Awards Night and other happenings

First, sometime this week check-out all the Youth Sunday pictures that should be posted to the right of this article.

This past Sunday our high school ministry celebrated its annual Awards Night. Every student won some sort of fun award decided upon by the leaders (such as best pantser, least ladylike, best death glare, and "best" big sister), we awarded the BLAST awards to students judged by their peers to best live out the values of BLAST, and the senior wills. Our leaders did a terrific job organizing and hosting the event, so mega hats off to them. I walked away from the night really blown away by not only the giftedness of these students, but their willingness to put them into action. As I said that night, how many churches does the Youth Sunday sermon morph into an eight part sermon series by the senior pastor? My guess is not to many. I am certainly going to miss the highly talented group of seniors we currently have, but I also some great classes coming up that will certainly try their best to take over their leadership role.
2010 BLAST Awards:
Believing (evangelism): Kathryn VerVelde
Loving (fellowship): Sara Crynock
Adoring (worship): Stephanie DeGroff
Serving (service and mission): Vanessa VanderWeele
Teaching (discipleship): Becky Kappers

This Wednesday night our middle schoolers started the evening building Bible smuggling boats out of various materials. They will finish these off next week before racing them down the Mill Pond/Onion River. Gotta admit, I'm very excited to see how that goes. This goes along with our current series, Underground Reality: Vietnam, in which we are looking at the persecuted church in that communist country. This week was also had a worship night, and one of the things I was really struck by was the number of non-HRC students we had serving in worship. All three of our lighting techs and two of our singers were not from HRC, which is really encouraging to me. It shows me a couple of cool things. First, there really seems to be no barrier between HRC and non-HRC students (translation: those who parents are members here and those who are not). They attend, interact, and serve as one body at BLAST. Second, it shows me that our non-HRC member students are willing and able to serve Christ in numerous ways. In reality, it's probably not even fair to talk about non-member and member students any more. They are all really members: they all attend, worship, learn, and serve God according to the gifts they've been given. To me that is a really awesome thing.
Worship set:
Rise and Sing: Steve Fee
Take It All; Hillsong United
Dancing Generation: Brandon Grissom
Mighty to Save: Hillsong United

A Busy Spring

Some day I am going to discover a non-busy time of the youth ministry year, but it has not quite happened yet. We have been having a really exciting Spring around here, and I'm pretty excited for a couple of things we having coming up soon. This past Sunday we had a very powerful ending to our High School Scarred series when we welcomed special guests Jill Rauwerdink and Erin Huenink. Jill shared about dealing with the hurt of losing both of her parents as a child, and Erin spoke about many of the really hurtfull things that occurred during her teen years. We all shed many tears, but we also really saw that even in the most traumatic and hurtfull of circumstances God is there to pull you out, as long as you are willing to ask. Jill and Erin are two of the most amazing, happy, outgoing, and fun people I know, and to think they went through all of that hurt in their life and can be as amazing as they are is just mind blowing. It is all because of God's continued love and presence in their lives. When we deal with hurt in our life I hope we too can turn it over to God. In all of this I am reminded of the words of Jesus: Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world
(John 16:33)

This week our middle school ministry will be hosting a cool game night, with some sweet prizes I might add, as we continue our Underground Reality: Vietnam series. Our High Schoolers will come together Sunday night for our 2nd annual Awards Night. This year the theme is Hollywood and all students are encouraged to dress as a favorite celebrity. Everyone will be receiving some sort of award, and seniors will be handing out their wills. Hope everyone can make it. I, on the other hand, continue my impatient waiting for my little son to make his appearance. If I'm not at one of our ministry times this week that's probably where I am. Ryan will be handeling things in my stead.

Have a very blessed week all!

What's happened/happening around here

First, it should NEVER snow on April 8th. EVER!

A big thank you to everyone who helped with our Easter Sunrise Service. We had well over 100 people in attendance for the service and breakfast. I pray everyone was moved to think about why it is that Easter Matters. Easter matters everyday because the empty tomb proves Jesus was exactly who he said he was, and who the scriptures had said was coming for 1,000 years: The Messiah, the savior of the world. Easter matters because the empty tomb shows Jesus' power. Only Jesus can die, descend into hell, conquer death and hell, and be resurrected to live eternally at the right of the Father. Easter matters because the empty tomb is permanent. No one needs to keep suffering and dying for us to receive eternal life, Jesus took care of it once and for all by suffering, dying, descending to hell, conquering death and hell, and rising again.
Special thanks to Tyler Bruggink for leading worship. Tyler is simply an amazingly gifted teen and I'm so thankful God has placed him here. I've had a few people ask for songs from the service, so here they are:
All of Creation: Mercy Me
Mighty to Save: Hillsong United
Trading My Sorrows: Darrell Evans
Yell: Tyler Bruggink
In Christ Alone

This week our Middle Schoolers enjoyed the Night of a Million Nuts, which made the youth room look worse then Texas Road House (say it with me: we love you Tammy!). Actually, Ryan and I did our share of cleaning up your mess too. We also kicked of our Underground Reality: Vietnam series. We are learning about the Christians in Vietnam, a nation where Christianity is more or less outlawed (Bibles are illegal in many of the native languages and pastors are routinely jailed). It's a moving series that I hope makes us all own our faith more then ever.

For High School this week we'll be having a big scavenger hunt deal, eating pizza, and continuing our Scarred series. This is perhaps the most excited I've ever been about a series as I really think its super important, relevant, and Biblical stuff to talk about. It also happens to make me think of many Monty Python clips, which I may continue to share with you all.

Alright, enjoy your weekend everyone!