I have finished the calendar for the next 3 months. And I hope I have been able post it on here on so you all can see it, and ask questions if need be.

Also Parents On April 15th, we are going to be having another parents meeting. We will be going over the calendar, and also be talking about up coming events in the spring and summer. I am going to be sticking with the 3 month calendar even thought it sort of cuts the summer months by a 3rd, with leaving July and August out of this calendar we are putting out now, but we will be discussing large events coming in July and August during this meeting.

So please if you can make it at 6:30 please do. We will only be there for about 30 minutes. We are having Bethel come in that night and do a promotion night so there will be lots of people here so come and be part of the controlled chaos we call youth group.

If the link does not the calendar on it, then I will be passing calendars out on Wednesday night to the students on Sunday morning to the people who want/need them.

Hope to see you all on April 15th!



P.A.

Mini Vacation

Hey there everyone I know I haven't been updating at all for this weekend, and some of you probably noticed that I wasn't in church. Esther and I took off on Thursday morning for the smoky mountains. We had an amazing trip, and stayed in an amazing Cabin, hiked some awesome trails, ate at some cool places, and now We are in Lexington, Kentucky.

I will start updating Tuesday.

Do not forget that this Wednesday is game night! I promise you, You do not want to miss this night!

See you all this Wednesday!

P.A.

Tonight was Sweet!

I hope you guys all had a good time tonight, and from the stories it sounds like everyone did.

I must say watching the 6th grade guys battle it out with nerf guns, strobelights, and techno music was pretty wicked! Well done small group leaders.

Also it sounded like all the senior high students had a good time tonight some bowling, some going to chili's, some going to B-dubs, and the others going to Ci-Ci's. I really hope everyone had a great time tonight.

Next week we are going to doing an all game night. So make sure you come ready to have tons of fun. We will be doing games for everyone. Some thinking games, some moving around games, some building games, and the final game of the evening a Eating game!

So come ready to just have tons of fun. We want to send you guys into spring break having the time of your life at youth group.

Have a great rest of the week and weekend!

P.A.

Tonight

Small Group Outings are tonight! Do not forget.

So if you are inviting friends make sure they know what you are doing tonight. We can't have people showing up here late and not know whats going on. Please make sure that everyone knows whats going on tonight.

Also remember that you should take lots of pics and videos tonight. If you all get a really funny one we can put it up here on the blogspot for everyone to see, and if its really funny we will show it on a Wednesday night for all to see. So keep that in mind tonight as you go out.

I hope you guys have a great time tonight with your small group outings. I am excited to hear the fun stories when you come back.

Make sure you guys get here on Sunday morning we are going to be going through Chapter 6 of Matthew and talking about all sorts of awesome things. I promise you do not want to miss it.

See you all tonight

P.A.

Tomorrow!

So tomorrow is the day that small group outings are going down! Its gonna be fun hearing all the good stories you are gonna have. Take pics and video if you want and we can put it on here so everyone can see them. Take a really funny video and we will show it on a Wednesday night so even more people can see it :)

I hope you are all having a good week. I know that its been hard for some of ya, but don't worry spring break is right around the corner and then its the home stretch. Seniors you can do it I promise ya. It will be here before you know it.

Just some thoughts for ya'll today as I am working. God has some amazing plans for each and everyone of you. I know that He has given some of you the talents to really make a difference at your school, your job, your home, really everywhere. Step into that calling that God given you. You have the talents, you have the mission field so to speak, now go out there and do it. Live on the edge with God. When you are out there putting yourself out there for everyone to see who you are and who God is in you. That is when He shows up the best.

Jump into God's arms and see where He is going to carry ya. It will be a fun ride I promise. Keep working hard in this Journey. Don't give up. Stand up, thank God, and move forward. Keep working my friends we can do this together.

See you all tomorrow

P.A.

Cool Music Video

This guy is amazing I love listening to his music. He is a pretty funny dude!

P.A.

Small Group Outings

Hey there everyone! This Wednesday is small group outings and you need to make sure you contact your small group leader. Most of you know what you are doing but just make sure everyone knows. Because I don't want people showing up to the church not knowing whats going on for that night! Make sure you contact your small group person. If you are not sure how to contact them Email me @ cvmcadam@verizon.net and I will email you their number!

I hope you all had a great weekend! I am so ubber pumped for Game night NEXT Wednesday. We have got some awesome games. Some old school fun games we are going to be playing and then some new school games that you have never played before. So make sure you invite your friends to come and experience the awesomeness of game night!

We have lots of things coming up and going on so make sure you check on here for all the information you will need.

Events coming up
April 1st - Game night!
April 8th - No Youth Group/ Spring Break
April 15th - Bethel pizza Party!
April 22nd and 29th - Names you wont Recognize in the Bible

That is our April schedules. The new 3 month calendar will be out April 1st for parents to take home and students to take!

Hope You all have a great day!

P.A.

Calling all students!

So there are a couple things that we need to announce one more time!

1. If you want to write something for our first ever Crystal Valley youth Announcement letter do it! Email it to me @ cvmcadam@verizon.net. We only have 2 so far so we need some more to make this happen. I would like to do this every quarter and really let all the people know in our church whats going on in the youth group, and what you all like! So lets make this happen. You need to email it to me by Sunday night if you are going to write something for this letter!

2. Please vote on the poll this time because this poll is very important as the youth team and I keep planning things for the youth group. I want to talk and research things that you guys have questions about, and also things that will help you in your journey with Christ! So go and vote.

3. Please be in prayer for Wednesday nights. We want this night to be a time where it is fun and awesome, but also want to grow us closer to Christ. I feel that we are battling all the time in the spiritual realm. So please be praying for God to move, and for God to lead our nights!

I hope you have an awesome weekend. I also hope to see you all on Sunday.

P.A.

March Madness begins!

So last night most of the small groups filled out their brackets and we are off and running for the small group contest! Its gonna be awesome. I hope that last night you got a chance to really think about where media is in your life. Once again I want to stress that its mostly about content. So even if the band, video game, movie, or internet site isn't deemed as "christian" there are alot of good things that can point to God. Because everything is spiritual! So you have to watch those things that you watch.

Also the other thing that we touched on last is that if you are placing media, and other things before your relationship with Christ. Man there is nothing worth placing in front of that, that is not a trade you want to make. Keep that relationship thriving, and moving forward. Christ wants to talk with you, guide and direct you in all decisions. He wants to bless His children, but sometimes we choose to go a different way that His blessings we can't receive in full.

Lets keep working on this spiritual journey together. We are always praying for you guys! Keep working hard at this battle and please if you guys have any questions about anything we talk about come and ask us. We want to be here to help and to learn with you guys!

Hope to see you all sunday morning!

P.A.

There is a big surpise tonight

So tonight we are going to be introducing something that will continue for about 4 weeks. Its a pretty intense game where there can be money won! Straight up Cash my friends. So come tonight to find out what it is!

Also we are going to be finishing up our media series tonight, and having some good dialogue about how we can take all this media and use it for the glory of God!

I hope everything is going great for you guys this week! We have been praying for you and praying for tonight! Lets come and worship God tonight with everything we have!

P.A.

Youth Group is coming soon!

Tomorrow is a day to celebrate because 1. Its a Wednesday and we have youth group. 2. we are 1 week away from small group outings. and 3. We are only then 3 weeks away from Spring break! Holy cow! Thats awesome. So tomorrow is a day to celebrate!

Tomorrow we are going to be talking about video games and music and I am super pumped to see what you guys are thinking about video games and music. We are going having another discussion and seeing what you guys think about all these things. I love having you guys talk and discuss things. So tomorrow we are going to be talking again so hope you can come and join us.

See you all tomorrow everyone!

P.A.

PS - If you want to help out with the 1st ever youth group paper then you need to bring your articles tomorrow so we can proof them and get them all laid out! If you want to email me your article which is actually preferred, email it to cvmcadam@verizon.net

Its a brand new week!

Hey there everyone! I hope you are all having an awesome day. Man this weekend was packed with tons of fun, and work, but now its time to start concentrating on Wednesday night.

I can't wait to see everyone again as we wrap up our Media series. I hope you guys have started realizing how much media we take in all the time. Its all about balance and content. We can't run away from media obviously because media in a lot of ways helps us live more productive lives, but it can also take away from our families, friends, and most importantly our time with God.

This week we are going to be talking about Video games and music. These 2 topics I believe will be the ones where we have lots of discussion on. I think mainly for the guys it would be video games, and for the girls music. There are always those girls who like video games and the guys who are totally into music I understand, but as a generality I think that my presumption is correct.

I think this Wednesday will shed some light on some really cool things about music, and about video games. I am really pumped to hear what you guys think of some of the questions we are going to discuss this Wednesday!

So from 6:30 - 8:30 plan on being here at the church for some great hang out time with some worship, games, and some fun discussion on video games and music.

Also Parents next week are the small group outings so please make sure you talk with your students to know where they are going. I know that students might need some money, and some will be going off campus so please make sure that you talk with your students.

Hope to see you all Wednesday night!

P.A.

Rob Bell

Watch this video and let me know what you think about it?

This was an interesting little video.

P.A.

Christ invading hearts!

I am sitting here in Panera reading, and thinking. I loved seeing lots of you at lunch today. I hope to start coming over there more and seeing ya. It's been pretty busy lately, but now I think that has passed a little bit so I can make it over there over lunches sometimes.

So I am reading this book called simply Christian and I have read it before but it has just an amazing way to convey the amazingness of Christianity. One thing that I am picking up from this book now 2 years later is that Christ wants/does/desires to resonate in the same space as us. Meaning that everything we are Christ is the same. Everything we choose to do we choose to do for Christ. When we work out we claim that workout for Christ. When we talk to people we share the love the Christ has for us to them.

In the high school today I saw so many students there that just need love. I heard students swearing left and right, talking about sex, making out. It seems pretty scary, but if we claim Christ is in the same space we are, then we can do anything! "I can do all things in Christ"
In Phillipians 2:2 it states that " one in Spirit" Christ will be with us if we choose to let Him be.

We have to understand this when Christ has dropped us in the biggest ministry pool ever! Each and everyone of us has so many opportunities to choose life and not death. Not to laugh at that joke, not to take part in something that you isn't honoring God. I encourage all of you students who claim Crystal Valley as your youth group to take a stand become true Christian warriors! Take over this life that God has blessed you with. When our story and Christ story combine! It is an amazing experience. I hope that experience then will turn into a lifestyle for us!

P.A.

Feed the Children

This is a video I worked on today. This was a great event!




P.A.

Becoming a community

Last night was really fun! I love watching people play Chicken on the roof it was so funny! And Scattagories was awesome well done Senior High girls for dominating.

I am glad that this month we are getting to talk about media and I get to hear what you guys are thinking and hear what you guys think. I think so many of you have just amazing minds, that think very clearly!

To hit a little bit deeper from what we were talking about last night. Please make sure that you can start striking a balance between online relationships with your friends, and face to face relationships. There is a great example of community in the Bible in Acts Chapter 2. Read that and look at how they did church way back then.

Also your small groups are small families help each other out, call each other, and talk with one another about life. You guys have an amazing opportunity to grow these relationships sometimes for years. I was telling the 8th graders last night, that if they commit to this family they will go through so much together. That they will have a plethora of stories to tell at graduation!

Can't wait to see you guys on Sunday!

P.A.

Welcome to the Inter-web

Tonight we are going to diving into the Inter-web. We are going to be discussing facebook, myspace, twitter, and much more tonight. I promise you will not want to miss all the things we are going to talk about tonight.

We are going to do what we did last week where we are discussing the issue not just me talking, so come ready tonight to talk and make some more decisions. Also I put a video on here of something that is just hilarious. So I hope you enjoy it.

Can't wait to see you all tonight!



P.A.

Feed the Children

So today we got the privileged of having a Semi of food dropped off at the church and we had like 300 some off families come through and get food. Mostly people who are un-employed or who have fallen on hard times. It was great to talk with people, and hear their story. It always was really cool because we had people from another church come over and help out. It was so cool to see an Assembly of God church and a missionary church working together to help out people in need.

I love seeing Christians come together with a common goal! Wouldn't it be amazing if all churches came together like this to promote the love of Christ. I loved seeing people smiling and helping other people while they smile. We got to help so many good families that have just had some bad breaks. It was so cool to see a huge semi pull up with it packed with food, and knowing that all this food will be gone and given to families in need.

I am tired and my feet hurt and I have so much to do before tomorrows youth group, but I got spend time loving on people who might not have gotten loved on. I got to spend like an hour talking about his kids who are having a rough time, and I got to pray with the lady from mancinos because she was struggling with stuff. We got to be a light today, and I hope and pray that our youth group can start doing these same things at school, and at home. Be in prayer for people in this area because things are hard for some people, and if you have a job and your parents have job be very thankful.

Hope to see you all tomorrow as we get to talk about media and the internet. I think its going to be a really fun topic to discuss.

P.A.

Don't have much time to update today, but we hope to see you all Wednesday night!

We are going to be talking about the internet, so we again will be having a dialogue again. Hope you are all having an amazing day!



Take some time to watch this video again and get some good prayer time in!

P.A.

Some thoughts as I read.....

So I have been at lances house tonight with Esther helping a brother out so he can go out and be with some family. So I am sitting here reading from a book I read in college called "conformed in His image" its a pretty dry read but has some really cool things in there that kind of sparked my interest.

I was reading that they have seen the most growth in people when they are around like minded people. They go on to say that you are able to have good conversation leading to change in each other lives, and they say you feel respected while also feeling a renewal and passionate about things.

Wouldn't it be amazing to see a youth group come together and love on one another and love hanging out and to challenge each other to live better lives by the way they were living their own.
Wouldn't it be amazing for a church to come together and just worship God, and hear from God. I think sometimes we come together on Sunday and we are so happy to see people we haven't seen in a week, and we kind of think that the service gets in the way of a social hour. I had breakfast this morning with some awesome people, and it was so fun to hang out with them a couple days out of the week not just Sunday. Now tomorrow when I see those people we are there as co-worshipers, not ohh man long time no see how are things going. We already know whats going on, we can stick to man how can I pray for you. Lets listen and get something out of today's message instead of during the sermon make lunch plans.

I think being the church is so much better then doing church!

I would love that for our youth group too! Man lets hang out outside of Wednesday night so when we come on a Wednesday night we can worship together, learn from God together, and get energized for the fight we are enduring!

Just some thoughts as I sit and read.

P.A.

Some Q and A

I forgot to let ya know tomorrow the last like 15 mins I am going to open up for some Q and A. So tonight if you have some questions that you want to ask, write them down and bring them tomorrow morning.

If I do not know them I will look them up and we can talk about it next week! So I hope you guys take advantage of this time.

See you tomorrow!

P.A.

1 less hour of sleep.....Blah

So tonight is the night where we lose an hour of sleep and I think it stinks. I hate when we lose sleep, and day lights savings time is stupid! Blahghhhhh

Ohh well :)

So tomorrow morning we are going to be looking at Jesus teaching styles and seeing how we can learn from our wrong answers and correct answers! I know that sounds weird you will just have to come tomorrow morning so we can talk about it more. I love how when we get to study about Jesus in the Gospels we just continue to learn and God pours out more knowledge and love for us.

So I encourage you to wake up a little bit earlier tomorrow and join us for a discussion on Jesus tomorrow morning. Hopefully we can learn somethings from each other.

This Wednesday we are going to be talking about the internet and how the internet can suck up so much time, and energy or can be an amazing tool for us to learn more about God. Come on Wednesday for youth group so we can have another really fun discussion on media.

Hope to see ya tomorrow. Don't forget to set your clocks forward before you go to sleep tonight!

P.A.

Thoughts on a Amazing Friday!

Hey there everyone! I am so pumped for this weather! This is awesome. Anyways....

Today I have been getting a chance to talk with a bunch of people and plan for lots of things and its awesome, but there is a resounding tone in everyone's voice. Depressed. Everyone I talk to is like depressed because everyone is down about the economy and losing jobs. I was at the bowling alley last night and even though people were having a good time there was an under tone of sadness because many people there have been laid off for many months. They use bowling as an out for their sadness. I talked a couple people there that don't have any hope.

I feel for these people because they are so sad and out, but I know that even through the hardest times in our lives we can fall back on God and that is so amazing. Now I know that sounds like the stupidest and the worst thing to say to people that are losing their jobs, but I also know that sometimes when things seem their worst. That is when God shows up. Look at David's life, when things seemed to be so down and people were coming to kill him, God showed up in a mighty way. When He should have been weeping and mourning, He praised God, and people thought he was insane. I think that in these times we need to rise up and praise God even for the little things. We need to come together as a true Christian community and hold each other up.

During these hard times we need to come together and pray for God to show up in mighty ways. Why not instead of going out to the movies one night we invite our friends over and we hang out and play games, and we end the night in prayer. Just asking God to move in our lives. I believe that the crystal valley youth group can do this. I believe that we can start setting the culture in middlebury, and in the surrounding towns. That we can say even thought everything around us seems horrible, and people might be in a depression. I do not care. I will praise my God, I will love my God, and I will give Him my all.

I hope to see you guys this Sunday, We are going to be talking about Jesus life some more and learning more and more about the man we serve!

P.A.

Thank you!

Thank you everyone for your cards, and your really funny messages! I really appreciate them alot. You guys mean the world to me, and I love getting to hang out and talk with you guys, and help navigate your way through this spiritual journey. I am honored to be the youth pastor at Crystal Valley.

I hope you guys are thinking about what media you are watching and taking in. If you want to do a little experiment do this. Take a piece of paper with you when you watch a movie or TV, and every time they mention sex, lying, drinking, making fun of someone, and murder. Put a check mark down, then whenever they mention Jesus, God, Or religion mark it down. Its amazing to see how much stuff is put into our brain.

Please remember to slow down and pay attention to what you are taking in. God has an awesome plan for media and how to use. Lets use it to glorify Christ, not embarrass Him!

Can't wait to see ya Sunday!

P.A.

Hey there everyone! I hope everything is going awesome for ya'll.

Just a little reminder that we have normal youth group tonight from 6:30 - 8:30! I hope everyone can join us. We are going to be dialoguing about media tonight. I dont have a lot to teach but I have a lot of questions for you guys to think over. I am really excited to see alot of you tonight. I love coming together as a family and worshiping, playing games together, and chatting! Hope to see you all tonight!

Parents be looking for a blog on things to help with media, different media guides online to help you filter through all the junk that is out there.

Also keep up with my twitter on the blog! Also read some of the blogs that I am reading, all of them are really good.

See you tonight!

P.A.

So I have now joined the amazing Twitter next work.

My twitter name is AdamSharp5 look me up. Hopefully I can set up to work on blogger!

Some more media fun stuff :)

So as I am thinking and praying about this Wednesday some questions have risen up and so I want to hear what you have to say. So if you want to comment, Comment, if you want to just think about it thats cool too. My motive behind these questions is to make everyone start to think about these questions.

1. Does the media portray a optimistic view point of the world or a pessimistic?
2. How does the media portray success?
3. Do you believe the media portrays people being able to control their destiny?
4. What do you believe are they values media presents?

These are some questions we are going to try to answer through this series this month. I hope you all come ready to talk and discuss these things. I believe that our students are going to come up with some amazing points, and I am so excited to get to talk about these things on Wednesday night.

See ya then

P.A.

work out

So tonight as I was working out I was lifting weights in one part of the gym and I hear this guy laughing.....Loudly..... so I kept working out and he kept laughing louder and louder. So then I was like what is this guy laughing at. So as I was kinda watching him and waiting for him to leave so I could turn on his TV to see what he was laughing at. So finally he got up from the bike he was kinda pedaling, he was mostly just watching TV and laughing, so I snuck over there and turned on the TV and to my amazement he was watching the cartoon network. I almost died laughing because this guy was like 250 lbs and just a really large dude, not a guy that you would think would be watching cartoon network!

I just thought I should share this with you guys :)

P.A.

To all my homies

Hey there everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. I know I did.

This next series we are doing is going to be a fun but yet hard one for all of us I think. Because we are going to be talking about Media. I love watching TV, I love playing video games, I love the internet.

None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but they can pose a serious threat to what gets number 1 in our lives. I know that when I need to unwind I go straight to the TV, I know when I get stressed I go straight for video games, when I am upset I got to the internet to just blow something up in a game or something. We are going to be looking at striking a balance in this media crazy world.

This month is going to be more discussion oriented so for the next month I am going to be posting questions up on the blog and I would like people to answer them, and then we will talk about the answers on Wednesday nights. So be checking everyday for some new questions or some fun facts about media.

So for this week we are going to be discussing TV. So some questions I have are:
1. How much TV do you watch either on the internet, actually TV, Box sets of old past seasons of things? How much time do you spend a week watching those thing?
2. What do you watch? Do you have shows you can't miss (e.g. The office, House, ER, ect...)
3. Do you think TV can influence your thinking or is that all bunk?

Let me know what you all think., parents you can answer too. Again this is just a discussion I want to know what you guys think!

P.A.