June 6th & June 10th

Hey there everyone, I hope things are going well for you all. Sorry for the blog silence the past couple days. We had some family time and were out of town getting things done and so I haven't had a lot of time to get things done. But I want to tell you about 2 really cool events coming up this next week.

1. Junior High Pool party. We are inviting all of our new junior high students to a pool party at the Cruises House on Wednesday June 6th. We are going to have a pizza party, and we are going to be swimming and playing games. We are going to be meeting here at Crystal Valley at 6:30pm and we will return to Crystal Valley at 8:30pm. If for some reason you need picked up early or need to get dropped off later, email me at cvmcadam@gmail.com and I will email you back the address and directions to get to the cruises. We are super pumped for all the fun stuff we are going to be doing Wednesday night.

2. June 10th we are having another pancake and Sausage Breakfast for our Urban Plunge Missions trip, Our Senior High students will be helping out at this one and we will be doing it again before 1st service and between services again. We will kick off at 8:30am. We will be having the students help out by cooking pancakes, serving sausages, and hanging out with those who come. Our students need to raise about 175$ to go on this so any help you can give them that would be fantastic! We hope that you will join us and help students serve those who are less fortunate.

We will be updating this blog with lots of things in the future. My goal is to make this a place where parents can go and get articles, video's, and helpful tips on how to parent their students in a more effective way.

I hope you have a great weekend!

P.A.

Great small group leaders

I think our Small group leaders are honestly the best. I would put our team up against any other team in the nation. I saw a list of what makes a great small group leader and I took some of them and I came up with my own. As we end this years REFUGE, and we gear up for next year's schedule here is the top 10 list of what makes a great small group leader.

1. Great small group leaders listen as much as they talk.
2. Great small group leaders help reach new teens.
3. Great small group leaders don't give up.
4. Great small group leaders ask for help when they are not sure what to do.
5. Great small group leaders show up consistently.
6. Great small group leaders connect relationally.
7. Great small group leaders point teens to Jesus and God's Word...not just their opinion.
8. Great small group leaders set healthy boundaries.
9. Great small group leaders help teens take their next step in following Jesus.
10. Great small group leaders laugh often and trust God when nothing seems to be working.

Love my team, and I so thankful for great small group leaders.

Excited for where God is going to take us!

P.A. 

Dealing with Stress

Taken From Terry Linhert, a Bethel Professor who is brilliant! I love these steps to deal with Stress. Super great Article. 

here is my 10-step list to deal with stress:

1. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep each night, drinking lots of water each day, and exercising outside (if the weather holds).
2. Cut back on sugar (and this means cutting carbs too) and caffeine.  You’ll be surprised how much these contribute to feeling down.
3. Eat an orange a day.  And carrots.  The physiological side of eating well is not to be underestimated.
4. Don’t watch movies or play video games for 72 hours.  These are just escapes that build up the stress more when you’re done with them.
5. Read a chapter a day of a nonfiction book on spiritual disciplines or leadership or read a biography of a great person.
6. As for the stress, make a list of everything that’s stressing you out.  Take 15 minutes and do that.  Often making a list is helpful enough and shows that you can actually manage better than you feel you can.
7. Look over the list and see what can be done quickly (in an hour’s time) and schedule to get them done soon. Within a day.  Cranking off to-do items as ‘done’ eases stress immediately.
8. Look over your “bigger” items to see when those stresses are gonna be over.  Write that date down next to each one.  This gives you perspective too.  You know that this is just a short season of stress.
9. Then, for the larger issues yet, pray about each one and remind yourself that God is in control.  I don’t mean to overspiritualize, but often our stress is a contr0l thing and we’re trying to get it all done in our abilities.
10. If one of the stressors still nags and creates anxiety or despair just by looking at it on your list… it’d be helpful to find a pastoral person or a godly adult with good listening/counseling wisdom and talk it through with him/her.
11. (Hidden track point) It also be good to reflect on your stress to see if it’s just an adrenaline thing too. Some folks are addicted to adrenaline and haven’t ever learned to get things without it. So they wait until the deadline, stress a lot, and the adrenaline kicks in so they can accomplish something. It’d be good for you to learn how to get things done without having to stress every time.

P.A.

REFUGE RECAP!

Hey there everyone! I hope things are going well for you on this great Thursday. We had a ton of fun last night and we had a great message by Wes Miller.

Here is the run down of what we did last night.

1. We played an epic game of chubby bunny.
     - Fred and Kim Keiper did just a great job last night running this game, it was super safe, and plenty of people making sure students were all good with lots of marshmallows stuffed in their mouth. I think the winner was a small junior high girl who had 14 marshmallows in her mouth! I was impressed.

2. Then we played a game called Human foosball.
     - Dave Preston got everyone excited when he announced this game. It is one of the best games of all time! I love it, The students were super pumped and it was a really close game the whole way through.

3. Then our new assistant youth director Carter played Elephant Tag!
- This game would take a little while to explain but its stinking awesome!

4. We then proceeded to rock out some worship, we got to have the students take some prayer time and focused time with Jesus through this worship time.

5. Then Wes Miller brought the Hammer down with some awesome teaching time about Moses! His Main point was Moses was filled with God and did some amazing things, We can be filled with the same God and do some amazing things for Christ today!

Next Week is our last Wednesday night before our break for the summer, we are currently working on our summer calender, our June calendar is already out and can be downloaded at icrystalvalley.org/youth. Go there and check it out. We have some amazing things planned for this summer.

Hope to see you next week!

P.A.

REFUGE

Hey there everyone! I hope things are going well for you on this great Wednesday.

So tonight is going to be stinking awesome, we will have a couple of our students out because of a major Senior banquet going down but that is all good because we have some amazing games planned!

Fred and Kim are rocking some games tonight
Dave Preston is rocking some games tonight
Carter is rocking some games tonight!

Do you pick up on a theme for tonight???

Tons of awesomeness going down!

After we get our game on, we are going moving into a time a of prayer with worship tonight. I love it because we are going to be kicking it old school style, and we have some fun things planned for our worship time tonight.

Then we have the privileged of hearing from our very own Wes Miller tonight!! He brought a great message last time, and tonight he is going to be speaking on Moses tonight and how Moses even though he had a messed up past God still used him in a mighty way!

We hope to see you tonight!

We kick off at 6:30pm tonight at Crystal Valley.

P.A. 

Article for Parents

Being a new parent I am having to face new challenges all the time, I read this article today and it really challenged me! I want to share the article with you!

Spiritual Maturity: a challenge to parents

Developing a spiritual growth plan for families is tough. Face it: being married and/or being a parent has enough challenges. And you want to add a spiritual growth component? What’s next: faithfulness in marriage, remembering your anniversary, and putting the toilet seat down?
Before things get out of control, let me assure you that this can be done. It is possible to lead your family spiritually and live to tell about it. But it’s not easy!.
Whether parents choose to ignore this or not, the Bible is clear regarding whose responsibility it is to spiritually nurture a child.

5 “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 6 And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I am giving you today. 7 Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are on the road, when you are going to bed and when you are getting up. 8 Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. 9 Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:5-9, NIV).

The Bible instructs parents to disciple their children, yet many expect the church to do so, primarily for three seemingly overwhelming challenges. The good news is that the challenges can be overcome.

We’re Too Busy
Time challenges everyone…in every stage of life…in every profession…every day. We don’t have enough of it…or it at least feels that way. While time management gurus would likely dispute the notion that time is limited, let’s agree with the perception and respond to it.

Solution: Start doing something. Any small step is better than no step. I’ve found that it’s best to connect new commitments to old habits. For example, if you have a hard time remembering to pray for your kids, commit to pray for them when you get out of bed in the morning and when you go to bed at night. Try to learn a Bible verse as a family by reviewing it while brushing your teeth. Place an index card with the verse next to your toothbrush or tape it to the bathroom mirror. While you’re in the bathroom, keep a short devotional book nearby. Make it a habit of asking “what did you learn about God” anytime someone is in the bathroom for an…ahem…extended time.

I’m Too Intimidated
This challenge is understandable. Since parents are viewed as the experts in life (at least until their kids are teens), we can be easily intimidated that we don’t have enough knowledge to lead our child spiritually. The good news is that this is the easiest obstacle to overcome, but it comes with a price: pride.

Solution: Whether you’re intimidated or not, we should all approach discipleship with great humility. Discipleship is not about knowledge; it’s about obedience. And if you’re insecure in your Bible IQ, be honest with your kids about that. Let them know you love Jesus and want to grow in your relationship with Him, but that you’re still learning. Encourage your kids to ask you any question, but remind them you’ll likely need to talk to a friend or pastor or research the answer on your own. Kids appreciate honesty. They already know you don’t know much anyway.

It’s Too Much Work
When I’ve heard parents say this, they’re really saying their kids are not interested. Despite a parent’s bet efforts, it’s quite possible kids will not respond the way we’d hoped.

Solution: Don’t give in! You can’t make your child love Jesus, so don’t worry about that. It’s not your job to make your kids obey or follow God, but it is your job to feed them spiritually. Kids may tune us out, but it doesn’t mean they’re not listening. Granted, you might have to establish ground rules, like no texting while you’re trying to have a spiritual conversation, but don’t be defeated by a blank stare. Smile right back at it and show Christ’s love…even when you might not feel it.

Clearly, the above challenges don’t even begin to scratch the surface. Developing spiritually mature kids is not easy. The quicker we understand that, the more we can live a guilt-free life. Parenting is not a part-time activity, so if you’ve blown it in the past go ahead and start over. You’re allowed. You’re the parent.

Tomorrow's REFUGE

Howdy peeps! I hope things are going well for you today. I know yesterday was really crazy, but today, I feel good about today.

Here is what's on the docket for tomorrow.
1. Lots of greatness.
2. Even more Fun
3. Awesomeness + sweetness = awesweetness

Tomorrow night is going to be a really fun night because we will be playing some really fun games, we will have some worship time and prayer time tomorrow night for the summer.

We only have 2 more REFUGE nights till our summer break, I will be writing about our summer schedule tomorrow and we should have a calendar to attach to our website, and right here at the blogspot.

We hope you have a great day, here is a little video of awesome basketball shots to get you ready for a great summer!


P.A.

Only 2 Wednesday nights left!

Holy Cow can you believe that we only have 2 more Wednesday's left in the school year? I can't believe it!

Here is the low down down for this Wednesday:

1. WE have some awesome games we are going to playing, like seriously If I was in High school or Junior high I would already be camped out by the doors! Super awesome.

2. Wes Miller is going to be speaking this Wednesday, and I am not going to lie, he is one of the best speakers in Northern Middlebury! I know! He's really blowing up on the internet's! We are so lucky to have him speaking to us this week, but all joking aside he is going to be bringing the boom sauce on Wednesday night you should come to just hear him speak.

3. Our Worship is going to be stinking Epic! We have some awesome songs ready to help us enter into the throne room of God and join with the Angel's singing "Holy, Holy, Holy!" We want to praise God with everything we have Wednesday night, so be ready to rock the worship with us.

4. We have some really fun things coming up in the next couple weeks, like a pool party for Junior High students, a Cici's dinner party, and we have adventures with Carter starting in June! We have so much fun stuff planned for this summer it's almost illegal! We will be talking about this stuff Wednesday night!

I hope we can see you Wednesday night!

P.A.

Greater than

Hey there everyone I hope you had a great morning this morning, I know we did at the sharp household, we rocked out some pancakes and prayer. I do believe the students easily ate over 100 pancakes! No Joke it was awesome. I think a student had around 10 pancakes this morning, I was impressed.

Here is whats going down tonight:

1. We are going to be honoring our small group leaders tonight, you will want to be here for that!

2. We have some sweet games planned by the one and only Fred and Kim Keiper! So you know they will be good.

3. We are going to be rocking some sweet tunes of worship tonight by our great student band.

4. We are going to be talking tonight about going the extra mile for people and we are going to be talking about the Good Samaritan, and a story that isn't as poopular.

We believe tonight is going to be such a great night, we hope that you can join us! Here are the details:

Where: Crystal Valley Missionary Church
When: 6:30pm - 8:30pm
What to bring: You + 19 of your closest friends!
What are we doing: Read above :)


Again, we hope to see you tonight!

P.A.

Pancakes and Prayer

Pancakes and Prayer tomorrow morning at 8am at Adam and Esther's house.  We hope to see you there! It's going to be pretty stinking awesome!

Another Mom's video

Wednesday Night Beastmode

Hey there everyone, I hope things are going well for you! Here is what is going down this coming Wednesday:

1. We have some new games we are going to be pulling out before we kick the night off, so we will have octaball going down but we will have a couple more awesome games going down that you dominate a couple of your friends in.

2. The student impact team has a pretty special thing that they will be doing this week so its going to be pretty cool! You won't want to miss out.

3. We will be introducing Carter to our REFUGE family this Wednesday night, and I am super stoked for him coming in and starting our awesome Junior High ministry next year.

4. We will be rocking out some worship this Wednesday night so come and get ready to dance it up!

5. This Wednesday MORNING, we have our pancakes and prayer time, the last one for the school year so don't miss out on that Wednesday MORNING! 8am, at Pastor Adam's House! If you need directions email me at cvmcadam@gmail.com

We hope to see you there this Wednesday!

Here is a Devotional for the day,

"God said to Moses, "I AM who I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14)

Moses was terrified. First he had spent forty years in Egypt- the most powerful nation on earth- as a prince. Popular, revered, and held in the highest esteem. Add to his resume forty years in the desert as a shepherd working for his father-in-law. Lonely, unappreciated, and punching the clock at smelly job central.
Now he kneels trembling before Jesus in the burning bush being commissioned for a holy cause. He was being sent by God Himself to set the Israelites free from the Egyptians. Promotion? Sure. Chance to be restored to greatness? Absolutely!

Only - he didn't want to go.

He fired excuse after excuse at the blazing King. Christ had an answer for every one of them. One of Moses' excuses was "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"

Jesus had an answer... "I AM who I AM."

In the same way Moses was a master of excuses when it came to delivering the Jews, aren't we the excuse experts when it comes to delivering the gospel? God Himself has commissioned us (Matthew 28) to "go and make disciples of all nations..."

But God - what if I don't I know what to say? What if they reject me? What if they ask me a question I don't have the answer to?" Blah. Blah. Blah.
The bottom line is this... the great "I AM" has sent us. Excuses fade into oblivion when it comes to Christ.

When we realize who God is- excuses fall flat.

So who is God? Who is this "I AM"?

First - we know that He is "one God". Deuteronomy 6:4 reminds us, "The LORD our God, the LORD is one." Christianity is a monothesitic faith. "Mono" means one. "Theo" means "God." We believe in one God.
Second - we believe in one God who is comprised of three persons... the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each is fully God. Each is fully unique. Three persons: one essence.

The title some have given this truth is "The Trinity." One God (unity)- comprised of three persons (Trinity)
Get it? Neither do I. Neither does anyone, except God. God is infinite. We are finite. As one expert said,

"For us to try to comprehend God is like a gnat trying to drink in the ocean."
But get this. This triune God is sending you on a mission. This holy mission is to spread the Gospel to a dying world. Just like Moses, our excuses fail. Why? Because the "I AM" has sent us. We are on a mission from God- let's get busy!

P.A. 

A little Late....

Hey there everyone, I am sorry I am a day late on this update but yesterday was super busy. Here is the low down on what we did on Wednesday night:

1. Played a great game of toilet paper dodge-ball! Pretty epic, then we devoured 5 bags of white powdered doughnuts, and then we made honestly some of the worst and best milkshakes around! Zach Schmucker got a great milkshake, I on the other hand got a double ravoli with sourkraut milkshake! Honestly I have never been so close to throwing up at Youth group.

2. Then we had a time of prayer for students who needed prayer during our last song of worship. It was a sweet time of prayer, and getting students excited for praying for one another.

3. The message was on becoming less and allowing God to rise up in you, like John 3:30 talks about. We talked about doing the hard work of keeping others ahead of yourself, and how we need to allow God to do work in our lives like He did in  Joshua's life in the battle of Jericho.

Sorry this update is a little shorter, but I am heading out right now to get a bunch of things done for this weekend! I hope you guys have a great rest of the day!

P.A.

Greater than

Hey there everyone I hope you are having a great day! I know I am pretty tired from last night, I didn't get in until almost 1:30, and then being woken up by my son samuel at 3am, and 6am is always a blessing! But my wife Esther rocked it out and took both of those shifts because she is awesome. Here is the low down for tomorrow night:

1. We start at 6:30pm, you won't want to be late to tomorrow nights REFUGE we have some awesome stuff going down right at 6:30.

2. We are in our Greater than series and tomorrow night is a great talk about the story in Matthew about a guy who was super rich and wanted to serve Jesus, but he walked away when Jesus asked him to do some tough things. I can't wait, as I was prepping for this message it was really hitting me in the face about doing hard things for Christ! He must increase I must decrease.

3. We are bringing back a game tomorrow night that is pretty EPIC! The student impact team picked out the games for this week and I am not going to lie they did a fantastic Job! The games we are playing tomorrow night might make people weep because they are so stinking awesome.

4. Our small group time is a time where students can actually slow down, and spend 30 minutes in an actual discussion. We still have fun with questions like "would you rather be 7 feet tall, or 4 feet tall" or "would you rather eat taco's for a year or chicken nuggets for a year". But we also ask questions like "how can we be praying for you this week" and "What are some ways we can show Christ to others this week". I can't put enough emphasis on how great our small group leaders are and how much they push our students to be more like Christ!

With saying all those things, don't miss out on the awesomeness that is REFUGE youth ministries.

We hope to see you tomorrow night at 6:30pm.

P.A.

Chicago

Hey there everyone! Today I am heading to Chicago to take part in a Youth for Christ night in downers grove. I am pretty excited to talk with new people, help where I can, and train some pretty cool leaders. With that being said I can't spend a bunch of time up dating the blog today so here is a short hilarious video.

We hope to see you Wednesday night! Ton's of fun going down.




Have a Great Day!

P.A.

REFUGE Recap

Hey there everyone, I hope things are going well for you! Here is a recap from last night.

1. We had a blast painting faces, and playing a game called Gold Rush! It's pretty stinking sweet, lots of running and lots of people throwing plastic balls all over the place! I love it.

2. We had such a cool time writing prayer requests on the wall, and having students praying over them. Man oh, Man some of these prayer requests just break your heart. God moved in our worship time last night and it was so cool! I hope and pray that our students went home a little different because of what they experienced last night in our worship time.

3. Here are a couple things that we talked about last night.
     - Talk is powerless without Action
     - If you are asked to clean your room, and you pray about it, memorize it, study it, but do nothing about cleaning your room you are didn't  do what was asked of you. Christ is calling us to do more than just talk about Him, but actually do something for Him!
     - Don't fall asleep on the sidelines - Talked about the kid who fell asleep and fell out of the window and died. We don't want to fall asleep and die without really doing anything for Christ.

I hope our students had a good time last night, I know I left last night smiling from ear to ear because God moved in some of our students lives. I also heard from some of the small group leaders that they had great conversations with students.

God is awesome!

Hope to see you on Sunday morning.

P.A.

Power and Prayer

Hey there everyone I hope things are going well for you! Here are a couple things you can prepare for tomorrow nights REFUGE night.

1. We are going to be praying for people's prayer requests in a different way so come ready to pray for others, and also be thinking of something that we can be praying for with you. Everyone can use some support and extra prayer.

2. This is the last month for our REFUGE wednesday night program for the school year, so prepare yourself for some of the best of the best from the past year. We are going to doing some new games mixed in with some games that just rocked from the past year.

This coming Wednesday would be a great Wednesday to bring friends to because we have some great games, awesome worship time, and we are going to be talking about how we can have some power in our lives from not just talking but putting actions to our Words!

God is going to do some crazy awesome things tomorrow night, we hope you can join us and hang out with us for a couple hours tomorrow night.

REFUGE is from 6:30pm - 8:30pm, at Crystal Valley Missionary Church, right across the street from the Essenhaus in Middlebury.

Check out this hilarious video!


P.A.