Christ influences you alot also.

Alright I am going to challenge these roads to a slide off :) Talk with ya'll later!

P.A.

Last night

Last night was really fun! I am glad that we had a lot of students at youth group. Worship was awesome and fun. We had a great dance party, and a great time of crying out to God.

Students please be in prayer about our goals for our youth group, and also for you personally. Remember we need to start praying for our goals, think little investments everyday to make a large goal. Please be thinking about these goals because I want to be helping, encouraging, praying for all of you!

Also I want to challenge all of you guys to be reading through Ephesians 4 because it is a calling to a renewed life.

Remember if we start thinking about things differently, then we can start really making a difference in your own life.

Please be honest with yourself at where you are at in your relationship with Christ, with your family, with friends.

See you all on Sunday, remember next class that you need to bring your story to class! Do not forget that!

Talk with you guys later.

P.A.

Boo to the Ya!

Tonight is it! I am so excited for tonight. We are going to be having a fabuloso time. We are going to be playing an amazing game tonight, We are going to starting a dancing generation at Crystal Valley, We are going to learn from Ephesians 4 tonight about goals we can make for ourselves! Then we are going to spend time with our small group which is always fun and exciting!

Do you believe that God is amazing? Because He has done so much, He has done insurmountable things! I love the fact that we get to come together tonight and worship Him, We get to have fun with our Lord Jesus, We get to pray and stand with our hands lifted high to a God who wants to bless, Give us what we need and far surpass that! A God who has created every living organism that has ever walked, crawled, slithered, flown, ANYTHING. That is the God we get to come and worship tonight. That is the God that I love, That is the God that I want to surrender my whole entire life too. That is the God we serve and love at thee Crystal Valley Youth Group!

I hope to see lots of Parents tonight we still start as soon as we can no later then 6:45 and we wont go later then 7! So please Parents I hope that you will join us tonight for our first parents meeting on Wednesday night!

See you tonight!

P.A.

I say Crystal You say Valley.......Crystal!

Anyways! Tomorrow is Wednesday which means a couple things happen

Raiders for Christ is tomorrow....Which Nate Hickox is speaking at so make sure you go and see him speak.

Also Wednesdays are good days to change your underwear.....I know I always do!

And last but not least its YOUTH GROUP!

I am excited as no get out for tomorrow night! So many awesome things are happening! We are going to watch a video re-caping 3dyc! Which is gonna be awesome! We are going to play one of the best games that we have ever played, and one that is ok! But the first one is awesome!

Also we get to rock out to some great Worship! I am just letting you know a Dance party might erupt at Crystal Valley! Also we are going to be talking about goals, and some amazing sweet awesome goals we can set for this year as a youth group, small group, and personal! We are going goal crazy this month!

Also Tomorrow is gonna be our first parents meeting at the church, so parents please come so we can talk about our vision for this year, our plan to execute this vision, and how you as parents can come along side and help in that vision. So please come and listen just for like 15 minutes! Its gonna be short and to the point because I do not want to waste your time!

I hope to see everyone tomorrow here! Remember we start at 6:30! So do NOT be late!

P.A.

Parents!

Alright parents this blog is specifically for you!

This Wednesday night we want to have a time just for you!

At 6:45 - 7:10 we want to explain to you the calendar for this Winter. We also want to explain to you the direction we are taking this year. We want you to be able to have a time to ask questions, and just see a little bit of what we do at the beginning of our Wednesday nights.

There are some new things we are doing this year with communication and with flow of Wednesday nights so we want to explain that to you so you all know what is going on! So if you can make it please please please come this Wednesday night at 6:45 - 7:10. You are also more then welcome to listen in on our worship and worship with us that night!

We hope to see lots of parents this Wednesday night!

P.A.

Sunday

So I wanted to get on here and tell everyone that I hope they are having a great Sunday. I am glad that this morning we had a good next class, and I am pumped to see how many of you students do the assignment we are doing for the class. I am pumped for us to journey together and try to listen to God more and more!

I just want to re-emphasize what I was saying this morning to our next class that we have to be honest with ourselves about where we are with Christ. If you are far away from Christ claim it and lets start working back towards Him, if you are close to Christ then lets claim it and lets work on staying Close to Christ! If we are in the middle which I think alot of us are, then lets work on some things to get us moving towards Christ, but we have to know where we are at. Please do not be afraid to claim that.

I love that we can be open with each other, and I will be the first to admit that there are times where I have no idea what I am doing with my faith so I have to go ask questions to people who are older and wiser then I. So please dont be afraid to come and ask the question. I dont know who Jesus is who is He? Its ok to ask that, its actually probably the best question you can ever ask!

I am excited to see where this next class is going to take us! See you all on Wednesday.

P.A.

Calendar

The new Winter calendars are coming out on Wednesday night. I am going to try my best to put them on here so you can print them out at home or save them so you can look at the calendars. So please keep checking our site. We hope to get the sermons on here and worship soon. We are still working out some bugs with that.

We hope that we can make this as fully functional as we can. We want this to be a place for parents and students to get lots of information about our youth group, and be able to see what they missed if students miss a Wednesday!

Also please be in prayer about our next class we are going to be kicking it up a notch in there, and I know some students might not understand or enjoy at first the way we are going to be doing Sunday mornings, but I feel that we have been wasting time to really further our spiritual journey!

So please pray that the students really understand and take off with the idea's that we have for our Sunday morning program.

P.A.

Excitment overwhelms my Soul!

I am so pumped to see you guys on Sunday and on Wednesday, I am pumped for Sunday because I am working on a sweet Powerpoint to show all the adults. Then We get to come together on Wednesday to have some delicious fun. We are going to be doing a new song this Wednesday that is gonna be rocking awesome. Also we are going to be starting a new series about goals.

I am excited to see where this series is gonna take us. I think that if we really honestly think of some goals that we want to, and we keep each other accountable I think we can really push ourselves this year.

I am hoping all of you start praying and thinking about some goals that you want to make for this year.

Please be in prayer for the youth group, also be in prayer for the leaders to make wise decisions in hard situations. We always need all the prayers we can.

P.A.

The Start of a new year!

I love that we get to start a new year again! 2008 was pretty sweet! But o9 is gonna be one of a kind!

This Sunday we are kicking off our starting point classes in Next. We are going to be going through an amazing curriculum that our staff has created! So this Sunday we are going to be talking about our story with Christ. I am so excited to hear and experience some of the stories that God is doing in our students!

Also this coming Wednesday we are kicking off our Goal series again, last year we did this and it was really cool to see our students make goals and reach some of them. So we are going to kicking that off, so students who are reading this start thinking about goals you might make for this year so we can pray over them, and encourage you in them through out this year!

To get ready for this Wednesday starting praying and thinking about these goals in these area's:
1. Spiritual
2. Emotional
3. Physical

Since we are made up of 3 levels, we need to make goals to develop those 3 levels. I am excited to see what goals that God will bring to us!

See you guys on Sunday morning for next class!

P.A