KS Vacation

Well the big day has come and gone. It has been wonderful to connect with family that I've talked with email and the phone and with family I haven’t seen in over 5 years. We got a chance to have a great meal that my wonderful sister planned for all of us. Then we watched my dad's barber shop show on video. Then we played a little group game where we got to get to know each other more. After that Lisa, Emily (one of my sister-in-laws), and myself took most of the grandkids and went hunting for a cache (for more info check out: www.geochache.com). We didn't find the cache but Lisa did lose the keys to the van she was driving in the middle of a field :o then found them ;D. That was fun but very tiring. After that it was off to another family eat. We had the good old hamburger and hotdogs on the grill. Then off to the hotel for some swim time for the kids and talk time with the parents (I did both). I'm tired but very glad to have spent some great time with my family. I thank God so much for allowing me to have a family that is open to God's truth and want to hear about Him.

Fishers of men message

My wife and I worked on this message some more on our 10 hour drive from Iowa to Kansas [8D].

Here is what we have so far.

Every jr hi teen at IMPACT can share their faith story with their friends by understanding four truths.

Truth 1) Our life has to be following God’s story for us to really do anything spiritually
Truth 2) God created all of us – our friends and our enemies and us –and God choices to use us in His story
Truth 3) Telling our faith story is about our life story interacting with God’s story.
Truth 4) There are some key points about God’s story that needs to be shared as our life story is interacting with our friends story

This isn't what we will directly teach the kids but the bases for the message. If any of you are familiar with Ken Davis SCORRE method this will look familiar to you a little.

Any suggestions on how to form this better or how to communicate these truths better will be most helpful.

Remodeling our house

Well today starts the next step in the remodeling of our home. The siding guys should be coming and then the house will really look terrible. It will be interesting living in a home that looks bad but then slowly starts to change. I pray that as this home is done it will be used many times and many ways to help people on their faith journey to our beloved Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.

Over the Hedge gets giggles from 3 year old

Over the Hedge is an excellent movie that we went and saw today. For my family we know we have a good movie when our 3 year old starts to giggle only 5 min. into the movie. If you want to see a fun, family movie go see this one.

Mess Fest 2006

Mess Fest 2006 has come and gone & it was totally awesome. I've placed below the press release for it that was sent out. We had over 150 jr highers there. You can click on the above picture to see some pictures from this event.

Mess Fest 2006 is a massive community wide activity where Middle School students (6,7,8 grade) get to play extremely messy games to build strong relationships with each other and local youth ministries.
Middle School students from all over the greater Cedar Rapids area are invited to join a “Messtival” with a number of area wide youth ministries. This event is a time for them to make as much of a mess as they want without even getting in trouble! From a mud pit tug-of-war competition to diving into a pool of oatmeal students will be walking away from this event messier than they have ever been. Imagine them laughing with their friends while getting syrup poured down their backs– just one of the many activities that will happen at Mess Fest 2006. The messiness of the day will be used in a brief devotional message, explaining how Christ can clean up our spiritual lives.
Mess Fest 2006 will be happening May 20th 2006 with a rain date on June 3rd 2006. It will be held at Valley View Baptist Church at 5555 Mount Vernon Rd SE, Cedar Rapids, IA 52403. Mess Fest 2006 will happen from 1pm-4pm.
“Mess Fest is a great opportunity for jr highers to come have a blast, get messy, and have no negative consequences doing it.” Pastor Keith Pitts, Youth Pastor at Valley View Baptist Church. This is Keith’s third year helping with Mess Fest.
“This is a great event for jr hi kids and youth ministries to get together, throw some mud around, and develop relationships.” Pastor Mark E. Eades, Jr hi youth pastor at New Covenant Bible Church. This is Mark’s fourth year helping run Mess Fest.
Mess Fest 2006 will be using a duck tank to explanation how Christ can clean up the kid’s spiritual lives. This massive community wide activity where jr hi kids (6,7,8 grade) get a focused explanation of three key realities about sin:

1) That their sins are real (as real as the messy stuff they have all over them)
2) That they cannot remove that sin on their own (just like they can’t just remove the messy stuff on them)
3) That Jesus’ blood is the only thing that can wash away their sins (just like a good water bath will wash away the messy stuff on them).

This is a once in a life time kind of time with Jr high kids.

Inspections are such a pain

Oh RATS! We had a remodeling job done in our home basement last year and have ran into inspection pains left and right. The job was done great and we really like our new basement but this pluming inspector keeps giving us more things that have to be brought up to code. We are on like the 5 thing that he wants us to do. Each time we get something done he comes in and then wants something else done. Its really a frustration for us. Well one nice thing is we will have ever thing up to code by the time we get done with the house. O, we just started another remodeling job to put a new shower on our main floor of our house.

Serving is so much fun

A few weeks ago we did a big banquet for all the volunteers we have at our church. Our Associate Pastor shares more details about it at his blog (http://friendsclass.blogspot.com/). I just want to say thanks again for all the wonderful work the jr hi sponsors are doing with our kids. You guys ROCK!

Learning to be careful what you comment

I read a couple different blogs of full time jr hi only veteran youth pastors and I must say that I was disturbed by a comment made at Mark Oestreicher of YS blog (http://www.ysmarko.com/). A number of Jr hi veteran youth pastor including Marko do a yearly get together to refresh, encourage, and equip each other. Basically they do the same thing that our local Youth Fellowship does monthly but only once a year.

Well in Marco's blog he shares about their experience and how it went. Some one commented that the idea of these guys getting together was repulsive and reminded him of "power brokers" getting together to decided the fate of youth ministry. I disagree with this comment completely. The need that all of us have to be encouraged and equipped is part of who God has made us to be. This just shows me how careful I must be of what I comment. There probably was a desire by the commenter to share his thoughts and concerns he has. But what came across was critazism which really doesn't fullfill our calling to be encouragers and equippers.

Networking

One of the joys of being a youth pastor where I am is the network we have here in Cedar Rapids, IA. I have close relationships with a number of youth pastors/ministers in the community that I really love. These guys have become part of how I am as a pastor and friend. Part of the reason for this is our monthly fellowships we have. The goal for the fellowship is very simple. We get together to encourage and equip each other that could impact the youth population in our area. We do 4 key things:
1) Eat
2) Share a testimony or story from one of the pastors
3) Show and Tell - What works, doesn't works, read, etc that each of us has done this past month.
4) Announcements - What is a local church doing to what the group as a whole is doing.

This group is just a network and doesn't have any influence in the community as an organization itself. But it does encourage and equip each other which can influence the community.

Jr Hi Jazz Band

We have a jr hi Jazz Band that gets to play for big church twice a year and they totally ROCK. Each year I love to set in, listen, and watch these jr highers at practice. They really want to do their best for their Lord. And then when they play in big church they are great. I really love being the jr hi guy here.

Sesame Street Live with the family

Just went with the family to watch Sesame Street Live. It is awesome to have one of my sons in my lap and the other beside me singing, laughing, and just enjoy this great show. I really enjoy spending time with my kids like this.

Don't leave the camera laying around

Well I have been saved and clearly scolded for leaving the church camera laying around last Sunday when I took some nice pictures of our jr hi jazz band. Thanks for finding it for me and scolding me for leaving it a lone.

But four bites is not ok

I'm eating roman noodles with my middle child Nathaniel. He just said some thing that was so him. I started to eat some of his becuase he usually doesn't eat all of his stuff. But when he saw me eating his he said, "Dad it's ok for you to eat two or three bites, but four bites in not ok." He is so open to serving and helping others. I've seen him give hugs out more than maybe we would like but so many people have had smile just come across their faces and I know that Nathaniel just made some ones day.

My wife has been a mom for 10 years WOW!

Just wanted to say that I'm so prond and honored to be married to a women who has not only been in love with me for almost 14 years but has been the mom of our children for almost 10 years. Thanks Lisa I love you so much.

Being a father of a soon to be 10 year old

I'm setting in my basement and watching my daughter and her friends do a live show of American girl dolls. They have dressed up, shared parts from different American girl doll books, did a clapping activity, and just made us laugh. They were very cute. I'm also stunned by how much of this is just their imagination and how much they recall when they do their cute show. I love being a dad and enjoying my children.

Now my 4 yrs old boy wants to do little mermaid show with them.

Geocaching

My family and I have been geocaching (http://www.geocaching.com/) for about a year. I really enjoy taking out the GPS unit and find out where a few caches are hiding and then go hunt them down. It is a lot of fun and we have found 50 so far and we hope to find more. We also get to make "travel bugs." We have made one so far and called it Batman & Robin TB it is setting in Florida as I speak as someone took it down there and put it in a cache there.

Sharing the gospel through ummm... farts

Last night we went to an all city worship night we call "the Crave." On the bus ride home one of my girls came and asked if I would pray for their friend to accept Jesus. Well the friend was right there and so I asked her what she thought of this. She wanted to know some answers to some questions. The big question was "what is my purpose on this earth?" I said great lets talk. Well as we were sharing and I got to the point of explaining what sin was two boys setting behind us started to make farting noises. They weren't too loud but it didn't take to long (and a group of other kids to start laughing) to get their fart noise a lot louder. Next thing I know the girl I'm sharing with and her friends were laughing so hard that the seriousness of the moment was lost. Fortunately I got to talk with her after we got back to church and though she didn't "pray" with me then she did leave understand her questions better. I plan on following up with her this Wednesday and get her some information to look at and talk with her friend about. The joys of working with jr highers, I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!

3-d music

For those rare people who read this I thought you might enjoy listening to this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5503582578132361295

The Statement

"No one has built that big of a church in Eastern Iowa before." Was a statement our Sr. Pastor made last week Monday (May 8th) when we got an update on the new building plans. The statement was from one of the many local builders that have interviewed to build our new church. It's interesting to hear these kinds of things as they remind me that the truth of God and sharing it to others is much bigger than me and it has to be all about Him.

More on Mess Fest

We are 1 1/2 weeks out from Mess Fest and things are coming together but we are still needing some help.

We are looking for Station groups (5 in fact of 10). This is where the fun & messiness happens. Explanation of stations - The object of each station is to be unique in making two groups of kids messy but not to gross the kids out. This messiness could use messy material like mud, chocolate syrup, or wet bread. Use any messy material to create an activity that kids can do in 10 minutes. Examples of a messy activity could be an oatmeal hunt where kids have to find marbles in a pool of oatmeal. Please use your imagination to create a memorial messy activity. There is a rotation system that will bring two different groups of kids to your station ever 10 min. Each station will run its activity 10 times with one break through out the event. Each station needs to be set up and ready by 12:45pm.

We are also needing Team Captains. Alot of the churches invovled will have their own team captains, but there is a real possablility we will need more. Team captains - Are adults who will be responsible for a team of kids (up to but no more than 20). This person will cheer on their team, participate in all stations (you will get messy), take their team from one station to the next (this rotation will be given to the team captain at Mess Fest), and make sure their team follows the simple rules for each station. Team captains need to be a Valley View by 12:15pm for final briefing & prayer.

I'm looking for help from my church body but we will have to wait and see if it will get filled out.

The Acts series

We started a series on ACTS a few weeks ago and I've been interested in what the reaction the kids will have about doing a textual study. We've done some textual study in the past (book of John was the last) but this one we are covering the book more than before. My teacher (Tim) is doing a great job and really has spent a lot of time preparing for this. We have already gone 4 weeks and so far we haven’t lost steam. I'm trying to think through ways to evaluate this message to see the effectiveness of it since it is 10 weeks long.

We also put together a video series for the kids to watch on Wed. nights. This hasn't gone over so well. We watched a whole 40 minutes of video on the first two nights which really didn't go well for the kids. But the last time we did it we showed two short clips and then Tim shared some thoughts. This seemed to go over a lot better for the kids. We have one more showing (was to be an hour long) and I hope that we can finish well with this.

Some ideas:
How do I evaluate this series as a whole and in peaces?
Is this the most effective way to share God's truth to the kids?
If we only had 4 weeks to share this what would we do (in only 6 weeks)?
How do I get input from the kids to get their thoughts?