The end of this blog - for now

I've moved my blogging to help w/a blog for middle school/jr hi guys/gals. Click HERE to go to the Junior High Ministry Blog - from now on all my blog posts will be on there. Thanks for reading my blog

10 cool ideas to do at a party

these are just some awesome ideas - good stuff.

Middle School Week by YS

Youth Specialties is honoring middle school ministry this week with a week focus on middle school ministry on their blog called "middle school week." I'm writing this at NCBC's awesome Kid's camp that we put on each year. I take advantage of this camp to get connect with some of the new incoming 6th graders. This brought two thoughts to my mind and I hope this encourages you as it does me:

1) Long team is key to successful middle school ministry. Setting here seeing the team that is working these very young kids (2nd - 5th grade) is just awesome. I know almost every kid working that is here because they had been a part of middle school ministry.

2) You can have high expectations on your middle school kids - you just have to do it slowly and individually. Here at camp we have a number of middle schoolers who have a lot of work to do to make this camp function. There are some really high expectations on them and they are doing awesome - but I wouldn’t have asked most of them to do what they are doing last year. They are maturing and they are maturing quickly if we keep the expectations balanced and help focus them on Christ - watch out! they are going to rock.

Thanks YS(check out their web site here) for recognizing this great group of kids and may every middle school/jr hi guy/gal out there know they are awesome in my book!

Blogging again

After a very long time I'm back at blogging again. For the 3 of you (hi mom) that are still reading this we have a number of posts coming. Summer trips are here and we will have a lot of pictures to put here for family to see. Be checking in regularly to see all the great pics.

Breadsticks

Something just for fun. I enjoy bread - in fact I love eating it and I love making it (you can go here and hear a message in Big Church that used a sifter in the message). I've been to Olive Garden a number of times and really enjoy their bread sticks & I have said it is the best bread sticks I've ever had - that is until today. I have found someone who makes bread sticks that are as good as Olive Garden's sticks. In the little town of Alburnett, IA is a little gas/convenient store named "Leftys" and they make these bread sticks that are warm, taste, and just as good as Olive Garden's. I'll be going back there again soon.

Communication lines

I recently asked the staff at NCBC to send different "lines of communications" that they use.
Here is that list:

- email
- postcards (snail mail)
- word of month
- phone
- web sites
- bulletin boards/message boards (physical)
- pod cast
- Street signs/street bill boards
- radio adds
- tv adds
- face to face conversations
- body language...
- sign language
- telegraph
- Walkie talkie
- CB
- Two cans connected by string

What are some other lines that you use? Do they focus on bulk communication or individual communications

Star Trek - 05/08/09

I've always been a Star Trek fan and I'm really excited that a new Star Trek movie is coming out in May09. I've been watching all the old movies with my son and now I can't wait to see if we can watch this movie together soon. Here is a little taste of what this movie is about from their main web site: "a new version of the greatest space adventure of all times, new crew adventuring bodly where no one has gone before." Check it all out on the web at: http://www.startrekmovie.com/ or click on the pic.

Simple Thoughts

I haven't done a "Simple Thoughts" since April last year (click here to read it). I do this off and on because of a thought our Assoc. Pastor Kim Pagel shared with the staff over a year ago. He had us think through unexpected events that happened the past year in our life. Since then I try to put down different random thoughts that I think about or think will happen in my life.

1) I've become a Coffeesmiths addict. I really enjoy the atmosphere and their white chocolate mocha is awesome.
2) I have a chance to write an article for simplyyouthministry. I'm thinking about writing on expectations with middle school youth and/or tangible goals in middle school ministry.
3) Marko (who I respect highly) from Youth Specialties wrote a book called YM3.0 and I really want to read it but I'm also hesitant to read it - it is a strange reaction that I've never had before.
4) I'm really looking forward to spring break this year and getting away with my family. We are planning on going to Dubuque, IA and go to Grand Harbor Resort.
5) My good friend and mentor Mark Forstrom has agreed to edit this little blog of mine so that it is easier for people to read - thx old friend.

Family Values

I send out a weekly email update to all my parents and adult leaders what I call "Mark's Tips." It can be about anything that deals with middle school youth, raising them, spiritual thoughts, parenting, etc. My last tip was for them to read this article "A debate over Family values" from Los Angeles Times about the new ABC family shows that are out there. I'm forming an opinion on this but wanted to hear from my parents and adults leaders first before I say any more. So here is where I ask any of you to post your comments and let me know what you think. I'm looking forward to dialoging with all of you on this.

Good Bye Lauren our Intern

There are so many joys when it comes to having an intern. One of which is seeing how connected our interns get with our group. The other side of that coin though isn't so joyous and we had to do that last wednsday night (Dec 10) as we said our good byes to our intern Lauren Darr.

I have a lot I could say about this wonderful young lady but I'll put a few links below from this blog about what we have done together. You can click on the picture to see a short slide show of the night.

The day Lauren had to leave I put this in my simple little jornal:

Luke 6:40 "A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher."

The joy of a teacher is to see his students take off. I've had the joy of being an intern mentor - today I let her (Lauren Darr) go. I pray that she learned a few things from me and a lot of "what not to do"s from me. Lord, thank you for Lauren Darr and the Joy she has brought into my heart, the IMPACT ministry, and your kingdom - yea God!

Here are the links:

First post of the flood of 2008

Another post of the flood of 2008

7&8 grade summer trip Day 1

7&8 grade summer trip Other days

7&8 grade summer trip Final

6th grade summer trip Day 1

6th grade summer trip Day 2

6th grade summer trip Final day

Just a fun night

First ever Fall Retreat Day 1

Fall Retreat more stuff

Fall Retreat even more stuff

Fall Retreat final stuff

Jr Hi ministry questions

Getting together with a good friend of mine who is a jr hi youth pastor in Iowa City. He sent me a set of questions for us to talk over tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to talking with him. I've invited another jr hi guy from here in Cedar Rapids to join us so I'm even more excited about the 3 of us going over these questions.

I'm placing his questions here and would enjoy reading your thoughts. Here are his questions:

Mark,

Looking forward to talking with you tomorrow. I have a few questions to bounce off you…

- Part-time Staff or Intern Workers: Where do you like to recruit from: with in the church, outside ministries, bible colleges? What process do you go through to get help? Etc.

- What are the purposes of each of your weekly programs and how do you carry them out?

- What’s your thought on getting kids to read the bible, pray, memorize scripture, come to church, bring your bible to church?

- What do you think about a rewards based ministry for doing the above?

- What’s your opinion of Awana for Jr. Highers?

Hopefully not too difficult of questions. I have some adults I’m trying to lead and they feel strongly about some of these things.

fun video

Here is a little video Mark F and I made to invite all of our sponsors to an appreciation banquet we are having for them. Fun stuff.

Ok so I don’t know how to spell “Groovy” but I do now.

Doing what's right - even if you lose

Pastor Kim Pagel (our associate Pastor here at NCBC) put this on his blog and it made me cry and think. My daughter is enjoying her 2nd year of softball and I'm coaching my son's 1st year in t-ball and this really moved me. With so much negative stuff out there concerning any kind of competition this was refreshing to watch and hear. Enjoy, but have a kleenex by you.

Tigers, alligators, and buffalos

This was just to interesting and wild not to post it. I found it over at Josh(ua) Treece blog and couldn't pass up putting it here. It's long (8 1/2 min) and it doesn't get really interesting until the 4 1/2 minutes but then it is really kewl.

When the cats away...

Our "sr staff" wasn't around today so for our 5th Tuesday Staff fun day we had some fun (we have fun like this eve if the "sr staff" is around). A number of the ladies put together a great meal from BBQ This and Mark Forstrom our sr hi Pastor (and my good friend) put the games together. You can see we did a fun game of tug of war (click the picture to see a slide show), graduated rock-paper-scissors, and a fun getting to know you clock game. Thanks to all for putting this together what fun the mice will have when the cats are away (or even if the cats are here we still have fun).

Simple Thoughts

After two very busy weeks that I normally don't have around this time of year I wanted to put down some of my thoughts.

1) I'm twittering now and I find myself enjoy it. If you want to know more go here .
2) The chance to help run "big church" was a blast and the best part was doing it with my sponsors and the middle school youth
3) I'm really looking forward to the new movie Prince Caspian
4) Got things lined up to take my wife to a wonderful place for our 15 wedding aniversary. Now I just have to find someone to take care of our 3 wonderful kids for 3 days 2 nights.
5) I'm kinda glad about the whole Miley Cyrus with Vanity Fair photo thing as it has my wife and daughter talking about idolizing people.

O how we Christians can be so silly and couterproductive

Tomorrow (April 25) is the "Day of Silence" that has been talked about a lot around here. I want to say that many Christians (even well known ones that I respect) are coming at this thing completely wrong. My two good friends (Tye & Mark) have blog posts about this and I encourage anyone to go and read their blog posts (Tye's here & Mark's here) to get their thoughts on all of this. I completely and totally agree with their approach. I would be open to any discussion about this but let's show Jesus' love to those who don't know Him in a personal way. Open your eyes to Him my Christian brothers and sisters.

Here are a few statements I pulled from my friends blogs:

Mark's

- Despite what these Christian organizations infer as to the purpose of the event, I believe we must base our response on their stated purpose, not our assumptions or interpolations. To do otherwise makes us look like fear-mongering, paranoid, extremists, who don’t understand plain English.

- My opinion is that this AFA/Mission America boycott is just plain silly and counterproductive

Tye's

- I am writing today because I have never believed that we will get anywhere with those we disagree with by carrying banners, protest marches, petition drives and the like. We are called to love those with whom we disagree. This is called grace and I would rather be known for what I am for rather than what I am against.

Simple Thoughts

It's a relaxing day today and so some thoughts came to me and I wanted to share them.

1) I've been playing starcraft with my son Nathaniel and he is getting good at it. Of course I'm winning our games so far.
2) Went to my first ever good Friday prayer services
3) I love homemade bread and so does my family
4) I admitted to my wife today that I would consider a dog in our home but there would only be one way that we would do that.
5) I'm so looking forward to our good Friday service tonight and our 5 services for Easter.

online - bubble wrap popping - YES!

My friend Mark Forstrom sent this to me. For those days that you just need to do a little stress relief but can't get away from the computer. Online bubble wrap popping - check it out here. Have fun!

Better Late then Never

Well the leap day of the leap year is over and we have finally got our 2007 Eades family Newsbrochure done. Don't think of this Newsbrochure as a long newsletter or short newspaper (because it is 16 pages long) but as a short brochure of what has happen in the Eades lives this past year. There are a lot of pictures and a few captions throughout the brochure. It's a very easy, short, but fun read. Enjoy. (note - click on the picture to go to the brochure).