Convicting Christmas Card?

Lesson Loop 12.9.11

This week in our Student Ministry:

THIRD PLACE & LUCID
We are spending an additional 4 weeks talking about sharing our faith. The middle school is one week ahead at this point, but here is what we went over this week in middle school, and what we will cover next week in high school:

God's Story
*While last week was about sharing our story, this week we considered how the Bible is God's Story of Salvation. This is a message that is written beautifully in different styles throughout the Scriptures, but at the center of the story is Jesus Christ.

John 1:1-15
We looked at how the birth of Christ began the climax of the story, and in John 1 we considered 3 main themes:

1. CREATION
   God created everything we see through Jesus Christ!
2. DARKNESS
   Since the fall of mankind (Genesis 3), our world has been plagued with the darkness of sin. 
3. LIGHT
   Jesus is the Light that breaks through the darkness of sin and brings us hope!

The students used their artistic sides by writing poetry that described either Creation, Darkness, or Light. Some got into it more than others, but it was neat.

Conclusion: While it is very important that we share our story of salvation with others, it is even more important that we share God's story. We need to start all the way back at Creation and focus on Jesus Christ!

NYWC Sessions!

Hello parents and staff!
I wanted to let you know that I purchased a few of the sessions from the National Youth Worker's Conference this year, and they are now posted so you can listen to them. Just click on them in the orange box to the right.

Here are the sessions with a description of each:

Francis Chan
San Diego, Big Room One

BIO:  Francis is the best-selling author of Crazy Love and Forgotten God, as well as host of the BASIC.series. He has also written children’s books Halfway Herbert and The Big Red Tractor and the Little Village. Francis is founding pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA, founder of Eternity Bible College, and sits on the board of directors of Children’s Hunger Fund and World Impact. Francis lives in Northern California with his wife, Lisa, and their five children.

URL: http://www.francischan.org

Chuck Bomar
Under Your Umbrella? College Ministry When It's Just Part of Your Responsibilities

For student ministry pastors/leaders with college ministry under their “umbrella” of responsibility but don't know what to do exactly. If you’re short on time, ideas, and resources, this seminar will give you clear and concise direction.

BIO: Chuck started and pastors Colossae Church in Portland, OR. He also founded and heads CollegeLeader, which helps churches care for and include college-aged people in everything they do. This mission takes him all over the country to speak and train leaders. He’s author of College Ministry From Scratch: A Practical Guide to Start and Sustain a Successful College Ministry, College Ministry 101: A Guide to Working with 18-25 Year Olds, and coauthor with Reggie Joiner and Abbie Smith of The Slow Fade: Why You Matter in the Story of Twentysomethings. He and Barbara have been married for 10 years and have two daughters, Karis and Hope. URL: www.CollegeLeader.org

Blake Chilton
The Entrustment Principle: Investing in Adults Leaders/Volunteers to Invest in Students


BIO: A 15-year student ministry veteran, Blake has been student minister at The Village Church in Flower Mound, TX, for six years. His passion is developing a vision for the glory of God and passing it to students so they will live for Someone greater than themselves. Blake is married to Sarah; they have four children.






Doug and Cathy Fields
Youth Ministry and Marriage

Seasoned in marriage (26 years) and veterans in youth ministry (30 years), Doug and Cathy Fields have spent their entire marriage in youth ministry and have lived to tell about it. Great marriages are possible in the midst of ministry stress and others’ expectations. This 90-minute workshop won’t solve all the problems in your world or marriage, but you’ll get enough helpful, practical, and encouraging tips to get you headed in the right direction.

BIO: Doug has worked in the church as a youth pastor for almost 30 years—most recently, 18 years at Saddleback Church in southern California. He’s founder of Simply Youth Ministry, author/coauthor of 50-plus books, a new blogger, and now spends most of his time with youth workers.
URL: www.dougfields.com

Jim Burns
Developing a Healthy Marriage, Family and Ministry

In this session, Jim will share insights from what he and Cathy call their “high maintenance” marriage as well as raising three strong-willed kids who didn’t always love church. Jim will talk about and offer practical suggestions on combatting being “overcommitted and under connected,” energizing your family’s spiritual life, communication and conflict, and other issues specific to youth ministry, marriage, and family. You’ll receive several outstanding communication resources and have plenty of time to talk about issues close to your heart.

BIO: Jim is president of HomeWord and executive director of the HomeWord Center for Youth and Family at Azusa Pacific University. Jim speaks to thousands worldwide each year, has more than 1.5 million resources in print in more than 25 languages, and is heard daily on more than 800 radio stations (and around the world via podcast at HomeWord.com). His recent books include Faith Conversations for Families, Teenology: How to Raise Great Teens, and Closer: Devotions to Draw Couples Together. Jim, his wife Cathy, and their three daughters (Christy, Rebecca, and Heidi) live in Southern California.
URL: HomeWord.com

Advent

Mark 1:1–3 (ESV)
1The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. 2As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, 3the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,"
During this Advent season, my family has been taking advantage of this special time of year to focus on preparing our hearts for the arrival of Christmas morning. We have never really observed Advent before (at least during the whole season), and I have found it an awesome opportunity to have conversations like what Deuteronomy 6 calls us to.
If you are interested in an interactive Advent devotional and Bible reading plan for a family, you can find one through YouVersion here:
http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/countdown-to-christmas
Christmas is such a wonderful time to creatively teach our children and the students of our church the gospel story, which starts to come to culmination at the birth of Christ, but began when God said “Let there be light”. May your Christmas be filled with joy and conversations that lead to the cradle and the cross.

Lesson Loop 9.8.11

This week in our Student Ministry:

THIRD PLACE: "Galatians - applying the gospel"
We took some time to really apply the gospel to our unique life situations. Students wrote on a 3x5 card what their biggest struggle/temptation/difficulty is right now (without their name), and then they were redistributed for students to pray for the person whom the card represented. The students also had to spend some time thinking of how Christ's life, death and resurrection applied to this situation.

Then when we came back together I shared from my heart how God has been applying the truths of the gospel to my heart over the last 6 months with Preslie's situation.

My prayer is that we begin to see how the gospel ties into EVERYTHING we do and EVERY challenge we face.




LUCID: "Worship: Inside and Out"
This was our final week in our series on Worship. This was a time to really emphasize what we have been talking  - that worship is our whole lives, and not just the time on Sundays and Wednesdays when we come together in the church building. In fact, we have no right praising God with our lips when we refuse to worship Him with our lives during the week.
Our text was Psalm 15, and we saw 10 ways that someone worships God in that text.

1. walks blamelessly


2. does what is right


3. speaks truth in his heart


4. does not slander with his tongue


5. does no evil to his neighbor


6. casts no slur on his fellowman


7. despises a vile man


8. honors those who fear the Lord


9. keeps his oath (even when it hurts)


10. lends his money without interest

Lesson Loop 3.31.11

This week in our Student Ministry:

THIRD PLACE: "We're in this together" (Galatians 6)
We started with a neat team-building game called electric fence, where the students had to help each other over the rope as it was raised higher and higher. It was neat to see certain students rise into leadership and see them work together. This tied into our lesson which was about how we need each other. We must be united as the body of Christ.

Modern society places way more emphasis on technology and knowledge than they do on relying on one another. If we are not careful this can have a negative influence on the body of Christ as well, as we are all more prone to "go it alone" than we are to work together, stay accountable and help others.

We specifically highlighted how Galatians calls us to help one another as we each struggle with sin. We need accountability, and we need to have enough guts to obey God's Word and ask our friends the tough questions about how they are doing. We also need to do this humbly and gently as the passage says, lest we come across self-righteous or we fall into sin ourselves.

The passage calls us back to self-examination, since we often find it easier to point others faults out than recognize our own sin.

Students left with the challenge to find one close friend they can confess their biggest struggle to and ask for prayer.

LUCID: "Walk Humbly With Your God"

We focused on the 3rd part of Micah 6:8 and how this is the worship that God wants from us.

We considered how we can walk humbly by examining Christ's example in Philippians 2. Here are a couple things we pointed out:

1. True humility comes when we are united with Christ, changed by His love, and filled with the Spirit.


2. We discussed how unbelievers can be humble to a certain degree, but they are not capable of the deep humility that Philippians 2 calls us to. In fact, none of us can have Philippians 2 humility without God renewing our mind and giving us the mind of Christ. 


3. In order to have a mind renewed with the humility of Jesus we need to spend time with Him!


4. Jesus showed humility in this way: 

• had it all but made himself nothing


• lived as a humble servant


• died a criminal's death for me

Students left with the challenge to think about the person whom it is most difficult to act humbly towards.

Lesson Loop 7.29.11

This week in our Student Ministry:

THIRD PLACE: Water Night!

We had an awesome time throwing water balloons and sliding down a big slip-and-slide, but before we did we heard from the missions team who shared testimonies about what God did in their lives on the trip to New Mexico.

It was great to hear how God was teaching them the entire time, and I think it was a challenge to those who heard.

We also had a guest worship leader from Cedarcrest BFC (Jason), which was a blessing.

 

LUCID: "Living Sacrifice"

We began a new series on worship, and the main point was how worship is so much more than the formal worship time we have at youth group and church on Sundays. It involves our whole life, and most specifically, our obedience to what God has called us to.We took note of several ways God tells us in the O.T. how we are to worship Him:

1. mercy, knowing God (Hosea 6:6)


2. justice, righteousness (Amos 5:21-24)


3. humility and repentance (Psalm 51:16-17)


4. obedience, purity (1 Samuel 15:22)


5. right living, encourage the oppressed, defend orphans and widows (Isaiah 1:11-20)