I declare war on goats!

I want to make it known that I am openly declaring war on all goats for the next several weeks. Now, I am normally a quite, reserved, and non-violent guy, but goats must be destroyed. Why you ask? Because I am sick and tired of goat-kind ruining the the championship chances of my beloved Chicago Cubs every single year. So goats of the world, if you ruin the Cubbies this year (especially if you were diabolical enough to have the Brewers somehow end our run in the NLCS in blackcat/Durham/Bartman/Gonzalez/Prior fashion, an event which would probably force me to move to Canada or something) there will be no hope for you goats. You will be vanquished forever! Consider yourselves put on notice goats!

Ok, with that out of the way, I hope everyone was able to have a good weekend. I know there were many sad football fans in our state as the Badgers followed one of the best halves of their lives with a totally anemic display in the second to lose to dreaded Michigan, and the Pack was less then wonderful while Favre looked unstoppable. The Crew did somehow manage to snag one from the AAA Iowa Cubs and make the playoffs for the first time in my lifetime (note: the "lovable losers" have made it now 6 times in my life time). But hey, no one determines a good weekend based on sports right?

In the realm of youth ministry we got to enjoy the pain of Zach eating six of the nastiest hot wings on the planet, which were so hot he went though 3-4 ice packs trying to get feeling back in his lips. Note: the eating of insanely hot products and church will be suspended as I don't want any lips falling off, plus Matt found this article that makes me worry a little: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3099484/Chef-dies-after-eating-superhot-chilli-for-bet.html. Last night we continued our Church as it Should Be series by talking about how Church needs to be concerned about the lost (the unsaved). We looked at Acts 7-8 which showed that despite knowing they would be killed if they told others about Jesus the early Christians did it anyway, spreading the gospel throughout the world. They wouldn't have had to do that (they already knew they had eternal life and the authorities would not have persecuted them if they wouldn't have vocally told others), but CHOSE to risk it all and tells others because they wanted all people to have eternal life. What an awesome love for others and what a wild ride they went on to spread the good news. It is my hope we can have that same love for the lost here at HRC.
Well, everyone enjoy your week, especially the MLB playoffs, and go Cubbies (and stay away goats!)!

Wednesday full of stuff

There are some awesome things happening this Wednesday.

7am at Oostburg High School will be the annual See You At the Pole. This is a time where a whole bunch of high schoolers will meet before school to pray about their school, friends, community, leaders, teachers, and more. With all the things going on in our community right now I think it's great for us all to pray together for God to do amazing things in our area. Please give Andy a call if you need a ride that morning.

The afternoon at Oostburg will be the annual Kool to Be Kind Day, with students serving the community in a bunch of different ways. I will be with a group doing some work in Hingham and I wish all groups a productive day of serving and loving our community.

Wed night our middle schoolers will be concluding our series on Evangelism, How to Shout Without Screaming, by playing Romans and Christians. Please dress to be outside, hide, and run. It should be a really fun and exciting night.

Growth Night underway and other stuff..

Wow! Thanks to everyone for making our first Growth Night a solid success. Our band and media teams worked really hard to craft a passionate service, and our many adult volunteers made by life really easy by lending great leadership to our many small groups and class offerings. Several people have asked me where we get many of our funny video clip from, and the answer is that many come from www.bluefishtv.com. You can browse their many great clips for free. In all we had about 110 people in attendance for week #1 (even in the shadow of a Pack game), including some new to HRC. I continue to pray that God will use Growth Nights as a great opportunity for worship and digging into scripture throughout the next few months.
Another question several people have had is who wrote all that music? Here's the set list with the band who most famously recorded it.
Not to Us: Chris Tomlin
Undignified: David Crowder Band (written by Matt Redman)
Grace Like Rain: Todd Agnew
Every Move I Make: Fusebox
God of This City: Chris Tomlin (written by BlueTree)
No One Like You: David Crowder Band

On some other notes of update, my prep work paid off last week as I successfuly devoured 3 1/2 racks of Jerry's Ribs (see previous post for more). How yummy, yet how horrible my stomach felt by the time I got home. I also enjoyed my Cubbies cruising to the Central title this weekend. Too bad the Brewers couldn't have been a little bit of competition this season.

Huge weekend!

Growth Nights
Grow through worship, Grow through fellowship, Grow through learning…
Grow in Christ

The Growth begins this Sunday at 5:30

After months and months of planning we are finally launching our new Growth Nights program this Sunday. I actually started working on Growth Nights when I was forced into bed for a week after having surgery last December, and it's crazy seeing it almost be here. Growth Nights are principally about two things: worshiping God in an energetic, relevant, and meaningful way and growing spiritually through small groups. These are two needs many younger people have really been expressing in our congregation, and I'm excited to see how God uses it. We will have four small groups for our high schoolers, at least one for Middle School, at least 2 for adults, plus a special parenting class. We've also got nursery care available, as well as some special programming for k-5th grade that I'm leading. That's certainly a pretty big change for me, but I've got to say I'm pumped to be with kids who probably are as energetic as me! The band will be playing some great music this week, including a couple from David Crowder as well as at least one good old Silver Birch favorite. I've been being a geek today working on the video and lighting, which I always love. So yeah, if your in the Hingham area Sunday join us for Growth Nights beginning at 5:30 in the fellowship hall. It will be a powerful worship experience and a terrific opportunity to really grow as a disciple of God.

It will also be a huge weekend as hopefully by Sunday the Cubs have clinched the Central, although they are being awfully Cubby as I write this as they are again getting killed by the Brewers. There is also the HUGE Green Bay-Dallas game (thank you ESPN for the 15min after Growth Night start time!).
Well I am off. Tonight is our monthly pilgrimage (and I don't use that term lightly) to Germantown, WI to Jerry's Oldtown for all you can eat ribs. There are simply no better ribs on the planet then Jerry's, and the youth staff has been starving themselves all day for the journey. If you like ribs and you've never been to Jerry's GET THERE NOW! They serve more pork per seat then any restaurant in America, so that alone makes going a requirement. Thursday is the best night as all you can eat is $16.95, versus a rack being like $24 alone any other night. Check Jerry's out at www.jerrysworldfamousribs.com. You'll love it.
Have a great and blessed weekend all!

Thursday morning

Morning all!
As today is September 11th I would encourage everyone to take some time to go to God in prayer today. Ask God to continue comforting those who lost loved ones that day and to help return peace to our world. Having lived in New Jersey I know many people who lost loved one's that day. The uncle of two of my youth group students there died on one of the flights, one of my leaders lost most of his co-workers as he has JUST left his job working at the World Trade Center, and Andrea and I attended the church attended by the Todd Beamer, who famously led the rebellion on Flight 93. Today is a day for us as Christians to remember what happened and to be very prayerful.

Well our youth programs are all officially off and running. We had a great kick-off service on Sunday. Thanks to the congregation for allowing us as a staff to be very innovative and to drive our point home through various different means. My message Sunday really tried to hammer home why we do Christian Education. The big three from scripture are: to learn of eternal life, because the Bible is inspired by God, and to live a more Godly life. Well, I'm off to the high school but expect some more postings the next few days focused more on sports (as a Cubs fan expect some pretty angry rants). Have a great and blessed day all!

Gustav update for Houma

While Hurricane Gustav did not wipe Houma off the face of the planet as had been feared it still hit very hard. The eye wall hit Houma and surrounding communities as a Cat 2 Hurricane, and conditions were particularly bad in East Houma, which is where we stayed and where Senator's Circle (where Kid's Club was) is located. From reports I have seen there has been little or no deaths reported in Houma as most people wisely obeyed the mandatory evacuation. The problem now is that it's Wed and they still have received little recovery efforts. The people in town have no food, water, supplies, medicines, gas, or power. The national guard is on the scene but they too are running out of gas. Those who left are not supposed to return home until Friday, which FEMA and such are hoping conditions will be better (power is still going to be an issue). From what I've read there has been flooding and wind damage to homes, but things are fixable. The community will need help, support, and prayer, but loss of homes and, most importantly, lives, seems to have been very minimal. Thanks to all who have been praying for Houma and the rest of LA this week. They still need those prayers, so keep them coming. If you want to read more and see pictures and such go to the Houma Carrier website at www.houmatoday.com. They have some pictures of Gulfport, MS where the Ocean went right to that Mall we parked at to go to the beach. Again, keep the prayers going.

Fall schedules and Gustav

As an exclusive to this site you can scroll down and on the right hand side find the schedules of Middle School and High School this fall. They are NOT OFFICAL because of the lack of a school calendar, so don't etch it into you fridge yet or anything. I am really pumped about what we are doing this fall and can't wait to get back in the normal gruve again.

It has been really strange the last few days to see Houma on the news so much. CNN has a camera on the bridge that ends about 3 blocks from where we stayed, NBC's reporter is stationed by that old white historical church we drove by a couple of times, and Senator's Circle (the housing project we worked at) was even mentioned in a newspaper article. While Houma still looks to get the "dirty" part of the storm it is an answer to prayer that it has gone from a category 4 to a cat 2. I ask that you keep the people of Houma and all of the Hurricane zone in your prayers over the next week as this will undoubtedly be difficult for them. If you want to follow the events in Houma specifically you can do that at www.houmatoday.com.