Our deepest sympathy

Our sympathy goes out to the family of Eric Felsinger, who went ahead of us to Heaven on Thursday after a long battle with cancer. Eric was well known by many of our students as a friend and neighbor (which I know because of the many times students asked to pray for him), and many had gotten to know him through different efforts the church did to try to help the family out over the past few years. In fact, it was only back in November that students were riding 4-wheelers with him after a morning of working on their yard. Eric is the brother-in-law of Mike Smies (husband of middle school leader Diane). Our prayers and sympathy is certainly with the Smies family as they deal with the loss, as well as with Eric's many friends and relatives. He will certainly be missed.

This comes on the heels of the unexpected passing of another friend and neighbor of many students, Paul Neerhof. Although not closely related to anyone in our youth ministry Paul was called Uncle by a number of our students, who looked up to him as if he were part of the family. He was really a pillar of our community that seemed to be almost everyone's friend. He is certainly missed as well.

As tough as these loses are there is also some room for celebration, as neither Eric nor Paul's life has truly ended. As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." We are here reminded that death is not something that defeats us, for Jesus defeated death for us. When we die it is not an ending, or the start of something bad, but the beginning of something perfect. Death is not the ending of our dreams, but the fulfillment of our dreams. For when we die we are taken to heaven, the happiest and most perfect place we could ever dream of. And so while it is sad that Eric and Paul moved on seemingly early in their lives we know with certainty that they are now in the best place there will ever be.

Heading towards Youth Sunday 2009

Hey everyone. Well, it seems like there is never any down time around here. Just when we thought we could breathe following Silver Birch we have begun trudging full steam ahead towards Youth Sunday 2009, which is February 8th. As our staff knows all too well Youth Sunday normally carries the moniker "Doomsday Sunday" in my mind, as it always seems to be more of a headache then anything else. I guess I've never really been a fan of youth Sunday as I have often struggled to see the point of it, other then providing church goers the chance to laugh at kids who make mistakes and cause plenty of anxiety for those chosen to have speaking parts. For all the hours that get poured into I've often wondered if it's an effective use of our ministry's time and energy. I especially struggle since our students are so active in the planning of their own monthly worship service anyway. It's kinda like "why are we doing this?" This year I have a better attitude because we have been doing some really exciting things with the service. We have put together our very own 20 piece "rock orchestra," which I am really pumped about. I have to admit that I worried about how it would pull together, but the students and our church music director have worked really hard and are going to add so much to worship. What also excites me is that our juniors will be presenting a great message. They will be revealing the new name for our ministry, BLAST, which is an acronym for the five major purposes of our entire ministry. Not only are they the purposes for our ministry, but they are five Biblically based parts of living a Christian life that all of us should be following daily. The service is just dripping with meaning and purposes, and I feel like God is really going to use it in a positive way. So yes, I have to actually admit that maybe Youth Sunday is a really great thing after all, and I'll even admit it very proudly.

Growth Night: 1/18

This Sunday will be a very special Growth Night service, beginning at 5:30 in the fellowship hall. We will be singing our favorite songs from the retreat (yes, including the Cartoon Song and Automatic), viewing a retreat highlight video, watching the trip slideshow, and wrapping up what it means to live a life that is on target for God. We really want to encourage everyone to attend and hear and experience what this amazing retreat was all about. Hope to see you there!

Silver Birch 2009: Part 3

Well, from all accounts at least a few people (thankfully including myself) actually got some sleep Saturday night and were ready to get going Sunday morning. After packing up the TWO buses (that's going to be important in a minute), we headed for breakfast and then worship. We sang some of our favorite songs from the weekend and received one final challenge to live the life God made us to live. Everyone then headed for one last personal devotional time. At the conclusion of devo time I told everyone to board the TWO buses, but saw looks of panic on our leaders as I made such an order. What the leaders knew and I did not was that one of the buses was not functional. Now that's a wee bit of a problem when it's already past time to leave and you have to get 70 people back home to their awaiting parents. After learning the bus was not going anywhere for awhile we asked what the LEGAL capacity (not the comfortable capacity) of a school bus was. Learning it was 77 (that's three 3rd graders to a seat), we decided to put all the luggage on one bus, and everyone and their carry ons on the functional one. While certainly crammed and a tad stinky thanks to those who decided to forgo showers for the weekend, we safely made it back (and even had some fun in the process). Our luggage arrived about 3 hours behind us, which in the end was not that bad.

I can tell you that SBR 2009 was a very fun and Spirit filled weekend that really excited me and a lot of our young people. If you want to relive the weekend, or see what you missed, keep checking here as we post additional videos and pictures. Thanks to all who made the weekend such a success, and continuing living a life on target for God.

Silver Birch 2009: Part 2

Part 2 in our continuing report of our 2009 Silver Birch Retreat. Also check out the new photo gallery to the right. It contains about 100 pictures from the weekend.

Day 2 began with everyone awaking from their beauty sleep (well, many never slept at all), and heading for breakfast. After breakfast we headed to worship, which I admit seemed like a bad idea as I figured we would all be way too out of it. The students surprised me however, and really worshiped with all their hearts. For this session we heard from Jim Kappers, our special guest speaker from Camp Manitoqua (we planned on having two special guests, but our good friend Ryan Arentsen got stuck in Michigan because of weather). Jim talked to us about how we discover the particular purpose God has for our life, and shared some of his own story. He talked about discovering our spiritual gifts and using our talents for the glory of God. The music set list for this worship session included:
There is No One Like You: David Crowder Band
Every Move I Make: Fusebox
Wake up the World: Gateway Church Worship Band
Mighty to Save: Hillsong United
Automatic: Stellar Kart

One of the other highlights of this session was our Mullet Envy game. Students were tasked with creating the best mullet on a teammate's head, with a $25 prize given to the winner. Congrats to Gustavo and the high school guys on their victory.

The morning continued with high schoolers playing broom ball and middle schoolers heading to the tube park. Broom ball is a crazy game of hitting a ball with a little stick on a sheet of ice, and our students and leaders take the game a tad bit too seriously. This year the Jr/Sr/leader team destroyed the fr/so team by a score of 8-0, led by their MVP "The Iron Goose." Who would of thought bringing in a goalie from the Canary Islands would be our key to another glorious victory?

The afternoon was a great period of free time, in which everyone could enjoy activities such as power tubing (tubing behind a snow mobile), the tubing park, cross country skiing, sleigh rides, horse back riding, games in the canteen, and just relaxing and hanging with friends. If you ever wonder why we go to Silver Birch that sentence should probably answer the question. They have everything you could wish for during the winter, and they do a great job with it as well.

After dinner each group had a chance to get on the icy courts, with middle school playing to a broom ball draw and high school getting to play animal ball (I'd explain the rules, but then I'd probably get fired). Each group also got some free time to warm up inside and down some warm beverages.

Our evening worship session was definitely filled with tired people, but they still got up to worship with all they had. Our evening music consisted of a combo of the songs sang previously. For our third message we talked about one of the biggest struggles we have staying on target for God, and that is that the values of our world our so different from God's. The world wants us to live a life of pleasure, possessions, and popularity. Instead of living that life we need to think about what is really important. What will make the world better? What will help others? What will glorify God? If we can ask those questions before making decisions in life we will live an amazing and on target life that makes God proud and the world a better place.

Silver Birch 2009: Part 1

It is finally time to start a series on the amazing retreat that was Silver Birch 2009. Today we hope to get over 100 pictures onto this site, with video coming soon. Keep coming back as we post about each day of the retreat and add more and more media.

On Friday Jan 9th two buses filled with 70 overly excited individuals departed HRC for beautiful Silver Birch Ranch in northern Wisconsin. I can't vouch for the middle school bus, except I was told it was quite the party, but the high school bus was certainly loud and filled with many a screamed Hannah Montana song. There was also Ben teaching and leading several Monty Python songs (PG rated I assure you), as well as many other loud and crazed happenings. Good times.

Upon arriving at SBR we checked into our awesome accommodations for the weekend. Because we were the biggest group there we had first choice of cabins, meaning we got the four newest and nicest lake front cabins, plus the entire top floor of the Birch Center for our high school girls (if interested in what happens when 20 high school girls take over an entire floor of a building with only two adults present you can talk to Melissa Ten Pas and Jill Rauwerdink). The students then got to start enjoying SBR by taking in tubing, broom ball, and the canteen, before we headed to our first worship session. We sang a combination on songs we knew and some knew ones, with the set list being as follows:
There is No One Like You: David Crowder Band
I Am Free: Newsboys
Cartoon Song: Chris Rice
No Sacrifice: Jason Upton
Mighty to Save: Hillsong United
Automatic (theme song for the weekend): Stellar Kart
Forever: David Crowder Band

That first night we introduced our theme of Bullseye Living: Living on Target for God. It opened with a nice target practice game, which consisted of leaders covered in cool whip having q-tips shot at them by students out of straws. I told my really long and crazy story about a friend who had a horrible and off target trip, which included driving several hours in the wrong direction TWICE, as well as my personal story of missing the target in my life. We then talked about how God has a purpose for us (a target he wants us to hit). God made every single one of us for a purpose (Proverbs 16:4), and has a very specific purpose for our lives: "God created us for a life of good works, which He has already prepared for us to do" (Ephesians 2:10). The big challenge for the weekend then became: am I willing to live my life permanently living in the bullseye, living out the life God made me to live? Am I willing to sell out for God? Or, for those who had never accepted Christ as their savior, am I willing to accept that God died for the purpose of giving me eternal life? We had a ton of students commit to one or the other of these challenges, which they were encouraged to further explore through their personal devotional guides. After worship some students went to bed, while others stayed up being crazy all night long. All in all, a great start to the weekend.

Luggage

All of the luggage has arrived at the church and can be found in the youth room. The church should be open until around 8:15 tonight and will be open 9am-5pm this week. Thanks for your cooperation in this crazy situation.

Silver Birch LUGGAGE...

The expected arrival time of the bus is at 5:30 pm. Please be at the church tonight by 5:30 to pick up your luggage. If you are unable to pick it up then, find someone else who can or you may pick it up during the office hours Mon-Fri. We appreciate your ability to accommodate these change of plans. Thanks for the wonderful weekend!

REMINDER- As scheduled, there is NO HS Youth Group tonight. Also- Middle School Youth Group has been canceled for Wednesday night due to a death in the family.

Silver Birch and weather

There have been several questions raised about the weather conditions for tomorrow evening. I am watching the weather closely, and will continue doing so all day Friday. Let me just mention a few things:

• Our decision on whether or not to leave will not be related to whatever local schools do as far as cancellations/delays on Friday. If forecasts hold things may well improve greatly by evening.
  
• The system is not supposed to greatly affect northern Wisconsin, with Silver Birch expecting little to no precipitation tomorrow. Sheboygan, if projections hold, is really supposed to be the northern most point the system will affect in such a way as to prohibit travel. Green Bay in fact is expecting only light snow for Friday.
• At this point there are no plans to cancel the trip. Saturday looks like a relatively better day, and therefore if we could not leave Friday we would leave EXTREMELY early Saturday (like 5am). If we do that we miss very little of the weekend activities.
  
• No matter what we will meet at HRC as planned. We may have a "lock in" Friday night, then all board and leave 5am or earlier if need be.

Happy New Year!!!

I hope everyone had a great time ringing in the New Year and enjoyed all the football yesterday. Nebraska is starting to give me hope that they will once again be a football power, so that made yesterday a pretty good day. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my Christmas money and Best Buy gift cards, which is seldom a problem I have going into the New Year. If you have any suggestions on how I should spend my money leave me a comment (especially if it involves which Wii games to buy).

Silver Birch is almost here! If you ate your info sheet with your Christmas dinner you can go under the December posts and find it all there. Now all that's left is actually figuring out what we're doing and buying a really extremely massively big vat of yummy and delicious peanut butter (you'll find out much more about that later!). If you have any song requests for worship please leave a comment here and we'll try to work them in.

Sunday: Reminder that we have moved the high school Christmas party to this Sunday night from 5:30-7:00. We will meet and return to the church. Please bring $3 to help defray our food costs. There will be some great prizes to be won, as well as tons of yummy and greasy food, so get your stomach ready and see you Sunday.