Hey there my fellow homies!

I am so pumped to see alot of you tomorrow at church, I hope all the choir competitions went well today and you all get back soon.

Tomorrow morning Esther and I are leading worship with some of the youth group band and some of the adult worship band so we are going to create a awesome hybrid of worship awesomeness :)

So Students we are going to be meeting in the sanctuary for worship then heading over to the room for a shorter next class. We are going to be talking about church tomorrow in next class. I think it will be a really fun discussion :)

Hope to see alot of you tomorrow!

P.A.

Friday

I am sorry I do not have a lot of time to update things today, I am trying to get things done for Sunday morning and also trying to get things done because we are down to 1 car now and Esther and I aren't used to it yet.

But there are a couple things on my mind.

1. We need a lot of prayer on where to take the youth group in the next couple years. We have this year planned out pretty well and we are looking forward to the years to come but we have so big decisions to make about large events, and where we should place our money, and time. So please be praying for the larger decisions for the youth group, and for the youth leadership team. We have lots of idea's but we want to make sure we are doing what God wants us to do not just what we want.

2. For the students to fall in love with Christ all over again. God is blessing us with so many awesome students, and we love having them come all the time, but I want each of them to experience God in such an incredible way. Please be praying for our students to experience God's calling, and listen to His voice. I love watching our students live out Christ, not just talk about Him. I believe that our students are gaining knowledge about Christ and are starting to live it out, but I know that there are going to be struggles, and bumps. Please pray for strength for them.

Hope to see you all on Sunday morning!

P.A.

Awesome Basketball shots!

Hope You all enjoy this amazing video!

Thursday morning

So I hear that you all had a 2 hour delay this morning! Booyah! That is awesome. Hope you guys slept off your sugar high from last night.

Last night was really awesome. I love worshiping with all of you, and then seeing parents and students praying with each other and committing their lives to purity and seeking out only Jesus. That is the most rewarding part of being a youth pastor. I hope you all had a great time last night, and I am so pumped to have more events where parents are present.

Students this next Wednesday we are going to be having some fun, and starting a new series where we are going to be talking about media! Also in March the youth staff and I thought it would be a really fun thing for us after every quarter to put out a youth group bulletin. Kind of like a newspaper about different things in the youth group, things they like, reviews on different things, all sorts of awesome things. We hope to put this out at the end of march for everyone in the church to see whats going on in the youth ministry, and also for students to write what is on their heart. We hope this is a really fun thing to do!

Have a great day today!

P.A.

PS - Esther and I are leading worship this Sunday do make sure you are all their to jump around with us!

Tonight is the night

Purity Ceremony tonight!

6:30 - 8:30!

Please parents we would love if you were here the whole time! It would be awesome. We have some really fun games planned, some awesome worship music planned, and some desserts!

So please be here tonight at 6:30 we want to try to start right at 6:30, because we want to have enough time for everything.

Parents if you are bringing a dessert tonight, please do not forget it :)
Also students if you are bringing a dessert do not forget it :)

Also please be in prayer for tonight, we want God to speak, guide and direct tonight! Hope everyone has an amazing day!

See you tonight!

P.A.

Parents Seminar last week

Hey there everyone. I am sitting in front of the computer down in the sanctuary trying to figure out where the parents seminar went. we had it recording but the place and date where it recorded it at is no where to be found. So as of right now I do not know where it is. I am sorry for those who keep checking to see if it is up. I am not sure what is going on with it. Its a new machine and new things so I am sorry for the confusion I am hopefully going to find it but if I dont I will get my notes back out and post all my notes up here for everyone.

Sorry again!

P.A.

To all of those about to Rock.....I salute you!

Hey there everyone! I hope things are going awesome for you all today. I hope all of you got a chance to listen to the song that I posted yesterday because it is an amazing song.

I got to speak last night at a friends church, and one thing I was challenging their students to is to release everything over to God. When we have true surrender of our lives to Christ, and we put Him on the decision making stool we need to make sure that we let Him be there. I know that we have talked alot about this and I know some of you might be getting sick and tired of hearing this, but I believe it is so important. Keep placing yourself in way so that you can hear God. The only way to do that is to be continually releasing things to Christ, and saying with a pure heart "God I only want to do what you want me to do" When we set God up as #1 in our lives its amazing the things that crumble off us. The things that once hindered us from Worshiping on Wednesday night or Sunday morning fall down by our feet and we are able to hear God and become obedient to what He wants in our lives.

I do not understand people who think they can do it on their own. I honestly can't. When people talk to me and say I am going to do this with my life because I want to. I am thinking in my head wow I really hope God wants you to do that because if not, you are going to be fighting and fighting and fighting. When we step into His light and we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. Then things in our lives start to work like it should. So stop fighting God for control!!! Stop Fighting God for what He wants more then anything. Allow God to come in and bless you and do surgery on the things that need to be cut out.

I cant wait to see you all on Wednesday and we talk more about this, and we talk about allowing God to take total control.

Please remember to bring a dessert. Students please make sure if you want to bring a dessert do it! Just contact me first. See you all Tomorrow!

P.A.

A powerful song

Hey there everyone! I came across this amazing song, listen to it and take some time before this Wednesday to pray about letting go of the things that we don't need, and become purely a Christ Follower.

This song is truly amazing, the lyrics, and images are spectacular.

Warning this video contains images from the passion of Christ so beware!





P.A.

Monday is gonna SUPER~!

So I dont have much time to blog today, but I want to let you guys know that this Purity Ceremony is gonna be like none other. I am so pumped to see everyone there! So please invite your parents, and parents please come with your student. We want you and your student to have an amazing time.

We have 2 really REALLY fun games that will playing that night. We also will be having worship again by the Youth group band. Then we will be having a time where as a parent and student can pray together and talk over being pure, and how the parents can help the student be pure in all aspects of life not just in the sexuality realm.

We hope to see you all there, if you are bringing a dessert please bring it when you come and if it needs to be refrigerated we have 2 refrigerators that can keep things cool, and also the outside is FREEEZING right now so that will work also :)

Hope to see you all Wednesday!

P.A.

a little note for the youth staff

Hey tomorrow I would like to meet for about an hour to talk about the purity ceremony with all the youth staff tomorrow. From like 6 - 7. I will provide some snacks, and some drinks. Just so we can all be on the same page for this Wednesday! Thanks everyone!

Please be in prayer for Wednesday!

P.A.

Who ordered the snow???

I am not a fan of snow because as you all know I enjoy wearing the flippity floppities, and when it is snowing I can not wear them because then my feets are cold. Boo on the snow bring on spring~!

Ohh well, hey guys tomorrow for next class we are going to be discussion Jesus life some more, and we are going to be going over the passage Matthew 19. Where Jesus is talking about the rich young ruler. Its a pretty cool lesson we can learn from and believe it or not its not all about money! So come ready to learn and discuss some pretty fun things.

Also please be in prayer for this coming Wednesday for the purity ceremony, this is going to be an amazing night so please mark it on your calendars, and also for those who signed up for desserts please remember to bring them so we can all partake in the deliciousness together!

Hope to see a lot of you tomorrow.

P.A.

Hey there everyone! I hope today is a great day for ya. I also hope to see some of you guys tonight at the comedy dinner, it will be fun I promise ya :)

We are still working on getting the parents seminar up on here. We have never done this before so it might take some time. I am learning as I go :)

Please keep in mind the purity ceremony this Wednesday and if you are bringing desserts please bring them when you come we will have our leaders getting those all ready to go for the end of the evening. We hope that everyone can come to this I believe that this will be a night that we can all remember and look back on with a smile on our face and say that was the night my sexual life changed. Please keep this night in your prayers the enemy I know will try everything he can to stop this night from happening so please be praying for it!

I will be working on changing the background and the layout of this blog again I am not happy on the way it looks and it is kind of jumbled so I will be hopefully working on that today.

See some of you tonight!

P.A.

Happy Thursday!

I hope everyone had a great night last night I know I did with getting to talk with the parents. Also I apologize for the problems we were having with the tech of worship, it was a little bit of a bummer. Also we hope to have the parents seminar on here as soon as we can. But I know talking with a lot of students they had a great time last night with their leaders and getting talk about more things about purity! I believe next week will be simply amazing! I can not wait for us as leaders to come around the students and help them make re-commitments or first time commitments to purity.

Next week purity ceremony 6:30 - 8:30! We are going to be having a dessert reception so if you want to bring a dessert please email me at cvmcadam@verizon.net just so we can coordinate everything! I am so pumped for next week! I really hope you all can join us, parents please invite other parents with their teens next week I believe that so many students can benefit from this!

Also Another bit of information and this is for my youth staff first then to the parents. Walt Muller is coming to Nappanee Missionary Church, he is a great author on youth culture and has written many many books, and they have extended 4 tickets to us. If any of the youth staff would like to go to this please contact me soon! Also Parents if you want to go email me and I can tell you where the process is at. The dates He will be in town is March 27th - 28th. I would go to this but my lovely wife and I have decided to take an extended weekend that weekend to get away with each other and God. So I will not be able to go. So if any of the youth staff would like to go contact me, and also parents.

See you all on Sunday!

P.A.

Notes from tonight!

Thank you so much to all the parents who came tonight to listen and worship with us! Sorry that we had some tech issues we normally don't have those, but anyways.

For those who want the notes from tonight here they are!

Purity foundation
1.Honoring God with your Body
- 1st Corinthians 6:20
2. Renewing your mind for God
- Rom 12:2
3. Turning your eyes from worthless things
- Matt 6:22
4. Guard your heart
- Proverbs 4:23

Hope these things help. Connect with your kids and I hope that next Wednesday can just be awesome! Hope to see you then. If you still want to bring desserts for next week, email me and let me know. At cvmcadam@verizon.net

I will try to get the recording of the parents meeting on here as soon as I can. Hope to see you guys next Wednesday

P.A.

So Tonight is the night for some amazingness to happen! I hope that everyone has had a great half week so far the weather is pretty crummy but ohh well spring will be hear soon! I promise :)

Tonight has the makings to be amazing! So come tonight ready to have some fun and learn a bunch from your small group leaders. We are going to be singing a new song tonight called By your side by Tenth Avenue North so listen to it and come ready to sing your hearts out!

Parents again just another reminder that tonight is the night we are having our parents meeting. I am going to be giving out lots of resources for you tonight so please come tonight at around 7:25. We will be wrapping worship up around that time. If you want to come for worship you are more then welcome too! That will start around 7:10. We hope to see you tonight. We are looking forward to seeing you all tonight!

P.A.

Reveal study.

For those of you guys who are over the age of 18 I highly recommend that you take this survey for our church. Don't worry this isn't one of those stupid surveys who tells you who your crush is or whatever. This helps us as a staff determine where people in our church are at in their walk with Christ and see where we might need to spend time discussing with everyone on Sunday's. We need alot of people to take this survey so it is accurate so please if you are over the age of 18. Please take this.

Students please don't jump on this and click random things because we really want this to work and help us out. So parents and teens over the age of 18 take the survey. It is totally anonymous so we wont know who answered what so just answer honestly! Here is the link. Please help us out!

http://www.revealnow.com/slsurvey?uid=5359

Thanks! Just copy and paste this up in the navigation bar and you will be good to go!

P.A.

Its tuesday yippie!

Hey there everyone! So again its that time again......

YOUTH GROUP EVE!

So I am happy to announce that I am totally pumped for tomorrow. I just got done getting the games together and they are going to be hilarious. Kinda like last week when we had people act like they were riding a rollercoaster but really they were on the toilet! Amazingness! But tomorrow's games are going to be really amazing! We are also going to be be singing a new song tomorrow night listen to it tonight and come ready to sing your hearts out! I will post the Video at the bottom.

Just a little reminder for parents again tomorrow we are having a parents meeting, it will start at 7:30 and I would really like if everyone was there at 7:30. I have alot of things I want to go over and discuss with you all. I really hope that this will be helpful. At 7:30 we will be wrapping up worship but you are all more then welcome to come to worship with us!

I hope you all have an amazing day!

Here's that new song! Its an amazing song.

Hey there everyone!

This update is going to be short because I have alot going on today and I do not have that much time to update.

But Major updates that you need to know:

1. This Wednesday is that parents meeting. Parents if you want to come for Worship you are more then welcome too, but if you just want to come for the meeting please be there no later then 7:30. I would like to take a good 45 minutes to discuss things and give out some information to help us help students stay pure.
2. Next Wednesday that 25th, I am in need of people to make desserts for that night. We are hopefully going to be having lots of parents coming for this Night and we want everyone to be able to have some dessert. So if you can help and make something please contact me and let me know at cvmcadam@verizon.net
3. There is going to be a Daddy Daughter dance for the whole church so I am really encouraging all students and there dads to go to this! It will be a great time to talk and have a fun night. I really hope you guys go to this it will be an amazing night to remember!

Have a great day off of school!

P.A.

Tomorrow morning we are going to be doing something a little bit different for Next class so come and find out what it is. We are going to pause on Jesus' life and get a fresh look at something else! Then next week we will come back to Jesus life and continue on!

To help you understand why we have been talking about our story and now talking about Jesus story is that we need to understand both to move forward in our spiritual journey. We need to have an understanding and be really honest with ourselves where we are at with Christ, and see how much we really know Him. Then when we get through our story we look at His story and see what He was all about! Then when we understand those 2 stories we can talk about the amazing love story He has for the rest of the world!

I hope to see you tomorrow morning. We are not going to be in on the worship session tomorrow so go straight to the back to the classroom tomorrow!

See ya guys

P.A.

For the purity Ceremony on the 25th of February we are going to be having a dessert, punch, and coffee reception. As a youth staff we are all bringing cookies, brownies, pies, and all sorts of goodies but we will also need other people to bring some other delicious things. So if you are willing to help out and bring a dessert please contact me by email

cvmcadam@verizon.net

And let me know if you can help we are expecting over 175 people at this event. We want all parents who have students in our ministry to come. Also please remember if you are going to be giving your student something that night like a ring, bracelet, necklace, or something else please have it on hand that night to give to your daughter or son. We want this to be a nice night for all who come. We are also asking that this be a little bit formal. Not like tux or anything but a little nicer. I know this is Crystal Valley and we dont dress up here, which I love!, but for one night when our students are making serious commitments I believe that we should take it seriously.

So please if you are able to help out by making some cookies or brownies, or anything else please email me and let me know. We appreciate it alot!

P.A.

What is crack-a-lackin?

I hope everything is going well for everyone today! Yesterday was a pretty insane day for me. I was pretty busy all day, and got home at night to an empty house because Esther was gone seeing her sister who was in town from New York. So as I normally do I turn on the TV and just veg rewarding myself for a hard days work and getting things done. But something didn't feel right. My mind was jumbled and I couldn't rest. There was something that I should be doing besides watching TV. I didnt understand what it was untill I recognized that I hadnt spent anytime listening to God that day. I was praying all day and talking most of the day to God but I just felt God wanting to talk to me but I couldnt hear Him with all the distractions going on around me. So I turned the TV off and I sat in an quite room and just said "Lord your servant is listening" and is was like a rush of peace rushed over me. It was almost like God saying Thank you finally I can talk in this relationship!

Guys I want to encourage you to take time this weekend and just listen to God. Listen to what He wants to say. Turn off the TV, Cell Phone, IPod, and anything else that is going to distract you! Take time to just tell God "God your servant is listening"

Hope to see you guys on Sunday!

P.A.

100th post!

So this is my 100th post. Whoop Whoop!

Anyways so last night I believe was really fun and I am glad that we got to talk about some really cool things about sexuality. I am really happy that you guys are bringing you friends to youth group to hear these things and to experience this stuff together.

So this Sunday I hope you can all make it to the next class we have going through the story of Jesus, because we just finished 2 weeks ago our story. This Sunday is going to be awesome I am pumped to see where God takes us with our discussion. So please come ready to talk and have some fun :)

Remember Next Wednesday we are going to be splitting up according to our gender and Junior High and Senior high so there will be 4 messages going on next week while I discuss things with the parents! So please remember that it is next week for the parents meeting. Parents if you want to come and experience the youth worship band and worshiping with about 70 students we want to welcome you to come and worship with us at around 7:10. If you show up at 7 you should be fine and maybe could join in a game or 2!

Hope you all have great nights tonight!

P.A.

PS - Morgan we are pumped that we get to see you this Weekend!

To all the parents out there, The meeting for the parents is next week it is not this week. And I am sorry for the mix up in the post card that got sent to you since it doesn't say a date on there. It is Next Wednesday! Not this Wednesday

February 18th! That is when it is. I am sorry for the confusion.

P.A.

Tonight!

Hey there everyone! I am so pumped for tonight I have some things we are going to give away tonight to some amazing people. We are also going to be doing some awesome worship tonight with some really funny games! I promise you, you will not want to miss tonight!

We are also going to be talking about gender specific struggles with sex, relationships, minds, eyes, and lots of other things. So tonight all the ladies and Men will be separated and we will be having separate sessions tonight.

Esther will be leading the girls talk with all the other ladies helping out, and I will be leading the men with all the the guys helping out. Tonight I believe will be powerful, so please be in prayer before you come tonight.

I believe God has some amazing things planned for this youth group especially in the realm of relationships, and sexuality. I will hopefully see you all tonight!

P.A.

Youth Group Eve

Tomorrow is going to be Fantabulous! (Fantastic + Fabulous)

I am excited for tomorrow because I believe God has got some amazing things He wants to do! Please be in prayer for tomorrow night because we really want to hit home and really take some real strides in having sexual purity in our minds, body, and souls. Please be in prayer that the will of God is loud and clear, and that us as a youth staff are instruments for God.

Tomorrow night we will be splitting the guys and girls, and talking about issues that each gender faces. Tomorrow night will be a hard hitting night for our students because we are going to be talking about really tough issues about ses.

Please make sure your students are here at 6:30 because want to use all of our time we have!

Also parents Next Wednesday the 18th, we are going to be having a parents meeting and we are going to talk about and discuss different things we can be doing as adults to help our students stay sexually pure. Please come for that evening. We would love to have all of you hear. The students will all be gone and in other classrooms hearing from their leaders that night. We will also be discussing that next week at the purity ceremony how you can really make it special for your sons and daughters.

We hope to see you all soon!

P.A.

This is a great video talking about waiting on the right timing to awaken love. How we need to make sure that we wait for God's timing not our timing!

Remember the story about my friend and flying a plane! We need to spend the time learning how to fly, and not learning on the fly! Spend time learning about the one who created love, learn about the one who perfected it by sacrificing His only Son for us.

This Wednesday will be really fun because we are going to be separating the men and women and talking about the issues that each gender are facing and really honing in on those specific disciplines we can work on to make our relationships become more Godly!

I hope you enjoy this video! Listen to the lyrics they are great!

See you Wednesday!

P.A.

Hey ya'll tomorrow there has been a little change in plan. This is the last week they need to have a drummer fill in because Bob is gone for this week, but he will be back for good from now on so tomorrow for next class we will be in the worship service for the beginning and then going to class after the worship time. So meet in the Sanctuary.

I promise you wont want to miss the stuff we are talking about tomorrow morning. Its flip'n awesome!

So again tomorrow morning when ya get there go to the sanctuary and I will be in there rock'n it :) JK

See you all tomorrow!

P.A.

Friday night.....

Hey there everyone I don't have much time to update today, but I just want to remind people to keep working on your goals for this year! Remember 2 weeks ago when you all made goals? How are they doing? Have you already forgot about them?

Please do not forget about them. Keep working on them, get someone to help you reach your goals! Your small group leader, and I would love to help you reach those goals. So keep it up.

Also remember we are wanting to chip away at the foundation we might of set on this culture of dating. We need to start setting our foundation of dating on Christ. Remember the airplane story, God might be calling us back down from flying solo, so we can just sit on the ground and learn for a little while before we go back out and fly!

Keep pressing forward my brothers and sisters in Christ! We love you all and pray for you all. Keep working at it. Remember it might take a little bit to see change, but keep taking one step forward. Remember choosing wisdom starts with a choice!

Keep choosing to listen to the Wisdom of God!

See you all Sunday!

P. A.

Funny Dating Movie!

I think this will be me as a Dad if I ever have a daughter.


Hope you are all having an amazing Day!

This coming Sunday

Alrightie Everyone!

So this coming Sunday we are going to be continuing on the story line of Jesus Christ and looking at different area's of His life. I love being able to talk about Jesus and being able to share His story with you guys. If we honestly look at His story and we look at how He interacted with so many people, and still loved, cherished, cried, laughed with, and died for. It is simply amazing. The Jesus that we get to learn about this Sunday is remarkable. So this is a call to all the Crystal Valley Youth Group come this Sunday to our NEXT class which starts at 9am. Come and learn about our amazing Savior Jesus Christ.

This week we are going to be examining some passages in Matthew! Its gonna be awesome.

I hope to see you all then!

P.A.

Tonight

Hey there everyone I am really proud of those who have chosen to start tearing down their foundation of the culture and is starting to build their foundation on Jesus.

I am really proud of this youth group who wants to stand against the culture and say you wont influence us to date randomly because we answer to a high calling, and we want to confuse you because of the way we live.

I want to encourage you all to get with your small group leader, or a friend to help you fight. Especially because when you make a decision Satan will try to tempt very hard. Please please please get with someone who help you stay focused on the foundation building on Christ.

Lets keep building on all these decisions! Next week will be tons of fun! Can't wait.

P.A.

** Run out of the darkness and out of the Shame!

Sick!

Hey there everyone I am just getting on here to let you know that I am pretty sick right now, I have a really bad stomach bug. So please pray for me I have frequenting the bathroom a lot.

So for that I am not going to be raiders for Christ tomorrow morning. I am going to get some sleep and try to beat this thing before tomorrow night. So please be in prayer for my belly it has not been an enjoyable day.

Thanks.

P.A.

Its almost here!

So today is the day......before tomorrow.....And tomorrow is youth group. So by my calculations....That means today is Youth Group eve!

So Happy youth group eve everyone!

Tomorrow we are going to be starting our purity series, and I am so jazzed about it. Tomorrow we are going to be exploring how it would look if we 1) instead of focusing on the do's and don't s of relationships, we place ourselves so that in all we do we honor God. and 2) What can we do to change the culture around us to look more like Christ, and stop copying the culture that we currently live in.

So tomorrow bring YOUR BIBLES!

We are going to start making a big push for that because we want you all to start marking in your bibles, and underlining verse's so when you come back to them in your own time with Christ then you will have some notes to think back on! SO BRING YOUR BIBLES!

Tomorrow we are going to be playing some amazing games. Some really funny games!

We are also going to be learning a new song, that I believe is the theme song for this month. I hope to see you all tomorrow, remember please try to make it to all 4 weeks of this series because they all build on each other!

See ya!

P.A.

Monday after the superbowl!

So lasts night game was AMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAZING!

It was so good that Esther got into it~! I know amazing. So we made our own hot wings last night and we got the B-dubs sauce and all and it was awesome! But my stomach this morning was like what were you doing last night!!!

anyways!

This Wednesday we are kicking off our purity series and this series is going to be like none other! I promise you. I am so geeked for this month because I love talking about relationships and how we can honor God through them, and how we can treat our bodies as the temple of God that they are. I hope that you guys can all join us this Wednesday. I believe that our Youth group can start a new culture on Middlebury, Elkhart, Millersburg, Goshen, and all over because of how we view our relationships and honor other people with love!

Crystal Valley Youth Group I am calling us to take a stand against the sexual sins of our culture, and we start developing the culture we are in for God! We need to start with the people in our families, then with friends, then with people you sit next to in class, and so on. I believe that the God we serve is sick and tired of our lack of respect for sexuality and the tanting of pure love that our God exeplifies!

So come this Wednesday ready to start a change of thinking differently about relationships with the opposite gender, God, and how we approach dating and sex!

Parents just another reminder that on February 18th, we are going to be having a discussion about teens dating and other fun things of that nature. So please come that night we will start the discussion at 7:30 (or right after worship) and go untill 8:30. I promise I will not go past 8:30!

Hope to see everyone soon!

P.A.

Well today is the day of the mighty super bowl! I am pumped, we are making our own wings tonight with potato wedges with bacon, and to top it off we have mozzarella cheese sticks!
I can't wait.

I am picking the Cardinals to win I believe we can do it!

a famous phrase I hear is "Yes we can"

Well I hope you had a great time in next today, I love hearing you guys that are reading the things I ask you too, Kudos to you Zach Smucker for knowing all the answers.

Well I am going to start cooking things for tonight see you all Wednesday night!

we start our purity series this Wednesday so make sure you are there.

Parents we are having a meeting February 18th. We are going to be having discussions about sexuality with your teens and some different signs to look for. Please mark your calendars. From 7:30 - 8:30.

See ya