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.