Thursday, April 27, 2006

Sermonating

Just an update as per what I'm doing right now. I've been busy writing my sermon for this Sunday. I start a 4 week series covering what it means to be a passionate believer. We start with Joy. It's going to be an interesting weekend.

Children's ministry is all ready to go, Saturday I'm heading to Edmonton for a youth event at West Edmonton. We've got something insane like 35 kids coming with us, so it's sure to be a good time. It also means that I need to get my sermon done either tonight or early tomorrow, because I still have work to do. Oh the life of an intern.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Sheesh

Well... it has been quite awhile, hasn't it? Sad that I've been saying that more and more as of late. I guess part of that is that I've been learning to spend less time in the office, and more time with actual people. Needless to say, however, there has been a colossal amount of things going on in my life!

Children's ministry has been going AWESOME. The kids have been really really enjoying it, and the volunteers have been having a lot of fun as well. It's awesome, because we just had our first turnover of volunteers, so I'm getting some great feedback. As Paul and I talked about this past weekend, negative feedback can be one of the best things, so that it points out where you need to improve.

I've also been thinking ahead to some programs that would really scratch the itch of what is going on here in Three Hills. A lot of the problem that I've run into in working with youth has not been in educating them in knowledge about God, but in educating them to know God. Head knowledge vs. Heart knowledge. There is no fire, no desire to know Him more. Ultimately that is each our own responsibility. However, all that being said, I think providing a platform for people to feel free to worship can go a long way.

What does that all mean? It means I'm thinking of a Saturday night service. Something you'd expect to see in a huge city, but rather placed right here in Three Hills. With the college, and the high schools, I think there could be a huge 'market' for it. A service where the lights are mostly out, creating a more intimate environment. Something far more upbeat than most youth in Three Hills are accustomed to out of a worship service, and getting the College and Youth to interact on a regular basis. The goal is to put a lot of prayer into the whole thing and see if the Holy Spirit can't break down some of the HUGE barriers that exist in the town between the youth and God, the youth and the college, and the town and churches. With God... I think it might just be possible.

In more personal news... Jordan just left for Mexico today. It wasn't all that long ago that we started our relationship, and it's been a bit of a whirlwind trip. However, as of right now, she's gone to Mexico until the 5th of May. I saw the Redeemer play at a church in town yesterday, and I think they will have a powerful ministry down there. I'm looking forward to hearing how it all went! For now... I'll just be biding my time until the next time I can see her, and throwing all my focus into my 4 week sermon series starting this next Sunday.

There's the abridged version of my life for today. Hopefully I can update you on more information tomorrow.

Tuesday, April 11, 2006

The River

Well, I know that a few of you at least are excited to hear about how the ministry went this past Sunday. We got everything off the ground, and I'm super excited about where we are going! We had more than enough volunteers (the youth showed up in force), and everyone (kids and adults) had a blast!

There are some kinks to be worked out in the system, but overall everything went off without a hitch and looked more or less exactly as I had envisioned.... God's great, eh? He really carried me through the whole thing. And it's Him that really pulled it all together, with the volunteers and people to help out. What a blessing!

I'll leave you with a few pictures of the event!


Tuesday, April 04, 2006

The Grit

My impatient cousins! Sheesh, don't even let a guy have a day off before they are wondering what happened and what all the juicy details are! As I said, this past weekend was nuts, and not getting as much sleep as I wanted didn't really help matters along either!

Friday went about as well as expected! I had one other youth sponsor come out to help for about an hour or so, which was invaluable. Myself and 10 junior high's going bowling. We had a ton of fun, and despite my AWFUL bowling, I'm pretty sure I came out on top with the highest score somewhere around 170ish. Needless to say... come the end of the night, I was totally exhausted... so I helped Jordan with her Psychology project.

I know... go to bed. I completely agree. Hindsight is worth a million words, right? I was actually planning to be in bed at about midnight, but conversation seemed to be the word of the weekend.

I was up at 8:30 the next morning, for the half-day of prayer at Bethel, and was there until about noonish. After which I tracked down some friends of mine that came in from Saskatchewan for the weekend. We went and saw V for Vendetta in Red Deer. AWESOME movie!

The rest of Saturday was pretty uneventful. I had someone phone me late at night that really needed to chat, so we talked for about an hour and half (again... less sleep than I wanted) before I finally got to bed. So come Sunday, I was tired and VERY worn out.

The announcement went well, and now I'm working on groundwork to get everything going and phoning around to people who would be interested in possibly volunteering. It's going to be a long week. But I hope the fruit of it will show in the end!