Fall is Almost Here!

Alright, I can here the collective groan of most students with that comment, but the fact is school for most of our students starts next week, and many students have all ready been practicing for soccer (which already has like 6 games in), football, cross country, and volleyball. It seems weird to be going into "kick-off" season when we really did not take any sort of a ministry break this summer. I really had an awesome summer really getting to connect and hangout with our high school students, as well as teach through the Beatitudes in our Happy series. It was also great having Middle Schoolers over at our house all summer, and our Hot August Nights events have been a huge success (both in terms of numbers and the fun we have had). Nonetheless, it is time to return to our somewhat normally scheduled programming. Because of how full the youth room was getting last year, and the record numbers we have seen all summer, we are undergoing our second youth room remodel in as many years. Starting today we will be ripping out cabinets, moving the soda machine and fridge, and taking out the sink. In their place will be an additional two sections of stadium seating. This will allow us to seat 50 in seats and another 15 or so on the floor if needed. With the way our middle school attendance has been this is a very needed change.

If you have students in our ministry you will soon be receiving a packet with all the information you should need for the year, including your group's schedule. Schedules can also be found on this website to the right and on the HRC site. I am so excited about all of the things we have planned for this year. Because of weather and other things that tend to come up we did not post all of the games/activities for this year, except where necessary. We will still have all the fun stuff you know and love, you'll just have to wait tell you get there to discover what is up. I also feel we have some great things planned teaching wise for this fall, and honestly I'm kinda chomping at the bit to get started. So, don't get too depressed about school and we'll see you here real soon.

HS Retreats, pics, and updates

Wow! It's really been a crazy summer around here. I took some time this morning to put up some pictures from the MS and HS retreats to the Dolfin Cabin. Thanks to Miranda and Hailee for being the photographers for their respective groups.

We just got back from our HS retreat to Dolfin's Cabin yesterday. On my calendar I had written this down as a "mini-retreat," but we ended up having 26 students able to join us for a weekend on the lake. We did a ton of tubing, and let me tell you it was some intense stuff! Never seen so many people jumping all over the place. Also were able to do a lot of swimming, jet ski stuff, and more. Plus, there was plenty of time to just relax, hangout, and be goofs together. We also had three sessions this weekend on our theme of Crossroads, based on Jeremiah 6:16: This is what the Lord says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls”. We talked about how there are many times in our lives where we come to a Crossroads moment, a moment where we have to chose to either follow God's path or the world's. We often know that we are to follow God's ways, and indeed know what that way looks like (i.e. we know the difference btw. right and wrong), but we choose the wrong way because it is easier. This weekend we looked at why it is we chose the worlds' way so often at these crossroads. Often it is because of roadblocks that make it hard to follow God's path. We looked at three of these roadblocks: our past, our conflicts, and our fears, and talked about how we need to stop letting those stop us from living the life God wants us to live.