Eastview Parents

CIY: Believe

2012-01-04T15:49:00.000-06:00

Registration forms are due next Wednesday night! Your middle school student won't want to miss this!

Believe Promo from Christ In Youth on Vimeo.

Family Ministry- A Model- Milestone 7

2011-11-22T09:09:00.001-06:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3- Milestones 1 & 2

Part 4- Milestones 3 & 4

Part 5- Milestones 5 & 6

Well...we've "made it". And, if you'll notice, the process begins at birth and we now find ourselves with a high school graduate. For those of you really paying attention...this took 18 years. Please focus on the last part of that last sentence..."this took 18 years." This is discipleship. There is no quick fix option for making followers of Christ. For making "rule-followers" and "pew sitters"? That's the easiest thing in the world. But, discipleship is an entirely different row to hoe. But...even here...after high school...we are not done. If those 18 years were rough, the "terrible two's", adolescence, the temptations of high school...what about college? Career? Life in the church? Parenthood?

Milestone 7- Life in Christ. "Every adult has a place at the table of Milestone 7--single or married, kids or no kids, young or old, all of us must abide in Christ and join him in the mission. Churches embracing a strategy linking church and home for the spiritual formation of the next generation can;t afford to be apathetic about adult spiritual development. All along the path of milestones, we ask adults to be disciple-makers. Adults who become parents are expected to be the primary faith influencers of their children. Adults from every season of life serve in the ministries relating to children and teenagers. The key to this entire strategy involves developing adults who are also parents, volunteer leaders and deeply committed Christ-followers."

Wow. You read that right, every single adult in the church, regardless of age, situation...every one, is committed to making disciples of the young people in the church.

Champion: The champion for this milestone is the discipleship pastor, spiritual formation pastor or senior pastor. This person has three primary responsibilities:

Selection of curriculum that is focused on making disciples of Jesus Christ, teaches the Bible, embraces the core competencies (below) of this milestone, and integrates families. If this seems like a lot, it is because it is. As noted above, discipleship is not easy, and frankly, we need to stop acting like we make them when people simply sit in a pew for an hour on Sunday mornings. If we are not holistic in our approach...if we are not truly equipping people, then we are not making disciples.
Equips volunteer leaders to teach the Bible and model life in Christ. If we are not equipping out lay leaders to lead, we are failing.
Works to equip all the adults to pursue life as people abiding in Christ.

Core Competencies:

Prayer- "When we study the earthly life of Jesus, we find a man of prayer."
Scripture- "Followers of Christ learn to study Scripture so they can live Jesus' way."
Authentic faith- "Authentic faith bows to the supremacy of Jesus as King, recognizing him as the head of every church and every home, according to Colossians 1:18."
Obedient follower- "Obedient followers know the Shepherd's voice and respond to his direction."
Disciple-maker- "We point adults to every ministry in our church for the opportunity to disciple others." This is a fascinating concept, and one that I believe many churches miss. Serving on the worship team, the building team, leading a class, cleaning the bathrooms, working in the kitchen, time with students...it's all about making disciples. If we've not made that clear...then people are simply "filling a spot." Every role we fill is bent on making disciples.
Giving/serving- "What if we truly gave and served to the point of making ourselves last so everyone else could be first? What if we were truly servants of all? Adults who embrace this core competency join in Christ's ministry to others. Parents who learn to give and serve raise kids who respect others, love others, and prove it by giving and serving. Husbands and wives who give and serve don't divorce."
Community- "We were designed for community. The problem is that we're conditioned to be individualistc and self-sufficient...Biblical church is community."

Equipping Environments:

Small group Bible studies- Teach adults Scripture and foster community
Adult education- Wednesday night classes geared to teach core competencies of the various milestones, within community.
Worship- Immerses adults in Scripture and milestones are highlighted as they occur.

Hard questions/why this might fail: How committed are we to making disciples? A strategy like the one above will force us to re-think every aspect of our corporate church life. Sacred cows will be killed left and right, our time will be dramatically re-oriented, our priority-set will change. We will spend time leading people down paths that might be better for them, against their wishes. We will be constantly forced to choose between what we desire, and what we need to become a fully-committed follower of Christ. While there are areas that could be implemented without full and complete church support, the implementation will be limited.

What might a complete overhaul within your church context look like?
How may people might you be willing to have walk because of a change of focus?
What kind of leaders might you need to recruit and equip to implement change?
What are the holes in the above strategy? What are the blind-spots...the problems?

And...the most important question...is the above Biblical? Why? Why not?

Questions? Concerns? Possible solutions?

Family Ministry- A Model- Milestones 5 & 6

2011-11-21T13:46:00.001-06:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3- Milestones 1 & 2

Part 4- Milestones 3 & 4

Milestone 5- Passage to Adulthood. This milestone "delineates the responsibilities associated with becoming a man or woman of God. It also lays out the Bible's expectations that parents will lead their children to become men and women of God before they leave home." This is the opportunity for kids, along with their parents, to become increasingly involved in specific activities within the church.

Core Competencies: Roles of men and women, spiritual gifts and service, basic tenets of faith
Champion: The champion for this milestone is the student ministry team, specifically a small group leader or the youth minister.
Parent Seminar: "Preparing my Child for Adulthood"- Parents are equipped to help their kids identify the spiritual gifts that are present and exercise them in their families and the church. This seminar takes place in grades 9-10; parents are shown how to discuss a Biblical worldview using Faith Talks and God Sightings with their kids.
Church Event: There is no church event for this milestone, because it is meant to be done solely within the context of family.
Family Event: Parents are encouraged to create their own event for their children that clearly communicates that the young person is not a man or woman. This would be similar to a bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah for Jewish boys or girls.

Milestone 6- High School Graduation. In this milestone, the church seeks to equip parents to lead discussions about God's plan for their children to be disciple-makers as the prepare for post-high school life. Parents are taught how to defend their faith that they may pass those skills to their children.

Core Competencies: Defending my faith, God's plan for my life, dating, marriage, life skills
Champion: The champion here is the student ministry team, specifically, the youth minister or a small group leader takes on this role within the church, the family and the students. Parents are encouraged to continue Faith Talks and God Sightings, and for seniors, a specific set of lessons is taught on Sunday mornings. Their parents are taught the same material in their own small group context.
Parent Seminar: "Preparing My Child to Leave Home"- This seminar equips parents to both encourage and deal with the hard questions of faith that their kids are dealing with. It teaches them to use Scripture as their "true north" so that their kids can confidently defend their beliefs. Additionally, parents are encouraged to be in real relationship with their kids, this culminates in a parental "blessing" ceremony.
Church Event: The church event is a "Senior Summit"- This event includes a meal and times of reflection, thanksgiving and blessing. During the parent seminar, parents were encouraged to write a blessing for their children; at the senior summit, this blessing is given to their children. These young men and women leave this night knowing with confidence that their parents are proud of them and excited about the future.
Family Event: "Blessing"

Questions? Concerns? Possible solutions?

Family Ministry- A Model- Milestones 3 & 4

2011-11-19T10:26:00.001-06:00

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3- Milestones 1 & 2

Milestone 3- Preparing for Adolescence. "This stage of development requires parents to rethink how they connect with their children relationally to lead them spiritually....Understanding our identity in Christ answers two questions that are important for every person to answer: Who am I--and whose am I?" The church comes alongside parents to help them lead these Faith Talks and God Sightings at home.

Core Competencies: Identity in Christ, spiritual growth, spiritual disciplines
Champion: The champion for this milestone is the children's ministry team in conjunction with the student ministry team. The focus is on Faith Talks, God Sightings and resources to equip parents.
Parent Seminar: This seminar takes place before age 9; while that seems (and is) young, the foundation for identity in Christ must be set early because the challenge to maintain that identity in light of our cultures sexualization. Here, parents learn how to help their children navigate physical change, identity and sex issues.
Church Event: Each year, Brian's church has a 24-hour retreat for fourth and fifth grade students that specifically deal with one of the core competencies for this milestone. In the time leading up to this retreat, the childrens ministry focuses on spiritual disciplines, identity and spiritual growth. Sexual purity is NOT addressed, but parents are resource for a family/parent getaway to specifically address it.
Family Event: This is a Road Trip that has been carefully planned by the parents to celebrate the transition into adolescence. The Faith Talks and God Sightings that precede this lay the foundation for the event.

Milestone 4- Commitment to Purity. "Purity for life is a foreign concept in mainstream culture. Without a foundational moral source like the Bible, young people face a chaotic number of relational options. But God has a clear plan for life, relationships, marriage and sex." . The ages between 7-13 are when many children growing up in a Christian home will make a commitment to Christ. What does this look like?

Core Competencies: Biblical purity, healthy relationships, identity in Christ
Champion: The champion here is the student ministry team, specifically, the youth minister or a small group leader takes on this role within the church, the family and the students. They "ensure that integration is occurring between the youth ministry experience at church and the parents' spiritual direction at home." Curriculum, events, and programming is intentionally chosen to reflect the competencies and parents are sourced for Faith Talks and God Sightings.
Parent Seminar: This seminar takes place at the beginning of a students' 6th grade year, and Brian has mature high school seniors share about the realities of a sexualized culture with parents. A number of resources are made available to parents, with the key being parents encouraged to keep the lines of communication open about this topic.
Church Event: The church event is a Commitment to Purity weekend. A representative from a local crisis pregnancy center might be brought in on Friday to share the experiences of that person and organization. "The youth ministry and pregnancy help center can only reiterate the principles parents have been teaching for months." Saturday is a discussion-based event about identity in Christ, friendships, accountability and wide variety of other similar topics discussed. Sunday worship is a celebration of purity and commitment.
Family Event: The family gives their son or daughter a purity ring as a symbol of their commitment.

Again, we are at the "gee...this looks perfect." I've said it before, and I will say it again: parents need to step it up. But, the church must be there to help them step it up. In Exodus 17, Moses' arms grew tired, Aaron and Hur held them up. Here is the honest truth, the church as a whole has, for too long, taken the place of parents in spiritual development. There are a ton of reasons for this, some legitimate, most are not. I love parents, and want to equip them, but, this must be a church-wide effort.

"Parents must be pursuing spiritual growth and exercising spiritual disciplines as an outpouring of their identity in Christ to influence their children to do the same. This is why a strong adult Christian education ministry is so important." If the adult education process in a church is not clearly focused on making disciples and equipping the Body of Christ to make disciples above all other things, a student and children's ministry will be limited, and severely so.

Hard question: How can we lovingly come alongside parents to teach and equip them, knowing that some might not want to disciple their kids?

Questions? Concerns? Possible solutions?

Family Ministry- A Model- Milestones 1 & 2

2011-11-18T13:37:00.001-06:00

Part 1

Part 2

Reminder, a milestone is a "marker of progression on the spiritual formation journey." With that in mind...

Milestone 1- The Birth of a Baby. Brian Haynes writes "Christian parents are naturally compelled to dedicate their newborn children to God. The act of dedication is actually a commitment on the parents' part to raise their children in the ways of the Lord."

Core Competency: The parent as the primary faith influencer.
Champion: The champion for this milestone is the children's ministry team, specifically, those over the preschool area. This person works to build relationships with new (or repeating parents), and this should begin long before birth. In the midst of relationship building, they prepare parents for the church event and faith training at home.
Parent Seminar: Where Brian serves, this is a required 2-hour seminar, and it is all about creating the understanding of parents as primary faith influencer. Parents learn the big picture (all seven milestones) and the church clearly communicates how they will partner and equip the parents.
Church Event: Once the parents have attended the seminar, they schedule the baby dedication for a time when the whole church can celebrate. Those gathered serve as witnesses and take their stand with the parents and new born.

Milestone 2- Faith Commitment. The ages between 7-13 are when many children growing up in a Christian home will make a commitment to Christ. What does this look like?

Core Competency: Jesus, faith, the Bible, sin, repentance, salvation
Champion: The champion here is the children's ministry team, specifically the ministry team leader. This person equips parents so that they can engage their kids with Faith Talks and God Sightings. The church teaches these things in both children's ministry and adult ministry contexts.
Parent Seminar: Brian offers this twice per year, with the focus on leading Faith Talks and God Sightings in the home It's not a checklist; it is about have real conversations in the midst of life.
Church Event: For Eastview, this would be immersion, and might take place in our building, at camp, on a service project (we've baptised students in all 3 environments).
Family Event: The family holds a spiritual birthday party in their home, family, church members (especially their champions) are present.

These two are the foundations for a solid, practical family ministry model. And, for the church filled with "church kids", looks pretty simple. But...

Are the adults and parents living out an authentic relationship with Christ?
This teaching fall squarely on church leadership to clearly communicate, and then expect, people who call themselves followers of Christ, to provide opportunities for people to minister and be edified as those followers of Christ. The teaching needs to include the biblical mandate for their role in the family. To start, the church leadership, at all levels, must embrace and live out the model if they are to pass it down to the rest of the body. When asked about this at KidMin in October, Brian stated that landing this among the leadership, creating the vision and implementation, took at least 18 months from start to finish. There was a 4-6 month teaching process for their leadership team. Like everything else in life, this will take patience and time.

What about kids coming from an un-churched family?
If the above is tough, this is the real tough nut to crack. Once the church leadership families are living this out, their role is to partner with kids from these "non-traditional families" and, in some ways take ownership of this situation. The church cannot sit idly by and watch kids fall through the cracks. All the while, these families should be developing relationships with parents and families as a "big-picture" church ministry effort. And this will be a long and arduous path that churches must decide on the front end that they will walk.

How do we deal with the brokenness, the mess of ministry that will be created by the above?
By living out the Gospel...love, mercy, grace, trust, faith, hope, service and equipping and being equipped for ministry. It will take effort, coin and time. It will take the church being the Body of Christ. Ephesians 5:1-2 says this- "Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." In short, it will take everything that we have, which requires the church leadership to lead from the front.

Questions? Concerns? Possible solutions?

Family Ministry- A Model, Part 2- Milestones

2011-11-17T07:58:00.001-06:00

Part 1

What follows is a specific plan for the implementation of a family-ministry model created by Brian Haynes at his church in Texas. It is not THE model, but A possible one. No doubt, there are questions, thoughts, concerns, comments and observations to be made; this series of posts is designed to promote thought and curiosity in how a similar model might be created where you worship. What this series is not designed to do is to convince parents of their role as primary faith influencers for their families. I've done that ad naseum on previous posts (here, and here). Parents...it's on you. Let's talk "How?"

Picking up where we left off yesterday, let's talk about Milestones. A Milestone is a "marker of progression on the spiritual formation journey." When these markers are reached, there is a celebration, both in the church and the home. Brian writes, "As parents, (we) needed a simple step-by-step approach to becoming the primary faith influences for our daughters. Even more so, we needed the church to partner with us in the spiritual development of our children--not to take our place as the primary faith influencers, but to train us and to reinforce what we're teaching our children." Enter Milestones as the progression:

Milestone 1- The Birth of a Baby

Milestone 2- Faith Commitment

Milestone 3- Preparing for Adolescence

Milestone 4- Commitment to Purity

Milestone 5- Passage to Adulthood

Milestone 6- High School Graduation

Milestone 7- Life in Christ

Chances are, your church is already doing something within the context of the above things. Perhaps your church celebrates birth through a baby dedication or sprinkles infants. Maybe your youth ministry has an event that culminates with a purity ring being given. Certainly, you celebrate when high school student graduate. Moving toward a model like the one above begins with a review of what milestones (we call them transitions at Eastview) you are already doing and then thinking about what they might look like at another level. Over the next week, I will detail what each of the above milestones looks like, and how they might be applied within my specific context. I'd love for your thoughts and feedback, ministry is not to be done alone!

So...what methods does your church use now to celebrate or observe life transitions?

Tomorrow: Milestones 1 & 2.

Family Ministry- A Model, Part 1

2011-11-16T10:24:00.001-06:00

To summarize anything that has ever been said on this site, Christians are to evangelize the lost. This happens best when people are not only equipped by the leaders of the church through practical ministry opportunities to serve, love and worship God, but when they engage in those ministy opportunities. Essentially, there are two parts that we are necessarily called to: equipping and doing. A church that merely equips yet does not act is guilty of the sin of omission (not doing what you know you ought) and the church that merely acts without the motivation of Christ is in danger of the the sin of commission in that they might point to false fruit as evidence of an inner working of Christ-why? The lack of a Holy Spirit presence means that it's not worth doing.

The family, is a key vehicle through which this happens. The family is bigger than "just" people with kids, because God's family includes each and every follower of Christ, married, single, divorced, young, old, those with disabilities, those marginalized in society...God's family includes everyone. So...what might a holistic "family ministry" look like? I am a huge fan of Brian Haynes and his Legacy/Milestones Path. I read his book in 2010, and attended all of his sessions at the recent KidMin Conference in Chicago last month.

Over the next week and a half, I will use his book Shift: What it Takes to Finally Reach Families Today to methodically describe the model I'd begin with (and contextualize for the specific ministry situation) if I had the opportunity. Here's the caveat the Brian himself makes at the front of the book: the specifics laid out were done with his situation and context in mind. As I read his book last year, I was filled with questions, real legitimate ones that need to be asked. And now, my caveat...this is not and would not be easy to implement. Without the Holy Spirit working in the hearts and minds of the church leadership, it won't happen. What's needed at the front end is a Champion, and that must be Christ as the Head. So, to begin, let's define Brian's terms:

Milestones: They are "markers of progression on the spiritual formation journey" (there are 7 milestones).

Core Competencies: "Key truths learned as progression from one milestone to the next."

Faith Talks: "Intentional times set aside each week for conversation based on Scripture."

God Sightings: "Informal opportunities to discuss God and His Work around us."

Church Events: "Equipping opportunities for parents, families, adults and kids, as well as milestone celebrations."

Parent Summit Conference: "Twice a year events hosted by the church to encourage and motivate parents and adults."

Parent Seminars: "Seminars related specifically to the 7 milestones."

Family Celebrations: "At-home celebrations for milestones."

Take-Home Sunday: "We teach people in adult Bible study groups a specific skill related to leading children through the milestones."

Generational Team: "Aligns the children, youth and adult ministries along a common path of spiritual formation that links faith and home and develops ways to equip parents as primary faith influencers."

Well, there you have it. If you're like me, you've now got a million questions.
"What about kids from families that don't go to my (or any) church?"
"How do we implement this?"
"Where do I start?"

Next Post: Listing the 7 Milestones.

Family Ministry, part 3- Roots

2011-10-19T14:47:00.000-05:00

What is "family ministry"?

Since I am a Christian, I will defer to God's Word (aka-The Bible) for some tips.

Point 1- Parents have a primary faith influence (even if they are absent), either positively or negatively. They leave a legacy whether they like it or not.

A brief overview of the first few books of the Bible will show us that things are passed down from parent to child.

Cain likely learned about bitterness and anger from his parents, Adam and Eve. No doubt, they spent many a day arguing and blaming one another about their former residence: the Garden of Eden.
Noah's sons learned to build an altar from him after the Flood.
Abram tried to pass his wife Sarai off as his sister, which would later be repeated by his son Isaac.

Point 2- This spiritual legacy is God's plan.

Deuteronomy 6:6-9- "Write these commandments that I've given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates."

Understanding this verse is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL. There are two types of conversations commanded here: informal and formal (More on this tomorrow).

Psalm 78:5-8- "He planted a witness in Jacob, set his Word firmly in Israel, Then commanded our parents to teach it to their children So the next generation would know, and all the generations to come—Know the truth and tell the stories so their children can trust in God, Never forget the works of God but keep his commands to the letter. Heaven forbid they should be like their parents, bullheaded and bad, A fickle and faithless bunch who never stayed true to God."

Notice the word "COMMANDED".

Proverbs 22:6- "Point your kids in the right direction—when they're old they won't be lost."

This implies consistent effort and engagement by parents.

Ephesians 6:4- "Fathers, don't exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master."

So, here you go:

Parents, you are leaving a legacy.
You are called to do so.

Here are two questions worth asking:

"What kind of legacy will you leave?"

"What does it mean for how a church practices ministry if the church and family are to partner together to make disciples through spiritual formation?"

Join the conversation! Leave comments, questions and concerns below.

Family ministry, part 2- Initial Thoughts

2011-10-18T11:07:00.001-05:00

Part 1, here.

"Family Ministry" is the current buzz-phrase in the youth ministry circles that I run in. Over the past few months, I've seen all sorts of churches looking to hire people, their job titles range from "Youth and Family Pastor" to "Director of Family Ministry". But, a closer look at the actual job descriptions reveals a different story altogether; at best, it's all about the tweaking of existing programming to be more "family friendly" and at worst, they are simply looking to maintain the status-quo.

A friend of mine, in the midst of the job search process, confirms my observations. He would ask them about steps taken to merge worship opportunities, he was met with resistance because adults liked being able to drop their kids off so that they could focus during the service. He would talk about families serving together and those interviewing him would tell him that serving together sounded great, but that was something they were thinking about in the future. In the end, for many churches, "family ministry" looks like parent handouts, a meeting every so-often, and weekly communication (guilty, guilty, and guilty). Generally speaking, we don't spend a lot on time thinking about how we might integrate and unite families in ministry. We don't think about the implications of sending kids to "their own worship" on a Sunday morning. There are too many questions, the model too untried and ill-defined to dig deeply.

Last week, I posted an introduction to this current series of posts on family ministry. This requires us to think differently, to think outside our box. If a church goes to a family-ministry model, and promotes it, that church needs to think in advance about what it might be like for the various people in their midst... the single mom or dad with three kids...the empty-nesters...the unmarried college student or career-person. In essence, the word "family" will need to be defined within the context of the family of God.

Love to hear your thoughts:

How would you define "family ministry"?
Do you feel that your church is "family-friendly"? How?
What are some possible (positive or negative) implications of building a church model around families?

Family Ministry, part 1

2011-10-11T11:17:00.001-05:00

This past weekend, our family was blessed to attend Group Publishing's "KidMin 2011" Children's Ministry Conference. Anne and I helped in "The Shelter"- their prayer room, our boys helped out before and after the main sessions, and our daughter helped out with a band's merchandising table on Saturday night.

I also attended all of the sessions that Brian Haynes led; it was solely focused on family ministry. Over the next few weeks, I'll post some thoughts about the sessions, his philosophy of ministry, and some ways that we might equip parents to lead their families.

Here are some introductory thoughts right out of my notes from his first session:

Theological premise/foundation for family ministry?
-There is a generational training plan in place
-Parents and families must intentionally integrate faith into daily life
-They do this by modeling spiritual service and evangelism

All disciples of Jesus are given the mandate to make disciples as the church. The family has a distinct role to play.
-Deuteronomy 6- community-wide and around my table, by the way that we live- church oversees the family by equipping them.

Family of origin has the most influential impact on the lives of kids.
-Deuteronomy 6 to Psalm 78 to Proverbs 22:6 to Ephesians 6:4

Parents have a primary faith influence, either positively or negatively (even if absent). They leave a legacy whether they like it or not. They abdicated their role to us and we called them to us and told them that discipleship happened at the church. Now, faith takes place in a certain building, in a certain place, on a certain day, at a certain time. This is called "compartmentalization."

What does this mean for how we practice ministry if the church and family are to partner together to make disciples through spiritual formation? How are we to "do" ministry?

Help me write this blog! Please post your thoughts, comments, questions, and your PUSH BACK below.

For more detailed information about who Brian is, what he does, and a lot of specifics, Brian has a website where he lays his model out at Legacymilestones.com. Brian also blogs about his journey at his blog http://legacyblog.org/. I know that he'd love for you to check it out and connect with him.

Lies, Lies, Lies

2011-09-26T11:18:00.001-05:00

We are surrounded by lies and deceit. At least that's what the Bible tells us:

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places"-Ephesians 6:12.

We are taking our entire year's worth of youth group in both middle school and high school to talk about the lies and deceits that we hear, accept and then make decisions based on. All of these lies are ruinous to us, and we need to do two things: 1-recognize them as lies, and 2-make decision to seek the truth.

Here is the list of lies that we'll be covering in one way or another this year:

1. God is not enough
2. God is not really involved in my life
3. God should fix my problems
4. God is just like my father
5. Everything that happens is spiritual warfare
6. Iʼve never been exposed to Satanic activities
7. Beautiful people are worth more
8. I have to perform to be loved
9. I need a boyfriend/girlfriend
10.Itʼs ok to go out with a non-Christian
11.Itʼs not really sex
12.I canʼt handle the loneliness of being alone
13.Itʼs ok to be one person at home and a different person with others, especially online
14.If I just had friends, I wouldnʼt be lonely
15.Iʼm my own authority
16.My youth pastor is my connection with God
17.Everyone at church is judging me
18.Of course Iʼm a Christian, I...
19.I canʼt overcome sin
20.In certain situations itʼs ok to break the law or rules if Iʼm not hurting myself or others
21.The benefits of constant media usage outweigh the harms
22.Itʼs not a waste of time, even if it is, itʼs ok...
23.Having a successful career is more important that just being a mother or father
24.What I do now doesnʼt affect the future

Please let us know how we might come alongside and encourage you!

On Mexico

2011-09-06T13:18:00.001-05:00

Over the past 5+ years, we've given our high school students the opportunity to join us in San Luis Potosi, Mexico for 2 weeks every other Summer. The purpose of this trip is to work with a church there for their annual Summer Vacation Bible School. Each Summer, they outreach into the neighborhood around the church and 300+ show up. Since 1998, I've been there 9 times, and their ministry has grown. They now have 3 additional VBS locations in and around San Luis Potosi, and probably minister to close to 450 people over a several week period. We are blessed to go and be a part of what they do.

We are in the earliest of preparation for next years' trip. Over the next few weeks, I will be meeting with some of our ministry team members to begin the conversation about the trip. Here is what we'll be talking about:

Why should they go?

they will grow deeply in their walk with God as the serve Him and other people
they will see that we are surrounded by a culture of materialism and selfishness
they will grow close to one another and the leaders as they serve together
they will have the opportunity to put their faith into action in a real, tangible way

Who can go? This trip is for high school students and up. As in the past, there will be an expectation set for those that are going. This trip is about service to God and service to other people. There are times on this trip where those going are outside of their comfort zones. there will be times when each person on the trip will not get what they want. They will experience these things when it comes to:

the food they eat
the cold shower they take
the floor that they sleep on
the language that they cannot understand
the poverty that they will see
the closeness of the group
the lack of privacy and "down-time"

When is the trip? At this point, their Summer VBS is being scheduled in early-July of 2012.

What kind of expectations will we have? It's important to understand up front that this trip is a privilege. While any of our high school students may desire to join this trip, it may not be for all of them. One of the things that we try to do before the trip is prepare those going for the stretching of comfort zones. We schedule pre-trip meetings to put our students and adults into situations that will be similar to the trip so we can see how we respond and react to one another under stress. It's our goal to become a bonded group BEFORE the trip so that we can focus our energies on serving others and God. Students and adults that are not interested in being prepared for the trip will not be allowed to participate.

What will the trip cost? Our 2010 trip was around $1000 per person. This included meals, lodging, transportation, everything but spending money. In 2010, we offered a scholarship of $175, students had to write a book report and write fundraising letters. Our Spaghetti Dinner/Dessert Auction is an easy way to raise funds for this trip.

What about safety? This topic is one among many that we cover in our pre-trip sessions. Safety is why:

we tell our students to stay in groups
we tell our students to stay where they are if they get separated
we tell our students not to draw attention to themselves
we tell our students to be aware of their surroundings
we tell our students not to buy illegal items
we stay in a secure facility, with locked doors

Safety, part 2. We do our very best to take no unnecessary risks. An unnecessary risk would be allowing students to wander the market alone. An unnecessary risk would be allowing our students to walk to the corner store without someone from the youth home with them.

On our 2008 trip, we had a student get separated from the rest of the group. Instead of following instructions and remaining where she was, she went out in search for the group. This was the worst 45 minutes of both of our lives as we frantically looked for this student. Thankfully, she was found by another one of our groups.
It's why we spend time with those that express interest in going on the trip and reserve the right to deny anyone (whether student, parent or adult) the privilege of attending this trip.
If someone has trouble listening to instructions on a Sunday night, then they will most likely have trouble following instructions in Mexico.

Safety, part 3. The Mexican government is at war with the drug cartels. The drug cartels are at war with one another. Innocent bystanders and civilians have been caught up in this violence. I neither can, nor will, say with 100% certainty that nothing will happen while we are in Mexico. As the leaders of the trip, it is important that we share the reality of this trip and we want to partner with you as we plan. As a parent, it is important that you understand what we are doing and why we are going, as well as have some honest conversation with your students about this trip.

What's next?

In the coming weeks, I will meet with our student ministry team and we will start some long-term planning. If you would like to be a part of that, please let me know.
By mid-November, we will schedule two initial meetings (only attendance at one is necessary) with parents and students to discuss the trip and the process for application. These meetings will be a great place and time for questions, comments and concerns to be addressed.

In the meantime, please join us in praying for this trip, and the impact on lives that it will have!

A little about us, part 3- Youth Group

2011-09-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

Sunday School

D-Group

And now...Youth Group. What is it? Why have it?

For the last 40 years or so, Youth Groups have been a huge part of churches and their programming geared toward kids. When I was growing up back in the 80's (Dated?), each Sunday night you;d find me hanging out with the youth group of First Presbyterian Church in Peachtree City, Georgia. We met each week in the homes of other kids; each week was in a different place. We'd gather for some food, some fun, and a youth group lesson, usually 15-20 minutes in length. The favorite topic? Sex, of course. I remember that the week before "sex night" (that just doesn't sound right!!) we were handed small pieces of paper, a pen, and encouraged to write down our questions, ANY questions that we had and the following week, our poor youth minister got up in from of the group and answered them.

Guys like Steve Rembert, Thom McArthur, Martin Huggins were awesome; they loved us, put up with our antics, and taught us what it was like to follow Jesus each Sunday night and on trips all over the place.

Our "youth group" has two parts:

Our middle school youth group meets on Wednesday nights from 6-8pm. We have a meal, do a group activity, have a group lesson, and then split into small groups for some deeper discussion. It takes a special kind of adult to work with middle school kids; they have high energy, lots of questions, and are really coming into their own, developing their identity. We love middle school kids at Eastview.
Our high school youth group meets on Sunday nights from 5:45-8pm. We have a meal, do a group activity, have a group lesson, and then split into small groups for some deeper discussion. High school kids are at the point in their lives where they are asking big questions and dealing with big issues; they are wrestling with who they are. I love the depth of our high school kids at Eastview.

This year, in both middle school and high school youth groups, we'll be talking about the lies that surround them, are told to and about them, are told by them, that they fall for and believe, and then act on. Lies like:

God could never love me.
I need a boyfriend/girlfriend.
The music I listen to, and the movies I watch don't affect me.
It's not really sex.

Each day, kids in our youth group struggle with and fall for these lies. Satan is the great deceiver, we actually believe that and this year, we will be confronting our students with the truth of the gospel, and most importantly, with the Truth that is Jesus Christ.

Our youth group is designed to be a great place where kids can feel welcome to bring friends and have some good honest conversation about the God that loves them. This is called "community" and we see in the Bible that Christians are called to it. We want to talk about with them what Christianity looks like and what it means to be a follower and disciple of Christ. We are looking forward to starting up next Wednesday (for middle school) and Sunday the 18th for high school!!

A little about us, part 2- D-Group

2011-08-30T13:46:00.000-05:00

This is Part 2 of "A little about us" a series designed to tell parents the how's and why's of the youth ministry event schedule during the school year. Part 1 was about Sunday School. Let's talk about D-Group!

D-Group got its start in November of 2005, I had just come to Eastview, and on Sunday nights, I'd meet with 3-5 students and we would discuss questions like:

When you hear the word "Christian", what comes to mind?
Describe a time when God has worked in your life/
What is worship?

These questions (and about 12-15 others) were written on a little legal pad on my desk (still have the original pad!). We would talk about the question, look up verses, discuss, argue, laugh...it was very casual and laid back. Those that came loved it. Over the years, as more kids wanted to join, it morphed into a Sunday night study, 2 hours long. We read books together, talked about deeper theological discussions, pushed, and grew. And then, when we split our group into two (ms & hs) in 2008, it went away.

Well...now it's back. Beginning Sunday, September 18, from 4-5:30 (before HS youth group), we will be reading, studying and discussing the book Radical by David Platt. A few things that parents and students need to know about D-Group:

Those attending will get out of it what they put into it.
Students are expected to read a chapter per week and memorize Scripture.
Students are expected to have read the material and be ready to discuss it.
Students who choose to skip reading or preparation will at some point be asked to stop coming. Why? Because we are reading a book together and for those that don't read the book, attendance would be somewhat pointless. Also, for the kids that are doing the work, they tend to get frustrated with those that do not.
The cost of the book and material is $15/student.
D-Group is for kids that want to be challenged and stretched in their faith in an environment that is designed and organized around that single goal. We have fun, but it's not "let's play a game fun." It's fun because we have time to go deep.

Students need to sign up by September 10 so I can order their books!

As always, we'd love your feedback! Please comment below or shoot me an email I'd love to hear from you!

A little about us, part 1- Sunday School

2011-08-26T13:56:00.000-05:00

We have three specific weekly "programs", Sunday School, D-Group, and Youth Group. For each of these three things, there is a specific purpose and intent. They are also very different because they must be, we have different kids attend each of these things, and each of them cannot do the same thing. There are time constraints (SS is only an hour versus 1.5 or 2 hours for youth group), transportation concerns, a whole host of things. By that rationale, if your students "only" attends 1 of our 3 programming pieces, understand that they might be missing something. This post begins a several-part series that will give you some insight into what we do in our Eastview Christian Church Student Ministry "department" and, why we do it. At the end of this series (by the end of next week), I will post an action plan detailing each of these programming events so you can look at them, and determine how you might, or might not, encourage your kids to attend.

Today's post deals with that old standby, Sunday School.

As an institution, Sunday School dates way back in church history to about 1751. Yep, it's only about 260 years old.

At Eastview, the Sunday School hour is from 8:45-9:45am, each Sunday (duh). Because many of the students that attend Sunday School come with their parents, our goal is to give them a "more than basic" understanding of the Bible. In our Sunday School hour, we spend our time reading the Bible and discussing the Bible. That's it. Not food beforehand, no games, no small groups, just conversation and discussion about the Bible, what it says, how we might interpret it, and what it means. Currently, we are talking about how we got "here" (today) from "there" (when the events of the Bible took place). We want our students to see how God's Word was written with the intent of intentionality and purpose, and most importantly, how it coheres (relates) to itself. When we are done with that, we will talk about early Church history, how the Bible was put together, the Protestant Reformation...all sort of fun things. We began this back in March, and will probably take a few years to get through. Our Sunday School class is "open", this means that parents and other adults are welcome to join us and participate. We'd love to have you join us!

There it is...an overview of Sunday School; when you think Sunday School, think Bible. It's not that we don't use the Bible in D-group or Youth Group...we do. But Sunday School is intentionally designed to talk specifically about the Bible. If your student only attends Youth Group, they will likely NOT have the depth of Bible understanding (unless they are taught at home or elsewhere) that a student who attends Sunday School would.

And that is why we'd love for your student to come to Sunday School with us.

Upcoming Dates

2011-08-22T12:01:00.001-05:00

We've tried to be as comprehensive as possible so that you (and we) can plan our calendars and our budgets. I've also included event costs where possible. Here are the dates of a number of things coming up...please read this CAREFULLY!

While our Mexico mission trip is listed below, there will be a separate post later in the week, addressing not only the two biggest questions that a parent will have about that trip: safety and cost, but also on our expectations for those that desire to join us. I'll keep you informed!

August 26 (5:30-10pm), August 27 (8:30am-4pm)

Student Ministry Team Retreat

This is for all members of our student ministry team, as well as parents and other interested adults.

Wednesday, September 7

E-KLUB/Middle School Youth Group starts

6-8pm

Sunday, September 18

High School Youth Group starts

5:45-8pm

Friday, September 16-Sunday, September 18

All-Church Retreat at North East Iowa Christian Service Camp

For all: students, parents, members, non-members

Sunday, October 16

Eastview Harvest Party

Following Sunday services
Zieser home, Center Point
All are invited

Monday, October 31

Trunk or Treat at Eastview Christian Church

6-8pm

Thursday, November 3 - Sunday, November 6

"The Event" at Ozark Christian College

This is our annual mid-year high school trip to visit a Christian College; it's a mini-conference, college visit and relationship-builder rolled into one event.
Cost will be $90/student; this covers all event registration, food, lodging, and transportation.
$30 deposit and registration form (available soon) due by Sunday, October 16.

Wednesday, November 16

Thanksgiving Celebration at Eastview

6-8pm

December, Christmas event- Date and Times to be announced

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Spaghetti Dinner/Dessert Auction/Talent Show

Because of this HUGE fundraiser, we can help kids get to camp, events like CIY: Believe and everything else that we do.
Speaking of CIY: Believe...

Thursday February 17 - Sunday, February 19

CIY: Believe is our annual mid-year middle school trip, and they won't want to miss it.
We're going back to St Louis for an amazing time of worship, great speakers that share with middle school students in mind and some solid relationship-building between our students and adults.
Cost will be in the $150 range, which covers event registration, hotel lodging, food, fun...everything!

Early July, 2012

Mexico Mission Trip to San Luis Potosi, Mexico

While this trip is open to any of those entering high school and above for the 2012-2013 school year, it is not for everyone. We will have several informational meetings in November (you just need to attend one) to discuss this trip, the issues and, expectations surrounding it, in detail
Assist with several different Vacation Bible Schools in and around the city of San Luis Potosi, Mexico.
Trip cost in 2010 was $1000/participant. While we will make every effort to maintain this level, transportation cost is the largest variable.

Summer Camp Dates, 2012 (all costs were the 2011 early-bird camp year cost, and subject to change)

June 10-15:     Middle School Camp #1      $155

June 17-23:     High School Camp #2          $185

June 24- 27:    3rd, 4th, 5th Grade Camp      $125

June 29-30:     2nd, 3rd Grade Camp            $35

July 8-13:    Middle School Camp #2       $155

July 15-19:     4th, 5th Grade Camp              $125

July 22-28:      High School Camp #2           $185

Please contact me either by phone (319) 393-9570 or email (jmulholland@eastview.net) with thoughts, questions or concerns. We are looking forward to another excellent year!

Trip update

2011-07-29T19:48:00.001-05:00

Heads up...we made it to Omaha tonight. Leaving 7am-ish, and will be home between noon and 1pm. Be sure to look for updates in the AM.

Colorado Week of Hope, post 1

2011-07-25T22:03:00.000-05:00

We started our first day of work today;we were split into several different groups. There'd are 44 total kids and adults here.

John and Larissa are on team one, our project is at a place called Respite Care. It is a care facility for special needs kids, they go there during the week so that they can receive additional care that their families cannot provide. Today, we took the kids to a water park in Ft Collins and played in the water with them. There were two girls in their mid-twenties from the facility along. I talked to them over lunch, they are Christians and are serving God there. They eventually want to go to Haiti and work with special needs kids there. I'll be posting More about their story over at my personal blog. Jenai is in group 2, and at the same place.

Heidi is in group 3, she went to a place called Waverly School. It is a school for troubled kids. Their project today was yard work: picked up sticks and dug up fence posts. Theres a total of 7 such facilities, but only 2 people to help at all 7.

Brianna went to Hearts and Horses, a therapeutic facility for special needs kids, they get to be with and ride horses. Today, they swept and cleaned out, and mucked the paddocks. Basically, they had a poop war.

Breanna is in group 8, they went to the Boys/Girls Club. They hung out and played with kids, board games, kick ball and went to art class. A kid offered to glue his project to her face. Ships declined.

Nate is in group 7, and they went to Elderhaus, an adult daycare facility. They took the adults to a rec center and played ping pong, pool and bowling. Nathan was beaten by a man sitting in a walker. He was surprised by the mans quickness. Apparently, he was a ping pong wizard.

Sarah and Tyler are in group 4, and they went to the Courtyard Nursing Home. they hung out with the residents, playing bingo, rummy, sorry and excercised with them. This included basketball and horseshoes. Tyler claims that the exercises were awesome. Sarah enjoyed talking with the residents.

All of the groups had lunch at their respective places, and dishes were wa(r)shed. Each of the kids has been assigned a specific task within their groups. Larissa and Heidi are organizers for their groups, Breanna and Jenai are the break makers, Tyler and Brianna are devotion leaders, Nathan is the quartermaster and part-time devotional dictator.

More to come...

Sarah and

Colorado, so far

2011-07-23T08:15:00.000-05:00

What an amazing trip. Thursday night, we stopped in North Platte, Nebraska for the night at a campground. We baptized Tyler Wright in the lake. It was a cool thing to see happen. Our kids clapped and angels rejoiced. We sat up late into the night around a fire talking, until the mosquitos showed up en masse. Then, the wind started to blow. From 1130-330 am the wind howled and howled. Nate, Tyler and I were outside, so at least there weren't mosquitos to fight with. Then the wind died and they were back. It was brutal!!

Woke up Friday morning, packed all of our stuff and then left for Longmont Colorado. We arrived around 1230 and went to the church to meet our host. Then, it was off to Group Publishing for a tour and some face time with the team behind our service project this week, Week of Hope. Back to Longmont, a few games of Twister, 5 Guys Burgers and Fries for dinner, and of course, a trip to Wal-Mart. More Twister, Phase 10, and then an early bedtime of 945pm.

Today, we are heading out to the Poudre River for rafting. As soon as I find a more robust internet connection, I'll get some photos up. In the meantime, just follow the Twitter feed for some photos.

Homeward's Weekly Culture Brief: 7/8/11

2011-07-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

Great resource for parents, see more info here.

iTunes Top 10 Downloaded Songs - 7/8/11
   1. Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO
   2. Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.) - Katy Perry
   3. Give Me Everything - Pitbull
   4. Rolling in the Deep - Adele
   5. Good Life - OneRepublic
   6. Super Bass - Nicki Minaj
   7. Tonight Tonight - Hot Chelle Rae
   8. How to Live - Lil Wayne
   9. Dirt Road Anthem - Jason Aldean
10. The Edge of Glory - Lady GaGa
Source: Apple iTunes

Top 5 Most Viewed Videos on YouTube - Week Ending - 7/8/11
   1. Katy Perry - Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)
   2. Shakira - Rabiosa (English Version)
   3. Rihanna - Man Down
   4. Chris Brown - Next to You
   5. Britney Spears - I Wanna Go
Source: YouTube

Eastview Student Ministries Mid-Summer Update

2011-07-07T16:42:00.000-05:00

It's been a great Summer, this is a great time to tell you a little about what's happened and what is coming up:

We took kids to both our middle school and high school weeks of camp at North East Iowa Christian Service Camp. We also had kids go to 4&5th grade and 5&6th grade camp. Please visit our church's Facebook page to take a look at pictures of some of the fun! On the 17th of July in our weekly worship service, we'll be baptizing two of our students that made decisions to follow Jesus at Camp. Pretty sweet!!

Just 2 weeks from now, we are leaving for Loveland Colorado for our senior high service trip for the Summer. We're going to get some rafting in, and lots of opportunities to serve people. It will be a great trip, I know that those going are really looking forward to it.

On August 10-14, we will be having a Vacation Bible School at Eastview. This is for students e-klub age through middle school. We'll have a HUGE carnival on Sunday, August 14 after Sunday service, food, inflatables, it will be a great time. Come and see what the fun's all about!
We are asking that parents help as they are able, and if your high school student would like to help, please have them contact me ASAP. We'll be handing out flyers on August 3rd, and having registration at Eastview and possibly one other location on Saturday, August 6th. I'll have more details out shortly.

Fall 2011

We will be starting our regular programming for e-klub and middle school on Wednesday, September 7 at 6pm. Our high school youth group starts on Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 5:30pm.

We're bringing D-Group back. What is D-Group? D-Group was and is an intentional, straight-up discipleship/bible study/deeper-learning time. In the past, we've read books together, gone through workbooks, etc, and the expectation for this group is that if a student joins, they will participate in the study. This is NOT youth group, while we have fun, we don't play games or anything like that. We have, and will talk about challenging stuff, and I hope that many of our students will join. D-Group will be on Sunday afternoons, from 4-5:15pm. While this is open to ALL middle school and high school students, in the past, some of our students were overwhelmed by the expectations. I'd encourage all of our students to at least come to our first D-Group session on September 11, at 4pm.

Our annual All-Church Retreat is scheduled for September 16-18 at North East Iowa Christian Service Camp. We hope that you will join us for this event.

A Little Later:

Our yearly visit to a Bible College is scheduled for November 3-6. This year, we'll be visiting Ozark Christian College in Joplin Missouri. We'll have more details out in early September. High school students only.

Our annual Spaghetti Dinner/Dessert Auction/Talent Show will be scheduled in mid-February. This is our huge fundraiser for the year. The money raised helps keep our event costs low, and provides money for our scholarship fund.

CIY:Believe for our middle school students will be sometime at the end of February, 2012. Dates have yet to be announced, but we'll let you know ASAP.

Summer 2012

Summer camps for all age groups, specifics out late-2011, early 2012.

Mexico Mission Trip for high school students. Each year we alternate between either a Summer conference/service project and our Mexico Mission Trip. 2012 is the Mexico year. I've already been in contact with the mission that we support there to get some feedback about a trip next Summer. While we will schedule a meeting in November that will have more details on this trip, it's important that you and your students be thinking and praying about this trip NOW.

The two biggest concerns for this trip have traditionally been money and safety.

First, money. Our 2010 trip cost was approximately $1000, but many students took advantage of our scholarship, sent support letters, etc and received money from our Spaghetti Dinner fundraiser.

Second, safety. There are obvious safety concerns in going oversees, and Mexico can indeed be dangerous. There are a number of steps that we take to ensure the safety of the group, and that's one of the reasons we begin planning this trip a year in advance, so that you, the parent, can make the most informed decision that you can.

The abilities, maturity and willingness of our students to listen is important; while
any high school student is welcome to apply for this trip, it's not for those that lack maturity or a willingness to serve. Because of this, we meet with each person being considered for this trip and we will have a very specific pre-trip process and a post-trip debrief for those going.

Please contact John Mulholland with any questions!!

2 Upcoming Fundraising Opportunities

2011-04-12T11:49:00.000-05:00

There are 2 chances to raise money for our Summer Camp season:

This Saturday, April 16. Camp clean-up day at North East Iowa Christian Service Camp. We'll be leaving Eastview at 7am and returning by 6pm. Lunch provided. Students can earn $70 to apply to a Summer activity.
Saturday, May 7th. We'll be having a clean-up day at Eastview Christian Church. We've got all sorts of projects planned, so come prepared to work. We'll start at 9am and be done at 4pm, again, lunch will be provided. Students will earn $10/hour in credit to be applied to a Summer activity.

A note: since these events are fundraisers, we fully expect students to work hard. While we will have fun, the purpose is to clean and earn money. Students that do not work, or have to be told 82 million times to work, will not be paid and we will call you to come and get them. Please communicate this to your students!!

Identity: The Office, Lady Gaga and Jesus

2011-03-18T12:45:00.000-05:00

Thought I’d send out a quick note about our current Sunday night lesson series called “The Gospel According to The Office”.

We’ve covered a lot of ground and a ton of topics. Basically, our format has been like this:

Last week’s theme was “conviction” and we asked the kids to be on the look out for incidents in the show that people either were convicted of the wrong that they had done, or tried to convict others.
We watched an episode called “The Chump” in which Michael realized that he was dating a married woman and did not care. The people in the office spent the episode trying to get him to see that he was wrong using a variety of methods.
We talked about conviction as found in the Bible, using Genesis 3:1-12, Exodus 13:20 and Deuteronomy 17 and 1 Samuel 8 as examples of God’s conviction and leading.
We also read Romans 1 and talked about how God is evident but people ignore what He’s done because of their own wickedness.
We ended with a challenge to hear God’s conviction and in small groups we had some further discussion and prayer time.

I’m sending this to you because this week, we are talking about the theme of “Identity”. We’ll be using the Office episode entitled “The Fire” as well as Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and finally a video I made called “I am new”. Each of these videos deals with the theme of “who we are” in a different way. Our point is that “Who We Are” in Christ is our most important identity. Some may be hesitant for us to use Gaga’s video, and while I understand that, please know a few things about this song:

the first week that this song was released, it was downloaded 1.2 million times on iTunes, the fastest ever
if your student has an iPod, they most likely have Lady Gaga on it, probably, this song is there
we are determined to help our students discern, understand and see culture in the light of the Gospel of Jesus

I’d encourage you to take a look at what other Christians have said about this song, video, and it’s importance in our ministries to students.

http://learningmylines.blogspot.com/2011/02/lady-gaga-born-this-way-voice-of.html
http://www.pluggedin.com/music/tracks/2011/ladygaga-bornthisway.aspx
http://networkedblogs.com/ejjta

CIY: Believe 2011 Recap

2011-03-08T13:02:00.000-06:00

If I were asked to describe CIY: Believe in just one word...that word would be "awesome".

Friday
We left Eastview on Friday morning shortly after 10am. The girls rode with Kathy (one of our middle school youth leaders) in our van, and the boys rode in Big Purple (our church van) with Steve (one of our middle school youth leaders) and myself. The drive was as you'd expect, loud! We stopped for lunch at the Denny's in the bustling city of Wayland, Missouri. We had a run-in with the local sheriff's deputies there, they told us the difference between a "shiv" and a "shank", which fascinated the boys.

After, we finished our drive to Family Arena, in St Charles Missouri. We registered, and picked up another one of our female youth leaders, my daughter Katie. Went to the hotel and got checked in and had quick dinner before going back to the Family Arena for the night. We picked out our group's t-shirts, and then enjoyed a night filled with worship, comedy and a great speaker, talking about the life of Esther, in the Old Testament.

Saturday
We woke up at a reasonable time, had breakfast at the hotel, and then to the Family Arena for the morning, more worship, an illusionist and a speaker, taking us deeper into the life of Esther. Lunch was sandwiches at the hotel, and then back to Family Arena for a few more sessions. The event was over about 4pm, and then we went to the Incredible Pizza Company for dinner and video games. IT was a great night of food and hanging out as a group. After around 3 hours, we returned to the hotel for a debrief of the weekend and more time with our group. Lights out was around 11:30.

Sunday
After waking up and having breakfast, we went to Harvester Christian Church for their morning service and left St Charles by 10:45. We stopped at Hardees for lunch in Hannibal and were in the parking lot a little after 4pm.

Here's what happened on a deeper level:

The kids were exposed to a lot of LOUD music that honored Jesus.
By the end of the weekend, they actually liked "Christian" music.
They were in an environment of more that 3000 others, so for those that love Jesus, they are not alone.
The kids laughed at the jokes and thought the illusionist was cool.
The speaker told the story of a girl who lived for God regardless of the fact that her parents were not involved in her life. In fact, they were dead.
The kids made some great relationships with one another.
The kids built great relationships with the adult youth leaders.

Thanks to CIY: Believe for putting on an awesome event!

Cancelled!

2011-02-01T20:21:00.003-06:00

Middle school group and E-KLUB Children's Ministry are canceled for tomorrow night.

And...we're off!

2011-01-13T06:58:00.000-06:00

Our new semester has started and we're off with a bang. Our middle school group is hearing the story of God, we're teaching the Bible from a different perspective, one story at a time, building on the previous week's story. So far, we've covered Creation and the Fall of Man, next up if the story of the first murder, starring Cain and Abel.

In our high school group, we started our "Gospel According to the Office" series and this past Sunday we had a great discussion about judgment and self-righteousness. Up next, we'll be taking about the role of denial, reality, and excuse-making in our relationship with God. It's going to be great.

We've got more kids than ever and covet your prayers.

Also, forms for the Colorado trip (high school) are due Sunday, and CIY: Believe forms are due next Wednesday. We've got a lot of things going on besides our normal youth group schedule, and we'd love for your kids to join us! As always, contact us with questions!

Coming soon: The Gospel According to the Office

2010-12-15T13:47:00.000-06:00

Starting in January, our Sr High group will begin material called "The Gospel According to The Office."

As I stated in my December 2010 church newsletter article, this show is extremely popular with our students. So, we're going to use it to communicate the Gospel to them.

For part of the study time, we'll be using material from a group in New York City called "Mockingbird." To see what the lessons look like, go here, and click on the first link. We'll also be writing material for 5 or 6 lessons. Since there may be concerns about what specifically we'll be watching, below you'll find an episode list. And, since I cannot provide a copy of those episodes to everyone and their brother, I suggest that you visit NBC's website, find the "show clips" link, and watch a 2 minute overview of the episodes on question. You can also visit Hulu and watch full episodes there. As of right now (1:30pm on Wednesday, December 15) all of the seasons and episodes are there.

Here's the episode list that we'll be using:

Performance Review
Business School
Did I stutter?
The Surplus
The Coup
That's What She Said (this is NOT an episode, but a compilation video)
Christmas Party
The Chump
The Fire
Email Surveillance
Conflict Resolution

As funny as this show is, it is really, really, dumb. It is also, really depressing and accurately portrays life without God. To see some compilation videos that demonstrate the absurdity of it, go here and here.

On Group's Week of Hope

2010-11-22T10:22:00.000-06:00

As we continue to plan for next Summer's Week of Hope trip, we're meeting with students and parents to talk about it. One of the questions that's come up is "Why are we doing this?" Here are some thoughts:

One of the biggest things that we do as a student ministry is evaluation. It's why I meet with our youth leaders after their night of ministry each week for 20-25 minutes; we talk about the night, about the direction, the tone and feel of the night, the things said and left unsaid. We discuss our roles, our hearts and our attitudes. We discuss the material, the Bible lesson and the prayer time. This is not an effort to second-guess, it's an effort to provide feedback to determine what, if anything, we could do differently. In addition to an evaluation of our weekly ministry programming, we also evaluate our annual events. When we are away at CIY, or Mexico, or Kansas, or wherever...our sponsors meet as frequently as possible to talk, pray, etc. The process as described above takes place.

But, we also evaluate those events as events themselves. We take a look at our ministry from the macro, 30,000 foot perspective and try to discern a) what God is doing, and b) the current state of our ministry. And then, we make adjustments. Up to this year, the senior high ministry at Eastview has functioned the same way for it's Summer event schedule. One year is the "conference year" and the next year is our "mission trip year." For Eastview, the conference has always been CIY, and for the past 5 years, our mission has been Pavon Christian Mission in Mexico. Here's what I've noticed about the conference year...

CIY Summer Conference, for our current group, is largely the right answer to the wrong question. It has been the practice of our student ministry to rely on this event as a catalyst for further spiritual growth. And, for many, if not most, this has simply failed. Don't believe me? Listen to our students. For them, CIY summer conference has become an emotional pick me up, a time to endure the spiritual content to simply hang out with friends. This past year, we watched and listened as kids talked about some serious conviction, and then less than 4 hours later completely deny that it had happened. Based on this, I began looking for something different, and like a person simply looking for a program, my research led me to something the same, big and loud "worship," dynamic speakers, all seemingly geared towards pumping kids up. I looked elsewhere, which led me to...

Service Trips. There are also a lot of choices. The first place I looked of course was the trusty CIY Know Sweat. But, as I dug deeper, I saw the same thing in CIY's service projects that I saw in their conference, great speakers and Jesus cheerleaders. The second place I went to was Group Publishing, initially to look at their Workcamps, then I discovered their other service trip, Week of Hope. I've been engaged with Group Publishing for the past few years through their Simply Youth Ministry Conference, and the one thing that I've noticed about them is they are all about relationships. As I examined the Week of Hope ministry, I saw that this relationship orientation was evident.

Here's the bottom line, through conversations with students, parents and our youth workers, what we see as a missing piece in the lives of our students is relationship. In the past, many of the things that we have done have lent themselves to the dysfunction and cliques that have plagued our group over the past 2 years. Our kids have not really been "forced" to be in relationship with one another, and they haven't focused on their relationship with God. The service opportunity with Week of Hope is the slow down, focus on others, event that we need as a group because in the end, this week of service will not be about them. Not doubt, they will grow and learn, they will benefit. But this week will not be entertainment-driven. Spending multiple travel days in a vehicle will force them to be in relationship with one another. Working in groups with kids from other places will force them to be in relationship with others. And spending time with God, through service, quiet times and our own youth group time, will put them in a position to be in relationship with God.

I believe that it will be beneficial for all of our high school kids to go, and in fact I want them all to go. No doubt, some of our students will not be interested in this trip. I want you to know up from that I'm actually ok with that. Why? Because this trip is not about them. So, as your family processes this trip, please talk with your students about their motivation for this trip.

Yep, we're going rafting.
We'll do some hiking.
We'll have an awesome time together, making up new youth group sayings, and resurrecting old ones.
But that's not why we're going.

We're going to serve, and to love.

PS- To be very clear, I am not anti-CIY. For our middle school students, CIY has proven to be a very positive event in that it has created an atmosphere of relationship between students and from student to leader. At this point, we're simply taking a break from the conference for our high school ministry. This will be re-evaluated after our Week of Hope trip.

Student Ministry Recapsm week beginning October 31

2010-10-29T15:17:00.000-05:00

October 24, 2010 Middle School/High School Sunday School

15 Students, 2 Adults
Theme: Who is Jesus?
Bible Story: John 4
Specifically: We answered questions from the 3x7 that the students came up with from their reading. We read the text and had great discussion.

October 24, 2010 High School Youth Group

13 students, 4 adults
Topic: Crazy Love, chapter 7
Overview: We discussed the questions that arose from the reading of chapter 7. Most students are doing the reading, only a few did the 3x7 for the week.

October 27, 2010 Middle School Youth Group

12 Students, 7 Adults
Topic: Whos’ the Man?
We discussed John 8:1-11, and what happens when we are forgiven by God. He expects us to “go and sin no more.” The discussions in all 3 small groups were great, with some really deep questions asked by our students. Beginning in January, we’re going to tackle some deeper theological topics and the tenets of the Christian faith.

Student Ministry Updates, week beginning October 17

2010-10-23T11:44:00.000-05:00

Sunday School

Theme: Who is Jesus?
Bible Story:         John 3
Specifically: We walked through John 3 and talked about the differences and similarities between Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus and John the Baptists encounter with “a certain Jew”.

Senior High Youth Group

Topic:         Crazy Love, chapter 6
Overview: The previous week, we challenged the group to read chapter 6 and come up with a “3x7” (3 questions and 7 truths) from the reading. We spent our time answering their questions and had some great conversation. Once again, we did not make it to the video because we didn’t have to.
Middle School Youth Group

This week, we had someone take money from the purse of one of adults sponsors. We spoke about the value of TRUST within relationships and how there is no real relationship with it. It was a pretty sad and frustrating night.

Student Ministry Recaps, week of October 3

2010-10-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry this is a day late. Earlier this week I was in Loveland, Colorado the home of Group Publishing. I'm a member of their Inside Track Team, a group of youth ministers and workers from all over the country. We met to do some planning for next year's Simply Youth Ministry Conference; it's really going to be an excellent time of study and relationships. We're planning on taking 3 of our youth workers along with us.

Like last week, this has been a good one.
Sunday School

We began our study of the Gospel of John in the Bible's New Testament this past Sunday. The conversation was decent. Would you encourage your students to read John 2 and paraphrase it before Sunday morning?
Senior High Youth Group

We discussed chapter 4 of Francis Chan's Crazy Love book. This was a very tough discussion. Up until this chapter, the book has been about God's amazing love for us, so amazing that he would send Jesus to fix the relationship between us and him. Chapter 4 changes it, once we know that God loves us...what is our response? Often, it is lukewarm and unexciting. A lukewarm love of God is no love at all. And...some of our students simply don't love Jesus, it's just the reality. This has left many of these students fearful and filled with doubt, and the hearts of our youth workers are heavy. Please join us in prayer for all of our students, this study does not get any easier as we progress. We'll be discussing chapter 5 this coming Sunday.

Middle School Youth Group

Wednesday night a study on David and Bathsheba. According to one of our youth workers, "the kids seemed pretty shocked at the point in the story when their son died and how that was his consequence for his sin." We are still having some issues with kids over the way they disrespect one another. We'll be covering this specifically next week. The Bible reading for next week is Mark 10:17-27.
How you can help us help you

As you can see from above, at each weekly activity, we are asking the kids to do some sort of preparation, it might be reading, paraphrasing, doing a take-home sheet, or whatever. We are working hard to equip you to minister to your own kids. As a parent, this is truly one of the hardest things to do. If you're like me, you feel inadequate (I do...and I'm a minister!). We're trying to give out simple tools and things that you can do as a family. Regardless of what we may think, polls continue to state that parents are the most important influence on the faith of kids. If there are other things that we can help, please let us know. You can call me at 319-393-9570, email me at eccparents@gmail.com, or...better yet, attend our upcoming "Second Wednesday" on Wednesday night, October 13 at Eastview. It's an event just for parents and grandparents, we'll be talking specifically about building meaningful relationships with our kids. W'll be hanging out from 6-8pm. Would you join us?

Student Ministry Recaps, week beginning September 26

2010-09-30T13:53:00.000-05:00

It's been a very interesting week. It is evident that our students are coming to Sunday school and youth groups ready to talk and listen. What have we been talking about?

Sunday School

We just finished a multi-week series through what are called the "General Epistles", 1, 2 and 3rd John, along with Jude. Each week we asked the kids to read the book or chapter for the following week. Also, we've asked them to paraphrase what they've read. We had mixed results at the beginning with the reading and paraphrasing, but many of the kids have really taken to it. At this point, more kids are doing the reading than not, and the number of those paraphrasing is increasing. Starting next week, we'll be reading and studying the Gospel of John and learning Jesus' life and ministry. Our hope is to introduce them to the Jesus they don't know.

Senior High Youth Group

We're in chapter three of Francis Chan's Crazy Love book. We had some amazing conversations and sharing going on. One of the main pieces that we talked about was how our human relationships affect our thoughts and relationship with God. Again, many of the kids are doing the reading (hopefully before 4:15 on Sunday afternoon), and this has really helped. Some of the questions are starting to change, revealing some depth that we hadn't seen before. A main struggle with this group is unity, we have several small groups of 2-3 kids, so we are working on group unity. Our upcoming SEMP service project will help with this.

Middle School Youth Group

We continue with our Grapple series. Last night we finished the first section of our semester, called "Who's the Man?" which dealt with the nature of God himself. Our Bible story last night was from the book of Jonah, and we grappled with the question "Isn't God just mean and cruel?", the main thought being that bad thing happen to people, and how can we trust God through them? We've also been doing a "Bible Scavenger Hunt" each week, asking the kids a question and then telling them which Bible book that it is in, and having them find it. So far, we've had kids read the ENTIRE book of Revelation, the book of Acts, and this week, their question is from the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament.

How you can help us help you

As you can see from above, at each weekly activity, we are asking the kids to do some sort of preparation, it might be reading, paraphrasing, doing a take-home sheet, or whatever. We are working hard to equip you to minister to your own kids. As a parent, this is truly one of the hardest things to do. If you're like me, you feel inadequate (I do...and I'm a minister!). We're trying to give out simple tools and things that you can do as a family. Regardless of what we may think, polls continue to state that parents are the most important influence on the faith of kids. If there are other things that we can help, please let us know. You can call me at 319-393-9570, email me at eccparents@gmail.com, or...better yet, attend our upcoming "Second Wednesday" on Wednesday night, October 13 at Eastview. It's an event just for parents and grandparents, we'll be talking specifically about building meaningful relationships with our kids. W'll be hanging out from 6-8pm. Would you join us?

Student Ministry Recaps

2010-09-23T19:18:00.000-05:00

September 19, 2010 High School Youth Group

13 students, 3 adults
Theme: Crazy Love: Chapter 3
Overall: Watched a recap of “The Last Lecture”, a Zac Smith Video, talked about what it meant to rejoice and to not be anxious. Discussed the life of Paul and how he was the writer of those words (on rejoicing and anxiety), then watched the chapter video.
We are working hard to encourage the kids to read the chapter before Sunday night. We're going to change up our schedule a little bit this Sunday.

September 22, 2010 Middle School Youth Group

15 Students, 7 Adults
Theme: Who’s the Man? Is believing in God lame?
Bible Story: Daniel 3, Matthew 5:10-16
Overall: Games went well, kids were especially worked up. Had some trouble keeping focus in big group and small group. We talked specifically about how we need to encourage one another and stand for what we believe in.

Student Ministry Recaps

2010-09-20T09:37:00.000-05:00

I want to apologize for not getting these up. I simply have not made this the priority that it needs to be.

Senior High Youth Group-Sunday September 12

We had 16 students and 2 adults.
We introduced the "Crazy Love" series by reading the preface and chapter 1 as a group. We spent some time talking about our inaccurate views of God and how those false views affect our relationship with God.

Middle School Youth Group-Wednesday September 15

We had 13 students and 7 adults.
Our second week in a four week series dealing with the bigger question, "Who is God?"....we talked specifically about the gifts that God has given us now. Our bible story was from Genesis 15 and dealt with the promise that God made to Abram in the Old Testament that Abram would be the father of many nations. During our small group breakout, we had an awesome time of sharing with our students about the way that God has blessed us with the opportunity for eternal life. Several of our students got very personal about what's been happening in their lives and we closed with those students praying. It was a pretty powerful night.
We handed out a "Take Home" sheet for this week's lesson. You can find it off to the right on this page, just click on the "Middle School Take Home" link and download the 9-22-10 sheet.

From this point forward, these will be posted by Thursday afternoons.

2010 Open House

2010-09-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Last night was excellent! We had breakout sessions for all ages, including parents. Based on last night, on the second Wednesday of each month, we'll have a parents group meet. Our first one is scheduled for October 13, the topic will be "How to talk about Jesus with your kids" and will be a conversation. We hope you'll join us.

There are a ton of pictures over here.

We also handed out a ton of information last night. If you were unable to attend, please go here to download the necessary registration packet for this school year. We MUST have this information for our students over the next few weeks.

Some dates:

September 8: Regular E-KLUB/Middle School night, 6-8pm. Meal provided.

September 12: Regular High School program begins, 6-8pm. NO MEAL PROVIDED.

Looking forward to an awesome year of ministry!

Fall Kick-Off!

2010-09-01T12:07:00.000-05:00

Tonight!

Tonight!!

Tonight!!

Registration starts at 5:45.

For ALL youth programs...E-Klub (4 and up), Middle School, and High School!

Eastview Christian Church, 727 Collins Rd NE, Cedar Rapids, 52402.

Call 319-393-9570 for more info.

Getting Ready for Fall

2010-08-09T10:04:00.002-05:00

It’s hard to believe it, but Summer is almost over, which means Fall is just around the corner. Plans are being made even now for the best E-klub and Youth Group year ever! We’ll be getting more info out to you over the next few weeks, but here some important dates for you to calendar now:

On Wednesday, September 1 from 6-8pm, is our Fall Kick-Off and Registration for our ALL youth programs. We are asking that the parents and students coming to E-Klub and High School and Middle School programs come this night; we’ll have food and activities for ALL ages. Our Fall Kick-Off has been a GREAT way to get things going; this year we’re adding a registration process to the night. We’ll be hosting this program at Eastview.

Wednesday, September 8 is the official start date for our E-Klub and Middle School night. The time for this is 6-8pm.

Sunday, September 12 is the first night of our High School youth group. As of right now, we are planning on meeting from 5:30-8pm, like last year, the meal will be from 5:30-6.

September 17-18 (Friday-Saturday) is our All-Church Retreat. While this is for any family that wants to attend, we are also taking all of our Middle School and High School students as our Fall Retreat. We’ll have a sign-up sheet out on September 1 so we can get an idea of who is coming from those two groups.

Wednesday, November 17 is our Family Thanksgiving night at Eastview. You’re invited to come to Eastview that night to spend the evening with us.

Wednesday, December 15 is our Family Christmas night at Eastview. You’re invited to come to Eastview that night to spend the evening with us.

February 19 (Saturday) is our annual Spaghetti Dinner/Dessert Auction/Talent Show fundraiser. This is our largest and main fundraiser for the year; it’s an event that you don’t want to miss.

February 25-27 (Friday-Sunday) is CIY Believe for our Middle School Students. More information about this awesome weekend is coming soon.

That’s what we have for right now. We’re finalizing curriculum plans, and like last year, we’ll be posting all sorts of things on the parent’s website in the weeks and months to come. We are looking forward to a great year of God working!

Transitions...

2010-07-31T18:28:00.000-05:00

June brought our middle school camp week.

July brought a Mexico mission trip and our high school camp week.

August will be a transition month for our ministry. But, it will be more that simply a calendar change from "not meeting" to "meeting".

Beginning in September, we'll be transforming our youth ministry.

Youth group nights will look different.

Sunday school will look really different.

Get ready.

Monna's Post!

2010-07-08T21:37:00.000-05:00

We awoke at 4:30 after a very short night... Heidi sang Phantom of the Opera @ 12:30. We had a wonderful breakfast and then off to the airport in Chicago.

We landed in Dallas Fort Worth and barely made our connecting flight! Most everyone had already boarded. We had no time for lunch... but we did eat about 4:00. We got on a bus and rode out to Gorgorron.

We are sitting down to ham and cheese tortillas at 9:00 pm. We helped with a VBS in a village area of Gorgorron. It was amazing to me how ministry happens here. Even though we saw impoverished people, the parents were engaged with their children. It was obvious to me that they love Jesus dearly. We had about 97 kids, with a total of 132 including parents and adults. Brianna and I helped with an early elementary group of 17 children. I have never seen ministry happen with less space, supplies and resources. But believe me, God is here, and I saw Him changing children. I AM being changed too!

Please continue praying for His work here AND praise for arriving us safely. We are staying with Brigido and his family. We are having sweet fellowship!

Our memory verse today is Juan 3:16.

Off to Mexico

2010-07-07T08:26:00.002-05:00

After 2 years of prep work, our group is heading to San Luis Potosi Mexico for 2 weeks. I hope you'll check out our trip blog over here.

T-minus 48 hours

2010-07-05T15:01:00.002-05:00

On Wednesday morning at about 11am, our group will be leaving Eastview Christian Church for San Luis Potosi Mexico. We have 4 students and 5 adults going. We'll be helping at 4 different Vacation Bible School locations in San Luis Potosi. The mission that we'll be supporting is Pavon Christian Ministry.

Here's our schedule:

July 7: Drive to Chicago
July 8: Fly to San Luis Potosi, go to our first VBS day within 2 hours of landing
July 8-11: VBS at Gorgorron
July 12-16: VBS at Pavon Church in the AM, and La Mision and Rancho Nuevo in the PM
July 17-18: Enjoy SLP
July 19: Fly to Chicago for debrief
July 20: Return to Eastview

You can follow our trip on this blog, as well as on our church's Facebook page. We'll post at least daily while gone, pictures, video and blogposts. We'd love to have you follow us!

It's Summer!!

2010-07-04T12:30:00.002-05:00

Our regularly scheduled programming of youth group is currently on hiatus for the Summer. So far, we've had a week at Middle School camp, and on Wednesday, our team leaves for San Luis Potosi Mexico for our mission trip; we'll be gone from July 7-20th. We'll close out our Summer with our High School camp week from July 25-31.

Here are some middle school camp photos!

www.flickr.com

mulholland27's NEICSC 2010 MS Camp photoset

We'll be blogging our Mexico trip daily over here. We will post video, photos and our students will post thoughts there during the trip Hope you'll check it out!

Be on the lookout...our Fall kick-off is right around the corner, scheduled for September 2, 2010, with our regular youth groups and e-Klub events starting the following week. If you want to be added to our email list, drop us a line at eccparents@gmail.com.

Have a great rest of the summer!

Reviewing the May/June 2010 Group Magazine

2010-06-02T12:09:00.000-05:00

I've recently re-subscribed to Group Magazine, the current issue came yesterday afternoon. Here's a brief review of the articles that will be making an impact on how we do things at Eastview:

Q & A with Doug Fields- Doug Fields was at Saddleback Church in SoCal.
This month, Doug interviews Danette Matty, youth ministry volunteer for life. She talks about relationships, intimacy with Jesus and accountability as the big ricks of her involvement with student ministry over the years. My favorite quote? "You've got to give people something worth committing to, something that's going to be a great use of their time."

Voices, Mark DeVries- Mark is one of the guys that we've built a ton of our ministry on. He's all about trying to get families involved.
This month, his article is called "The Interim Way". He seeks to make the point that any youth minister (or minister, for that matter), is in fact "interim". There was someone before us, and someone coming after us. He states that "Successful interims leave their ministries better than they found them." We've worked and continue to work to equip those who serve to minister. To find out how we're doing, why our volunteers serve, check out the sermon from this past Sunday...it was all about them. Click here and listen to "Thank You".

Teenagers Top Needs, Rick Lawrence- Rick is the editor of Group Magazine.
This is actually part 2 of an article from the previous month. Basically, they presented a few lists to the students attending Group's Workcamps (short-term service projects) last Summer, and now they're taking a look and the responses; they've also asked youth ministers to comment. We'll be iusing this list soon, to help us with some curriculum ideas for the coming school year.

Voices-Smaller Church Youth Ministry, Stephanie Caro- Steph is a friend that I've gotten to know over the past view years through the Inside Track Team at Group's Youth Ministry Conference.
Steph makes the point that an updated church leadership team is a "bought in" church leadership team. While our weekly meetings are not simply reporting venues, there is a lot to be said about keeping my leaders in tune with my schedule and our activities.

The Maximized Senior Year, Tim Levert- Church Leader, Maryland.
This article really put some practical ideas about ministering to these students and their families. Final semester weekly Bible study for students and parents, senior/parents only events, great ideas. I've been thinking about this kind of thing for a year or two, and these were a few "do-able" things. With several students beginning their senior year in September, this will be a great place to start.

The Magical Mystery Tour, Josh Jones- Youth Pastor, Colorado.
"The story of how one youth leader took nine senior highers, two adult volunteers and an intern on a week-long summer outreach odyssey--they had no schedule, no destination and no plan B." Over the past few ministry team meetings, I've expressed frustration with our bi-annual conference program. Josh and his group simply met, and left. They trusted God. They changed flat tires on the highway, worked at churches, helped in soup kitchens, and met needs. Even he did not know where they were headed, they just went. At the end of the article, he shared some of their planning, meal costs, had camping gear along, car maintenance tools, etc, along with a "What I'd Do Differently Next Time." section. Great idea. This will be in the agenda for discussion soon.

Student Ministry Recaps: May 2-8, 2010

2010-05-06T11:18:00.000-05:00

Senior High

May 2, 2010

Over the past few weeks we have been talking about music. We looked at scripture to see the different forms of music God directs us to use to worship him. We talked about lyrics in the songs each student listens to and how music is important to God. We also talked about worship and how worship is not just for Sunday mornings, but should be a part of our lifestyle.

We concluded the study this past Sunday using music to discuss believing in the truth and how the truth can set us free. From John 8 we talked about how Jesus was telling the truth but those listening didn't want to hear or accept what he was saying. The students were challenged to hear the words of Jesus, accept his truth and not be a slave to sin.

We will begin a study on the different denominations and what they believe on May 11th and give the students some fundamental foundation of the Christian Church. We will not be meeting on Sunday May 9th so students can celebrate Mother's Day.

Middle School

May 5, 2010

Topic: Don't All Good People Go To Heaven?

The Point: Jesus Is My Only Hope.

Takeaways:
1. We can follow all the rules and be good, but it doesn't necessarily get us into heaven. (story of the rich young ruler from Mark 10:17-27)
2. Jesus will not chase us if we do not so what He says..we must be obedient to Him.

Next Week : ?

E-Klub

May 5, 2010

Wednesday night we had a cadet challenge, we ate like astronauts. Since there isn't any gravity in space food flies through the air when released. So we took marshmallows and tried to get them into the mouth of our partner by throwing them. It was a lot of fun. There were some that even made it into mouths.

We learned that we can not live with out reading the Bible everyday, just as we can not live with out eating everyday. Where the food nourishes our bodies, the Bible nourishes our spirit. We acted out a short story from the Bible. Jesus came to visit sisters, Mary and Martha. Mary sits near Jesus listening, Martha is busy cleaning. She gets angry and tells Jesus to make Mary start helping. Jesus tells her Mary is right where she needs to be. We need to do the same, stop and learn the Bible, love the Bible and live the Bible.

Next Wednesday is our last Wednesday until September. We will find out what happens on the SS Intrepid, make a craft and have a fun snack. The children have been working hard learning all the books of the Bible. Next week we will see how many more have made that goal.

Youth Group Recaps: April 25-May 1, 2010

2010-05-03T14:00:00.000-05:00

Senior High
April 25, 2010

Topic: An exploration of the power of music and its role as part of a worshipful lifestyle.

Take Away: Music is intended to be a powerful part of worshiping God.

Next Week: A continued exploration of music and worship.

Middle School
April 28, 2010

Topic: Revelation Happenings - we did an activity where the students had to draw what they thought would happen when the end of the world came. Monna then asked if they thought they would be ready if it happened...at 6am tomorrow. We had different answers to the question (and many interesting pictures).

Take Away: We had a couple of takeaways. We read mainly from Revelation 1:9-18, but referred back to Daniel 7:9-10 for similarities. We talked about prophesy versus vision and what the difference is. Prophesy being a "warning" to people to turn away from sin. Vision is a message that God wants to reveal to us. We related it back to the story we read and how we know that the Lord is coming back, and although we don't know exactly when, we need to be ready when He does.

The second takeaway was from Revelation 3:16. Basically if we are lukewarm in our faith, God will "spit" us out when it is time to go to Him. We need to be "hot" for Him..learn about Him and do what we have to do in order to please Him.

Student Ministry Recaps, April 18-24 2010

2010-04-23T15:17:00.000-05:00

Senior High

April 18, 2010

Topic: An exploration of what it means to "fear the Lord."

Take Away: Fearing the Lord has to do with being aware of God's ultimate power. This fear can be a deep respect for that power but can also be a literal fear. We should use this fear to both honor God and change our lives to grow closer to Him.

Next Week: A discussion of the role of music as a part of worship.

Middle School

April 21, 2010

Topic: Eternal Life. The story was John 20:1-31. Jesus died, and his followers were very sad. But then the unexpected happened...he rose from the dead and appeared to his followers.

Take Away: God made the ultimate sacrifice when He gave his son to be crucified. God is all powerful and can do unbelievable things...we need to believe. the fact that Jesus rose from the dead gives all of us hope.

Next week: John is gone..so it is party time.

E-Klub

April 21, 2010

Wednesday night our Operation Space lesson was on the Incredible Impact. We learned how the Bible has an incredible impact on our lives by transforming us. To illustrate the change, we rolled volunteers in toilet paper and watched them burst into a beautiful butterflies. The Bible transforms us as the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly.

We learned that there are 66 books of the Bible. There are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. We are learning a song to help us remember the books of the Bible, in the order they are found. It's helpful to know the order so we can quickly find passages we need.

Next week we will still be talking about the Incredible Impact. Our skit will continue and we will learn more about the intentions of Virus, and what he plans to do to Earth.

Student Ministry Recaps, April 11-17 2010

2010-04-15T13:00:00.003-05:00

Dropped the ball over the past few weeks, but we're back!

Senior High
Sunday April 11, 2010

Topic: A wrap up of the "Dateable" book. Discussion touched on risky behaviors, consequences of actions, and the appropriate roles for girls and guys in a dating relationship.

Take Away: Guys are supposed to take the lead in the relationship, even if that's not the way it goes anymore. Relationships are work and come with risks.

Next Week: The kids gave us a topic list, we're currently developing it.

Middle School
Wednesday April 14, 2010

Topic: Wednesday night was a fun night. The theme was God's healing touch. The story was from John 9:1-41, Jesus healing the blind man. For starters we had 6 students blindfolded. The object was for them to find someone with pudding, someone with a spoon, and then feed each other. It was interesting to say the least..and a bit messy. Afterward, we discussed how it felt to be blind, and then to see..and also how the blind man would have felt. Then a student who originally had the pudding said he was "manipulating" some of the "blind" students. So we talked about that for a bit and how it happens not to just blind or handicapped, but to regular people everyday.

Take Away: In the story, Jesus uses mud mixed with spit to put on the man's eyes to heal him. That led us to talk about how Jesus used ordinary things to heal this man. We are ordinary people and god uses us too. I saw some sparks in the eyes of some students who may not have realized that God uses the everyday person..including them..to do His work. What a great night.

Next Week: Jesus walks through walls.

e-Klub
Wednesday April 14, 2010

Topic: Wednesday night was a continuation of last weeks salvation discussion. The kids made glow in the dark crosses with pipe cleaners and beads. In snack we had bomb pops. And we had our skit that went along with our lesson.

Take Away: We met a new character in our skit. His name is Virus and he wants to take over Earth. He will be making further appearances in future skits. We learned the closest star is 4.2 light years away, which is 25 trillion miles. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. It would still take 2 million years to get there.

Next week: Our lesson will be on incredible impact. From science to music to changed lives, the Bible has an incredible impact on our world.

High School/Middle School Youth Group Recaps, March 21-27, 2010

2010-03-26T10:39:00.003-05:00

High School Youth Group--March 21, 2010

Topic: The second week of discussion of the book, Dateable: Are You? Are They? has been awesome. Our students are learning about relationships, character and recognizing lies that have been told to them, their friends, themselves and even those they may have done to others. We talked about how our actions are important and what our actions say about us and how they make others feel. How if their friends ask them to lie for them, they will lie to them. It's great seeing our students talk honestly, openly and looking at their own relationships and expectations.

Take away: We need to be truth-tellers and truth-hearers in our relationships with others.

Next week: We continue this study next week with talking about their appearances, revealing clothes and physical boundaries.

A quick reminder....we will not be having Youth Group April 4th Easter Sunday. We want the kids to enjoy that celebration time with their families.

Middle School Youth Group--March 24, 2010

Topic: We talked about our need to trust God when He tells us to do things. We talked about the example of Jonah, found in Jonah 1.

Take Away: God wants us to be obedient to Him. As He asks us to do things, and we do them, we learn that He is trustworthy. We cannot simply say that we love Him with words and then not do what He asks.

Next Week: We'll be talking about Jesus' desire to heal us, using several stories of Him casting out demons.

E-Klub/Youth Group Recaps, March 14-20, 2010

2010-03-18T16:13:00.003-05:00

High School Youth Group--March 14, 2010

Topic: Chapters 1-3 of "Dateable": discussion of the nature of high school dating relationships and the tactics guys and girls use in these relationships.

Take away: High school dating relationships will always end.

Next week: Chapters 4-6 of "Dateable": the lies teens tell to make high school dating work.

Middle School Youth Group--March 17, 2010

Topic: We talked about the ways that God speaks to us, using Daniel 5:1-30 as our story.

Take Away: god is speaking to us, and will often go to great lengths to get our attention. He wants us to talk about all aspects of our lives with Him.

Next Week: We'll be talking about God's love for us, as shown in the book of Jonah.

E-Klub--March 17, 2010

Topic: Last night we continued Operation Space. Last night was a continuation of things we learned the week before. We will have the same topic for two weeks then move to a new one.

Take Away: Last night, in our skit, we met a young girl names Sydney. She works at the planetarium. She taught us that there are 100 billion stars in the sky. We also learned that God has a name for all of them. Sydney's boss says that working at the planetarium you need to "leave your Bible at home." Over the next few weeks she will learn that her boss is wrong. She fell asleep stargazing and woke up on a space ship. She is starting her cadet training. Our memory verse for this week is still from 2 Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God".

Next week: Next week we will talk about the authority of the Bible.

E-Klub/Youth Group Recaps, March 7-13 2010

2010-03-12T15:16:00.002-06:00

High School Youth Group--March 7, 2010

Topic: Our topic was "The benefit of face-to-face relationships when loving others. We talked about Facebook, texting, technology and cliques that can develop within our group. Scripture used was James 2 and 1 Corinthians 11.

Take Away: The students were challenged to build personal relationships that went beyond Facebook friends and to look outside of their existing groups of friends and build relationships with others.

Next Week: We are starting our "Dateable" series...first up? Chapters 1-3.

Middle School Youth Group--March 10, 2010

Topic: We talked about the weird instructions that God sometimes gives us to follow. Scripture used was Ezekiel 4.

Take Away: The students were asked to consider what instructions God may be giving to them, and whether or not they would recognize them as from God.

Next Week: We'll be talking about being courageous for God, as told through the book of Daniel.

E-Klub--March 10, 2010

Topic: We started our new series called Operation Space. Among many things we talked about was how huge our universe is, how to measure it, how fast light travels, and the most important thing, we had a close encounter of the Bible kind.

Take Away: We learned how truly unique the Bible is. We gave the Bible awards as we named off how one-of-a-kind it is. We learned facts about how the Bible was first copied, how many languages it's been translated into, that it's the most read and best selling book, and how some kings and emperors tried to ban it, burn it, and ultimately get rid of the Bible. Having no success. Our memory verse for this week comes from 2 Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God".

Next week: We will talk about the authority of the Bible.

The Messiah is "MORE"

2010-03-06T06:59:00.002-06:00

Wow! Or is is "WAAAOOOOW!"

What a great night. Since it was his first conference, I asked him if he thought it was awesome, and he said, "What part of it WASN'T awesome?"

Our message last night was that our Messiah is "more"...more than we want, more than we desire, just what we need. He deals with out separation from God by coming to earth and being with us. He loves us!

The music is loud, the skaters skilled and Messiah is Present with us! He is MORE.

Be sure to check out the pics and videos...I'll be getting more up through the day.

Believe Pics here.

Videos here.

CIY Believe

2010-03-05T16:00:00.001-06:00

Believe Pics here.

Videos here.

Ministry Theory

2010-03-04T16:50:00.002-06:00

"Our kids come from a family system that is more influential than our Bible studies."- Jim Burns

This statement should be our lightning rod, our starting point, our catalyst. It should be our battle-cry, our rallying point. It should be the point from which we do ministry.

In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, God gives Moses the key to the younger generations remaining in the faith. Check it:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts"

This is what we must believe, it's our starting point. It's what we are to do.

"Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

Notice what it does not say. It does not say, "Take them to church and let them do the heavy lifting."

God is making the assumption that, as parents, as CHRISTIAN parents, we will love God with all our heart, soul and strength. A natural outflow of this will be the training (discipleship) of our children.

When we are at home, watching tv, playing cards, or HALO. When we are driving them to school, the park, a sporting event. When they go to bed at night, we are to pray with them. When they get up in the morning, we are to pray before our meals. God-talk should permeate our conversations and activities. My question is this: does it?

This is such a struggle in our home. There, I said it. We do not do this as often as we should.

Go back to the beginning.

"Our kids come from a family system that is more influential than our Bible studies."- Jim Burns

What if...

...we spent time as a ministry discipling and equipping parents for ministry?

...we gave parents the tools to disciple their own children?

...weekly we had conversations, sometimes encouraging, sometimes uncomfortable, about how we were doing in the discipleship?

I wonder...do we have the courage to try?

E-Klub/Youth Group Recaps, February 28-March 6 2010

2010-03-03T21:20:00.003-06:00

High School Youth Group--February 28, 2010

Topic: We began a new topic on Sunday after finishing up our series on prayer. Over the next few weeks we will be looking at loving others. This week we studied gossip and how it effects our relationship with God and others. This subject is one all students have either done or have been a victim of. A quiz was taken just to open their eyes on how they handle gossip. We looked at scripture to see what the Bible says about gossip. One of the verses put gossip in the same league as murder. The seriousness of gossip as sin was stressed.

Take Away: The students were challenged to be aware this coming week of the gossip around them or in their lives. They were encouraged to repent of the sin of gossip and to "avoid association with persons who gossip" from Proverbs 20:19 . We had some great discussion on gossiping and what can be done to keep from gossiping.

Next Week: It's great seeing God work through our students. Next week we will continue to look at loving others through technology that our kids use everyday and how it too can be gossip. We intend on expressing to them how to "love others as myself."

Middle School Youth Group--March 3, 2010

Topic: We talked about Elijah taking on the prophets of Baal. Over time, God's people stopped worshiping God and began to worship Baal. Elijah was a prophet, and was tasked to show the people that there was only one true God, the God of Israel. He did this by testing the prophets of Baal and challenging them to a contest. You can read all about it in 1 Kings 18:16-40.

Take Away: We asked the kids to write down a thing that was getting in the way of their relationship with God. They said things like, "video games", "homework", even "family". We ended our time in small groups, and prayed for one another.

Next Week: We'll be talking about God's plans to restore His people into a right relationship with Him. The Bible story is from Ezekiel 4:1-5:10.

E-Klub--March 3, 2010

Topic: Tonight's lesson was about living what you believe. Our scripture was from Luke 6:43-44. Jesus compared people to trees. He said that good trees don't bear bad fruit and bad trees don't bear good fruit.

Take Away: We learned if we truly believe in God, our actions will show it and good things will come out of our hearts and lives. We had fun in groups acting out skits. We took facts, like snow is cold, and one person acted like they didn't believe a fact was the truth. The others had to show how it was the truth.

Next week: We start a new series called Operation Space. We will be exploring the answers to these, and other, questions: How did the universe begin? How is the Bible unique? Did the meteorites kill the dinosaurs?

Youth Group/E-Klub recaps February 21-27, 2010

2010-02-25T07:24:00.006-06:00

High School Youth Group -- February 21, 2010

Lesson Theme/Topic: We concluded our 3-part series on prayer. We opened with the following video from the movie "Talladega Nights":

What they should have left with: Prayer is a spiritual disciple that all Christians must be engaged in. It is one of our connecting points to God. We need to take it seriously, and understand that there are right, and wrong ways to pray.

Next week: We begin our series on "Loving Others". First up? Gossip.

Middle School Youth Group -- February 24, 2010

Lesson Theme/Topic: Wednesday nights lesson continued with our "Scary, Gross and Weird Stories from the Bible". Our story this week was from Judges 4:1-29, about a king named Jael who took in an enemy of Israel and then killed him by putting a tent peg through his temple. OUCH!

What they should have left with: Monna Kreher did a GREAT job sharing about courage. The kids were asked to write on a slip of paper something that they needed courage for this week, and then the requests were passed around. Each of the kids were prayed for and were asked to pray for others through the week.

Next week: We will be talking about Elijah and the prophets of Baal, as detailed in 1 Kings 18 from the Old Testament.

E-Klub- February 24, 2010

Lesson Theme/Topic: Last night's lesson was about being friends. Our scripture was from Luke 6:27-38. Jesus taught that we should love our enemies and treat others as we want to be treated.

What they should have left with: In our centers we worked together as teams to accomplish goals and we made beaded pin-ons to give to friends. We learned that being friends isn't only being nice to each other it's also helping someone when the need help.

Coming up: living what you believe.

Youth Group/E-Klub recaps February 14-20, 2010

2010-02-18T11:20:00.002-06:00

Trying to keep these shorter!

High School Youth Group -- February 14, 2010

Lesson Theme/Topic: Sunday night's lesson continued with the study of prayer. Several scriptures were used along with the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6 to give us many examples of how, why and the importance of prayer. A good example presented to the students was ACTS.....Adoration...Confession...Thanksgiving...Supplication

What they should have left with: This form of praying was studied through scripture and students presented examples of how they can use this in their own prayer life. There was discussion on the obstacles and hindrances to prayer they face. Students were encouraged to use ACTS in the coming weeks when they pray.

Next week: We will conclude the study of prayer with any questions the students may have on prayer.

Middle School Youth Group -- February 17, 2010

Lesson Theme/Topic: Wednesday nights lesson continued with our "Scary, Gross and Weird Stories from the Bibel". Our story this week was from Numbers 22:1-41, about a king named Balak, a prophet named Balaam and a donkey that talked. We told the story using this.

What they should have left with: We talked about doing only what God wanted us to, and the roadblocks that sometimes get in the way of us hearing God's voice, and what we can do about those roadblocks.

Next week: We will be talking about Jael putting the tent peg through the temple of Sisera, the commander of the army that was coming against Israel.

E-Klub- February 17, 2010

Lesson Theme/Topic: We talked about living God's way. Our scripture was from Luke 6:17-26; Jesus taught that God blesses people even when life is hard. He warned people about the dangers of wealth.

What they should have left with: Christians do not live God's way to get recognition. We do it because that's how he wants us to live. We also learned that living God's way means that while can can be sad about things, God wants us to be happy with what we do have, and not to focus on what we do not have.

Youth Group/E-Klub recaps February 7-13, 2010

2010-02-11T16:14:00.001-06:00

High School: Sunday Night

Because of the Super Bowl this past week, we were missing about half of our group. We decided to have a chill-out night; we played a card game called "President/Vice-President". We also had a time of prayer in our small groups. This Sunday night, Monna Kreher begins our study on prayer. The Take Home for this week is to the right.

Middle School: Wednesday Night

Last night, we talked about the 10 plagues that God sent on Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelite people go. Each of the 10 plagues could be related to one of the Egyptian gods which means as God brought the various plagues upon Egypt, he was revealing to the Egyptians that there gods were meaningless. It was also an opportunity to communicate the truthfulness of the Bible. One of the pretty tough questions asked:

If God knew that Pharaoh would not let the slaves go until the last plague, why did He stop the others?

Next week, we'll be talking about Balaam and his talking donkey. Take Home at the right.

e-Klub: Wednesday Night:

Wednesday's lesson was from Luke 5:1-11
Jesus asks Simon to cast his fishing nets into the water, even though Simon had fished all night with out catching any fish. Simon obeyed and caught so many fish that his nets began to rip.

In all our centers we re-enforced how Simon, even though he'd fished all night, did what Jesus asked him to do. He followed instructions he was given by Jesus. Just as we should.

In Surprise Station the children had to work together to put a puzzle together with out seeing what the picture was to look like. Then they got to see the picture on the box and they were able to try again. Because they followed instructions, or the picture on the box, they were able to accomplish their goal.

In Snack-It Cafe the children ate gold fish while hearing the story again.

In Games the children ran relay races using pop bottles. Again needing to work together as a team and following directions. Then they separated into partners and were given coins. One partner laid the coins out in a pattern. Then they mixed them up and the second partner had to arrange the coins back into the same pattern. Then they traded jobs.

Youth Group Recaps: January 31-February 6 2010

2010-02-04T12:20:00.004-06:00

High School:

This past Sunday was the final week of our "What is the Bible?" portion of our study on Discipleship. We are using the last night of these topics to answer the questions that the students have. We talked about the following questions:

How do we know the Bible is true when compared to other religions?
Where is the original Bible?
Did dinosaurs and people coexist?
What about things like “The Chronicles of Narnia”? Are they inspired?

Most of our time was spent on talking about the truth of Christianity. The discussion was good and carried over into our small group time. Next week's topic is "A Disciple is Engaged in Prayer." The Take Home is available on the right! Ask your high schooler how they're doing on the work.

Middle School:

Steve Novak, one of our youth leaders, wrote this week's recap for middle school night.

This Wed night began as a review of last week. We talked more about God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and more specifically what God did to Lot's wife when she looked back. Was it appropriate, too harsh, just plain weird, or something else. The responses were again pretty amazing, nobody taking the easy way out. All the answers came an explanation with even asking them.

We talked about God being merciful and just in the things he does. We did an activity that called for aluminum foil to be smeared with Crisco. We had the students write their thoughts about God's character on their pieces of foil. There was..loving, grace, perfect, holy, understanding, serious, nice(more than once)..to name a few. I thought it was a good exercise. When that was done, we wiped off part of the foil to represent a distinction between a fuzzy description of God and seeing Him more clearly. Note: a mirror was originally intended to be used, and the point may have been hammered better, but this got everyone involved.

Finally we split into small groups. Unfortunately there was not enough time to finish all the discussions we were having, but they were good discussions..some new and some from earlier in the night. And the question of the night was an honest one which I feel is awesome...Who wrote the books in the Bible? I am just pleased how comfortable the student was to ask that question?

E-Klub:

Finally, an addition. Moving forward, we'll be posting a recap of our Children's Ministry program (e-Klub) on this recap. This week's recap is written by Corie Novak, our Children's Ministry Team leader:

Tonight's lesson was from Luke 4:22-30

"The Jews were angry when Jesus claimed to be the Messiah and warned them of the consequences of their sins. They tried to throw Jesus off a cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and escaped." (this is the "point" from the lesson guides)

There was a bit of singing in the beginning, a "fun fact" that was given and there was welcome time where the kids went around and high fived friends. Tonight there were two kids chosen to help with the skit. They held up a "boo" card and a "cheer" card. The children then listened to the Bible story on CD. When the narrator talked of the crowd all the children were to boo. When the narrator talked of Jesus the kids were to cheer.

We then divided into 4 small groups, each with 1-2 adult leaders. Two small groups then travel to different centers together. The activities we do in our centers revolve around the story from the beginning of the night. Tonight's was on trusting. We had Snack-It Cafe, where the children got to make ice cream sundaes, they read the story directly from their Bibles. We had Games, in one game they played the children put a stack of pennies on their elbow and predicted how many they could catch by flipping their arm down. The other kids had to decide to trust their prediction or not. The second game the kids paired up and stood facing each other, on one side of the room. On the other side of the room their was a child with a small pool noodle. That child was going to toss the noodle at the ones with their backs to him/her. They had to trust that their partner would move them in the correct way in order to not get hit by the noodle. The last center we did was Surprise Station. The children tried to solve brain teasers and had to trust the teacher to give them the correct answer. The first on was to take six cups placed in a row. Fill three with water and arrange in this pattern:empty, empty, full, full, full, empty. With moving only one cup change the pattern to full, empty, full, empty, full, empty. The second was trying to balance a Bible on top of a piece of cardboard. This would be a fun activity to do at home with your child.

Our ultimate lesson the kids took home tonight was that they can ALWAYS trust in Jesus, no matter.

Youth Group Recaps: January 24-31

2010-01-28T14:35:00.002-06:00

What a great week! We had an awesome turnout for both high school and middle school youth nights. God is working in both groups! Don't forget about the take home sheets! They can be downloaded from the link at the right. Help us help you by asking your kids about their progress each week!

High School

This past Sunday night, we talked about WHY we should study God's Word as people who want to be followers of Jesus. Specifically, the reasons we taught are:

The Bible tells us the truth
We should know what it teaches firsthand and not depend on others to explain it to us
Personal edification (growth)
To help others
Points us to Jesus
God's Word to us
To know God better
To avoid error.

We split into small groups for prayer and further discussion. The students opened up about some of things that were being brought out by the series. It is great to hear about what God is telling them.

Middle School

Last night, we talked about God's character, and how He always keeps his promises- the ones we want kept and those we choose to ignore. The story we read from is found in Genesis, and deals with God's destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. We talked about how God deals with man's sin, and we had questions about why the earthquake happened in Haiti and many other DEEP questions.

Each week the leaders are amazed at the thoughtfulness and depth of the questions. We are going to make a slight adjustment over the next few weeks to allow for more of their thoughts and questions.

A slight programming note, next week I will be gone for middle school night. I begin graduate studies at Indiana Wesleyan next week, and need to travel there for a few days for their integration process. Steve Novak will be leading the lesson time next Wednesday.

Youth Group Recaps: January 17-23 2010

2010-01-21T11:15:00.002-06:00

High School Youth Group- Sunday January 17

This past Sunday night, we answered the question, "What is the Bible?". Using the Take Home from the previous week, we talked about common attitudes and thoughts about the Bible itself, as well as the experiences of our own students studying the Bible. What we learned is that there is a great deal of frustration within the lives of our students when it comes to reading the Bible on their own. It appears that, outside of the Take Home sheets, none of our high school students spend any time in scripture on their own. While this is very disconcerting, as a ministry team we feel 100% confident that our focus on discipleship is the right thing for us to be doing right now. While we cannot force our students to spend time in God's word, we can be faithful in proclaiming it to them. After talking about these issues, we spent time dissecting 2 Timothy 3:16, which says that, "All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching , rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness...." We broke down each of these 5 things and talked about what they meant and what they did not mean. We ended our youth group time in small groups, praying for one another.

Coming up next is the question "Why should we study the Bible?", and then we'll be spending time on their questions. At the end of this particular subject, we will give our students a tool to get them into their Bibles in a simple and practical way.

Middle School Youth Group- Wednesday January 20 2010

Due to the weather cancellations, our middle school youth group did not meet. Next week, we'll be talking about Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt, as detailed in Genesis 18:26.

No Youth Group/EKlub Tonight

2010-01-20T12:34:00.001-06:00

Canceled due to weather.

Youth Group Recaps: January 10-16 2010

2010-01-19T14:33:00.002-06:00

Both Youth Groups:

Beginning last week, each youth group will be given a Take Home sheet to work through to help them prepare for the following week's lesson. We ask them to read a few verses, and then answer a simple question or two about what they read.You can find these Take Homes to the right. We'd love it if you would ask your kids how they are doing on their Take Home during the week.

High School Youth Group:

In high school, we are talking about what it looks like to be a disciple of Jesus. We introduced the idea that there are five components of a disciple of Jesus:

A Disciple Reads God's Word
A Disciple is Engaged in Prayer
A Disciple Loves Others in Attitude and Action
A Disciple Desires to Reach the Lost
A Disciple is Engaged in Worship as a Lifestyle

In particular, we talked about how Jesus taught, corrected, supported, restored and gave Himself as an example to His disciples. We also talked about how Jesus does these same things to modern-day disciples. If we are to be His followers, then we are to expect Him to lead us the same way. We closed our big group time by watching two interviews with Colt McCoy, quarterback of the Texas Longhorns. Colt was injured at the very beginning of the game and in his post-game interview he gave a compelling testimony to the goodness of God.

Middle School Youth Group:

In Middle School, we're going to be talking about the Scary, Gross and Weird Stories of the Bible. Last week, we had a "welcome back" lesson and focused specifically on the value of good friends.

"The Myth of the Perfect Parent"

2010-01-11T15:17:00.003-06:00

I encourage every parent to read the article "The Myth of the Perfect Parent" over here.

As I think about our ministry, our role in ministering to the families and students here at Eastview, there was one thing that really spoke to me in this article. The author talked about the prophet Ezekiel and his constant attempts to draw the Israelites back to God. From the article:

"How successful was Ezekiel? The destruction he foretold played out in every gruesome detail. From our vantage, Ezekiel's mission looks like an utter failure. But God spoke a few words in this narrative that changed everything. As God commissioned Ezekiel to speak his words to Israel, three times he prefaced his commands with this phrase: "whether they listen or fail to listen" (2:5, 7; 3:11). One of those three times God completed the sentence: "Whether they listen or fail to listen … they will know that a prophet has been among them" (2:5)."

Over the past few weeks, I have been in conversations with parents and ministry team members about what we do here....should we focus on fun? Should we focus on Jesus? How can we get kids to "care" about their faith? As much as I wish every single student in our ministry would give their whole lives over to Jesus, reality and statistics say that this not going to happen. And this saddens me incredibly.

But I find hope in God's Word. We cannot be responsible for the choices our kids make. All we can do as parents and a ministry is be faithful to God in proclaiming what He has done.

Youth Group/EKlub Cancelled for tonight

2010-01-06T16:23:00.001-06:00

Due to pending weather situations, all youth activities are CANCELED for tonight.

2010-01-04T13:29:00.001-06:00

We sent out 3 emails today:

a general email to all parents
an email specifically for parents of middle school students
an email specifically for parents of high school students

Did you get them? Are you on the list? If not, email me at jmulholland@eastview.net, and I'll add you!

Video Highlights

2009-12-21T10:24:00.001-06:00

Middle School Night @ Chuck E Cheese:

Sr High Christmas Partay:

Eastview PArent Weekly, December 13-19, 2009

2009-12-14T11:18:00.000-06:00

Dear Parents,

It’s hard to believe that 2009 is almost over. We’ve had a year filled with activities and growth. We’ve moved to a multi-night youth group, and with all change, there are positives and negatives that come because of it. I’m in the process of completing our portion of Eastview Christian Church’s annual report. I’ll post it here on the parent’s website by Wednesday. I’d love for you to take a few minutes and check it out. Here are the important dates coming up (please note that the high school opening night for youth group has CHANGED to January 10th):

Calendar:

December 16th- middle school Christmas party at Eastview during normal youth group time.
- Students, please bring a white elephant/gag gift for gift exchange.

December 19th- middle school party @ Chuck E.Cheese for those who have participated in the Bible/Homework/Scripture memorization “contest”.

December 20th- high school Christmas party at Mulholland’s (385 16th St, Marion) during normal youth group time (6-8).
- Students, please bring a white elephant/gag gift for gift exchange.
- Boys-please bring your favorite bottle of pop or juice
- Girls-please bring a healthy snack

December 23rd- NO middle school youth group

December 27th- NO high school youth group

December 30th- NO middle school youth group

January 6th- middle school youth group begins

January 10th- high school youth group begins

Have a great week!

Youth Group/EKlub Cancelled for tonight

2009-12-09T09:39:00.001-06:00

Due to weather, middle school youth group and eklub is cancelled for tonight, December 9, 2009.

High School Youth Group Update

2009-12-07T13:46:00.002-06:00

We've been studying the Gospel of John over the past several months. We've had some great conversations in small groups. Beginning in January, we'll be challenging the kids to be in Scripture and talking about topics that are close to their hearts.

At some point, probably in March/April, we'll be using material called "Dateable", which will help our kids look at their desire for relationships in a different way. It is neither an anti- nor pro-dating. It will prove to be some challenging stuff for our kids to work through.

Middle School Youth Group Update

2009-12-03T12:19:00.003-06:00

We've had a lot of exciting things take place in our middle school group over the past 3 months. The vast majority of the students have been bringing their Bibles each week, many are completing their "homework" and some are memorizing scripture weekly. It's pretty exciting to see. Over the past 6 weeks, our lessons have been focusing on "Crime Scenes From the Bible", various stories from the Old Testament that keep them interested and teach a truth.

Last night, we talked about Genesis 4:1-16, the story of Cain and Abel. Youth Leader Stave Novak did a great job of talking about anger, sacrifice, jealousy and murder.

With a little bit of focus on their work (they get 1 star each for bringing Bibles, completing their homework and memorizing a verse) most of our middle school students should be able to join us December 19, from 5-7 pm for a party at Chuck E. Cheese.

Beginning January 6th, on Wednesday nights we'll be talking about "Scary, Gross and Weird Stories from the Bible." As we've done up to this point, there will be homework assignments and scripture to memorize.

Check back weekly to see what we've been doing!

2010 Scholarship Policy

2009-12-02T15:57:00.001-06:00

Eastview Student Ministries scholarship policies have change. Click on the link to the right to take a look!

Raking Tonight

2009-11-25T16:28:00.002-06:00

It will be cool, windy and a little damp, but if you can come, we'd love to see you here!

I just went out and raked for a bit, was able to move leaves easily.

Come one, come all!!

Eastview Parent Weekly, November 22-28, 2009

2009-11-23T10:24:00.000-06:00

Dear Parents,

I just got back from the National Missionary convention in Peoria and WOW! What a tremendous weekend. Heard many great messages, attended some wonderful workshops and saw some old friends. We had a few students go with their families, and they also enjoyed the time there. The location next year is Lexington, Kentucky and the dates are November 18-21, 2010. I hope you’ll consider going as a next step.

This Wednesday, November 25: No youth group, but we’ll be raking leaves at the church from 5:30-8pm. Please bring rakes, blowers, etc. A meal will be provided.

Important Dates Coming Up:

December 9: Final Middle School Youth Group for 2009
December 12: Ministry Team Meeting, 8:30-10:30am at Eastview
December 13: Final High School Youth Group for 2009
December 16: Middle School Youth Group Christmas Party at Eastview
December 20: High School youth Group Christmas Party at Mulholland’s house

Have a great Thanksgiving!

High School Youth group Recap, November 15, 2009

2009-11-16T10:21:00.002-06:00

I realized that I've gotten away from posting recaps of our meetings.

Last night, we watched the film, "To End All Wars" during our group time. After, we discussed love, sacrifice and purpose in the big group.

Those present were challenged to really think about loving their enemies and those that persecute them.

What are we inviting our youth to?

2009-11-10T20:57:00.002-06:00

Wow. From Ministry Questions comes the question that our student ministry has wrestled with for 3 years:

"How do you get youth from Wednesday to come into Sunday?

Our church is looking to get the youth involved in Sunday services. Currently, we're running about 25-30 youth on Wednesday. However, on Sunday our morning and evening service have maybe 5-10 youth on average. We are hoping to see this number grow some but not sure how to encourage them to get more involved than just one night a week. Any suggestions?"

And this PHENOMENAL ANSWER.

"What are you hoping to get the youth involved in on Sunday? If you're trying to get them to just be in the service and be part of the worship and listen to the sermons, there isn't always a lot to do."

Man, oh, man. Why in the world would we bring kids to Sunday mornings to simply consume? What are we expecting? Why would we expect this? What's more...are the adults in our churches doing anything different than consuming?

November 1-7 Eastview Parent Weekly

2009-11-02T13:32:00.002-06:00

Dear Parents,

What a great weekend we had on our retreat!
You can check out a TON of pictures over here.

Middle School Youth Group Update:
Last week, we gave all of our middle school students a FREE Bible. The translation is called the NIrV (New International reader’s Version) and is more easily understood. What’s the NIrV? Some of the Christianese is removed and elaborated on, and the language is a bit more modern. It should be easier to understand. It also helps us teach, because we can ask the kids to go to a specific page number and from there go to chapter and verse. We understand that some students have bibles of their own, but we’d really like all of our students to be reading from the same text. Please encourage your kids to bring these Bibles. This week, we’re starting a new message series called, “Crime Scenes of the Bible.” As part of this study, each week the kids will be given something to take home with them and do some Bible reading at home. We’re also encouraging them to memorize a scripture verse per week. To encourage them, we’re also having a contest. Over the next 5 weeks, they will have an opportunity to earn 15 stars (3 stars/week x 5 weeks = 15). They can earn one star for a) bringing their bibles to youth group, b) completing their “homework”, and c) by memorizing one of the verses from that week. At the end of this contest in December, for students that have more than 10 stars, we’ll have a party at Chuck E. Cheeses for them. Students were given an assignment for this week, so the stars go on the board starting THIS WEEK!

High School Youth Group Update
On Sunday nights, we’ve been talking about the life of Jesus as described in the Gospel of John. In a few weeks, on Sunday, November 15, we’re scheduled to talk about the sacrifice of Jesus for our sin. We are planning on showing the film “To End All Wars” on this night. The film is set in a Japanese POW camp during WW2, where the internees are building the Burma Railway. It is probably the most explicitly “Christian” film that I’ve ever seen, and does a great job of putting Christ’s sacrifice front and center. To be clear, this film is rated R, it is a war film. There is violence and war brutality. There is also some language, and brief non-sexual male nudity. It is for teens that are mature. The gospel is clearly communicated in a compelling manner, and such ultimate questions raised in this film include “Is there any higher reason to live?” “Do I have a purpose in life?” “How can I forgive those who have wronged me?” and “What would make a man once so selfish sacrifice himself for others?” As you discern what’s best for your student, I urge you to visit the following websites and read what others have written about this powerful movie:

Christianity Today
Christian Answers
Hollywood Jesus

You can watch 7 powerful clips from this movie here.

The “Human Beings” clip is amazing.

Finally, I would like to arrange a showing of this movie for you, so you can see what your kids are going to see and ask questions. We’ll also walk you through our discussion questions for the following Sunday Please join us on Thursday, November 12, at 7pm. The movie is a bit longer than 2 hours, and will be well-worth your time.

As always, I welcome questions and thoughts!

What is success in parenting teens?

2009-10-13T13:59:00.002-05:00

Originally posted here. An interview with Dr. Paul Tripp.

What sort of goals should a parent have as their children reach the teenage years?

Unfortunately, western culture has had a terribly cynical view of the teen years. It’s a view that is largely biologically based. People tend to see teenagers as a collection of raging, rebel hormones encased in skin. Of course, the idea is that you can’t talk to a hormone. I read someone who put it very well. He said that if you add the word “teenage” to any other word, it becomes a negative. Take “teenage driver.” That’s a simple instance of how this particular age group attracts cynicism.

The problem with this way of looking at teens is that it’s a subtle denial of the Gospel. Actually, what we’re really saying is that there’s a class of people for whom the Gospel won’t work. That’s a devastating theology. My experience is that when parents buy into that view of the Gospel for their teenagers, it begins to bleed over into other relationships. They begin to have doubts about whether Christ can reach all sorts of people.

That means that simply surviving your teens is not enough of a goal. In a sense, having survival as a goal is selfish because it’s focused simply on getting yourself through a difficult time. The other problem with having survival as a goal is that, as parents, we tend to settle for external, behaviorist sorts of goals.

We try to deal with our kids according to the Nike way—“Just do it!” Children who have only had parents who want to regulate and control their behaviour don’t have much when they leave the home.

In America, for example, we have had a huge number of kids from Christian homes who go off to college and forsake the faith. Actually, I suspect that they never had it in the first place. In fact, what they had was the faith of their parents. It’s just that they never internalized it for themselves. All that the college situation does is reveal the true heart of the teenager that had been masked by parental control and regulations.

Naturally, all parents need to have regulations that control the behavior of their children, but it’s not enough of a goal. The sort of rule-keeping that we describe as behaviorism, which is disconnected from the heart, is repudiated throughout the Bible and was the peculiar sin of the Pharisees. Christ roundly condemned it. And yet Christian parents can be very successful at creating a new generation of young Pharisees who live with no sense of need for the Gospel at all, because they’re quite good at keeping external rules. That’s pretty scary to me.

We need to see that the final years of a child’s life at home are a time of unprecedented opportunity. As a child’s world unfolds before him and he experiences greater freedom, his heart gets revealed. This means that we have to take every opportunity to be part of the final stage of preparation. Being involved with our teenagers at a deep level is something we mustn’t avoid.

What’s the real problem that teenagers face? Is it their hormones or is it their hearts?

The world says it’s their hormones; but the Bible says, in literally hundreds of ways, that human beings live out of their hearts. We like to think that it’s other people and circumstances that cause us to do what we do. However, this little bit of blame-shifting comes straight out of the garden of Eden. The Bible says that our situations and relationships are merely the occasions in which our hearts express themselves. I really live out of my heart. The heart is the directional system for each one of us.

What do you mean when you use the word ‘heart?’

The Bible has a very simple anthropology. It says that people consist of two parts: the outer man—which is your earth suit, and the inner man—which is your spiritual self. The Bible uses a number of words—mind, emotion, will, spirit—to describe the heart. In a sense, “the heart” is one, big basket term; it’s really biblical shorthand for the inner man and all its functions.

The Bible attributes many important functions to the heart. It tells us that we feel, think, purpose, desire, believe with our hearts. We also receive or reject God’s new covenant with them, too. This means that if the heart is the steering wheel of the human being, if it’s the thing that causes us to do what we do, then it’s quite obvious that the focus of parenting has to be the heart.

Christ, as you know, uses the example of the tree to explain the function of the heart. You look at the tree and its fruit and you say: “That’s an apple tree, because it has apples.” Now we know that the reason it has apples is because it is apple-istic right down to its roots. If it wasn’t an apple tree by nature, it wouldn’t produce apples. In Christ’s example, the tree equals the heart, and the fruit equals behavior and its consequences.

I often use this example. Imagine that you have an apple tree in the backyard. Now this particular tree produces horrible apples year after year. So I say to my wife, “I think I can fix our apple tree.” So I go out with a big ladder and cut off all the old apples. Then I nail delicious red apples all over the tree. I stand back, and from 50 feet it now looks like a good apple tree. But we all know what’s going to happen, don’t we? Those apples are going to rot, too, because if the tree is consistently producing bad apples, then there’s something wrong with the system, right down to its roots. We all realize that we won’t solve the problem by nailing apples onto the tree. But this is the problem with much of modern child-rearing, even in Christian circles. A lot of what we call biblical parenting is nothing more than apple-nailing. And what happens is that six weeks later, or perhaps six months or six years, the child or youth is right back to where they were before.

So you’re saying that many Christian parents are behaviorists?

Yes, that’s right. But the problem is that they don’t realize they are. And much of the time it’s because they’re untaught.

If you go to the average Christian bookstore, unless it carries Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Ted Tripp or my book, Age of Opportunity, you won’t even hear the word “heart” mentioned in books on parenting. They are all about techniques and strategies for controlling behaviour. They are behaviorist, even though they appear in Christian guise.

The scary thing about these books is that they often have a temporary effectiveness. It’s true— I can control a child’s behavior through a variety of means. If I lay enough guilt on my child, it will move him. Or if I manipulate him with something he wants—a new car or a new bike—that will be temporarily effective. Or I can threaten him. That may be of limited effectiveness, too. However, the problem is that none of these things last. The minute the threat’s gone, the inner man hasn’t changed. And the child goes right back to where he was. And that’s what’s happening all over the place, not just in the culture, but in the church as well.

Why do parents usually find the teenage years of their children the most demanding and threatening of all?

I would like to be able to say, as the father of four children, all of them now grown up (although one is still a teen), that the only time I got angry was when one of them broke God’s law. However, what is in fact true, and I think it’s true of all of us, is that often I wasn’t angry because they had sinned, but because their sin had gotten in the way of something that I wanted. And what often gets in the way of parenting teenagers is the idolatry of their mother and father.

As a father, I, too, live for comfort, appreciation, success, respect and control. Now none of those things, in and of themselves, is wrong. But they must not rule my heart. If they do rule my heart, then in a moment of teen trouble, I will be likely to personalize what is not personal and be adversarial in my approach to you. I’ll turn a moment of God-given ministry opportunity into a moment of anger, rather than going after your heart. I’ll settle for quick situational solutions because I just want to get in and out of the room and get it over with. At that moment, I will be enraged with you because you have stopped me from realizing what is really important to me.

That’s why the key to being used by God with your children is to start with your own heart. Try this as an experiment. Imagine someone shooting a video of every waking moment of your life over the last six weeks. What would it reveal about the things you are serving? What would you say is really important to you?

You hear parents confess their idolatry in roundabout ways all the time: “I do all this for you and this is the thanks I get?” Or a father says “How dare you do this to me!” as if the child has plotted against him. I guess it feels personal to a parent because the child has prevented him from serving the idol that’s ruling his life. It can be a huge struggle for the parents at times. But the teenage years are a time of unprecedented opportunity. I’ve found that the most important thing I can do to help parents is to get them to begin the search for idolatry in their lives. Then, when they find it, to confess it and forsake it.

If parents do not deal with their personal idolatry first, then all the strategies I give you are not going to help. In fact, goal setting won’t help either. Why? Because, you always end up serving what rules your heart. It’s like the law of gravity: it’s always operating. That’s why I love reformed theology because it gets to the heart of the problem through its radical view of human nature. Reformed theology declares that worship isn’t first an activity for human beings; worship is first an identity. We are worshippers; you can’t not worship. We are always in the service of something. And if I’m not serving God in the life of my teenager, then I’m serving other things. It’s just an inescapable principle.

What are the most important opportunities in which parents play a strategic role in their teenage children’s lives?

Let me begin by saying that I am always struck by how transcultural and transgenerational the Bible really is. We tend to divide human beings into all these subcultures, believing that we are very different from one another. In some ways we might be, but I should add that the Bible is able to cast its net in a way that catches everyone.

This means that the Bible speaks to the typical struggles of young people in every culture. It works in a situation when a son says to his dad, “Father, I need to bed down the camel,” and it works when a son says, “Dad, I forgot to put gas in the car.” It spans those generations. So it’s not hard to look at Scripture and realize that the Bible is right when it defines the typical struggles of a young person. Those struggles are the opportunity for discerning parents.

For instance, the book of Proverbs is very clear in reminding us that teenagers don’t usually hunger for wisdom and correction. I’ve never had one of my kids say to me, “As I was riding the bus home from school I was thinking, ‘Dad, you’re a really wise man. I’d just love to sit at your feet and drink in some more of your wisdom,’ or ‘Dad, I realize that when you correct me you are showing me your love. Would you like to correct me some more?’ ” So what should be my goal here? As a parent I realize that wisdom is crucial to pleasing God, and yet it’s not the thing for which my teenager tends to hunger. So now I’ve got my job description. It’s to sell my teenager something that he is not seeking. And so I decide that I’ll model being a wise man. I want to show him that wisdom is a beautiful and wonderful thing. And I want to sell wisdom to him so that he becomes a really keen consumer. The point I’m making is that in each area of teenage struggle there’s wonderful parental opportunity.

Another characteristic of teenagers is that they tend to be very legalistic. They don’t particularly love God’s law, they frequently debate the boundaries and they’re very boundary oriented. I tell people that if God’s law is like a fence, then my kids grew up with fence marks on their faces. As teens they were always pressing against the fence. Now you don’t solve the problem of teenage legalism by debating where the boundary is. Why? Because a child who is pressing his face against the fence is believing a very significant lie. The lie is that the good stuff is out there and God is keeping him from it.

What I need to do is turn his body to the inside of the yard and show him the glory of what God has called us to. Can you imagine living in a town where everybody was gentle and kind, no one ever stole, there was no such things as envy, murder or adultery, no one coveted, everyone was always patient? That’s God’s world! So in each one of those areas of teen struggle there are wonderful opportunities for parents.

You’ve said that if parents don’t regard the teen years as a time of unprecedented opportunity, it’s because they’ve got something wrong with their own hearts. What’s the problem with adult hearts when they begin to resent their teenage children?

What happens in the teen years is that a dynamic relational change takes place. When my child is young, he is pretty much a slave to whatever my agenda is. I am totally in control. He goes wherever I tell him; the only friends he has in the house are the ones that I approve. However, the more my teenager’s world widens, the less that’s true. And what happens is that this adolescent sinner has a remarkable ability to mess up my world.

He can’t help himself. Every one of his choices collides with mine. I tell parents it’s like this: you can’t stand next to a puddle for too long without being splashed by its mud. The fact is that every parent of a teen is dealing with a person who is struggling to come to terms with life. We also must realize that every teenager is a sinner and is trying to learn how to live in God’s world, learning what it means to be godly and learning the dangers of sin. There’s no possible way that that won’t have a huge impact on my life. And that’s why people don’t like their teenagers.

Teenagers are completely different from the babies that we held in our arms. We loved to hear them coo and they smelt so fresh. It seems so ironic that the tiny person who brought us so much joy is the same young man I now resent. In fact, I’m so mad with him, I don’t even want to sit down and have a meal with him. Why? Because he’s made my world uncomfortable. That’s it. And I don’t like my world being turned upside down. I like a world that’s predictable and controlled. And I deeply resent the fact that I have lost that level of comfort and control that I previously had.

Actually, what my teenager reveals in me when I get angry and frustrated with him is a depth and consistency of self-love that is one of the horrible effects of sin. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 5:15 that Jesus came that those “who live, should no longer live unto themselves but for him who for their sakes died and was raised.” Jesus is saying that selfishness is the endemic result of sin. It makes you totally self-absorbed.

And so what do I want? I want pre-sanctified, self-parenting children. I want children that I can always take to a restaurant without being embarrassed. I want kids who will do their homework without me being on their backs. I want an easy life for myself. And frankly, I never expected that becoming a parent meant that I would have to lay my life down for my kids. But that’s exactly what God calls me to do. My redemption cost Christ not only His glory; it also cost Him His life. That’s the model.

What sort of attitudes and approach should parents have with the family if they are to be in the right frame of mind to deal with their teens?

First, we need to understand how the modern workplace has devalued the importance of family relationships. This trend began with the modern industrial revolution. Two hundred years ago, when industry was cottage-based, if the family was in crisis the shop shut down to settle the problem because the family ran the business. But if you remove men from the home and relocate the place of work, all of a sudden industry begins to dictate lifestyle. What man today would call his boss and say, “I’m going to be two hours late because I’m sorting out a difficult problem in our home and it needs to be dealt with now.” What you do is say to your wife, “I can’t talk about that now because I have to be at work.”

As work and family life became separate, men began increasingly to define success in terms of their performance on the job rather than on their success in the home. Then along came the further problem of women leaving the home to travel to their work. Now women are also defining their personal success in terms of job performance. Today we are generations down the road from our Christian forbears on thinking about the family. Sadly, we don’t think nearly as much of the place of family relationships when we think of the definition of a successful life. But we need to. We must come to a position where we say: “There is nothing that I will ever be that will rival the importance of God’s work in the formation of my children’s souls.” There is nothing more important than that. And that demands some hard choices.

When I go out to speak, I’ll make that challenge to men in the congregation. I’ll point my finger and say: “There are some of you who are so busy in your careers that you’re seldom home, and when you are, you are so physically exhausted that you have nothing to offer your children. There are men here who actually don’t even know their own kids. And I want to offer a radical challenge to you. Go to your boss and ask for a demotion. Take less pay. Move out of that dream house and into a smaller one. Sell your brand new car and be willing to drive an older one. And be willing to do what God has called you to do in the life of your children.”

What are the most helpful ways to understand teenagers if we are to play a vital role in their spiritual development?

I think the most helpful thing to remember is that your teenager is more like you than unlike you. Unfortunately, we have this view that teenagers are in a separate class as though they’re aliens who’ve dropped from the sky.

One humbling thing that I’ve realized is that there are few struggles in the life of my teenager that I don’t recognize in my own heart as well. For instance, imagine my child has gotten into trouble because he’s procrastinated on a school assignment until the night before and he can’t possibly get it done. But haven’t I done the same? Of course I have. And when I realize that, I don’t come to him and say, “How dare you! How could you? In my day I would have never thought of doing this!” Instead, I come as a fellow sinner.

It’s at this point that my dealings with him are based on the gospel rather than law. Here’s my opportunity to point him to Christ. So I say: “Son, there’s a rescue provided for us in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. There’s hope for both of us. I need it every bit as much as you do. And I stand with you. However, don’t expect me to write a note to the teacher to get you out of the assignment.”

So you see, it’s a whole different approach. I actually think that the self-righteous—“I’m more righteous than you”—approach closes down teenagers; it doesn’t open them up at all. That’s why Christian parents shouldn’t use it.

Is the wisdom literature of the Bible, especially the Proverbs, helpful in preparing us to meet the challenge of the teenage years? How does it help parents get ready for their responsibilities?

Yes, it’s vital for dealing with teens. As I have read the first few chapters of Proverbs it’s often hit me that what we have here is a father giving advice to his son. “Son, pay attention to my wisdom.” “Son, give heed to my instruction.” So I decided that I would keep reading the first eight chapters over and over again. I literally read them hundreds of times. Interestingly, what happened was that a number of themes started rising to the surface—a theme being something that’s repeated over and over again.

Now, I know enough as a parent that if I have to repeat something several times to my children, it means I’ve identified a struggle within them. So the themes that are in Proverbs give us a wonderful picture of what are the typical temptations or struggles of a young person. And they give me a nice template for thinking about the kinds of things I am going to encounter as I go through the teen years with my children.

What should be the basic spiritual goals for parents in dealing with their teens? Should I simply be trying to regulate their behavior? Is that a worthy aim, or should I be trying to achieve a lot more? My problem with a lot of parenting is that it is reactive; it’s not goal-driven. Something comes up and I react to it. However, Scripture expects us to move well beyond reactive parenting. It sets us heart goals. And so when I am helping my teens deal with issues of dating, or use of the car, or behavior at school, their individual situation gives me a God-given opportunity to help them advance in one of these areas of heart goals. So, for each of my children, I have tried to look through the individual situation to the goal for their hearts that I’m seeking to achieve.

One of these goals is to teach my child to understand and participate in the spiritual struggle. The Bible tells us that the most important things to happen in life are unseen. It also tells us that there’s a real enemy who wants control of my heart. And that war goes on in every situation of life. I want my teenager to get beyond clothes and sports and see the significance of sin and temptation which is there in every situation of life.

The issue of what rules the heart involves the issue of idolatry. Teenagers need to be challenged about what is governing them. Here are three idols of the teen years: appearance, possessions and acceptance. And so I want to take them to the level of the heart so that they can understand what is really going on in their lives.

Why is it that Christian parents are often frustrated in their efforts to cultivate a heart for God in their teenagers?

Because it’s the hardest work a human being could ever do. We have to get to the point where we realize that there is no hope apart from Christ. If I could turn the human heart by the force of my voice, or the strength of my personality, or the logic of my argument, or the wisdom of my parenting strategies, then Jesus would never have needed to come. So, as a parent, I’ve hit something that I can’t do by myself. And it makes me angry. It frustrates me. It discourages me. You see, what I want is some “instant fix.” Give me the three steps to producing godliness in kids. The Bible doesn’t do that. It doesn’t give us a system of redemption; it gives us a Redeemer. And here’s the really scary news. No matter how righteously I act with my teenager, he must deal with God or there won’t be any hope for him. And I can’t do that. So what I do, in my frustration, is try to do God’s job on my kids.

Many teens leave home because their relationship with their parents is so bad. What can parents do that will ensure that when they leave home they’ll be grateful for the life preparation that they’ve received?

Parents should remember that the best climate for a relationship is a climate of honesty and humility. I have watched restoration take place when parents are willing to begin to be honest about their own struggle. One of the things that drives teenagers crazy is parents who are all talk but no action. They hold up standards but never keep them themselves. I mean, how can you talk about grace but be bitter and angry? After a while, the child just can’t wait for that first moment to make his exit.

One of the ways I preach the Gospel is declaring my own need for it. And that can be done casually. I was talking to my 17-year-old son recently. I felt I’d been impatient with him. And I said: “It’s not going to be any surprise to you that I’m going to say I’m a sinner.” Well, he laughed at that, because I also said: “You have a robust experience of the same.” Then I said, “You know there are times when I think of myself more than you, and last night was one of those times.” And he said, “I do the same thing with you Dad, and I forgive you.” After that exchange there was a warmth between us. However, there would have been a very different outcome if I had said: “You know, you really ought to be glad that you have a dad like me. I’m always going out of my way for you. Why do you mess up all the time after all I’ve done for you?” You see, it would’ve been a whole different ball game.

The point is this: if I’m willing to admit my need of Christ, then I come before my child with the evidence of what he also should do. He has not only seen his need, but he has seen the changes Christ is able to do in me. I’m preaching the gospel just by living my life. I think that’s a very powerful thing. And I think it’s an opportunity that we miss, because we believe that if we admit sin, then we compromise our authority. My authority is representative anyway, it’s not based on my righteousness, it’s based on Christ. And I think that’s the way that I can be an instrument in Christ’s hands.

SHIFT author responds

2009-10-02T16:46:00.000-05:00

Check it out...

here.

SHIFT

2009-10-02T15:32:00.002-05:00

Over the next several weeks, I'm going to be commenting on a book that I picked up last week, SHIFT: What it takes to finally reach families today, by Brian Haynes, a pastor in Texas.

In the preface, he details part of a deathbed conversation with his mother. She asked him a powerful question, "What was the last scripture you taught your kids?"

With that question as his catalyst, chapter 1 tackles the "Cultural Shift" that many of us are up to our elbows in. He ends it with the thought, "What would it be like if the church of Jesus Christ actually influenced the culture in a biblical way?" Great question; last week for my church newsletter article I was going to simply make a list of questions, that one would have made it.

Chapter 2, or, "God's Original Blueprint" is a walk through the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates."

Brian then writes, "God asks people to first have these commands on their hearts before they ever try to pass them down to their children...To equip generations effectively, we must reach and equip parents."

What if:

parents are unaware of their own spiritual need?
parents are unaware of their need to be equipped?
parents are unaware of their own need to be reached?

A little later, in a section entitled, "Where We Walked Off the Path", Brian writes that, "The church growth movement redefined success". He talks about the role of the pastor(s) changing from shepherd to strategist. It became a numbers game. And then, in one sentence, Brian describes both children's and youth ministry at our church to a "t".

"We developed children's ministries and youth ministries and gave hired professionals the responsibility for mentoring too many children.

Question: How do we get away from this?

He then has a lengthy section on the need for me, as a minister, to have an authentic, spiritually mentoring relationship with my own family. It was quite convicting.

Here's the cool thing, I found the church where Brian ministers online, and emailed him some questions. He graciously responded. I would love to hear your and his thoughts on the reading.

Eastview Parent Weekly, September 28-October 3

2009-09-28T16:13:00.001-05:00

Dear Parents,

October is right around the corner and it’s going to be a busy one...

October 10, 9-11am, Student Ministry Team Meeting @ Eastview.
- If you’d like to be part of the conversation, please let me know.
October 14, @ middle school youth group
- We’ll be taking our middle school youth group down to Aid To Women for our meeting time. Because of travel time, please have all middle school students at Eastview by 6pm. We’ll eat and have our group time there at Aid to Women.
October 17, 10-11:30am (at the latest)
- Informational meeting for all students in grades 8-12 interested in our 2010 Mexico Mission Trip. If your student is in grades 8-12, and they are remotely interested in this trip, this meeting is mandatory.
October 18- Permission/Registration Slips for high school students going to Ozark Christian College in November
- Permission slips and $30 deposit due
- Trip dates are November 5-8
- Total trip cost is $75/student.
- Visit parent website to download permission slip
October 30-31, Lock-in UPDATE
- This originally was a lock-in, but is in the process of being changed to an off-site retreat. We’re planning on going to North East Iowa Christian Service Camp, located in Bristow, IA. This retreat will be for both middle school and high school students. Cost will simply be $10/student to help with food. There will be more details coming on Wednesday.
November 6-8, Trip to Ozark Christian College for high school students
November 8, NO high school youth group that evening

As always, please let me know if you have any questions!

ESM recap

2009-09-17T13:38:00.002-05:00

We've had a great week of events here at Eastview. All three weeks now we've had a few new faces at both our Sunday and Wednesday night programs. I think the kids love the fact that we have enough adults to actually minister to and spend time with them. We've seen a lot less fighting between the kids for the attention of the small group leaders. There is also a ton less chaos. Each of the leaders has opportunity to intentionally spend time with the kids in their groups. The discussion and lesson times have seemed more meaningful and there is more discussion.

In preparation for our October ministry team meeting (October 10, 9-11am), I'll begin to examine these weekly meetings in light of last week's "Environmental Architecture" post. Question 5 is "Who is responsible for quality control?" . Also to be addressed at that meeting will be, "Where do we see ESM one year from now? Five years from now? Where Does God want us to be?"

Have some answers to those questions? I'd love to hear them! Drop an email to jmulholland@eastview.net or simply respond to this post.

Environmental Achitecture

2009-09-08T10:03:00.002-05:00

Over the past month or so, Bill Holley (our preaching minister) and I have been reading the book Lasting Impressions: From Visiting to Belonging by Mark Waltz. We read a chapter, and then meet weekly to discuss its implications for ministry here at Eastview. The chapter we'll be discussing tomorrow morning is chapter 5, "Be an Environmental Architect". In it, Mark has 5 questions to ask when creating an environment. I thought I'd use the space here this week to answer those 5 questions about our 2 weekly gatherings...Sunday School and Youth Group.

Question 1- What's the Purpose of This Environment?

The purpose of Sunday School (Sunday mornings 8:45-945) is to teach the Bible in an engaging way. The material used is FaithWeaver which is a comprehensive 3-year curriculum. In those 3 years, we'll review the major stories of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments.
The purpose of Youth Group (Sunday nights for high school and Wednesday nights for middle school) is to discuss topics of immediate relevance to our students, to communicate that God loves them and want to be in a relationship with them, and to meet our students where they are. We want to provide a "safe" place for them to bring their questions and their friends.

Question 2: Who Will Use This Environment?

The spaces used are for our students. We'll use sofas, couches, journaling (writing, coloring, drawing), media, whatever we can to hit the purposes above.
Not everyone present is at the same place in a "spiritually mature" sense, in fact, many of those who come are not Christians.

Question 3: What Do We Want People to Experience?

The physical space is there to communicate "home" (sofas, chairs). The journals are meant to communicate "privacy". The small groups are meant to communicate intimacy and honesty.
Youth group nights are there to encourage conversation, story-telling, questions and dialogue. We meet to learn from scripture and our collective experience.
In Sunday school, while there is time for dialogue, primarily our students are there to hear and listen. This is a teaching time.

Question 4: What Do We Want People to Leave With?

Sunday School: An understanding of Scripture, what it says, what it means and how they can apply it.
Youth Group: Students are loved by God and adults. They've been heard, encouraged and challenged. They've heard a spiritual truth, and possibly, they'll leave with a question to ponder all week long.

Question 5: Who's Responsible for Quality Control?

Our ministry team meets monthly (most of the time) to discuss where things are at.

Beginning in October, all of our event planning will walk through this process...lock-ins, retreats, trips, etc. The first 4 questions, with answers, will appear on the registration forms for our events.

First Senior High Youth Group...

2009-08-31T13:41:00.003-05:00

Last night was awesome! We had 16 high school students here for our first ever Sunday night youth group. We had a great time eating some pizza and just chilling out as a group. The environment was much more relaxed and we had some great conversation. We split into our new small groups, and continued the discussion there. We also introduced journaling into our group.

8pm came awfully fast.

Activity:
Discussions about favorite youth group activities, rules and expectations.

Teaching Series:
God's Status

Topic:
Talked about the 4 soils that Jesus explains in Matthew 13.

Key Verses:
Matthew 13:1-10, 18-23

Attendance:
16 students, 6 adults

Main Group Testimony:
Talked about the status of our hearts toward receiving direction from God.

Small Group Time:
Talked about our favorite parts of the past summer, and journaled about the current status of out hearts toward God.

Coming up next:
Middle School Youth Group (September 3)-Youth Group 101
Sunday School (September 6)-FaithWeaver
Senior High Youth Group (Sunday 6th, pm)- "God is out changing people's names"

The Death of Youth Ministry

2009-08-29T10:42:00.001-05:00

From Seth Barnes, over at Adventures in Missions:

"1. Program vs. relationship tension. Youth ministers can't win. Most are wired and motivated to do relationship. Yet to satisfy their various constituencies, they have to spend a majority of their time feeding the beast that is their program. Many, having studied scripture, understand Jesus' model of discipling, but are handcuffed to a job description with a deep conflict of interest at its heart.

2. Many are too young. They're still in their twenties and haven't answered many of the basic questions that students are asking themselves. Yet they get thrown to the lions with little backup...It's unfair to ask youth ministers to take responsibility that properly belongs to parents. They can be a friend and even a teacher, but few can be the father figure that students need.

3. Misplaced accountability. Parents, perhaps feeling ill-equipped to fulfill the job of discipling that God has given them, shovel pass the job onto someone who has signed a W-2 and can be dismissed on a whim.

4. Parental abdication. The very role of a youth minister enables parents in their dysfunction. Rather than being forced to see and wrestle with the bankruptcy of their own discipleship efforts, their responsibility gets lost in a broken system.

5. Stuck in the culture. Even the best-equipped youth ministers are stuck on a playing field tilted against them. American culture is a spiritual meat grinder set up to undermine a young person's spiritual foundation. It's cynical and media-driven and it creates an environment that is to the life of faith youth ministers are charged with creating. What's more, because of misplaced priorities, youth ministers have to fight for the time they need to detox the students in their charge."

Follow the link for the rest of the article.

Kernels Game is ON!

2009-08-28T14:03:00.000-05:00

Meet at Eastview by 9pm, or at the Stadium by 9:30pm.

See you tonight!

Ministry Team Retreat Notes

2009-08-26T12:58:00.000-05:00

Student Ministry Retreat

August 21 and 22, 2009

Sunday Nights – High School – Begins Sunday, August 30

Schedule

5:00pm Leaders/Teachers arrive

5:10pm Big Purple leaves John’s Neighborhood

5:30pm to 6:00pm Meal

6:00pm to 6:30pm Activity

6:30pm to 6:45pm Group Lesson

6:45pm to 8:00pm Small Groups

8:00pm 8:10pm Check out – Big Purple leaves

At least one leader stays until all students are gone

Curriculum

August – December - God’s Status

January – March – Life Hurts – God Heals

March – May – The New Sexuality

Journaling – Students will journal during small group time. Journals will be kept in a safe place – remain private to be seen by the student only.

Teacher/Leaders John Mulholland, Betty Dickerson, Megan Clark and Monna Kreher.

Cooks – Dan and Tracy Woodell

Table Parents – Gregg Lunde and all teachers.

Wednesday Nights - Middle School – Begins September 2

Schedule

5:30pm Leaders/Teachers arrive

5:40pm Big Purple leaves John’s neighborhood

6:00pm to 6:20pm Meal

6:20pm to 6:45pm Activity

6:45pm to 7:00pm Group Lesson

7:00pm to 8:00pm Small Groups

8:00pm to 8:00pm Check out and Big Purple leaves

At least one leader stays until all students are gone

Curriculum

Weeks one through six – Surviving Middle School

Weeks seven through eleven – Interlinc – The Middle School DVD

January forward – Scary, Gross and Weird Stories from the Bible

Teacher/Leaders - John Mulholland, Steve Novak, Rob Frederick, Monna Kreher and Kathy Thomas

Cook – Anne Mulholland

Table Parents – Gregg Lunde and all teachers.

Wednesday and Sunday

Registration Table

Location – Inside Fellowship Hall by back entrance

Students will check in on arrival

Students will be encouraged to enter through the Fellowship Hall entrance to the

building.

Students will check out as they leave – Once they are checked out - they must leave the

building.

We’ll collect cellphones and iPods at registration table.

2009-2010 Proposed Calendar

August 28 and 29 – Kernals Clean-up 9:30pm

October 30 – Lock-in – Guys at church – Girls at Kathy’s

November 6 and 7 – Ambassadors’ Rally for H.S. at Ozark Christian College

November 19-21 – National Missionary Convention (Family Event – Not a Youth Event)

Youth wanting to go but family not going - possibly be adopted by another family

going.

February 13 – SDDA – Spaghetti Dinner, Talent Show and Dessert Auction

February 26-March 1 National Youth Minister’s Conference in Chicago

March 5-6 – CIY Believe for Middle School in St. Louis

April ? Urban Plunge in Omaha

Summer 2010

Middle School Mission Trip to Kansas

High School Mission Trip to Mexico

Next Ministry Meeting October 10, 2009 9:00am to 11:00am

Fall 2009 Senior High lesson planning

2009-08-11T10:50:00.001-05:00

We're Back!!

2009-08-02T21:38:00.002-05:00

CIY was amazing! I'll post an extended recap tomorrow!

CIY 2009

2009-07-24T13:26:00.003-05:00

2009-07-23T13:26:00.002-05:00

CIY Updates:

follow me on Twitter

Recap Videos!

2009-07-20T17:58:00.000-05:00

Middle School Camp at NEICSC from John Mulholland on Vimeo.

Mission Kansas 2009 from John Mulholland on Vimeo.

Eastview Parent Weekly, July 19-25

2009-07-20T13:14:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year...our summer break is half over. 3 out of 4 summer trips and events are past. Our final trip, CIY's summer conference is right around the corners, just 6 short days away, and then...September. The weeks of August will go extremely fast. Our ministry team met on Saturday to talk about Jesus, to talk about youth ministry, to talk about Eastview and how those three things should be aligned. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. At this point, I want to get through the next 6 weeks and start.

While the notes from our ministry team meetings are available for all to read (at right), here are some highlights from this past Saturday:

It was officially decided that beginning this Fall, our youth group will be "split", with grades 9-12 meeting on Sunday nights and grades 6-8 meeting on Wednesday nights. Specific times and more details will be out in mid-August.
Small Group Leaders for 2009-2010 school year:
- Middle School-
- John Mulholland
- Rob Frederick
- Steve Novak
- Monna Kreher
- High School-
- John Mulholland
- Megan Clark
- Betty Dickerson
Curriculum Plan for Fall/Winter
- Middle School
- “Scary, Gross and Weird Stories from the Bible”
- High School
- Gospel of Mark-The Person of Jesus
- What it means to follow Him

In the meantime, I hope that you'll be praying for those going to Carbondale next week. I'm anticipating God working in a big way (which He does here) in the lives of those going. Pray from open hearts and minds, for sleep and rest and patience and encouragement.

As with our recent Kansas trip, you'll be able to follow along using the Twitter feed to the right starting next Sunday, at Noon.

Some thoughts from the past week

2009-07-14T08:55:00.004-05:00

We've had a busy two weeks here at Eastview Student Ministry.

I spent June 29-July 3 with 6 middle school students and 2 adults in Florence, Kansas at Morning Star Ranch. It was a great time for work, fun and fellowship with those students. We met daily and talked about the 10 Commandments and their application for today. I was blown away by the questions these 11-14 year old students asked. There was an incredible amount of depth and spiritual hunger behind them.

I spent last week, July 5-11 with 86 high school students in Bristow (Big Enough to Accomodate, Small Enough to Appreciate!) Iowa at North East Iowa Christian Service Camp. In addition to co-deaning (which means that Hannah did all the work), I taught a class on media discernment using Britney Spears' "If You Seek Amy" as our media to review, and was a Family leader with a student from Ozark Christian College. We played a lot of dodgeball, ate some great food courtesy of the Huskey's, got eaten by mosquitos, heard some challenging messages and did some service projects. I got an inside view into the lives of 10 high school students. While there were moments of great discussion, the vast majority of the spiritual discussions that we had were shallow.

I learned a few things over the past few weeks:

Most of the high school students in my group had no idea about why they were baptized. There was no ability to articulate their faith or to integrate it into their lives. Additionally, they had no idea how to study, much less read or apply, God's Word into their daily lives.
Students are hungry for God's Word. They are spiritually dry and will turn to anything that provides them the slightest bit of satisfaction, no matter how temporary or fulfilling.
My guess would be that the parents of these students are completely un-engaged in both the lives of their children and their own relationship with God.
Our churches are doing a lousy job at discipleship, both to adults and students. On the final day of camp, I visited with some girls from another church. While they could not agree on the specifics, they guessed that their church was made of of 25-40 people. But, their high school youth group would be about 8 in numbers. Last year, this church cancelled their Wednesday night youth program because they were "too small". FAIL! 8 high school students is WAY above the 10% rule (if your high school group size is 10% of your congregationsize, your youth group size is average). Here is what this church has communicated to their high school students: "You are unimportant. We don't care". No doubt this church will lament the loss of these students over the next few years as the walk away from both the church and Jesus. They will likely point to culture, temptation, all the usual suspects, but they will never, never, look to themselves.

It would be so easy to leave it there, but it's not that simple.

A few weeks ago, we graduated 4 students from our program who have remained engaged throughout high school, and while it's WAY too early to tell, I think they'll be sticking around. We celebrated this. It is right to.

Remember January-April of 2002? The Taliban were defeated in Afghanistan. With a few dozen Green Berets and the Northern Alliance we toppled a government.

How about May-December of 2003? Iraq was invaded, Saddam Hussein was captured and we had relatively few casualties.

2004-2008 were grim years in Iraq. IED's wounded, maimed, and killed thousands of American soldiers. Innocent civillians were killed by the thousands. It took 4 years to create a strategy that is only now bearing any fruit.

In case you missed it, we're in the process of sending at least 30,000 soldiers to Afghanistan, and they aren't cooks and PR people. These are battle-hardened troops, taking with them what they learned in places like Fallujah and Anbar.

These 4 students are an anomaly. They are not the norm. When I go through the names of the graduates next year, and the year after, and so on...I'm not so sure of what I see.

I fear that the battle has yet to begin.

I see an insurgency being created and strategies being formed. I see students who were baptized years ago not equipped for battle because other things have gotten their attention.
I see little compromises in their lives, and frankly, I see parents doing nothing about it. Students who have no business dating, are. (Reminder: dating leads to one of two things...break up or marriage. At 14, do you really think your daughter is going to marry her current boyfriend?) Students are downloading music and movies illegally online on their computers. Students clothing is getting tighter on the girls, necklines are falling and shorts are rising. The excuse "I can't find anything else" is both lame and a lie.
Students who are interested spiritually are squashed because their parents do nothing to encourage it. There is no scripture reading in the home, either private or corporately.
Students are left home, for hours at a time by themselves. So there they sit, ears consuming all the best Beyonce and Nelly have to offer, eyes taking in all the internet has for them. No filters, no guidelines, no guardrails. Why? "Because we listened to bad music when we were kids and we turned out ok."
We are "cultural christians". We speak of faith and Jesus, but we just talk about them. We say that Jesus meets all of our needs, but we'll work like He has no clue what we need.
We have a "culturally christian youth ministry". As long as our kids leave our youth group with the intent of being good citizens who can take care of themselves, raise a family, will not get into "too much" trouble, and attend a church maybe even a Christian college, we're ok. After all, we just graduated 4 of them. And look how good we feel about ourselves.

Hmm. As we plan for the Fall, with all of it's challenges with a split youth group and a facility situation, we're going to war. I'll let you in on a little secret. Jesus already won it.

At High School Camp-NEICSC

2009-07-05T08:19:00.000-05:00

Follow the goings on at the right!

Mission Kansas, Tuesday-trip end

2009-07-04T10:02:00.004-05:00

Tuesday

Tuesday, we spent the morning and afternoon putting more primer on the walls and ceiling at the third house on the top of the hill. Later that afternoon, we went swimming in the pool. That evening, we had a campfire and grilled brats, hotdogs and made s'mores. Afterward, we hung out together as a group, plying games and chatting until bedtime.

Wednesday

The work project done, Wednesday was our first relax day. The morning was spent doing a little cleaning and playing games, and the afternoon was spent on the high elements course there at the Ranch. At 3:30, we went to spend more time at the pool as a group. That afternoon, several of the guys at the Ranch involved in their discipleship program, tagged our trailer with our church name. It was pretty cool to see it come together from a sharpie outline to fully painted. The night, we had a meal with many of the interns and counselors at the camp, then made a campfire and had devotions there. One of the discipleship program students joined us and shared his testimony which was really cool.

Thursday

We left MSR for Kansas City and Worlds of Fun. It was raining when we left, so the day was a little in question, but by the time we got to Kansas City, the clouds were gone and the park was open, with not that many people there. We rode many of the rides, ate some food, and then left the park for our hotel by 5:30 that afternoon. We went swimming at the hotel and then went to Waffle House for dinner. We returned to the hotel for some group time, and went to bed around 10:30pm.

Friday

Friday morning, we awoke at 6:00am, had breakfast at the hotel, and then left for Cedar Rapids. We arrived back in CR at 12:15pm. We had a GREAT trip. The kids were fun to be with and worked hard. Cathy and Rob worked well with our students and it was fun getting to know them better.

You can see ALL of the pictures taken on the trip by clicking here. Enjoy!

Mission Kansas, Monday

2009-06-29T22:37:00.003-05:00

We had a work day today. We used primer on the walls and ceiling of one of the houses here at MSR.

Breakfast was great, scrambled eggs, sausage, bagels, English Muffins and cereal. Lunch was all sort of sandwiches, blt's and vegetables. Dinner was hot dogs and brats cooked over a fire, followed up by s'mores.

While on a hike this afternoon, we ran into some ticks. I had one on my leg, and Ryan had 6, and was even finding them into the evening on his clothes.

We tried some volleyball tonight, it was interesting with the kids that are here. The final score was 3-2; we had two firsts...the girls won a game, and so did the middle schoolers.

We had a great evening devotion from Exodus 20:1-7, the first 3 of the 10 Commandments. The kids worked hard on their devo's this morning and showed it by having tough questions and a great conversation. This evening, Rob's wife Leslie drove down and had dinner with us and is staying the night. She's meeting a friend for breakfast here tomorrow morning.

This has been a great trip. We've had no problems with the kids and they've kept me, Kathy and Rob laughing.

Keep checking out the pictures and comments through the day.

Mission Kansas, Sunday

2009-06-28T22:30:00.002-05:00

We left Eastview right at 8am, stopped in northern Missouri in Bethany for lunch at Wendy's. When we got to Emporia Kansas, we stopped at the Wal-Mart for a few last minute food items. We also noticed that one of the tires on the trailer and a cut on the tire stem, leaking air. The tire was almost completely flat. With only 40 miles to go, we filled the tire and tried to duck tape the leak. About 20 minutes later, the tire was losing air again, so we decided to swap it with the spare. That took about 10 minutes, and we made it to Morning Star Ranch by 6pm. We unloaded the trailer, and then attended an evening worship service here. Afterwards, we had some free time and then ate dinner, Papa Murphy's pizza. Had some more free time, and then reviewed the week with the kids. Everyone's just chilling out for the night.

We start our work project tomorrow morning. Be sure to check out the feed (at the right) for pictures and comments throughout the week!

Mission Kansas, trip 2

2009-06-28T06:36:00.002-05:00

We'll be leaving for Morning Star Ranch outside of Florence Kansas in about an hour or so. Come back often for updates throughout the week!

Early Summer Update

2009-06-22T13:21:00.004-05:00

I thought I’d just give you a brief update of the goings-on for our ministry over the next few months.

Here are a few pictures of “Big Purple” (our van) and our newest purchase, a 6’ x 8’ trailer:

Speaking of events:

LAST WEEK was Middle School Camp for 9 of our students. We talked about the concept of thirst and water as found throughout scripture. Specifically, we talked about the Exodus from Egypt and how the Israelites were constantly thirsting for water, we talked about Noah and the Ark, King David and his “mighty men” bringing him water from a well in Jerusalem and then Paul “being poured out like a drink offering” in Philippians 2.

NEXT WEEK (June 28-July 3) is our second mission trip to Morning Star Ranch in Florence Kansas. We’re taking 6 of our middle school students (Ryan Carmody, Kelsey Zieser, John Mulholland, Tyler Wright, Beth Frederick and Brianna Scott) and 3 adults (Kathy Thomas, Rob Frederick and me). We’ll leave early next Sunday morning and be home by mid-afternoon on Friday, July 3. For our devotional times, we’ll be talking about the 10 Commandments and how God desires our obedience to His Law as a way to honor and love Him.

THE WEEK AFTER (JULY 5-11) is our high school week of camp. As of right now, we have 4 high school students going (Samantha Holley, Jenai Holley, Nathan Mulholland and Heidi Dickerson) and one adult (me). We’ll be focusing on chapter 4 from the Gospel of John and how Jesus truly meets all of our needs. He knows everything about us and simply wants us to allow Him to fill us. It’s going to be a great week!

FINALLY, JULY 26-AUGUST 1 is our high school summer conference trip to CIY MOVE on the campus of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale Illinois. We have 12 students (Samantha Holley, Jenai Holley, Katie Mulholland, Nathan Mulholland, Brittany Kiley, Ashley Heald, Heidi Dickerson, Amanda Williams, Courtney Des Forge, Kayla Buffington, Nickie Smith, Breanna Smith) and 4 adults (Betty Dickerson, Monna Kreher, Steve Novak and me). This year, the focus will be on following God where He leads, and He always leads us close to Him.

AUGUST will find our team re-tooling and preparing for the BIG CHANGE to a “Two-Night” youth group model in September. We’ll be moving our high school night to Sundays and middle school night will remain on Wednesdays. Also in August, we’ll have our ministry team retreat to get away, plan, recap and train our youth workers.

As you can see, I’ll be out of the office much of the summer, and when I am in Cedar Rapids, my time will be spent with my family. If you need to get in touch with me, the best way will be through my cell phone (319-389-5384). I’ll also be using our parent website for some “on the spot” event updates (especially during Kansas and CIY-our camp has dial-up!), so be sure to check that out a few times during the summer.

As always, our ministry covets your prayers. We’ll be putting a mile or 2 on big purple, and God will be speaking to many of our students in ways they have not heard. Don’t forget our sponsors; these events leave them tired, mentally, spiritually and physically, and God speaks to them, too.

Look for another update in 3 weeks!