Tonight was the See You At The Pole Post-Rally fondly called Reach (Hosted by That Youth Thing). We met at the Market Station in downtown Albemarle and rocked that place crazy! About 250 kids showed up to worship God, hang out with friends, and be challenged to go back into their schools and genuinely share their faith like they mean it.
A huge thanks to everyone who helped out with the event! What a success! Just goes to show you we really need 704. If you build it, they will come. We made sure to let everyone know of a survey on the 704 site. It is a survey all about the youth center that we need teenagers to fill out. This will give us valuable feedback, and give one teenager the chance to win an iPod shuffle! That’s right, just for filling out the survey, your name (teenagers only please) will be entered in the pot for an iPod!
So what are you waiting for Stanly County students? Click HERE to take the survey yourself. There is a limited number, so hurry!!!
Our time in Moss Point is coming to a close. Barring rain, we’ll be driving back very late tonight. Allow me to recap a great trip:
We got to spend several days hanging out with kids, playing games, building crafts, doing puppet shows, wrestling, laughing and hugging. It was great loving on all these really cool kids!
We cleaned up 3 baseball parks and some tennis courts that were extremely run down and neglected. Hopefully this will be a boost to the communities.
The tennis courts were across the road from a school which was knocked out of commission by Hurricane Katrina and never reopened. Some ladies across the street were former teachers there and were so happy about having the courts cleaned up. They are working hard to get their community unified and back into shape.
We’ve had an awesome time of worship and Bible study each night as a group, and I’ve gotten to know a lot of cool new students.
Wednesday we hosted a community youth rally and local youth groups showed up to worship with us.
Got to celebrate my baby’s 25th birthday down here. We had birthday cake and I finally got to give her the iPod Shuffle I bought her a month ago. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Today, as a reward for all of the kids hard work and efforts this week we’re taking them to a huge water park nearby. We’re just going to play around and have fun on our last day in Moss Point.
We learned there are about 18 billion fire ant hills in Mississippi. Just about everybody on the trip got bitten. One poor girl got them 4 times. They’re EVERYWHERE!!!
We learned Mississippi time is similar to “Island Time” where everything just sort of happens, and with no bug rush. It was kind of nice at times.
Fish factories smell bad.
Fish factories a few blocks from the center where we were working with kids smell even worse.
Jumping into a pool filled with teenage boys is not a good idea. They all tried to drown me, some more than once.
Last night we went to a concert/4th of July celebration at a local church. The bands were pretty good, but the fireworks were amazing. The fireworks display this church put on (Full Life Assembly of God) was one of the best I have ever seen. It was probably a 15 minutes show. Here’s a little blip.
Last night, to cap off our anniversary we went to help out at Fusion, First Assembly’s youth ministry. Jennifer and I got to help lead worship with Paul and a bunch of students. Then I got the opportunity to teach. The theme for the month was wisdom, so who better to ask than myself to teach? (Actually I can think of many, many, many…….many better teachers to ask)
Anyways, the evening was a blast! Thanks Pastor Matt for letting me hang out!
First off, if you didn’t read the Scripture in the previous post, it would be best to go back and read over Paul’s words to the Church in Rome.
Second, when I read this passage a couple of days ago, I thought of 2 things.
The 3 Amigos (no, I’m not ok in the head, and neither am I…)
704, Stanly County’s Youth Center
If you’ve never seen The Three Amigos, it’s a classic, rather senseless comedy starring Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase: one of the greatest combos of comic genius ever on screen. There’s this one scene where Steve Martin is in a jail cell, chained up to this contraption with weights. The only way to get out is to pull the chains which lifted the weights higher and higher until he was close enough to pull the release lever.
He tries and tries and tries and just can’t make it. He chants “gonna make it!” with each step. Finally, after a ton of hard work, pain and agony, he reaches the lever, only to be pulled all the way back again. He eventually gets back to the lever, pulls it, releases the weights, and is free! You should watch it sometime.
The passage also makes me think of 704. For years and years (at least since I was in high school) people have wanted a youth center in Stanly County, but for whatever reasons, it just hasn’t happened yet. When reading Romans 1 I couldn’t quit thinking of the correlation between Paul desperate for Rome and myself and others desperate for a youth center:
vs 8, we are thankful for this generation and everything that comes with it
vs 9, only God knows how much we talk about establishing a youth center for these students
vs 10, we pray for these students all the time and for 704 to happen
vs 11, we can’t wait to meet the students who will come to 704, and show them how important they are to us and to God
vs 12, we can’t wait to teach them about life and learn a lot about life from them
vs 13, we want them to know how hard we are trying to bring 704 to these students and that we value them
vs 14, we owe it to them and we owe it to God!
vs 15, we are pumped about making 704 happen and even more pumped about showing these students what the love of Christ really is!
vs 16 & 17, we aren’t ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus either and know it CAN and WILL change a ton of teenager’s lives!
So, is 704 gonna make it? gonna make it! NO DOUBT IN OUR MINDS!!! It will continue to take a lot of work, with a lot of ups and downs. However, we are NOT pulling the chains by ourselves, and it isn’t just us who wants to show the students of Stanly County just how loved and important they are: God is leading the charge!
Hopefully when you saw this post’s title you read it as if you were Braveheart. If not, go back and do so, then continue reading please.
Last night we wrapped up another That Youth Thing event called Freedom. This is it’s second year and we do it around the time students are almost done with school for the summer, hence ‘freedom.’ last night we had about 130 people there! It was an awesome time of worship through song and study in God’s Word!
Our topic was the freedom we as Christians have in Christ. We looked at what has given us this freedom first, salvation because of God’s grace. Then we dove into what we are free in Christ from, what NOT to do with this freedom, and what TO do.
The perfect verse for the evening was Galatians 5:13. Allow me: “For you were called to freedom brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”
We are free in Christ to choose. We are not bound by anything any longer. We can choose to sin or not to sin; to go or not to go. We have the ability to overcome the sin in our lives or engulf ourselves in it. A lot of Christians might not really appreciate this freedom but it is ours nonetheless.
We boiled everything down to the fact that the way to use this freedom is not to focus on ourselves, but to focus on others; to quit serving the person in the mirror, and start serving people. Go back through the New Testament and look for this message. You will be blown away at just how much Jesus, Paul, Peter say basically, “GET OVER YOURSELF!!! This life isn’t about you! Get off your selfish, lazy behind and start serving those around you out of the love and kindness God has poured into you.”
Here’s to an awesome evening that we truly believe God blessed and connected with teenagers in. I’m so glad God uses us for stuff like this. Its a blast serving teenagers! I CAN’T WAIT for 704!!!
Heres more of the Scriptures we used last night in case you want to do some more study yourself:
Here’s a video we did that recaps that youth revival a few weeks back AND helps you think of all the possibilities the old Lowe’s building or ANY big empty building could be used for to minister to students. Yeah, its 5 minutes long, but its worth it. Watch and enjoy! MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR MUSIC UP!!! The lyrics are important to this one.
Here is the intro video we made for Ignite, the recent student conference/revival/whatever you want to call it we had. Thanks!!! to all of the brilliant actors and actresses who gave me great footage.
No high schoolers were harmed in the making of this video.
Had a blast hanging out with the youth ministry at Shepherd’s Chapel tonight. We discussed being a servant to everyone we come in contact with and Jesus’ call to be a SLAVE TO ALL!!! Being a Christian is NOT about us, and is ALL about serving others!
“You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ~Galatians 5:13-14
We looked a little at the at The Good Samaritan story as well in Luke. Jesus’ response to the Law expert was LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR. “Who is my neighbor?” the man asked. Jesus then proceeded to tell him the account of the Samaritan, which made him cringe. The Jews HATED the Samaritans. Saying “Samaritan” was like dropping the F-bomb! Yet Jesus said, THAT is your neighbor. Serve HIM!
So not only are we to be a slave to those we love, but those we can’t stand. Being a Christian means being a servant. If you’re all focused on yourself and not others and you call yourself a follower of Christ, you’re running His name in the dirt. Let’s make sure we’re putting Christ and others WAY ahead of ourselves!
The youth breakfast has been going well so far. Its running through the rest of the week at North Albemarle Baptist from about 6-7 am each morning. Come out and join us if you can manage to get going that early.
I’ve been up at 5 am the past 2 mornings, which is not a happy thing for me. I WISH I was that guy that ran 7 miles, fed homeless orphans and built a birdhouse before 6 o’clock, but I’m just not that guy.
My eyes don’t open all the way for at least 2 hours after I’m awake. I’m like a newborn kitten every morning. I had a professor in college who always used to say not even God is awake that early! I wouldn’t blame Him one bit!
