Save the Planet Week 1

We kicked off our HS Save The Planet series last night, starting the night with Extreme Make-Over: Cardboard Box Edition. Lest it never be said that we do not have a super creative bunch of students, as our three entrants were a castle with working draw bridge, a police car with functional lights, and a deer fit for shooting at (you can just guess the make-up of that group). It was really cool seeing such awesome and creative creations. The winner ending up being the deer, and the group was quite humble about their victory (as in TO does less bragging).

We started our series by talking about creation. I don't think we often slow down enough to think about how amazing God's creation is. God crafts the world in such an amazing way that we have all the resources we need to eat, breathe, enjoy nature's playground, and live a high quality life. Creation is a good gift that God gives us to not only use and enjoy, but also to be stewards of.

If you want to see a great video of the creation story check this out. It is the Apollo 8 astronauts reading the creation story after the returned from the dark side of the moon. Very cool stuff.

Service Day Postponed and two new series

Our fall service day for Saturday has been postponed to Saturday, Nov. 7th due to weather and illnesses. Hopefully things will be much better that day and we can meet a ton of needs with Christ's love.

We are starting two new message series' this week in youth group, and I'm excited about both of them. In Middle School we started Built to Last: How to Shakeproof Your Faith on Wed. I think this is an important topic because so many students chose to stop following God actively once they leave high school. Our goal in this series is to give the students some information, encouragement, and habits that will help them to follow God their whole life through.
In High School we are starting a series called Save the Planet. The whole Green movement is huge right now, but does it have any place in the church? That's what we're looking at the next three weeks. We will be kicking things off with a big Extreme Cardboard Box makeover this Sunday. Hope to see you there.

Gnomes, Romans, and other adventures

This week was a series transition week in BLAST, as we had wrapped up our BLAST series and will be launching two new series this week (Save the Planet in HS and Built to Last in MS). After a big series we like to give the students a more fun focused night, which is what hopefully happened in both groups this week. In MS we played perhaps our students' favorite game, Romans and Christians. In this game the students are Christians being persecuted by the Roman Empire. They have to run and hide all over the HRC grounds to avoid the scary Romans (the leaders). When they get caught they have to convince the Roman guard or jailer to become a Christian so they can be released. This is a very fun high energy game, but it also teaches important witnessing skills. It was a really fun night chasing everyone around and the students really impressed us with their knowledge of the gospel (and their ability to climb trees).
In HS we had a video scavenger hunt modeled after the Travelocity commercials. We stole Lawn Gnomes from John and Marge TenDolle and then took them on wild and crazy adventures around the area (all captured on video tape of course). If you were at Plymouth Culvers or McDonalds last night you may even have had your order taken by one of our lovely Gnomes.

I'm excited to get going with both of our new message series' this week, and am looking forward to our Fall Service Day this coming Saturday. If you have not yet signed up to help please let me know ASAP (we could use a few parents too). Have a great, safe, and blessed week everyone!

THE EVENT 2009

Friday, November 13th, 2009
Hingham Reformed Church
WELCOME TO PARADISE!
We are so pumped about the Middle School Event, which is a mega bi-annual all-nighter we put on for the middle schoolers in our area. This year we are expecting nearly 100 middle schoolers for a night of active games, food, 3 hours at exciting Blue Harbor, a dozen video game systems, glow in the dark dodgeball, movies, and so much more. We're also going to have a super high energy worship service, which I am really pumped about. If you have been invited by a friend from HRC we really hope you can make it. Cost is only $5 for friends of HRC students, and includes all the food, snacks, drinks, waterpark, and fun. Check-out the schedule below, and we hope you can get out of the cold, and come into paradise for the night!

The Event 2009
Welcome to Paradise!

4:15-4:45pm: Students arrive (game room, video games, and hangout areas open)
Game room: pool, air hockey, basketball, darts, fooseball
Video games
Hangout rooms: some couches, board games, and cards
4:45-5:30: Big group game: Gargoyle's
5:30-6:00: Pizza and soda dinner
6:00-6:15: Everyone gets changed for waterpark and load buses
6:20-10:30: Travel to Blue Harbor
10:30-10:45: Change
10:45-midnight: Worship: live music and plenty of excitement
Midnight-2:15am: Stations: (30 mins each with passing time)
Laser Tag
Game room
Bank of video games
Glow in the Dark Dodge Ball @ Hingham Hall
2:30-4:15am: Movie/sleep time
Movie: Chornicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
4:15-6:00: Sleep time/hangout time
Game room (youth room)
Continue sleeping
Video games
Hangout rooms
Snacks/drinks out
dodgeball tournament
6:00-7:00: Choice: Open Gym at Hingham Hall or Games at HRC
7:00-7:30: Breakfast
7:30-8:00: Closing Worship session
8:00am: Time to go home

If you have any questions about the event you can contact Andy at andyhinghamrca@yahoo.com

Wrapping up our BLAST series

We wrapped up our first teaching series of the year, our BLAST, series, in both our ministries this week. It has been really fun for Ryan and I to take five weeks just to talk about five Biblical purposes of ministry (evangelism, fellowship, worship, mission, and discipleship). This week we talked about discipleship, with the big point being that following Jesus needs to be something we commit to do ON OUR OWN. We looked at Acts 1:12-14, where the Disciples return to the Upper Room after Jesus' death and ressurection and have to make a decescion: do they continue to follow even after Jesus is gone? This is a choice we all have to make: do we truly follow Jesus after the moment we first commit to God? Do we truly follow Jesus when our parents, pastors, and small group leaders are no longer around? Do we really follow ON OUR OWN? We tried to make the point that we follow on our own because we need to constantly be connected to God, as John says: “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from me. ‘Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:1-5. When we stop connecting to God our lives tend to turn rotten and nasty, like the fallen apples I used to throw at my friends as a kid. If we are going to live the life God created us to live we need to constantly connect to God ON OUR OWN by developing habits such as reading the Bible, prayer, quiet time, personal devotionals, etc. For those interested in growing on their own we have a program called Growing University. This is a series of packets that help your develop these different spiritual habits on your own. They are always available on the Growing U table outside the youth room.

Some updates and such

Well, that game happened. If you weigh close to 300lbs and live in Wisconsin please report immediately to Green Bay as you are likely an improvement over the current offensive linemen.

It's been another wild week around here, so there's lots to update on and little time to do it.
Both of our groups talked about Service this week, as we continued our BLAST series. We talked about how God has given us all talents not just for our own use, but to benefit God and others as well (Parable of the Talents). Sometimes we struggle to get that we can actually do great things for God, but the reality is God can take simple little old us and use us to do great things. To illustrate this we found this great Youtube video of the worst Price is Right Player Ever. Check it out and I think you'll get the point we made.
The most fun part of my week was definitely watching our HS game on Sunday, which was The Great Mattress Race. Each team was given a mattress and had to run all over Hingham with it, trying to avoid the six crazy hunters. What a riot to see students sprinting all over town with a mattress. Great stuff.

A big thing we are getting really pumped for around here is the Middle School Event. This is a huge super fun thing we do around here every two years, and we are hoping to have near 100 students take part this year. Look for a giant post with tons of details on The Event right here on this site.