Happy Friday!

Hey everyone! I hope you are all having an amazing Friday. Today I am in my office because I was gone at the beginning of the week. So as many of you guys know Esther and I are moving some where here in Middlebury, because the house we were staying at was sold! Its a good thing, because the people we were renting from needed to sell it because they need to move into a house :) So its a good/great thing.

So this got me thinking. This coming May we are going to be diving into a series called Practical Atheism and the first topic we are going to tackle is prayer. Well as I am studying for this series, God drops a massive bomb on our plans with making us move. Well Esther and I are applying for a loan and looking at houses, and its a huge undertaking. But it has forced me to my knees, and honestly its a little weird. Mainly because for me I try to do things on my own and if things are getting to overwhelming for me then I will pray. But God is teaching me something very hard, and that is taking my prayers and praying with power and confidence that my God will come through.

For example, Esther and I have no idea how much we are going to be getting for a loan, but we do know that God has placed it on our hearts to use our house a refuge for students, so we know we need to be looking at houses with a little bit more space so we can house people and cook for them. So we are praying with confidence that God will provide a house, and provide a way for us to pay for it.

Its a really weird feeling with taking everything off of my shoulders and placing it at the foot of the Throne. I understand that God wants us to do that, I have even preached on this same topic before, but when you are thrust into the middle of a situation like this, its a lot more real then just thinking of when this happens we will spring into Spiritual pastor and wife team and fall to our knees and pray. When we are forced to our knees by our situation around us, it feels uneasy but in a weird way so safe because I know that God is working and I am excited for that!

So in loo of that I wish you a happy friday, and take some time this weekend to fall to your knee's and pray to the One who is working on your behalf!

P.A.

Francis Chan on the Middle Road

We are starting a new series in May where we are going to be talking about this very thing, of accumulating knowledge only, and not doing anything about our faith!

These next 4 weeks are going to be intense. Come ready to learn, change, and leave empowered to change the world with and for Jesus Christ!

P.A.

Back from a mini vacation

Hey there everyone! I am excited to be back from vacation I got to spend a couple days away with my old college roommate. Great times playing golf, catching up, talking about houses, and a bunch of craziness. It was a great time to get away and just rest a for 2 days.

Well last night I heard was awesome. Mark Metcalfe was bringing it home with the media series. Wrapping it up with music and what types of music we should be putting into our brains! I heard the very end of the message and it was just stinking awesome. That man has a major calling on his life to work with students, and to be a part of their lives, He is a great man of God!

We are getting ready to start a new series this may called "Pratical Atheist" we are going to be talking issues such as Prayer, talking about our story with God, and Our Actions. We are have some really cool things we are going to be talking about. So please try to commit to the next 4 weeks because its going to be really really awesome!

I am going to be making an announcement about this upcoming summer and somethings I am planning on doing for this summer, so next week show up to hear about what this summer holds for all of us!

Hope to see you next Wednesday night!

Here is a promo for our upcoming series!


P.A.

Television and God

Hey there everyone I hope you all had a good night last night at youth group, I had a blast watching everyone try to dodge the rolling balls, and then the dice game was really fun, watching people run in circles was hilarious! Great time last night.

I really enjoyed the time where we just took time to be still with God, I hope you guys enjoyed that as much as I did, because slowing down and just being with God is sometimes the best thing we can do. So at least for 15 mins last night you guys got to slow down, read your bible, and just be with God! That is awesome.

So last night I said I was going to blog about one of my new favorite shows called "undercover boss". Its a fantastic show where a CEO, or COO goes undercover and works with the common worker in their massive company. Its great they have to go from wearing suits everyday and they have to put the uniform on and get down dirty. They learn things about the company that isn't working, and they also learn some things they might not want to learn. Mainly people are unhappy sometimes with what the higher ups are doing, but mostly everyone they have showed loves their job and works hard at it. The best part about the show is when the CEO or COO reveals who they really are to the workers, and they normally reveal something they are going to change because of how hard they work. Its pretty cool.

So it got me thinking about Christ. What if Christ came down and worked with you, went to school with you, and you had no idea that was Christ. Then a month later Christ sits you down and reveals this is who He really is. What would He find in your life? Would He be proud of you for working hard for Him or would he be really sad because you aren't working that hard for Him?

In Phil 2:5 it talks about how Jesus Christ came down and lived with us, and died. He was the original undercover boss. He knows what it is like to hurt, to lose someone, to be frustrated with a friend. He understands all of that. So I hope you take some time to read Phil 2:5 today, and that you remember that Jesus said "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." Remember that when you work hard and help others out you are doing it for Christ.

Have a great day!

P.A.

Youth Group Tonight!

Hey there everyone, I hope you are all having an amazing day, and I hope that we can see you all tonight at youth group. We have some really really fun things planned for tonight and we have some really cool things planned for Worship. So I really hope that you can make it tonight. I know that a lot of you have school practices, and soccer, and baseball, and who knows what else, so I hope that you can get some time for God in your schedule at some point tonight.

Let me remind you of what we talked about last week, when we said that we know more about movies then we do the bible, make sure you are taking to get to know God on a personal level not just a Wednesday and Sunday level. I understand that you all want to be in a ton of different things, and that is cool, but don't sacrifice knowing God for being able to hit a fastball better! I promise you its not worth it.

We do hope to see you tonight!

P.A.

Wow, Long week

Hey there everyone! I hope things are going well for ya, sorry that this post is pretty late. I am extremely busy today so I will just give you the run down on what is cracking for this Wednesday night!

We are going to continue our In Rhythm series where we are trying to get in Rhythm with God through our media intake. So last week we talked about movies and how we know way more about movies then we do God, and how as a Christian our goal is to get as close to God as possible, and when we don't know anything about Him how can we get closer to God?

This week we are going to explore Television, what we can learn from Television, how can we see God in our weekly TV shows, and can watching to much TV be harmful not just to our social life but our spiritual life as well.

We got some pretty amazing games planned for this week, and also some time with God in a different type of worship this week. So come ready to know God more, and discuss the topic of TV.

Can't wait to see ya on Wednesday night!

P.A.

Media and Jesus

Hey there everyone I hope you all had an amazing night last night, We had some fun watching people do circles with Eggs on their forheads, and then trying to keep feathers floating, and then putting together massive numbers!

It was a blast last night with you guys.

I hope thought you guys had an awakening about how much movie knowledge we have and how little bible knowledge we have. Now I understand that having only Bible knowledge isn't the entire goal of being a follower of Jesus Christ, but the goal is to see how close we can get to Jesus, and part of that is knowing about the Bible.

So I hope you take up the challenge of when you watch a movie that you would put the 10 commandments on your right leg and a piece of paper on your left leg, and when you watch the movie that you would keep track of how many of the commandments the movie breaks. Then that should help you decide what movies are good to watch.

Hope to see you next week when we discuss T.V.

It will be an interesting time I promise :)

P.A.

Notes from tonight

Hey there everyone I'm sorry I couldn't get all the way through with the message tonight we just ran out of time so here are some more things I wanted to say about Movies tonight.

1. If we claim to be following Jesus, and the goal of of being a follower of Jesus is to get as close to Jesus as possible, then we need to have Phil 3:17 as a life verse and it says

"Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ."

I don't want for students in our youth group to be enemies of the Cross and not even know it.

Here are somethings to remember when watching movies:

1. Pray - You have to pray before you watch movies because you don't want any philosophies or language to deceive you.
2. Weigh the good and the bad - Be prepared to sort through the information that you have just watched. Put your thinking cap on when watching because you don't want to allow yourself to just take in whatever!
3. Go deeper with the Characters - Are there characters that you can relate with? Ask yourself why do I relate with that person? What would you do in their shoes?
4. Discuss it - You need to discuss movies after you watch them. Meaning, try not to watch movies that are pointless. Talk with your friends about what you just watched. Go further then just, I liked it, I didn't like it. Ask questions like, Did I see God in that movie? Did I see the salvation story in that movie?


I hope tonight we got you thinking about movies, especially when more of you could quote movie lines then actual scripture. I hope you guys learned something tonight!

Hope to see you next week.

P.A.

Wednesday night = Most fun night of the week

Hey there everyone! I hope you are all having an amazing day.

Tonight we have youth group from 6:30 - 8:30pm, just like normal. I know we have been off for a little bit now, but we are picking back up tonight and getting ready to rock and roll.

We are going to be starting a new series tonight called "In Rhythm" We are going to talking about getting back in Rhythm with Christ with our Media because I think a lot of us are out of Rhythm with that in our lives so tonight we are going to be talking about all of that fun stuff :)

Can't wait to see ya tonight. I hope you can make it tonight!

P.A.

Movies and Jesus

Hey there everyone I hope you are all having a super awesome day! I know my day is going to rock because I have a lot of fun things I get to do at the church to with preparing stuff for tomorrow!

So just a little reminder we have normal youth group tomorrow 6:30 - 8:30, and we have some sweet games we are going to be playing, and Worship is gonna rock something awesome! Also tomorrow night we are going to be starting a new series called "In Rhythm" and we are going to be getting back in rhythm with God with our media intake.

So this issue is massive for your generation because you guys don't know what its like not to be able to instantly watch a movie, or see whatever you want on the computer. There is so much stuff to talk about with this, so tomorrow come ready to discuss different movies, and there is a massive challenge at the end of this series. I hope you are ready.

Can't wait to see ya'll tomorrow!

P.A.

A long lay off

Hey there everyone! I am excited to be back blogging after a week of being gone, and doing some other things, it was a good little break but we are back in the saddle and getting ready to finish out this school with a bang! We have some amazing trips planned for the youth group but we will be talking about all of those things this coming Wednesday so I hope you can make it out!

So this Wednesday we are beginning a series on Media, and its going to be stinking awesome mainly because we get to have a lot of fun dialogue around this issue. So be prepared to give some answers of why you watch certain things. So this coming Wednesday we are going to be talking about Movies, so come this Wednesday with your favorite movie in mind, because we are going to be talking about why they are our favorites, and some really cool things we can do with movies.

We are hoping to get in rhythm with God, by using Media to our advantage and not to detour us from what God has for us in our lives. I hope that we see you here this Wednesday night at 6:30!

Talk with you then!

P.A.

Haven't updated over Spring Break

Hey there everyone, Sorry I haven't updated in a long time, but over Spring Break I have kept myself pretty busy and now I am on vacation. But I was listening to this song, and I hope you guys can take some time to listen to this today and have some good prayer time today!

We will be back by Saturday night, because I am speaking on Sunday morning at cvmc so if you want to hear a pretty good talk :) come on Sunday morning at 9:00am or 10:45. It will be fun :)

I will be back to blogging daily this coming Monday.

Hope you had a great break.

The ham hangover

Man I don't know if I can handle another piece of ham in my belly. Over the past 2 days I have consumed a mass amount of ham or ham products. But it was delicious!

So I hope yesterday was a great day for everyone, I know I had a great day with my church family, and then my Parents and brother. We devoured ham and deviled eggs....So Good.

Alright so this week is Spring Break and we aren't having youth group, because a ton of you are gone this week, and this gives us some time to just go and hang out this week. So if you are in town the next couple days text me and see if we can hang out and do somethings. I am hoping to watch the national championship tonight so if you want to possibly come over text me and see if we can do that. Again I have another plan in the works but it might fall through so text me ya'll :)

I hope you all have an amazing day!

Here is our new series we are going to be starting in April.

Series Opener: "In Rhythm" from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

A cool little video for you.

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

Missed a day

Hey there everyone sorry that I didn't post yesterday. We were crazy busy with getting things ready for the worship night, and then I had a couple meetings, and emails and phone calls and updating the blog got further and further down on my list. So I am giving you another special Friday update :)

So anyways On Wednesday night we had our small group outings, and they were awesome! All of the guys went to Cici's Pizza and we dominated their buffet. Honestly and I am not kidding about this they had to turn people away because they couldn't keep up with the pizza we were consuming it was awesome. We had one guy eat 11 plates of food! Intense! But we all had a good time and then afterward we came back here and had a game of Ninja, it was awesome. So over all we had a great night.

So just a little reminder for all of those who aren't going anywhere on Spring Break. We don't have youth group this coming week, but I will be around here until Wednesday so call me up if you want to hang out, If I am available I would love to hang out with ya!

Hope you all have an amazing Easter and Spring break! Hope to see you guys here this Sunday to celebrate Jesus conquering death.

See ya later!

P.A.