football, riots and corn mazes

I think I've recovered from a really fun ministry weekend. We spent a lot of time connecting with students. Friday Night was the Timberline high school homecoming game and then a group went to Shari's after that, Sat. was the jr. high corn maze and yesterday was our normal crew. That's the outline, but Friday night was definately a lot more interesting than that.

This was my first T-Line football game, and I figured that the stadium was laid out similar to how Highline's is, the band sits on the far side, the students in the middle and the parents near the entrance, so we sat near the parents section, thinking it would be the most open and all the students would be able to sit next to us. yeah, I was wrong. We ended up sitting in the middle of the student section (they all congregated around us after we got there). This would've been great, good chance for me to meet some students and try to get to know some of our student''s friends. Well, then the riot started. From what I can gather a loud smaller girl let's call her Jane was causing trouble and provoking a stronger, bigger female let's call her Olga. Well Jane provoked Olga so much that Olga came charging down the bleachers after Jane. Jane runs away. Keep in mind all this is about 5 feet from Sarah and myself, all of our tudents were to our right or below us. So Olga's friend calms down Olga, and Jane runs away. Out of nowhere comes a guy we'll call him "Shaun" Shaun comes from nowhere screaming and punches Olga, this causes fight number 2 to break out. Definately an interesting game. one of our students was named homecoming king so that was pretty cool. Fun game outside of the riot. just gave me a great sense that the students at T-Line need Christ, and makes me want to continue to stress the importance of our students being a positive presence on campus.

On a completely different note not a fun weekend to be a Husky-Seahawk fan. To go from excitement to hearbreak in a few minutes was not fun! And the cougs are ranked, so that doesnt' help me either!

This is a pretty busy week. I leave for the NYWC a week from Friday, so I'm spending this week and next preparing everythign to run smoothly while I'm gone. We're also going to start a high program outreach focus series the middle of November, so gearing up for that as well.

Brad

A quiet week?

Another good week of River Ridge youth ministry. Crew last night was a blast. I'm discovering how difficult it is to find games that the unathletic girls and the crazy guys both like. Although this week was good. We played a tag game where we split into 2 teams and tried to remove tape from the opposite team's back, and played till the tape ran out. Very fun game that everyone liked. Then we played the balloon tied around your foot game where you try to stomp everyone elses before yours is stomped. Worship was amazingly good last night. Due to some forgetting to show up we had a bass player who sang, and another singer, so 2 singers and a bass player. For whatever odd combination it was, it was great.

This week I think is going to be very light. No driving to portland, no major catastrophes yet, so it gives a lot of opportunity to plan. Particularly looking at summer mission trip(s) and our summer calendar.

The biggest prayer request is our small group ministry. It is definately not kicking off to a great start. I'm having trouble getting parents to buy in that this is a very important ministry if not most important. It seems lots of parents are choosing that their families will not be involved. Pray that I can help encourage parents that this is important, and not just one more thing.

Also, the leader situation is good. Had a long talk late last week and cleared everything up, so the relationship between me and that leader is good. Thanks for praying.

Also be praying for me as school gets busier. Currently I am way ahead in my online class and doing great with it, and my youth ministry classes are going well, but beginning of november is crazy so pray that that continues to go well.
There's my quick update.

Long, fun, tiring weekend

We had a very good ministry weekend. It started with a jr. high retreat out at Cascades Camp. It was our conference wide jr. high retreat, so about 300 jr. highers were at camp. Our group was a blast. We brought 12 students, and spent a great time searching for treasure (pirate theme), and had an amazing small group time. There were many times for our group to break up after the message times. Saturday night we chose to stay as one group and it was an amazing time. The talk was on the verse ask and the door will be opened etc... and we talked a lot about how we don't see God answer prayers, and the students really opened up about things that were painful for them, parents not going to church, relatives dying, ben leaving, and we talked about how we saw God through those difficult times. We then talked about what are the "treasures" that we focus on instead of the "ultimate treasure" who is Christ. That group was probably the highlight of my weekend. It's always great to hear what our students are thinking.

Another highlight was watching another group worship. ONe of the churches brought 3 students who were deaf. It was an amazing thing watching 12 and 13 year olds worshipping Christ by signing. It was awesome to see everyone being together in worship.

Then last night was sr. high youth group, and everything went really well. Played a fun low key game I'd never played before, and my message went well also. It was a very long but very good ministry weekend.

This week is pretty busy as I head to Portland on Friday. Also to update our 7th, 8th, and 10th grade girls small groups kick off this week and our 9th girls and 11-12th boys kick off next week, and we arecontinuing to wait to kick off the other ones. i really feel God calling me to not have a small group and enable myself for some more one on one discipleship and other roles, so I will not be filling one of the holes, and am continuing to trust God for those groups.

I don't know how much to post or how to put this, but please pray as I am dealing with a situation involving an adult in which I could definately use prayer for the right way to handle the situation.

Brad

Update

So I've been told to update so I no longer whine about being sick :) I guess I'll have to whine about something else! Things are going pretty well. Had the men's retreat last weekend, which was a lot of fun to connect with the men in the church. We had 2 youth and 1 college age person attend, so that was a blast, and 3 youth leaders were there, so it was a good chance to connect with them. We also finished 3rd in a 6 team softball tourney at the retreat, so that was fun. I also made an all star play at 2nd, diving to my left rolling over and throwing to first from the seat of my pants, it was great! I also was forced to score from first on an inside the park home run so definately got my work out in.

Ministry wise the toughest thing going on is getting the small groups kicked off. We want to kick off in a week and only 3 of the groups are set with a communicated meeting time. 3 others have confirmed leaders and 2 others have no adults. The toughest thing is that I feel like I am not on the same page with some of the adults volunteering for small groups, so a prayer would be that we =get on the same page.

This week will be busy with a jr. high retreat this weekend, plus normal weekly activities.
Well I'm back to learning about Daniel!

Brad