Mel Brooks kick...

I guess tonight I am on a Mel Brooks kick. Most of the time on Sunday Night I just come downstairs and work on some little stuff that I missed during the week. I also do the attendance for the week, etc. We have a pretty good size DVD collection but almost all of them I have seen many times over.

Anyways, tonight I put in Robin Hood: Men in Tights to play while I work and then when it was over, I put in Spaceballs. Both very funny movies (even after many viewings) by Mel Brooks. This gives me time to relax after a busy Sunday.

I am actually going to take my day off tomorrow. I didn't take a day last week, not an entire day, then the family and I are going to see a preview of "The Game Plan" tomorrow night. We haven't been to the movies in a while, so I am excited. I get preview requests all the time and this was one of the first I followed through on. I hope that it is good....

Wondering Thoughts...

There are many times that I question my calling. Whether I truly should be working with students or not. Most of the time it is because something I have planned didn't go well. I get pretty upset with myself if an event doesn't go as planned. I usually try to cover all the bases when planning my events, so if it doesn't turn out right, I begin to question myself or the loyalty of the students.

Such an event occurred this weekend. I planned to try to have a concert the first Friday of each month to help bring kids into the church in a non-threatening environment. We have had 3 such concerts so far and the number of attendees is dropping each time. We have gone from 100, to 40 to 16 on Friday night. I am not sure what the problem was. I know kids are busy but I figured that a concert by a good band would be worth the visit. One Star Story was playing and they did a great job. Vanessa, Geno and crew put on a great show and are worthy of playing at any venue. We will definitely be having them back. I was upset that we put so much into the concert for only 16 people. I have a hard time justifying the cost of a concert against the number who come. I am still trying to figure out what went wrong. I know we aren't advertising as much as we can. I am going to try this week and touch base with the other youth pastors in the area and some other organizations to try to get more people involved.

I do worry about my students, in this group and previous, when I see them not take God and Church seriously. I believe church is an essential piece of being a Christian. Not a requirement but something that every Christian should do, but more and more I see students making the decision to do other things besides church and more and more parents allow them to do other things. I remember when I was growing up, I was always made to go to church. My mother pushed me hard. She did me and my sisters. I struggled a bit in college but then (obviously) got back into it. I just hate that so many students don't believe God is worth the time, but so many other things are. Our next lesson series is on Living God Loud, and what it means to live your life for God where people can see God in your life without you even saying a word.

Weekend Wrap-up 09/09/2007

Attendance: Average
Lesson Topic: How Does Your Story End?: Revelation 22
Fun Factor: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Above Averge
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: 25 minutes
Student Response: Above Average

This week was much better than I thought it would be. I have struggled this week with all other kinds of issues and I didn't think tonight would go well. I guess God had other plans. Our praise band is coming along great. Bill is doing a great job with them, and the other kids are getting excited. We will continue to push them further with some new music.
Tonight we concluded our Joining the Story series. This begin during the summer with Creation and finished tonight with a look at Revelation. The whole point was for students to realize that we are much bigger than ourselves and part of the overall Christian story. God is continually writing this story and we must get on board if we want to have an abundant Christian life. I think the lesson was well received by the students and all of them seemed to like it.

Look for the video to be posted soon....

Weekend Wrap-up 09/02/2007

Attendance: Below Average
Lesson Topic: The Great Escape: Acts 16:16-40
Fun Factor: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Above Averge
Music: Above Average
Lesson Quality: Average
Length of Lesson: 25 minutes
Student Response: Average

Again, the difference between Jr High and Sr High is enough that I should be blogging about both. I will get there. Our attendance was way low. The holiday weekend really hit it us in our attendance, we had about 1/3 of our students there. I think the Jr High service went great for having so few students, but Sr High still needs some work.
We talked about being falsely accused of doing stuff and looking at Paul & Silas being thrown in jail under false lies because of a healing they did. As a big program we can easily become happy with where we are and allow the little things to bother us. We must always be looking forward and not allow satan a foot hold in our program. We must also follow the example of Paul & Silas and deal with all problems by finding the good in them and continuing to try to better ourself.

What to blog about?

So this week has been incredibly eventful for me and there are so many things I could blog about but I don't know where to start. Hopefully I will get to everything in the next few days. As a youth pastor I deal in all kinds of issues, especially when you are dealing with a group like mine.
The one thing I want to blog about more than anything. This week has really shown me that God is in control of all that is going on. On Thursday I got an email from a parent telling me that a friend of her son had a father who passed away. I didn't get many details until later. It seems the father of this boy had committed suicide at his office in the courthouse. I couldn't believe it. I can't imagine it. I have dealt with the loss of a father but not in those circumstances. I spent yesterday and today at the funeral and the viewing making sure someone was there to be with their 8th grader and 5th grader. I also took some time to be with my students who were affected. My heart went out to that family and all the friends he left behind...
I was surpsrised to find out that this man was a good family man who spent many days watching and spending time with his kids in their sports and their lives.

One of the questions that camw up was probably the same question that comes up anytime this happens. Do suicide victims go to heaven? How do you answer that to an 8th grader who just lost his father... The deeper part of this question is. cana single act take you out of Gods grace? If this man was a Christian who lived his life for God but in a moment of temptation took his own life. does he deserve hell? That isn't an easy question to answer. You can say yes because murder is a sin and suicide is murdering yourself. Or you can say no because God forgives us for our sins. Explining this to students will never be easy and never should be. The biggest thing to realoze is that God loves us all no matter what we have done. He doesn't look for ways to keep us out heaven. He wants as many as will accept Him. His grace is bigger than any sin we can committ and I think it even goes beyond suicide. We all have our moments of weakness and as much as we would like to see everything end happily, it doesn't always, but God is still God and His love overcomes everything.

Ray for the Easton family and their loss.