Can't it be Monday?

Well, there's been some sort of bug going around our church, and I unfortunately came down with it this morning, so I"m sick, and don't really have time. I'm supposed to drive to Portland early tomorrow morning for class, then head out to our Men's Retreat, so pray that I can make it through this busy weekend.

Thanks for praying

Brad

long time

I need to get in a better routine of updating this blog, so I remember to do it more often than I do. Lots of things have happened in the last 10 days.

• had a great youth comittee meeting where we talked about a new youth vision
• As a church we are reading the book Externally FOcused Church so we're looking into opportunities to serve our community.
• Crew is starting off the year well. We've had 20 students on average. Numbers are a bit down, but they are all core students. Now just need to get them to bring friends
• I think the message series have been good. Jr. High is doing "IN Christ Alone" and looking through that song line by line and High School is doing "You are" and looking at the Worship song (Prince of Peace) line by line.
• Area 51 is going very well. The crowds are small (about 10-12) but the energy is great, and we've kicked off a jr. high student led worship band called "The Team" so that's fun. They started last night and did a great job.
• We have a youth sunday in January, so another student led service. I am not preaching because...
• I am preaching Dec. 31st!
• going to the fair for Third DAy tonight
• Have 10 students going to the jr. high retreat in 2 weeks

Prayer Requests

It has been a great couple weeks but also hard at the same time

• Pray for a couple tough counseling family situations me and the sr. pastor are dealing with
• Pray that the students will have a heart for bringing their friends to crew and area 51
• Pray as we kick off our Small Group Ministry call AGUA (Authentic Growth in Unity and Accountibility)
• Pray for our jr. high retreat in 2 weeks that it will be impactful
• Pray for me as I take 7 seminary credits and balance everything

Thanks for praying. HOpefully I"ll update more.

why youth ministry is hard

I'm not really sure why I'm as bummed as I feel right now. It's very interesting to me, we had a great kickoff of crew (sr. high), we had 20 students, played a great game of frisbee golf complete with scorecards (thanks to Jesse), our worship band was great, and I felt like the message went well, but I"m bummed. About 2 hours before youth group, I found out a student at North Thurston was killed in a car accident, he was a football player and several of our students knew him. I've never met him, yet it totally rocked me, and I'm really not sure why. Maybe it's the 2nd student at that schooled that's died in 6 months, or maybe I just realized that it could've been any one of the students in our group. So tonight, I talked about how God is Holy and in control even if we don't understand, and read severa passages from the book I am not but I know I am, and talked about how God is awesome, and mighty yet loves us. i think it was one of those messages that was more for me than anyone else. We're going to the JV football game tomorrow night.Pray for our students as they deal with another tragedy, pray for the students at North Thurston, especially the football team as they deal with this, pray for Alex's family, and pray that our students at N. T. and our church can somehow bring hope in this situation and that somehow God will use this for good.

Brad

We're back

No I haven't really gone anywhere since I last posted, but school has started and we kicked off last night with our first Area 51 (jr. high) of the year. Numbers were down, we only had 12 students, but it was a blast. Everyone was so into it, and definately an excitement to be back. We have a group of 8th graders that want to help lead worship, so they'll be working with Sarah, and the girls especially are realy excited about playing and singing with her. We started a series called In Christ Alone, in which we're going through a line of the song each week, and looking at the themes, and last night we looked at In Christ Alone our hope is found. What a great night. Now I"m getting ready for sunday when high school kicks off, and our cutters point ministry kicks off this afternoon. It was great having a summer of something different, but it's very nice to be back in routine! We have a high school leaders meeting tonight, where we will talk about the fall and about our small group kickoff, so prayer for that would be great.

Brad