Big Chill debriefing, purity ceremony, and Junior High NEXT class

We have lots of things going on this week, and we have had an amazingly busy February! Wow.

First off, today I am heading up to Kalamazoo to meet with the other 2 youth pastors that went with us to Big Chill we are going to be debriefing today about how it went and what we can do better for next year, we are super pumped on how it went this year! I am pretty excited about this meeting.

Also I know I have filled the blog these past couple days with our purity ceremony, but I believe in this event, and I believe that God is going to do some amazing things at this event. So 1 last time, here are the details for tomorrow.

Where: Crystal Valley Missionary Church.
Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
What to bring: A dessert to share.
What to Expect: Fun games, Great worship, a Challenging message, and time with your son or daughter to pray, encourage, challenge, and have a lasting memory of something really special with your family.
What not to bring: Small Children, there is no childcare for this event. I am sorry, leave them at home with a babysitter.

And last but not least, this coming Sunday we are going to be kicking off our Junior High Next class again, so Junior High students this coming Sunday during 1st service its on!

We hope to see you there!

P.A.

Purity Ceremony this Wednesday

Hey there everyone, welcome to another week where God can do some amazing things in you and through you! Take advantage of all those opportunities that God offers you this week to make a difference in someone's life!

This coming Wednesday night is our 6th annual purity ceremony. These ceremonies can be a great tool to talk with your students about sexuality, and I promise that this night could change the trajectory of your students sexual path.

We are asking all parents of teens to be a part of this night, not because we want to fill the place with people but we want to give every parent an opportunity to talk honestly and openly to their student, and for the students to hear wisdom from scripture and others who have walked before them. We want to help them understand the traps that the enemy sets for them, and how we can avoid those snares and start changing this generations very ugly sexual habits.

Here are the details for the nights.

We start at 6:30pm, at Crystal Valley. We are asking everyone to bring a dessert to share. We are also encouraging parents to get a purity ring, necklace, or something of significance for their student. Now for those who have already for them something in past ceremonies, this is a great time talk again about what that ring means, or what it means to remain pure. Now this is not mandatory by any means, the biggest part of the night is having the parents there to talk and pray with their student.

If you have any questions please email me at cvmcadam@gmail.com. I would love to answer any questions you have!

Hope you have a great day, and I hope that we see you on Wednesday night.

P.A.

Friday's Video

Hey there everyone, I am super busy tomorrow and I won't be able to post anything so here is a video a day early. It's a pretty awesome video, list to the words, and I honestly believe this message is extremely accurate with so many people today! Check it out.

Refuge Recap

Hey there everyone! I hope your week is going well.

All I know is that I woke up this morning to Facebook blowing up about no School for Northridge! I say well done fog, no school is awesome!

Here is a little recap from last night:

We did a Q and A time with our High school students last night. They texted in questions they had for our panel of leaders who did a great job last night. Here are some of the questions that got asked.

- What is a good boundary for high school students?
- What do you say to a friend who was sexually abused?
- Is sex good?
- Why should we wait?
- Is purity not just having sex?
- What should I do if I want to break up with my boyfriend?
- How do you know if you have found Mr. Right?

There were about 30 other questions that we didn't get to. It was a great night!

Our Junior High students went down to the other end of the building and their small group leaders talked about temptation, and then had a great time having the students ask each other questions. It was a fantastic night.

Next week is our Purity Ceremony, We are inviting all the students and their parent's to join at 6:30 - 8:30 for a time of games, worship, and a time for the parents and students to pray with one another and for the parents to give their student a purity ring, necklace, or something that would symbolize a purity commitment. We are super excited for next weeks purity ceremony.

If you have any questions please contact me at cvmcadam@gmail.com.

We are asking that if you come please bring a dessert to share with others!

Thanks! Have a great day!

P.A.

Refuge tonight!

Hey there everyone, I hope things are going well for you all! Here is the plan for tonights REFUGE!

Senior High - We are doing our text in your relationship questions tonight. This is a great night to be a part of, We are so pumped to have a great panel that will be there tonight to answer questions. We hope to see you here tonight High school students, start thinking of some questions you will want answered tonight.

Junior High - We are going to having our own Fred Keiper talking with you guys tonight. The other leaders will be helping out and putting on an awesome time together for your talk tonight! You guys are in for a real treat tonight.

Also the cafe is fully stocked with Gatorade, Starbucks, and some goodies! So bring some money because this goodness is only around for a little bit!

We are super pumped for tonight, so we hope to see you tonight at 6:30pm at Crystal Valley! We will be done right at 8:30pm.

Hope to see you then!

P.A.

Being overwhelemed

Hey there everyone, I hope your Tuesday is fun and exciting. I know my Tuesday will be filled with getting tomorrow night all set up and getting things ready for Pancakes and prayer.

Pancakes and Prayer 8am at Esther and I's house. 14075 Claire Lane! Hope you can make it.

Just going to through this out there, I am not sure who this is for but I just want you to know that God is with you. Even though you might feel overwhelmed at this point in time, God is with you.

God wants to strengthen you through this trial, and through this pain. The question you have to ask yourself is, are you using this as an opposition or an opportunity? God takes us through some weird things, but I have faith that God is in control and that there is nothing that He can't do.

Last night Esther and I got to play worship for like an hour and half and we got to a part of a song where it says "nothing is impossible for you, Nothing is Impossible" it just resonated within the depths of my soul, and I wanted to pass that on to you today.

Nothing is impossible, the situation you might be going through might seem like it will never end, like it will take everything you got, but understand that God is with you all the way, and that God can still do some amazing things through you!

Desire, ask, believe.

Be blessed today!

P.A.

Monday Monday

Hey there everyone, I hope things are going well for you on this glorious Monday. Here are a couple things you need to be aware of for this coming week.

1. Pancakes and Prayer - This Wednesday morning from 8:00am - 8:40am. At the Sharps house 14075 Claire lane. We do this once a month where we get all the students who want to wake up a little bit early and come over to Esther and I's house and we cook pancakes and we pray for one another. It's a great way to start off a day, and it creates some great memories. We are super pumped for the students to come over to our house. We hope to see a ton of students there this coming Wednesday morning!

2. Wednesday night! - This coming Wednesday night is our High school relationship Q & A. We take our Junior High students and we take them to other end of the building and they have their own talk and small group time. And we have a time for our High school students to text in and Relationship Questions they have anonymously. It's a great way for students to ask questions they have always wanted to ask but might be to embarrassed to do so.

This is a great night to invite your friends to that might have questions, and its a great talk to bring your significant other to! I promise this will create a lot of conversation between the 2 of you.

So this Wednesday night we are calling all High school students to REFUGE at 6:30pm. We will have night filled with great games, awesome worship, and then we will get into the questions. We hope to see a lot of students here Wednesday night!

3. Movie Night is being moved from Friday Night to Saturday Night! We are going to be watching a oldie but a goodie! We are going to be breaking out CARS! Great movie for friends to come and hang out at our house, 14075 Claire Lane. We will provide popcorn, but you need to bring your own drinks. Movie night starts at 8pm, and it will be done at 10pm. We are moving it because of the Comedy Dinner night!

We have a really busy week ahead of us but we are super pumped to be having a lot going on so students can get involved.

If you have any questions please email at cvmcadam@gmail.com

P.A.

Purity Ceremony

Hey there everyone, yesterday I told you guys we were going to be dedicating this entire post to the purity ceremony.

Our goal with this purity ceremony is to give parents and students time to talk about some sensitive area's in a teenagers life. Sexuality and dating sometimes never get talked about because a parent might be embarrassed or the students just don't want to talk. With our purity ceremony we start breaking down walls right away. The entire school year we do Refuge in the same format, so when the students have been coming for awhile they get into that routine, it can become a comfort when they know something different is going on, like their parents are sitting next to them. We also play games this night, we do a lot of funny games where students are going up against their parents. It's a lot of fun! Then we have our regular youth worship team lead worship for the parents and the students, again this is all normal practice for the student who comes to our Refuge.

We then will have a speaker come in that isn't preaching at our students but its a time to dialogue with our students about dating and choosing to remain pure. Then we give time at the end of the night for parents and students to come together as a family to pray with one another, and for the fathers and mothers to encourage their students. This is one of my favorite times of the year because we see families all around our sanctuary praying together, and some for the first time praying out loud as a family.

So here is what we are asking of parents.

Join us February 29th, from 6:30pm - 8:30pm. Bring a dessert to share with everyone, and if you want to bring something you want to give to your students. Whether that is a purity ring that you can present to your student, or maybe a necklace, or maybe their own bible with their name on it. Make it meaningful for your student.

We are going to be giving the parents time at the end of our program that night to pull their families close and have those intimate talks that sometimes might be difficult to have.

This entire month we have been discussing dating, and purity so our students know this night is coming and a lot of them are really excited for it, but this night will only work well if the parents come behind the students and support them.

If you have any questions please email me at cvmcadam@gmail.com

Hope to see you there.

P.A.

Junior high Madness!

Hey there everyone, sorry I didn't get to update yesterday, but I am just super busy. Hope things are going well with you. Here are a couple big events coming up!

1. Next Wednesday morning we are going to be having our Pancakes and Prayer time, 8am at Esther and I's house. If you need directions email me at cvmcadam@gmail.com and I can give those to ya. It's a great way to start your day out. Hope to see you next week!

2. Movie night at our house on February 24th! 8pm - 10pm. We are going to be showing a great movie. The Movie we are going to be showing is: Cars! Hilarious movie, and its just a good way to spend a Friday night resting and hanging out with friends.

3. On February 29th, we are having our 6th annual Purity Ceremony. This night is going to be a great night where students and parents come together and hang out, worship, play games, and be challenged to live more deliberate lives when dealing with purity. I am going to dedicates tomorrow's blog to this event. We will be sending emails soon giving you all the details.

I hope you all have a great day.

P.A.

Senior High Canceled tomorrow night

Hey there everyone a couple things you need to be aware of for tomorrow nights Refuge.

1. Northridge is having a guys volleyball tourney. So instead of having only a couple of high school students show up we are sending our high school over to the tourney! It cost some money to get in, so make sure you bring a couple bucks to get in and cheer on some of our own REFUGE students.

2. That means we are having a Junior High only night! Which means we are going to have a ton of fun, so don't miss out on all the awesomeness we are going to have. We have some sweet games ready to be played, and some great worship. We are going to be doing a Junior High relationship Q & A with our leaders. Junior High students this is the night that you need to bring all of your friends to.

We are so stinking pumped for tomorrow night so Junior High students this is your night to get crazy! Get your friends to join you at REFUGE tomorrow night.

Hope to see you tomorrow night.

P.A.

Big Chill session 3

Hey there everyone, Good morning from the wintry wonderland that is Big Chill. Yesterday was so stinking awesome, I don't even know where to begin.

1 - our students participated in a game that was called Decision disaster, and it was great! One of our teams from CVMC got 1st place, and 3rd place. They did an amazing job. So when you students get home ask them how did they like decision disaster.

2 - Most of our students played a game called Reball. Reball is like paintball, except that you don't get messy from paint. They are little soft rubber balls that you shoot at people. It's a 4 on 4 game and its pretty stinking amazing. So when your students get home today ask them if they played reball and if they liked it at all. I know for some students this was the most fun game they have played.

3 - Last night for me was the highlight of the trip because our speaker brought it home with is God just living inside of you or are you showing Christ to others through your action and word? That hit home with our students. Many students went down to the alter last night to pray, and many more pulled leaders aside to pray with them individually. It was a fantastic night of change for some of our students. Here are some questions to ask your student when they get home.

- 1. How did you like the warrior song that they sang on Saturday night?
- 2. What stuck out to you in the last session?
- 3. Are there ways that you can show people Jesus instead of just keeping Christ to yourself?
- 4. What did you think of all the students down at the alter on Saturday night?
- 5. What ways can we help you as your parents to keep moving more and more towards Christ?

Tonight we will be home around 8pm, we will have the students call you when we are about 30 minutes out from Sugar Grove, We will be stopping for dinner on the way home tonight so that is where we are going to make up time, or lose time. I will be updating on my facebook page, and so will doug edlund. We will try to update as much as we can remember, but we are also very tired from this past couple days.

Please take a moment to thank you sons or daughters small group leader, they have been so amazing these past couple days! These adults give up a weekend to spend with your kids and love on them to no end. They are an amazing bunch of small group leaders and they need to be recognized for their servants heart.

We will see you in about 12 hours :)

P.A.

Big Chill Session 2

Hey there everyone, greetings from a snowy Mears, MI. It has been snowing nonstop up here which is fantastic, because now everything is open and ready for us. Broomball, tubing hill, and snow football!

Here are some of the details from the first session.

- our speakers name is Tom Thelen, He brought the house down this morning with his story and how we can overcome adversities.

- Tom spoke about his struggles with school and his family and how he had to go into an intervention when he was a sophomore in high school. He was running from God, and straight into the worlds arms.

- He gave 6 actions steps on how to correct your character and align yourself with Christ.
- Feelings - Thoughts - Words - Actions - Habits - Character

- Each of the dashes represent choices that each student has.

- He ended with reading Hebrews 12:15, and talked about how a roots of bitterness can grow in our hearts against God and others, and how we can use those 6 steps to grow closer to Christ with our choices.

Questions to ask your student when they get home:

1. How did you like the worship band?
2. What of the 6 steps stuck out to you?
3. Is there any roots of bitterness that you have towards anyone?
4. Do you think the path that you are on leads to Christ or to destruction?
5. What choices can you make to start renewing your mind for Christ?

I will have another recap tonight, it might be really late because we don't end our programing until almost 1:30am tonight!

Have a great relaxing Saturday!

P.A.

Big Chill Session 1

Hey there everyone! I hope things are going well for you. Things are going well up here. Everyone is safe and secure and everyone slept at least a little last night :)

Keep us in your prayers for this mornings session that starts at 10am, I am sitting in the main room updating this and listening to the band warm up and talking with the speaker who is going to be speaking to the kids and thinks its going to be amazing weekend!

* Fun factoid from the weekend, the other youth group supposed to be up here got snowed in Grand Rapids last night, so we had 85 pizza's for about 180 students. It was awesome. Our students are extremely full :)

I will post pictures, and video's on my facebook page, and I will update this page with questions you can ask your students when they get home.

Have a great day parents.

P.A.

Packing list for Big Chill

Big Chill packing list:

(One Bag Only!)

- Bible - Bring to every single Session!
- Pen - To mark in your Bible and to write in your Big Chill Packet.

(You will be given when you arrive)

- $5-10 – for a meal on the way back from camp on Sunday.
- Clothes
- Jeans
- T-shirts

- A Pair of boots

- Gloves

- Winter Hat

- Winter Coat
- Shorts - to play sports in.
- underwear
- Socks
- Shoes
- Pajamas

- Cell phone – We will be collecting Cell Phones on the Bus; they will be given back when we get back on the bus.
- Toiletries
- Deodorant
- Shampoo
- Toothbrush
- Tooth paste
- Soap

- Sleeping bag

-Pillow

- Towel

Things not to bring:
- PSP’s, Game boys, or any handheld gaming devices

- Bad attitudes
- Any weapons
- No X-Box’s, PS3’s, Wii’s, or gaming consoles of any sorts.

- Anything that is going to be a distraction while you are there.

* Note about Ipods, we are allowing students to bring Ipods, because it is a 4 hour trip up to Mears, MI. We will be collecting them on the bus and putting them in a safe when we arrive at the camp. We will redistribute Ipods on the bus ride back. If you want to make sure your Ipod is safe, keep it at home and converse with other humans on the bus ride up and back.

Peeps from the streets.

Hey there everyone, I don't have a ton of time to update today but I do want to give you a list of things to remember for this week:

1. Tomorrow night we are starting our Dating series its going to be Amazing!!! Yes that's 3 exclamation points friends. It's going to be a great series and we have lots of practical advice to give when you are dating and we are going to look at what the Bible says about dating. I hope you can join us!

2. BIG CHILL is Friday! Just a reminder we are leaving from Sugar Grove at 5:30pm. Please don't be late because we want to get up to the camp as quick as possible! Because we honestly have so much awesome stuff we are doing its probably illegal in Indiana, but its all good because we will be in Michigan :) Here are two things you need to remember to bring that aren't on the packing list.
1. Extra Money for a meal on the way back home on Sunday night $5-10 will be perfect.
2. A towel - I totally forgot to put that on there because the last trip we did was in a hotel, and they have towels for us.

3. Check out yesterday's post breaking down the 3 weeks we are spending on dating.

Hope you have a great day!

P.A.

Dating Series

Hey there everyone, I hope things are going well with everyone. Man last nights super bowl was great! Loved being able to have a bunch of good friends over, and being able to hang out.

Here is what is going down this coming Wednesday night!

We are kicking off our dating series called "shameless" We are going to be discussing dating, sex, and everything in between. We always do a dating series in February and its one of my favorite series that we do, because almost everyone in Junior high and High school are dealing with these emotions and decisions.

Here is the break down for the 3 week series.

Week 1 - Talking about how God has an amazing plan for our dating lives, and marriages, but many times we fall into temptations and shame creeps in and starts messing with our decision making. We are going to be breaking down the fall of Adam and Eve and see how that still effects us today.

Week 2 - We are splitting Junior High and Senior high for this night, Junior high is going to be heading out with their small group leaders and heading to other end of the building and they are going to be talking specifically about Junior high dating and issues that Junior High students deal with.

High school students we are having a text-in Q & A time. This is where High school students can text in any questions they have anonymously and we have a panel of adults who are going to help students navigate through the questions that High school students have. Last year it was a fantastic time growth with some of our high school students. They got to ask honest and real questions. I love this night, so High school students bring friends, and anyone who has any questions that they might want answered!

Week 3 - Purity Ceremony, this is where we are going to be inviting students and their parents to join us in a night where we challenge and pray for our students. This night is a time we set a side for parents to have those tough conversations, and for those dad's to talk with their sons and daughters about what it means to remain pure through the hard times. We break the ice that night, and we give questions for them to discuss as families. We have seen God do some amazing things this night, we encourage everyone to join us that night!

More information will be emailed out next week about what to expect, and what to bring that night.

Can't wait for this Wednesday night to kick off our Dating series "Shameless"

Have a great day!

P.A.

Wednesday night Rocked

hey there everyone, I hope things are going well with you today! Here are a couple things we did last night.

1. Played a game where people had to push fruit loops with their nose on a string, hilarious!
2. Went on a bear hunt with whip cream and gummy bears! Yikes!
3. Played spin that wheel where people had to eat a blazing wing from Bdubs, dress up like batman for the night, get a uni-brow - a kid won this and it was his first time at youth group! HA, and we had a small group win popcorn for their small group time! It was pretty awesome.

We also had a talk last night about certain actions stopping the rebellion, and how the enemy uses them. We created giant numbers and the students had to go and stand by them and tell everyone why they chose that number. 10 - meant would stop the rebellion immediately, 1- not a big deal, the rebellion will be fine.

It was a great time talking with students and allowing some of the students to be heard on why they think some actions are worse then others. Some of the actions we talked about were.

1. Gossip
2. Lack of love
3. Unrepentant Sin
4. Truth bending
5. lukewarm living
6. Disunity

And those were just a couple of them.

It was a great night last night and we really missed those who couldn't make it!

We hope to see you next week where we begin our Dating Series! Can't wait!

P.A.

Bear hunt, Wings, and Giant Numbers

Hey there everyone I hope things are going great for you today! I am super excited about tonights REFUGE! Here are a couple things you can count on for tonight.

1. A ton of funny video's!
2. Octoball.....enough said.
3. Cafe will be open!
4. We are playing one of the most fun games ever tonight.
5. We are going to have some extremely great worship tonight.
6. Our Message tonight is really interactive and fun because lets be honest we sit to much at REFUGE sometimes!
7. You might win the chance to eat some buffalo wild wings tonight!
8. We have a ton of fruit loops for a game tonight.

Those are just a couple things we have going on tonight, so we hope we see you tonight. We have a bunch of students sick so please be praying that they can get better and can come and hang out with us tonight!

Have a great day!

P.A.