Christmas Blessing to All!!!

We want to wish everyone a very blessed and happy Christmas celebration. Our family is glad to be spending time in Minnesota and Iowa over the next week, reconnecting with our families, relaxing, and celebrating God's gift. I wish everyone a great time of relaxing, avoiding anything dealing with school, snowmobiling, presents, getting fat like me, and finding time to really think about what this holiday is all about. I'm excited for our upcoming Silver Birch Retreat, and if you or a friend is not already signed up please do so by Sunday. There are registration cards in the youth room, as well as a box to placed your filled out stuff.

This past week both of our ministries spent sometime talking about the gift of Jesus. I think sometimes we focus so much on the cute factor of the Christmas story that we miss out on what its all really about. On Christmas God CHOOSES to leave the perfect bliss of heaven, taking on this lovely thing we call humanity. You know humanity, its the thing you always complain about. Pain, work, criticism, death, losing loved ones, illness, feeling tired, etc. Yet, God CHOOSES to take that all on, to experience what our life is like. But, even more, God CHOOSES to suffer and die. Not just to experience those things, but to conquer death FOR YOU AND ME. We are given the gift of eternal life because God chose to come to earth as a human, to take the punishment once and for all for all the bad things you and I do. My challenge to everyone this Christmas is: what do you do with that gift? Is it like that favorite present that you use again and again, telling everyone you see about? Or is it like that bread pan from my wedding, which sits in a closet for six years collecting dust? Do you put your faith on the shelf, or are you really living it? It's great to see the wall outside the youth room full of ways people are going to respond to Jesus' gift. My prayer is that you follow through and live every day with Christ as we head into 2010.

Have a great Christmas everyone, and see you all in January!

Silver Birch and marshmallow mayhem

I now know how Cinderella must have felt: half the day on my hands and knees cleaning up marshmallow particles from last night (had tarps, they failed). Oh, the things that youth ministry entails. We're getting REALLY excited about our Silver Birch Retreat, January 8-10th, for both Middle School and High School students. If you have not signed up yet please do so, as it's going to be an exciting weekend of games, activities, and worship on our theme: How NOT to Get Caught.

Last night we did have a lot of fun throwing marshmallows and cheese puffs all over the youth room in a variety of different games. We then turned to part three of our Big Time Basics series, this week talking about Jesus. We opened with a clip from the DaVinci code in which the Prof. Lee character claims the idea that Jesus was God was invented 300 years after his death. The Bible, however, tells us that Jesus was 100% human (John 1:14: So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us) AND 100% God (John 1:1-3: In the beginning, the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that He didn't make). That seems rather strange to us, but it's how it had to be for God to fulfill his mission. He had to take on human/fleshly elements to teach us directly, experience the difficulties of human life (pain, illness, sadness, suffering, rejection, etc., and to pay the price for our sins. Yet, he remained God through it all, so that it is GOD, and not some mere messenger, that does all those things FOR US. When we get that it becomes so obvious how great God's love is for us.




AND 100% God

Cancelation for tonight

Because of the storm and because Oostburg schools canceled we will not be having Youth Group or any of our other programs tonight. Hope everyone enjoys their day off of school and PLEASE stay warm and safe today. We'll see you next week.

Breakfast Buffet

Saturday is our annual Breakfast Buffet Fundraiser. This has proven to be one of the best fundraisers for our ministry year end and year out, so we're excited for Saturday. The breakfast runs from 7-11am in the HRC fellowship hall. Cost is a free will donation. We'll have all the typical breakfast foods, plus THREE made to order omelet stations. We'd love to have a packed house to support our two major trips this year, our Winter Silver Birch Retreat and our summer mission trip to Annville, KY. Students, just a reminder that the 2 shifts are 6am-9am and 9am-noon. Middle schoolers help set-up Friday, from 5pm-6:15pm. Anyone bringing utensils needs to have them to church by 5pm Friday.

Follow us on Facebook! After years of resistance I have finally gotten into the world of Facebook over the past few months. If you want to further keep up with the world of BLAST Youth Ministry become my friend on there and join our BLAST ministry group.

Thanksgiving blessings to all

Wow, lots has gone on since my last post. Andrea and I just returned from a great trip out West, getting to see Las Vegas, the Hover Dam, and the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon may be the most incredible thing God has created. My jaw was dropped the entire time we were there. It was a great few days to relax, enjoy, and refuel a little.

I wish everyone a very blessed and happy Thanksgiving this week. Make sure you take some time to give God some credit for all the things in your life that make you smile. If your crazy enough the brave the shopping arenas on Friday best of luck to you. The last time I went on a black Friday someone took my legs out with a shopping cart. Seriously people!

I get to preach in "big church" this Sunday (I have deemed the Sunday after Thanksgiving National Associate Pastor Preaching Day). I'm really excited though because we are kicking off a new series entitled There's Something About The Name. Throughout Advent we're going to be looking at all the different names the Bible ascribes to Jesus and exploring their significance. I get to talk about my personal favorite this Sunday, Servant. If your not too full from Turkey or busy stalking deer we'd love to see you this Sunday. Plus, this is my first time preaching for TV, which is kinda cool and scary at the same time.

What an Event!!!

Wow! What a crazy night we had on Friday. Nearly 90 middle schoolers invaded HRC for a night of games, friendship, Blue Harbor Water Park, and worship. We may have even set a world record for amount of soda consumed in one night (even I thought it was ridiculous, and that's saying something!). Plus it's not every night I get bit by a 7th grader AND get thrown into a pool by a 6th grader. Nearly every student made it the whole night, enjoying late night activities such as lazer tag, glow in the dark dodgeball, a game room, tons of video game systems, a dodgeball tournament (which was more intense then the state basketball tournament), and more. A very tired group headed out Saturday morning expressing having a great night. The Event saw over one dozen students commit their lives to Christ for the first time, and over 40 students pledge to renew and strengthen their faith. Praise God for such awesome work!

A huge thanks to the army of volunteers that made this possible, as well as our students who so willingly invited friends. Without our high schoolers who spent the night and the various shifts of crazy, ah I mean willing, adult volunteers who came in and out throughout The Event this would have never been possible. Special thanks to Tammy Horswill and Laura Dolfin for bravely arriving at 10am to start clean-up, as well as the adults who came to help at 1pm. Also a big thanks to Pamela Krueger for heading up the food and Kurt Dulmes for putting together the praise band. Our intern, Ryan Arentsen, was also an amazing help and led a riveting game of Let's Make A Deal. Again, what an awesome night, so thanks to everyone involved and a big praise to God for making it possible, safe, and meaningful.

Weekend update and EVENT FAQ's

Thanks so much to everyone who helped with Service Day #2. We were able to work on four homes, all of which had quite a bit to be done on. Thanks to everyone who helped rake, lay chips, move rocks, move a windmill (yes, that's right), haul ancient farm equipment, and more. And I also proved I am an excellent fire starter (Phil taught me everything he knows!).

Here are some answers to questions we've been getting about the Event. They are going out to everyone at HRC tomorrow, but we wanted to get them on the web too. We are so excited for Friday night and can't wait to see all 80+ of you that night! So awesome.

Arrival time: You may arrive and register in the narthex anytime between 4:15-4:45 Friday night. If you are going to be later then that please call the church at 564-2879.

What to Bring: Sleeping bag, pillow, tennis shoes (for various running activities), swimsuit (girls: we really prefer one piece or tankinis, but if you don't have one don't worry about running out and buying one.), and a towel. You also may want sandals for Blue Harbor.

Spending money: No money is needed. EVERYTHING is included in your fee. If you wanted to bring money for the arcade or snacks at Blue Harbor you could, but you are responsible.

Video game systems and TVs: Thanks to all those loaning us TV's and video game systems. If you could have them to Andy's office by 8:00pm Wednesday night that would be fantastic.

Volunteers: If you volunteered to help at any point of the night you should have received a letter in your box about the volunteer meeting on Wednesday night at 6:30. If you would still be interested in helping us out please speak with Andy as we could still use more hands.

Clean-Up: We need ANYONE and EVERYONE who can to help with clean-up on Saturday, November 14th at 1pm. Your help is greatly appreciated.

A week in the life....

Wow, we have totally had a lot of stuff going on around here this week. On Wednesday we somehow had middle school and high school praise team practices, had over 1,000 pizzas delivered for our big fall fundraiser, and managed to have an exciting night of MS youth group with a couple of fun games, some great worship, and a message on grace. Best of all I have some awesome volunteers and staff who make my life so much easier, taking care of the fundraiser, our high school band, and the message for the night. We in no way could have the ministry we do without all the tireless efforts by others. I'm also getting super excited about the MS Event in a few weeks. We're seeing tons of non-church students signing up, and I pray God can work wonders with them through The Event.

Thursday night 10 of our guys headed down to Germantown for an evening of fellowship and stuffing ourselves with rack after rack of ribs. As always, the ribs were amazing and way to much food was consumed.

Friday I got to enjoy a day off with my family in Milwaukee, which was soooooo nice. I even WILLINGLY spent an hour of a half with my wife in a MATERNITY store. Now that's gotta be award worthy does'nt it (I'm thinking at least a Nobel Peace Prize)???

Saturday four teams of middle school and high schoolers worked on 10 different houses throughout our area during weekend one of our rescheduled service day. We raked up a crazy amount of leaves (70 bags maybe???), washed lot of windows, did some trimming, gardening, as well as some other things that got houses in our community ready for winter. Thank so much to all who helped, braving both the cold and wind in the process, to bless the people of our community. I got to endure more of the cold Sat night as I watched CG-B down Oostburg in the 2nd round of football playoffs. CG-B has a fantastic squad and I wish them the best next week.

Sunday was a typically busy day, with morning worship, Sunday school, and high school praise band practice in the am. For HS Youth Group we started at the Baker house to watch the end of the football game. It just stinks seeing #4 in purple playing so well. Grrrr. We then headed back to HRC to have a massive garbage war (yes, we cleaned it up) and continued our Save the Planet Series. We looked at Genesis 2 where God tells us to not only use his creation, but to also be stewards of it. While there are lots of people yelling at us to care about the environment is important for us as Christians to know that God wants us to not only enjoy his creation, but help maintain and take care of it as well.

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.

Sunday and my Fantasy team hates me

So I think everyone on my fantasy team systematically plotted to have their worst game EVER this week just to spite me. And yes, my view of the world is so small as to think that millionaire football players care about the fortunes of my fantasy team.

In more pleasant Sunday news, we had another great night with our high school ministry. We started off by playing a couple of different dodgeball games, which proved to be quite entertaining to watch (that's putting it lightly). We just happen to have some gentlemen who think there is nothing better in the world then nailing someone with a small vinyl ball. After taking out our collective anger it was time to continue our BLAST series by talking about the purpose of adoring God (worship). We had six stations set-up throughout the building to give us a hands out chance to worship and just to get a perspective on what worship is really about.
Stations:
Music: We had a bunch of IPods and CD players loaded with a variety of worship music. Students were then asked to think about what makes music worship music.
the Word: We had a lounge area set-up with couches and comfy chairs, as well as a bunch of Bibles, just to give students a chance to dig into the word.
Who God is: Each student got a notecard and wrote down a bunch of words or ideas that they thought summed up God. Then they looked up a number of verses that talked about God. Finally, they flipped their card over and wrote one word that best describes who God is to them.
Nail of Sin: We asked students to write sins they have committed in red on a piece of paper and then literally nail it to the cross as our way of confessing our sins to God, who gracefully forgives them.
Thanksgiving: Students read Psalm 150 and reflected on what it means to really praise and thank God. They then took the time to give God thanks for many things in their life.
For Others: Everyone was asked to pray for someone else who really needs God's help right now. They then lit a candle for that person.
Light of the World: After the message everyone lit a candle as a reminder that part of what worship is all about is going into the world and shining for God.

I hope doing things in this different way really helped everyone gain a firm understanding of what it really means to worship God.

Wednesday

Alright, so the end of September is not nearly as fun when the Cubs are stinking it up, but it's still been a pretty good start to the school year around here. Congrats to all of our students who are having some standout sports seasons, have some great roles in school productions, and are staying above water with all the early year homework. Also, I never congratulated everyone who did such a great job at the fair. It's just great having so many talented students around here.

Wednesday was a big and LONG day here, starting with meeting students at 6:30am to go to See You at the Pole at OHS. This is a annual gathering of Christian students at their school's flag pole before class starts to pray for their friends, teachers, school leaders, their community, state, nation, and world (over 3 million high schoolers participate nationwide). Thanks to all the students who were willing to take a leadership role this year, as well as all of you who got up extra early to be there. The fact that we never told the parents about this, just the students, and had so many students come, is a real testament to their passion and faith. I just enjoyed seeing so many young Christians willing to show up early, stand for their faith, and pray together. Real cool.

Wednesday night we worshiped with our Middle School Ministry as we discussed the purpose of worship. Thanks to those willing to be on the 1st ever MS Worship team, and you did a great job. We said four big things about worship.
1st, worship is NOT ABOUT YOU! We illustrated this out of the gate with blow pop necklaces. If you talked about yourself at any point you had to give your necklace up. It's REALLY hard not to lose that necklace, because we live in a world that is so about us. But worship by definition cannot be focused on us, it's all about god. 2nd, we said that worship is singing a LOVE SONG to God (when students entered we played the hit song Love Song). Worship is about praising and thanking God for all the great things God does, especially dying on the cross to save us.
3rd, worship is about seeking help. We played our own version of 1 vs. 100, which our 1 would have lost very quickly if not for the three helps we offered her. Life is the same way. We can not have the best life possible, or gain eternal life, without seeking God's help. Worship is about telling God we are sinful (do bad things) and asking God to forgive us and help us be better.
Finally, worship is about being charged up to be God's light in the world. We need to let what happens in worship charge our batteries so we can go into the world and make it a better place in God's name. Everyone got some glowsticks to help illustrate this.

Wednesday Night Set-list
Love Song: Sara Bareilles
We Shine: Central Church Vegas
Take it All: Hillsong United
Cartoon Song: Christ Rice
With Everything: Hillsong United

Some great nights and Ryan's great video

We have had a couple of great nights in our ministry recently. On Sunday our high school ministry went all over the church, armed with their cell phones, in order to find a whole bunch of different items. While it was a competition, one by the superpowers of youth groups games (Ben and Mel), it also helped illustrate all the things the church does. That led us perfectly into introducing our BLAST series, in which we are talking about the five key purposes of our ministry. We started this week by talking about the B, helping others to Believe. We talked about five ways to REACH others for Christ.
Reveal you are a Christian
Extend an invitation to something our ministry does
Ask to tell your story of why you are a Christian what God has done for you
Communicate to God (prayer) and them. Remember, your job is to communicate the good news, and God's is to do the converting.
Help them anwser questions they may have about God.
Wednesday night our Middle School group played a couple of wild and crazy games involving chairs, which no one died from (thankfully!). We then got to hear from Ryan for the first time. Ryan talked about the second part of BLAST, loving, or fellowship. He told us that God wants us to love all other people as ourselves, and presented the Good Samaritan story, using a very cool video from youtube. You can check it out on youtube.

I am very excited to be having Ryan Arentsen working with our ministry this school year. Ryan grew up in this area and is finishing up a degree in religion at Lakeland College. While we are working out all the details of what Ryan will be doing, he for sure will be at both our Middle School and High School programs, and will be sharing message duties with me throughout the year. Ryan brings a great deal of knowledge, enthusiasm, a strong faith, and an amazing ability to connect with teens to our ministry. To welcome Ryan I wanted to post some great pictures I just so happen to have of him in a little montage. If you see Ryan around make sure to welcome him and give him a little encouragement.

Wow!

Wow! That's the only word I can use to describe our kickoff night last night. Let me just give you some facts:
*We had to scramble to fit everyone into the meal AND then use the Crusader room as overflow
*With all the students, classes, and meal attendees we are OUT of tables in the church
*Even Though we ordered at least two extra copies of material per Bible class we still are ordering more materials because of the number of new students who came
*Even though we put stadium seating in the youth room to buy us space we were still standing room only.
*We ran out of our gift bags for new youth group students (and we thought we made enough for the first few months!), and all the new students said they can't wait to come back next week!

How awesome is God! I don't even have words anymore to describe God's awesomeness.

We had a great opening night of Middle School youth group. We started with the opportunity to win some candy bars, then got to BLAST thousands of cheese puffs at each other in a game called Cheese Puff BLAST (for those concerned we did have tarps down). We then got to welcome our new BLAST intern Ryan by blasting dozens of candy bars at him (I had a nice bag for them, but the students preferred this method). For the first part of this year Ryan and I are doing a series of messages of the five parts of BLAST. I kicked us off this week by talking about helping others to Believe. Did you know that the very last thing Jesus said before ascending to heaven was that we need to be his witnesses? You can check it out in Acts 1:8. God wants to use us to tell others about the eternal life Christ gives us. We were able to watch a great clip from End of the Spear that encourages us to worry more about helping others live eternally in heaven then what may happen to us if we tell us (ex. being made fun of). Our students then had some great discussion as they got into their small groups for the first time. It was a great night and I just can't wait for week #2!

Now only 10 hours before I get to eat my weight in ribs! I'm drooling just thinking about it.

Almost there...

Wow, it's almost time for all of our ministry things to hit into high gear. On Wednesday night our MS ministry kicks of the fall. We have some exciting games planned and will be kicking of our BLAST series. We may also be calling a few people up to help us out, so if you have bravery within you I can't wait to get you nice and messy! I will also be venturing back to the schools myself this week, so hopefully I'll see many of you on Tuesday and/or Thursday. Sunday our HS ministry opens the fall with a fun scavenger hunt type thing using cell phone technology, which should be way fun. We will also be launching our own BLAST series. It has been a lot of fun getting everything lined up for Fall, and I can't wait to get started! See you soon.

food...

So, for the first time in history, I'm sitting at church finding that I'm actually prepared for the meeting I'm about to have. Also currently having been greatly inspired by the facebook image of my good friend Ben (a giant pile of ribs) it is time for me to talk about my second favorite topic in the world (God does come in first): food. So, it is time for Andy to discuss his favorite Wisconsin food offerings in whatever order my tummy commands me to place them in. Maybe I'll be a tad more serious next week.

Greg's (Adel): It's greasy, nasty, the help is fairly rude, hasn't been cleaned in, oh who are we kidding, ever, and one meal there shaves a good five years off your heart's lifespan. Those my friends are the true marks of culinary genius. I seriously went there one time after having my cholesterol checked and them telling me it was actually low, figuring it would give me a nice boost to normalcy (and yes, it worked).


Jerry's Old Town (Germantown): The inspiration for this entry, you can pretty much bet you'll find myself and our high school leaders there on Thursday's for all you can eat ribs (and that will include next Thursday!). They know us by name and reputation: new rules have been created for us (sadly, I'm being serious: it's now all you can eat within a certain time limit. In the eloquent words of the great poetic sages Jar Jar Binks and the Olson Twins: How rude!). There are no better ribs on the planet, and when it's all you can eat for $17 how can you go wrong (well, you could throw them up, but that's another story).

The American Club Seafood buffet (Kohler): Ok, I have afforded this exactly once (and now instead of going there Ben just makes me put on a seafood buffet for him in which I do all the cooking and he does most of the eating), but it was perhaps the third best meal of my life (NYCs Mesa Grill and Josie's are simply perfect). May have been the best if not for the scary and cold pea soup. Just mounds of exotic seafood. Yumyum.

Sabor (Milwaukee): I have afforded this never. Only got to go as a gift. They have every man's dream: bacon wrapped fillet served off a sword wielded by a Brazilian gaucho (note the picture). It was great, but it's mega mega pricey (but if someone whats to gift it to me again, I'm there).

Legend Larry's (Sheboygan and Lakewood): These are hot wings as they should be. Just crazy amazing, and I can get them here or up north. Only thing better then a mound of Terriakyi and hot garlic wings is watching ZB eat 6 DOA's (the hotest ever) or AD going crazy watching me make a mess of myself eating them (she thought I should use a fork, silly girl!).

Great end to summer!

We ended summer in a great way yesterday, wrapping up our Jesus by the Water series and our Hot August Nights. Wednesday night we welcomed the Waldo and Cascade Fire Departments, who led us in some great fire fighter games. You can see about 30 pics in the gallery to the right. Although it was not a "Hot" August night, we still had a lot of fun.

We ventured to the "Jordan River" in the afternoon, learning a little about baptism and pooped out coffee. You see, in Asia they produce the greatest coffee on Earth, called Kupi luwak. In Europe it goes for about $30 a cup, and in the US you can pick some up for somewhere between $100-$600 per pound (and you thought Starbucks was bad!). What makes this coffee so great and so expensive? Well, it's because it the coffee cherry, containing the little bean that is used to make coffee, is first eaten by a little cat called a Kopi or Civet. The digestive juices in this cat bring about out some amazing flavors in the coffee bean. The coffee bean then "exits" the cat (I don't need to say any more do I?), and is then collected by farmers (a job I would NEVER want). Despite tons of attempts to bring out these amazing flavors in a laboratory the only way to truly get the best coffee remains through this interesting feline process. So why, other then the fact that I'm strange, do I bring up this story? Well, because just like this process is the only way to make this coffee the best possible, so only through God can we be the best possible. Although baptism is not itself the process by which we are saved, it represents that process. When we ask for forgiveness God cleans us up, removing the bad stuff from our life and keeping the good there. God makes us the best possible. Our challenge then is to live that out, allowing others to benefit from the life God has changed.

New stuff on site

Just wanted to point out that we've just updated our schedules for both groups for fall and added the first batch of pictures from the high school Dolfin's Cabin Retreat. Everyone who has been involved with our ministry in the past should be receiving a packet of info about the year in the mail sometime this week. As a reminder, we look forward to see our middle schoolers this Wednesday at both 1pm and 6:30-8pm. We will be at my house at 1 and then enjoying fire fighter night at 6:30. I've posted some pictures from when we held this event last year. Bring your friends and see you Wednesday! I've also added another 30 or so pictures to the high school Dolfin's Cabin gallery, so make sure to check that out as well.

Ending summer in a big way

It has been a huge summer around here for our ministry. We've been up north twice, as well as all the way to So. Cal. We've had a lot of fun, some great worship, learned a lot, and hopefully drawn closer to God. It's been a blast of a summer for me, but now it's time to start thinking about fall. Last night our High School Ministry wrapped up their summer with a bigger and better hunt. We did this two years ago, and it was massive fun. That year we gave 3 groups a paper clip and told them to trade it for bigger and better things. The groups came back with a refrigerator, a motorcycle, and an entertainment center. This year we ended up with a live goat, a fridge, and a snow blower. On Wednesday we have two great opportunities for middle schoolers. We will be wrapping up our Jesus on the Water program at my house from 1-2:30 and everyone is invited. We hangout, play some games, and have a short Bible lesson. Then Wednesday night from 6:30-8:00 we will have a couple of local fire departments helping us out for our annual Fire Fighter night. The students get a chance to compete in fire fighter games using the big hoses. It is a huge amount of fun, so bring a friend and come on over.
Alright, everyone enjoy your last moments of freedom and the great weather we're having!

The week ahead

Hey all
I PROMISE I will start getting some HS Dolfin Cabin stuff up sometime this week. Its just been busy with everything we've got going on plus our family vacation to Lake Geneva. We have some great stuff coming up for both groups this week. Tomorrow is our MS Mission Day. We will be working on a house as well as doing some work around the church. Our MS summer Bible study will also be meeting Tuesday, from 2-3 at Diane's. Wednesday we will be doing the giant slip and slide with our MS group, so make sure you're at that. We'll meet at church at 6:30 and return at 8:00.
Our HS group will close their Summer schedule with a bigger and better hunt on Sunday. Please make sure you're on time so we can get the game going right at 5:30. We will end at 7:00.

Alright, I am off to Milwaukee for Abby's knee surgery. Please keep her in your prayers as the doctors work to repair her knee and she starts the recovery process. Have a great and blessed week everyone!

Random Stuff

US lost to Mexico in soccer last night 2-1, which somewhat bums me out because we actually could have won in Mexico City for once. Oh well, at least the Cubs are still way better then the Brewers...
We had a great retreat last weekend with our high schoolers up at Dolfin's Cabin. We were able to do a lot of very fun stuff as well as spending some time talking about how we can connect to God in powerful ways throughout our life. We'll get more details about the trip up soon, but big thanks again to Todd and Laura for the use of their cabin for yet another retreat. They have such loving and servant driven hearts that's is really humbling to me sometimes. Having them in this church is definitely a huge blessing to our ministry.

Our MS ministry has been super busy this week. We had our MS Bible Study on Tuesday, which is involving a lot of different student's in God's word this summer. I am so thankful to Diane for leading this group so well. It's awesome to have powerful ministry going on where I don't have to do anything about it, and that's a great testament to Diane's abilities. Wednesday we had 20 students at our house for our Jesus on the Water program. We played Mario Kart, some outdoor games, and talked about letting Jesus serve as the fuel for our life. It was fun to meet some new students as well. Then Wednesday night we had a MS pool party at Mike and Diane's. I got a thousand balls thrown at my head, had half the group try to dunk me at some point (they all failed too I might add), and had a blast making some great whirlpools (not quite as crazy as some of the HS ones though). It was just a fun day of connecting with a bunch of great Middle Schoolers.

Well, I'm off for a few days of relaxation at Lake Geneva before everything gets to crazy around here. High Schoolers, we will see you on Sunday from 5-8 for our special Beach Party to honor our seniors. We will be meeting and returning to the church.
Have a great and blessed week in which you find time to connect to God everyone!

HS Dolfin's Cabin is here!

Tomorrow it is back up north for our ministry as our HS group heads for their retreat at the Dolfin Cabin. The bus will be leaving HRC at 6pm (please be there by 5:45), and we will be returning to church at 8pm Sunday night. Our theme for this weekend is ReFuel. We will be studying Doug Field's ReFuel book, learning how we can stay connected to God day in and day out so that our life is live on full, not E. Doug's book is wonderful, and I look forward to walking through it together this weekend. Of course, we have a lot of other fun stuff planned, including rafting, tubing, jet skiing, swimming, war games, and some energy filled worship times. I'm excited, and I hope all our students are too. I will see you up there as I am heading with our "worship team" up Thursday morning, but the leaders will be there with smiles on their faces to greet you at 5:45 (and if they're not smiling hit them for me). Ok, see you soon!

MS Dolfin Cabin: Part 4

This is the last in our four part series on the happenings of our Middle School retreat July 24th-26th. Checkout the previous posts below to learn even more. For you visual types there is a photo gallery of the trip to the right with over 100 pics of our exciting weekend. Enjoy.

Sunday Morning
Well, we finally tired the students out so Sunday morning actually started somewhat according to plan. After breakfast our students split into their small groups to discuss the material from the Saturday night worship session. After that we all headed into the worship center for our final worship time together.

We opened worship with our high schooler "performing" Let's see How Far We've Come with Guitar Hero guitars and fairly crazy costumes. If I had a dollar for every laugh that group got this weekend I'd be doing pretty good. The theme for our third worship time was Made to be Salt and Light. The high schoolers did two "dramas" for us, entitled Voices of Need. The first one focused on the physical needs so many people have and the great amount of poverty that exists throughout our world. Each student read the real words of someone in the world suffer from poverty, poor health conditions, war, famine, etc. The second drama focused on spiritual needs. Each high schooler read the real story of a teen in our country struggling without Christ in their life, or simply struggling with their faith. The message then focused on what it means to be salt and light, which Jesus tells us we're meant to be. Salt makes things better, which we all know from how often we put it on foods or choose salted peanuts, chips, etc. over the non-salted version. The point is that God wants us to make this world, with his hunger, poverty, poor health, wars, violence, etc. a better place. God wants us to be part of the solution. God also wants us to be light. Light makes even the darkest and scariest spaces seem not so bad, because it shows the way. In the same way we are supposed to be a light shining people towards God. This happens not only when we tell someone about God, but also when we live our life according to God's word, loving everyone we encounter as we love ourselves.
Worship 3 Set-list:
Let's See How Far We've Come: Matchbox 20
Take It All: Hillsong United
Automatic: Stellar Kart
The Stand: Hillsong United
With Everything: Hillsong United
Shine: Fee

After worship our students headed for their final small groups. The session was focused on serving others with a sense of humility. Students looked at the story of Jesus humbling himself by washing the disciples feet, and then headed into the worship center for our own footwashing experience. We treated this as a commissioning to head back home and meet the needs of others with the love of Christ, being God's salt and light. After a time of prayer everyone headed to lunch and their lake activities. By this second day on the lake tubing slowly turns into scenes from Ben-Hur, with students jumping onto other's tubes, kicking them off, etc. Fun to watch, but I was glad not to be in there. They sure had a blast out there though.

Finally, following a beautiful day on the lake it was time to clean-up and head home. What a blessing it is that Todd and Laura allow us to use this amazing place every year. It's really like having our own private retreat center, and we are all EXTREMELY thankful. Thanks also to all of our leaders and high schoolers for giving their time to make this a successful weekend. It takes a ton of work over several months, but it's so worth it when you see the student's passionately worshiping, getting into the word, getting the points of messages, and loving each other. Thanks again to everyone for a great retreat.

MS Dolfin Cabin 09: Part 3

Our third entry on our middle school retreat last weekend. Scroll down to start at the beginning. You can checkout over 100 photos from the trip in the gallery to the right. Enjoy!


Saturday evening:
After dinner everyone geared up for one of our biggest and craziest games: the Alka Seltzer Water War. We split the group into two giant team, and gave each player a duct tape arm band with an alka seltzer tablet stuck in. Each team then received a whole bunch of small water guns and a tub of water balloons. The goal was two-fold: to get the other team's players out by making their tablets fizz, and to capture the other team's flag. This was all with the high schoolers and myself running around with some serious water guns getting out anyone we felt like. It was a fun and crazy game to be sure. After the water war we figured we had a pretty worn out group, so we gave everyone some free time to play board games, video games, and to just hangout. This also gave our worship team a chance to get very ready for our second worship session.


We opened our session with a little game of thaw out the T-shirt, which was dominated by the sixth graders (although the were accused of cheating, they did remain within the rules). Worship then opened with The Climb by Miley Cyrus before launching into our praise songs. Thanks to a lot of work by Todd and David we were able to have a full sound and lighting set-up this year, in addition to our screen and projector. This brought a whole new level of excitement to worship for our students. Our theme for this session was Made to be Sheep, and our "drama" was a crazy gameshow called That Makes me Smile, hosted by David and Erin. For this game different students came up and had to pick a number off the wall that corresponded to something they either had to do or would win. The first people had to do such things such as get covered in peanut butter and jelly, eat raw spam (which was sooooo nasty I almost lost it myself), and eat cold canned spinach (which I think was packaged like 9 years ago). The last person then had the help of a leader to pick, and successfully picked two good things (candy and a wal-mart gift card). The point of the drama was to show that while we might not want to be seen as sheep, wanting to be a cooler animal, being sheep means we don't have to go through life alone, but we have God through prayer and the Bible to help make good decisions for us. We then talked in the message about how God protects and guides his sheep with his staff (aka his giant big wacka-ma-jigy stick), is the good Shepperd willing to die on the cross for us, and will go after even one out of 100 who is lost. What a great thing that God made us to be his sheep!

Session 2 set list:
The Climb: Miley Cyrus
We Shine: Fee
Cartoon Song: Chris Rice
The Stand: Hillsong United
No Sacrifice: Jason Upton
With Everything: Hillsong United
Take it All: Hillsong United
After worship we had a camp fire and then headed in for our comedy coffee shop. We were blessed with the comedic stylings of Erin and David (who will ever forget the banana cream pie song), plus some great interactive improv showcasing some hilarious middle schoolers. We also pulled up the leaders and the Dolfin family to showcase their performance abilities. I laughed so hard the whole night, so thanks to everyone that was willing to have some great clean fun.

MS Dolfin Cabin: Part 2

Part 2 in our continuing series on our Dolfin Cabin retreat this past weekend

Saturday:
Sometimes you wonder if kids ever really follow your lead. Well, Saturday morning I woke up wide awake around 6:15 and figured I'd get up, shower, and start working on things for the day (even though breakfast was not until 9). Well, apparently my getting up woke up other boys, starting a chain reaction that had every boy up and ready by like 7am. The one time they follow my lead is in getting up early! Who knew they'd follow me anywhere. Anyway, the chain reaction followed to the girls, so for the first time in retreat history we actually moved breakfast FORWARD to accommodate our awakened party (I'm going to guess the lure of the lake probably had something to do with all this).

We started our morning with our small groups and then had a Bible scavenger hunt, in which groups looked up verses that would lead them to certain locations. Massive cheating occurred (kinda a tradition around here), leading to the famed phrase of the weekend "shenanigans by Jason." (all you need to know is Erin came up with that). Next we moved to our Made sand building competition. All the groups did a fantastic job showing our theme in the sand, but our winner was truly awesome (see above). You can see all the designs in the photo gallery to the right. Soon it was time for that which is looked forward to for a year: lake free time. Students were able to go jet skiing, use the paddle boat and canoe, jump on the water trampoline, swim, and tube behind the all new 350 horsepower boat. We had a little rain during this time, but it was tolerable. Following free time it was time for our biggest trick compeitions, which were absolutely dominated by Jesse and Jana's group. Jesse single handedly won 4 of 5 events, which was mega impressive!

Alright, that's half of Saturday. I'll give you more later, but for now this picture can be a preview of what comes next:

MS Dolfin Cabin: Part 1

Wow! We survived our massive Dolfin Cabin retreat this past weekend. Well, except many of us definitely left our voices there (including yours truly). As is our tradition we'll spend the next few days walking you all through the many things that happened this weekend. We're also getting the first batch of 75 pictures up, and they'll be at the right shortly. Enjoy.

Friday: My day started waaay before it did for our middle schoolers, as myself and our crew of high school student leaders left HRC at 9am to begin setting up and starting rehearsals. This retreat has evolved to the point where we pretty much remodel the garage for the weekend, changing it into a sophisticated worship center, complete with full lighting and sound systems, an industrial smoke machine, a full themed set, a screen a projector, seating, various props, and more. Thanks to Todd and David much of the sound and lighting work was all done for us, we just had to finish it off and get our set already. Then it was time for several hours of rehearsals, fine tuning our worship songs, preparing dramas, and working out the details of all the electronics. By dinner time our team was able to head to Lakewood for a relaxing dinner, before heading back for our personal devotional time and final preparations. At 9:00pm the bus with all our middle schoolers and leaders arrived. God blessed us by giving us great unloading weather, with the sky opening up literally as soon as the last person got inside. As soon as we unloaded we had our first worship session. We opened with a skit explaining the rules of the weekend, and then had our opening song This is Me from the movie Camp Rock. We have recently made this move to opening with positive secular songs that go with the theme of the message because they resonate so well with non-church students. They may have never heard a praise song, but at least they'll have one song they know. These songs are only performed, with the audience not singing a long.

Our opening drama was entitled "I wanna be..." Our high schoolers went through a whole bunch of things teens want to be made into, from athletes, to brainiacs, to just being "normal." This set up our message perfectly, which was about what God made us to be. We talked about how God made everyone of us to be something special. Instead of constantly wanting to be want we want to be, we have to be willing to be who God made us to be. To do this we need to be MOLDABLE like CLAY, allowing God to use us in whatever way God needs to in order to make the world better. When everyone came in they were asked to fill out a nametag with something they want to be Made into. As the message finished we launched into With Everything, during which we encouraged the students to bring their nametags up as a symbol of giving up what they want to be moldable for God. We then covered them up with paint to show that we were truly willing for God to mold us. We then finished off our worship set with a couple of praise songs, before launching into our first game of the weekend.

We had one girl and one guy come up, and covered their face in peanut butter. Teams then had to best show the Made theme on their peanuty covered face using goldfish crackers. Congrats to the girls on winning, and earning first tubing rights for the weekend. After the game it was time for everyone to head to bed for a Saturday jam packed with exciting stuff.
Worship session 1 set:
Opener: This is Me: Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas (Camp Rock Soundtrack)
There is no One like you: David Crowder Band
We Shine: Fee
Automatic: Stellar Kart
Mighty to Save: Hillsong United
With Everything: Hillsong United
Take it All: Hillsong United

It's finally here!!!

After many months of planning and one re-schedule Middle School Dolfin's Cabin 2009 is finally here. Students are asked to be at HRC for a 6pm departure on Friday. We will be returning at 8pm on Sunday. The bus will then head straight to the cabin, so please have eaten before we leave (no food is allowed on the bus). The bus will be returning to HRC at 8pm on Sunday. We have tons of exciting games and activities planned, not to mention action packed worship experiences. Plus, there are all the fun water activities to choose from during your free time (tubing, jet ski's, row boats, canoes, swimming, the big giant inflatable thingy, and more). If you have not yet turned in the revised release form that was sent out two weeks ago please make sure to bring that with you on Friday. If you have misplaced it please either pick one up from the church office or come early on Friday with a parent to fill it out. Otherwise, look forward to seeing everyone on Friday night!

And we're done!

Well we did it. An amazing week as PDYM has come to a conclusion, and it was nothing short of an amazing and inspiring week. Frankly, I'm too tired to write anything of great substance, plus I have the issue of a Sunday sermon to think about, but just know that we have all grow hugely from being out here and will have a ton to share in the coming weeks and months. Here's a nice group picture taken in front of one of the Saddleback youth building waterfalls. If you want to checkout more of the most ridiculous youth ministry building, the Refinery, you can go here. Thanks so much to everyone who has supported us with this trip, and we'll see some of you tomorrow when we get back to town.

Kingdom Assignment Project

Our Youth Ministry in California has been given a project to do something for other people. The money we make from this will go to help us buy Bibles for children. This is how it works. You can donate money by emailing andy Baker at andyhinghamrca@yahoo.com with the amount of money you wish to donate. If we raise $500 Andy baker will dye his hair pink. If we raise $600 David Dolfin will have his head shaved. If we raise $750 Jake Rauwerdink will shave his head. If we raise $800 Dan Oppeneer will shave his head. Brandon Jentink will have his head shaved at $1000. So you can e-mail Andy at andyhinghamrca@yahoo.com and tell him how much you wish to donate. Our students are also making bracelets for this projects this afternoon as well.

Live from Cali

Wow. I think that's the way to some out our experiences out here in California so far. The messages from Doug Field's have been fantastic, as well as very challenging. Doug started Tuesday evening by challenging everyone to let God surprise them with what he is calling them to do in their life. Wednesday he presented the five purposes of ministry to the students, which really got our students into some great conversation. He then expanded on the purposes of fellowship and discipleship in later sessions. In the afternoon students could choose from a bunch of different workshops, which I skipped to work on my sermon for Sunday (I'm horrible, I know).

Last night was also an amazing worship experience. The place was just electric. Students were just screaming their praises to God with all they had, and it almost literally started shaking the room. I hear so often about how this generation is going to be the end to the church. They don't care about God, don't know how to worship, don't have any passion, etc. In fact, our own denominational magazine (soon to be former) just said our denomination basically has no hope of survival. If you were in that room last night you would no that's all a bunch of hogwash. I heard and saw nearly 600 young people just pouring out their love. I've seen teenagers express over and over again their desire to make a huge difference for God's glory. The future of the church is more then fine, and indeed I see so many students already being the church (including those we have here).

Well, time to get going. I'll try to update you more later.

Yes, you are paying me for this!

Well, despite a tad bit of a scary situation the eight of us have arrived in the OC and are definitely enjoying the amazing weather out here. We were not exactly happy when we found out that one of our students had been bumped onto another flight leaving Milwaukee yesterday, but fortunately we were able to fight, kick, and scream enough to get them onboard (although it was a nerve racking few hours and we may have gotten the airline employee we talked into breaking the rules for us fired, but hey, it ended up fine for us!). After getting in last night our girls, who were mocked for this in my youth group message Sunday, HAD to go to Target to get beauty supplies. So, I was nice and ran them there right before it closed. However, in their combined blond wisdom they left their bag of goodies at the store, making me go back and retrieve it this morning. What a great start!

Today we took in the beauty of Laguna Beach, and the weather was PERFECT! It was great to take in the beach and just spend some time hanging with each other. Now we are getting ready to head to Saddleback Church for the beginning of the Purpose Driven Youth Ministry Student Leadership Conference. I am really excited to get going tonight, especially for the students to experience the worship and challenging messages I know are coming their way. Stay tuned for more updates throughout the week as we worship and grow together as God's disciples.

A great weekend and off we go

Wow! What a big weekend we just go through. On Saturday we hosted the Badgerland Show Ski team here in Hingham, with our California trip group heading up concessions and a brat fry for it. Since this was the first time we've done this we didn't know what to expect, but my goal was to make around $1,000 from the food. Well, three emergency trips to the store later we brought in nearly $2,800! This knocks of virtually all of our remaining California trip costs. Thanks to all those who worked hard on this, as well as everyone who attended and spread the word. I think the population of Hingham at least quadrupled Saturday, and all in all it was a fun day.

Sunday I continued our Simplify Your Life series in Big Church, which is a series that if it is challenging no one else it is certainly challenging me. We have been looking at how we can start rooting out the chaos and clutter of our life to make room for God to make us great. This week we talked about the importance of a devotional life. If we believe that God created the heaven and Earth in all their majesty, rescued the Israelites from captivity by parting the waters, helped a little shepherd boy defeat a giant, repeatedly won unwinanble battles, and came to earth to save us from our sins. With that resume isn't it at least worth consider the path for living God lays out for us in scripture? Don't you think there is a pretty good chance that God's path for life is just a tad bit better to follow then our human ones? We then talked about the importance of humility, prayer, rooting ourselves in scripture, and allowing God to use us to our fullest.


Sunday night we continued our God's Extreme Make-Over series with a drama in which we made Dan and Matt look real pretty. We talked about how God's Extreme Makeover is an inside job: God wants to change our hearts and minds so that what we do externally makes a difference in the world. We then headed out to the monster slip and slide at the Mullikin's for a fun night in which I finally did not run into that tree! Pictures of the night can be found to the right.

Today I leave with Dan and six upperclassmen for the Purpose Driven Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA. I really hope this is a week that our students not only have fun, but are really trained, pushed, and challenged to come home and do ministry with their lives. Please pray for our group this week as we encounter God through this conference.

What's all coming up...

While I think it's pretty traditional to really scale back your youth ministry during the summer that's not really the case around here. And over the next week we have sooooo much stuff for everyone to get involved with.

The middle school Bible study has already met this week, and today we continue our Jesus by the Water series from 1-2:30 at the Baker's. We will be talking of Jesus filling the Disciples nets and what that means for us. We're also going to play a couple of wild and crazy outside games, as well as just having some time to hangout and enjoy the Wii and all the indoor games we have. On Thursday we have a group of Middle Schoolers that will be heading to Six Flags for the day, which I know I am very excited about. We will be meeting at church at 7:00am and returning around 10pm.

On Saturday we have teamed up with the Badgerland Show Ski Team to offer a night of great entertainment. Starting at 5:30 we will be selling brats and other items at the Hingham ballpark and at the end of Lake Dr., which will be the main viewing area for the show. Then at 6:30 this award winning ski team will be performing. The cost of the show is free and all proceeds from the brat fry go to benefit students from our youth ministry that will be attending the Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback Church in California next week. The only youth that need to help with this are those going on that trip. We do encourage everyone else to come out as it should be a very great night of entertainment.

On Monday myself, Dan O, and six students will board an airplane for California to participate in the annual Purpose Driven Youth Ministry Student Leadership Conference at Saddleback Church. Students were selected via an admissions because this is not for everyone. This conference is designed to take those who already have a saving relationship with Christ, a solid Biblical knowledge, and a strong devotional life to the next level: being leaders for Christ. I know this conference will really stretch our students and pray that God does some amazing things in them throughout the week. You can checkout the conference here.

Thanks for last week, and looking forward

First, thanks to everybody for how much you rallied around everyone last week. I've heard so many stories of students being their for each other, for the family, and just the whole community, and I am so proud of everyone. We had a great turnout for our special youth service Sunday night (I won't say a number as it probably hugely violated fire code)and everyone's sharing was very appreciated. Taylor obviously had a major impact on many of your lives in a good way. Some of the maturity that came through in the sharing just made me cry, and I'm pretty sure I'll never forget Justin Mentink getting up and sharing scripture with us (I'm pretty sure he could take over my job tomorrow!). There is just simply a lot of deep Christian love in this group, and for that I could not be more thankful.

We are on a bit of a youth ministry hiatus this week because of celebrating the Fourth. If you're looking for some spiritual nourishment on this holiday weekend I look forward to seeing you Sunday morning in "Big Church." I will be starting a 3 week series, Simplify Life, in which we're looking at how we can handle all the busyness of our lives (pretty relevant for all teens and parents of teens if you ask me).
We will be fully back in action next week as the special middle school Bible study meets Tuesday at 1pm at Diane's, MS Jesus by the Water meets at my house at 1pm on Wednesday, and those Middle schoolers who signed up go to Six Flags on Thursday. For High School, we will be having our annual Slip and Slide on Sunday, July 12th. We will meet and return to the church (5:30-7:00).

In Memory of a Friend

Yesterday afternoon our good friend Taylor Vander Weele was called home following a tractor accident. Visitation with the family will occur from 3-8pm Friday at HRC, with the funeral service at 10:00am Saturday, followed by a graveside service and lunch.
Taylor was a committed Christian young man who had been an active and vital member of our youth ministry throughout middle school. Taylor loved being an adult, always choosing farming, fixing stuff, and doing heavy labor to playing and hanging out. His knowledge and ability as a handyman far surpassed me, and I leaned on him pretty heavy on several mission projects and on the remodel of the youth room (he personally installed the new screen, which had not even come with any sort of installation kit). Every Tuesday and Thursday I would see Taylor for at least a few minutes at school, and if for some reason I couldn't make it I was summarily called a chicken the next time I saw him. He was always telling me about his most current project, whether it be with his dad, their good friend Phil, or a project with his friends or cousins that often consisted of making a vehicle go significantly faster then it was supposed to. I know I speak for so many when I say Taylor was a great kid and will be so greatly missed. I also know that he had a saving relationship with Jesus Christ and now resides in Heaven. For God's grace and love in that regard I am truly thankful.

To honor Taylor and support his family and friends we are going to have a special youth group gathering for Middle School and High School Sunday night at 5:30 in the youth room. In the meantime feel free to post any words of encouragement or memories of Taylor here and we will make sure they get to the family.

This sucks. There, I said it. But in the midst of it all we have an almighty God that desires DESPERATELY to be with us to help us through. Yesterday I spoke to the middle schoolers about how God desires to be with us during the storms of our life. We looked at Jesus walking on water and how Jesus did not do that to show his power and might, but instead to get to his disciples, who were in desperate need in a major storm, so he could help them. It's the same way with our lives. In the midst of chaos and turmoil God will do the impossible to be with us and for us. We just need to let him by prayer, patience, and understanding. I thought afterwards that it was an incredibly irrelevant message and that I probably should have spoke about something else. Then this, the biggest of storms, crashed into our community two hours later. I guess God had a much better idea of what was relevant. I have also gained much strength from a verse I planned to speak on this weekend, and that is: “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down
his life for the sheep . . . I am the Good Shepherd; I know my sheep
and my sheep know me.” John 10:11,14

Jesus suffered and died on that cross so that Taylor, and indeed all who confess and believe, may have life eternal. As sad as this is we can rejoice that because of Christ's love Taylor's life is just beginning.