Join the 704 fasting team

You, yes YOU, have an enormous opportunity to partner with 704 Student Center, That Youth Thing, and the teenagers of Stanly County.  Join our fasting team, and be one of the extremely important individuals who are praying and fasting for the vision that is 704

Click THIS LINK to head over to the 704 blog to read more about the fasting plan and how you can get involved.  Just one meal a month is all we ask.  Jut ONE meal will go a long way!  How awesome will it be to know that every meal of the year, someone is fasting!  So please CLICK HERE and PLEASE HELP!

REACH!

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!!!

FREEEEDOM!!!!!

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:

• Ephesians 2:1-10
• Titus 2:11-14
• 1 Peter 2:16-17
• 1 Corinthians 9:19; 10:23
• Mark 10:43-45
• Romans 5:8
• Romans chapter 6 (just go read the whole thing!)

Final Thoughts

Some final thoughts about our trip to Joplin, Missouri to tour The Bridge:

• starting small and renting is ok
• enormous ministries like this one take tons of time, patience, commitment, and faithfulness
• “be faithful in the little things and God will entrust you with the bigger things”
• the most important aspect is a solid team of adults (volunteer and paid) that have a genuine heart for kids
• regardless of what we do and on what scale, it MUST be done with excellence (a lack of excellence is usually what dooms ministries)
• a commitment to regular change is very important
• a happy, unified staff is a good staff
• have fun with your flight attendants. most people don’t pay them much attention but they smile a lot when you joke around with them.
• learn what the kids in your area want and don’t want
• KEEP BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH KIDS!
• declare your standard and NEVER EVER ABANDON IT!
• our standard is to reach the culture with the Gospel, no matter what it takes and no matter who gets ticked off at your method
• SURVEILLANCE is a great thing
• time and love are a lot more important to kids than toys and fun
• kids are capable of being very respectful and considerate if you treat them like you believe that
• don’t be afraid to stick to your guns and enforce rules, even if it means kicking a kid out forever
• not every adult who wants to volunteer needs to be a volunteer
• not every adult who wants to volunteer will be very committed
• God is definitely behind 704 because He wants EVERYBODY in Stanly County to know and experience His love!
• We’re not stopping anywhere short of this!
• 704, here we come!!!

Ignite flyer

Here’s the flyer for the youth revival, courtesy of 40 Rocks Design Studio. The most beastly place for all of your design needs.

Ignite 08

Been working a ton today on the Ignite, the Youth Revival coming up in February (17th-20th) at the old Lowes building.  We shot a lot of footage for some youth center promo videos that will be showed at the Super Bowl party AND at the revival.  Of course we used this video opportunity to break stuff.  I’ll show you as soon as we get it finished.

The That Youth Thing Band is doing music for the revival, so we had a nice 2  1/2 hour practice tonight.  We have a lot of songs to go over, but the toughest ones we worked on tonight and made some good progress on.  I’m pumped about the worship set!  We’re gonna rock every square inch of that place!

This is going to be the best youth revival the county has ever seen!  I can’t wait to get all of those kids there.  We are praying for way over 1000!  Adrian Despres, one of my favorite communicators, is speaking the first 2 nights, and Paul Jenkins, the most dynamic communicator in history is covering the last 2 nights.   The whole thing is going to be fierce!  I can’t wait!!!

Where God is Taking Us_pt.2

WHY I AM…

Excited about it:

• i’m going to work for one of my high school youth pastors
  
• i get to be more involved with That Youth Thing
• we can reach thousands of kids who aren’t being reached
• i get to build a ton of new relationships
• i know God is in this and pleased with this
• i am acting on a dream and vision i have had since high school and i have never been more confident about pursuing anything in life

Sad about it:

•  i have to leave my youth ministry
• i have to leave my children’s ministry
• i have to leave my office
• i won’t be working with our secretary and my buddy Norma Jean anymore
• i won’t be able to minister with some great adults the same way anymore

Anxious about it:

• to see how God will provide for Jenn and I financially
• to see how God will provide for the youth center financially
• i get to check out tons of buildings for the center
• i get to make tons of new connections and relationships
• i get to start selling people on the vision we have for this place
• i can begin dreaming relentlessly and endlessly about it
• we can make up plans, designs, logos, websites, advertising and more
• i believe God is going to blow me and everyone else away this year!

I am convinced God is going to revolutionize the teenagers of Stanly County and raise up a new generation that is so pumped about Jesus!

Where God is Taking Us_pt.1

At the end of this month, I will be going on staff with That Youth Thing student ministries.  That Youth Thing (from now on referred to as TYT) is a Stanly County based organization with students at heart.  I was involved in this ministry as a high school student, currently as a youth pastor, and in about 24 days as a staff member.  I am honored God blessed our steps towards this ministry and confirmed that we have made the proper decisions.

My number one role will be putting feet to the ever-present county concept of a youth center for the middle and high school students of our communities.  Since my North Stanly High days, people wanted to see an awesome, fun, and safe place for kids to go and hang out, spend their time, and connect with each other.  For some reason, God is allowing Paul and I (and a bunch of other awesome student pastors in the area) to run with this.

I feel so privileged to keep working with the same students, only in a different capacity, plus thousands of more kids!  I can’t wait to share things with you along the way!  Your prayers for Jenn and I would be coveted!  Much more on all of this to come.

GO!

 

Coming up, the Stanly Baptist Association & That Youth Thing are bring GO! to Stanly County.

GO!  will be a follow-up event to See You At The Pole the morning of Sept. 26th.

It isn’t a rally.  We don’t like that word anymore.  It’s just GO!  So bring your kids and come be a part of a ton of fun, free food, an awesome time of worship, and Biblical truth delivered from the man himself, Paul Jenkins.  So after you GO to See You At The Pole on Sept. 26, after you GO to class, after you GO home, don’t just GO to the couch or GO to bed.  GO to North Albemarle (6-8:15) and GO!

SOAKED & TYT!!!

I am super excited about Friday!  SOAKED is going on from 2:00-5:00 pm at the church.  It is a huge water day for our pre-schoolers through 6th graders.  We have tons of water games, toys, and awesome things to do!  We are going to be SOAKED from start to finish!  Plus, today I bought this…

Look how much stinkin fun those kids are having!  Just imagine, those kids could be YOUR kids Friday!  All you have to do is bring them!  I hope tons of parents will stick around and play too!  We are going to wear ourselves out for hours and then eat hot dogs and popsicles.  Sounds like an all american day to me! 

I also got this sweet little pool for the little bitty kids.  It is too cute.  It makes me want to have a 2 year old.  (I’ll start with a newborn though…)  It has this mini slide, an inflatable palm tree that sprinkles water, and a double decker pool, all for only $20!  As much as I hate going to Wal-Mart, it always gives me the hook-up!  Anyways, we have tons going on for the kids Friday and I hope you will all come out!  I encourage all my parents and kids to invite a friend or 2.  We can never have too many!

 

 

That night, @ 8:00 the youth will be having a That Youth Thing hosted worship evening held in our sanctuary.  It will be a fresh, creative and fulfilling time of worship for our students.  It won’t run very long (we might not even hit 9:00 pm).  It will be a very intimate time with the God of the universe!  I hope to see all of my students there as we sponsor this evening!