~Following Him!!!~

Colossians 2: 2-3 – I want them to be encouraged and knit together by strong ties of love. I want them to have complete confidence that they understand God’s mysterious plan, which is Christ himself. In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

That is my prayer for the teens at The River Church and also for the church as a whole. This past Sunday we started a series titled “Rules, Religion or Relationship” that is based around the book “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan. I just really felt that as a group we really needed to grasp God’s relentless love for us. I don’t want our church or youth group to just be content with the status quo and I want them to grasp a hold of an authentic faith in Christ and to know His love for them in a deep and amazing way.

I had gone to the National Youth Workers Convention a few weeks ago and one of the things that hit me while I was there was that I want these teens to fall in love with God like I have fallen in love with him. I kind of stole the idea for the title of the series from an ad I saw as a teenager for the Bible college I went to and it was one of the main reasons why I went there. I didn’t want to follow a set of rules or just become a part of another religion. I really wanted to have a relationship with God.

God didn’t send His only Son to this planet just so that we could better understand rules or have a face to put to a religion. No, God sent Jesus here so that we could better understand the importance of having a relationship with Him. Jesus became God with us not above us. I think Jesus summed it all up when He was asked by the religious leaders of the day about what the most important commandment was and He didn’t even reply to them with one of the Big 10. Instead He replied with something completely different and said that everything was based on it and here is the exchange that takes place in Mark 12:28-34.

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

“Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

So If I want the teens at The River Church to get anything I hope that they figure out to love God and to love others, because then I know that they will close to the kingdom of God. This past Sunday I saw a glimpse that they were getting to that point as we discussed the mysteries of who God is and how our minds just can’t grasp all of who He is, but the overwhelming this is that He loves us. I am really looking forward to seeing more and more of our teens getting God and falling in love with Him.

You will be missed. I have to admit that I was not very familiar with YS or NYWC when Mike Yaconelli was at the helm. So I never felt the great sense of loss and wonderment about the future of YS when Yac died.

However, I get that sense now. There seems to be a difference in this case though, because when Yac died Marko was already in place as President and kept the spirit and heartbeat of Yac’s dream for YS alive.

Now YS seems to be a ship with no captain. Zondervan, who bought YS back in 2007, has always been quite a bit more conservative then YS. I always wondered how that relationship would work out and it seems like we may be seeing that it really hasn’t. I had a friend say to me that it is like those cute little quirks that your fiancee has, but then when you get married you realize they annoy you. It appears like Zondervan has gotten annoyed with those quirks, which is the only reason why I see in them getting rid of the person who not only had the heart and soul of YS but was also it’s leader.

I think that this will be a huge win for Group and Simply Youth Ministry along with the SYM Conference. I think that a lot of people are going to jump to there products and to their conference, because they feel that YS is just not going to be the same.

However, I think that this could be a loss for youth workers. We will now no longer have that place where we can all gather together and be stretched in our think by the speakers. One of the hallmarks of NYWC is that we were able to hear from a broad spectrum of people and so it forced us out of our comfort zones and made us think. I just don’t see Zondervan continuing with that and I hope that I am wrong.

In the meantime I will be praying for Marko, and I agree with Len that “YSMarko now stands for You’re Special Marko”. Of course, Marko was always special. I look forward to what Marko does to bless youth workers in the future, even if it is just a return to blogging.

But I will miss his antics like this….

And this….

Wow! I can’t believe that it has been almost a month since we moved down here to Cincy. We came down here to a house full of new friends ready to help us unpack. We quickly got everything unloaded from the truck and then was able to enjoy some delicious food made by a family at our new church. Even the next day we had another meal that a family from our church provided for us. It really helped us to feel very welcomed into our new community and home.

The week that we moved down here our new church was doing vacation Bible school. That gave us a great opportunity to meet some people at the church and to see people in action. It was neat to see people helping one another out and serving.

The church found me a great place to have for my office. I found a nice desk at Ikea as well. And despite the fact that we have gone there quite a bit since we moved down I insist that I am not addicted. However, I must admit that I was thrilled when I saw that there was an Ikea only 15 minutes from our new house.

Speaking of our new house, I am still in awe of how amazing it is that we have found such a great home in a very nice neighborhood. We are only 5 minutes from the church’s building and close to the kid’s schools. My daughter has a friend in her grade that also goes to our church only 2 doors down from us. My son has slowly began to make friends, which is a good thing because he really misses all of his buddies from our old neighborhood. It is nice to have a house where people can come visit and we can also have a group of about 20 parents come over. Our landlord is very nice as well.

I have already started making friends with some of the local youth pastors and they are a greta group of guys. They had organized the Unight Event before I came down, which was an amazing time for the teens to sing songs to God, listen to an amazing speaker named E.J. Swanson and then walk around Lakota East High School so that they could pray for their school and friends. How cool is that? I look forward to getting to know these guys better and seeing the amazing things that God can do.

We are also blessed to have an amazing group of elders at our church who are helping steer the ship while our church looks for a new senior pastor. Yes, you read that right. Our senior pastor resigned last week. I have been assured that my job is safe and that the elders believe that I am the man for the job. So during this time of transition the elders are going to be sharing the load and making sure that the church keeps moving forward. It is so peaceful to us knowing that God has entrusted this church with these five very competent men. The ship may be rocking in this storm, but knowing that Jesus is there in the boat is bringing us peace.

I am also in shock over how good the Michigan Wolverines did this past Saturday. They played a very good Western Michigan University football team and beat them soundly. I am looking forward to seeing what they can do when the Irish come to visit on Saturday. It is always a good rivalry game.

Last year, Michigan lost to all 3 of their biggest rivals for the first time ever and I don’t see that happening again this year. It was nice to see them win their opening game for the first time in 2 years and I hope that this year we can maybe also win our last game of the season for the first time in a long time. My prediction is that they will go 8-4 this season. GO BLUE!!!

This is the reason why I am passionate about doing student ministry, why I love YS and why I am excited for this year’s NYWC.

HT to Gerrard Fess.

Life has been very crazy for me lately, but it has been a good kind of crazy. My daughter graduated from 6th grade, which means she is now a part of the youth ministry at our church. I have waited for this day since she was born. People told me that I was nuts to be excited about my kids becoming teenagers, but when that is the age group you work with it makes perfect sense because you know how to relate with them.

So her first big youth trip was Rockpointe’s annual trip to America’s Roller Coast known as Cedar Point. We had so much fun together and I loved seeing her hanging out with the teens. As you can tell by the picture she pushed herself and rode one of the big coasters with her dad called the Millenium Force. It was a really great day.

During some of this time I went down to a church near Cincinnati, OH to interview for their open youth pastor position. Most of you know that I have been looking for a full-time youth pastor position since I graduated from Bible college in 1999. And have been looking to get back into some form of a paid youth pastor position since I left the church I was a part-time youth pastor at in March of 2005. It has been a long journey only to be added to when I got laid off in the middle of January from the factory job I had. So going for an interview was a very nice thing, but I really didn’t expect to get the job, because we had been on interviews for youth pastor positions a couple of times before.

I was really shocked when they called us back down for a second interview and was even more shocked when I was told that I was the only on being invited back down. So we made arrangements to go back down the last weekend in June, which threw a wrench into our annual 4th of July trip up to Manistee, MI. We adjusted our arrival dates with the campground and figured we would just take a day off to rest in between driving 4 hours south to Cincy and then 4 hours north to Manistee.

While we were down for the interview we fell more and more in love with the church and the people there. And they seemed to like us as well. We came back home with a good feeling about this one, but we had good feelings about other ones as well so we were cautiously optimistic.

The pastor had said that we would probably hear something back before he left for his trip to Haiti, which was Friday (July 3rd). However, I told people that we wouldn’t hear back until he came back on July 14th so we didn’t have to hear the constant barrage of questions if we “had heard anything yet”.

Yesterday I heard back from them and I am in negotiations to be the youth pastor at The River Church in Liberty Township, OH. I am very excited to be finally getting back into “the game” and can not wait to get down there.

We do not know exactly when we will be heading down there, but hope to be down there either the first or second week of August. The schools down there start a lot earlier than schools here in Michigan, so we want to get down there and get the kids settled in before school starts.

There are only two sad things in all of this. One is leaving all of our family, friends and loved ones here in Michigan. But we are only 4 hours south and we will be real close to Kings Island, so you are welcome to come visit. However, we will be home from time to time visiting family. The other sad thing is that I will be living in enemy territory with all of those Buckeyes, but they need Jesus too!

Lastly, I want to leave you with this video of Mike Yaconelli. I think it speaks perfectly to what I am getting into. Watch out River Church! It is going to be a fun ride! I can’t wait!!!

This gets me excited for NYWC this year. I hope that I can go.

Youth Specialties is doing something new this year called “Youth Worker Appreciation Day” and here is the promo video for it. I don’t know about you, but it brought tears to my eyes. And it is yet another example of why I love doing student ministry.

HT to Adam McLane.

Simply Youth Ministry has so many great products that are created to help youth workers jobs easy. And they have some of the coolest games for youth groups. They just came out with the second version of their
Race This, which is such a fun game to play. If you have ever been to a sporting event and seen those games where each section of the arena is a character on the screen and if your character crosses the finish line first then you win a prize, then you know what Race This is all about.

I have used this product before and it is always fun and a great way to get everyone’s attention focused up front. They have a free sample of the game that you can download so you can try it out. But I would just say that you take my word for it and buy it.

I read the following article by Jeanne Mayo on the Simply Youth Ministry website and wanted to share it.

I just slipped away from our church gym to finish this column. I wish you could be with me for the experience. Our youth group is sponsoring our “first ever dodge ball tournament”…complete with enough energy and testosterone to make you think that you were at the NBA playoffs! We got the idea a few weeks ago when we kept hearing about all the crazy dodge ball competition that was getting national TV time. Every fall, our youth ministry sponsors “The Pumpkin Bowl” (a flag football tournament that even Bret Favre would be proud of). But judging from the excitement and laughter I just experienced today in our dodge ball frenzy, our youth group is probably starting another proud, yearly tradition.

What’s my role in the competition? Well, I’m would definitely win the award for “loudest, most energized cheerleader” in the gym. I’m also getting my aerobic workout for the day, running up and down the sidelines, shouting for everybody. But since I’m leaving town in a day for vacation, I keep running back to my office to get some work done. Then I reappear in the gym, scream my guts out for awhile, and try to slip away unnoticed to get some more work done. Granted, I would be much more productive work-wise if I simply stayed at my desk, but that option today is simply unthinkable.

You see, I’m living out youth ministry’s seven biggest words; and I’ve learned a long time ago that this principle is a simple one that you cannot violate if you want to experience effective youth ministry. What are the words? I’m so glad you asked: “The one who spends the most time wins.” Sounds simple, doesn’t it? But just trust me. Aside from loving the Lord and making Him smile, these seven words comprise the “big one.”

You can read the rest of it here.