Start to our High School Year

We had a great start to our fall high school season last night as we kicked of our Labels series and had a crazy mattress race. Teams of 6-7 students had to race about 2/3 of a mile away from the church wile carying mattresses AND being chased by one of our four hunters. The racers made mince meat of the hunters this year, but it was still a fun event.

When we returned to church we launched our Labels series with a great and hilarious video our team put together. You can find it on the video bar to the right of this post, or go here. We talked about the labeling we are constantly doing to people. We see or meet someone and right away we're slapping a label on them. Cool, fat, nerd, jock, etc. We may not know them at all, or only know them a little, but we make a total judgement call on who they really all based on very little. When we think of someone as simply a label we really miss who they truly all. This happens not only all the time in our schools, but in the church as well. A recent study showed that 88% of Americans view church as a judgmental place. 88%!!! Thats really sickening if you ask me. The institution founded by Jesus, who suffered and died on the cross so we would NOT have to be judged guilty of our sins, is roundly regarded as a place of judgment. Oh how far from the path of Christ we have wondered! We talked about how we know this to be the case even in our own church. Some in the older generation are quick to slap the label of "disrespectful" on the younger generation because of the way they dress and the type of worship music they prefer, while the younger generation is quick to reject all "old people" (they're term, not mine, so spare me the emails please!) as being outdated, out of touch, and not worth much. Both views are totally wrong, and are prime examples of labeling. We judge without really knowing someone's true heart. My favorite example of Jesus' rejection of labeling and judging comes from the Parable of the Good Samaritan, found in Luke 10. There Jesus is asked "who is my neighbor," which really meant "who do I have to treat with respect, and who can I just label as a sinner and treat like total garbage." To respond Jesus tells this story of how a Jewish man lay beaten on the side of the road and two Jewish religious leaders both walked by, saw him, and chose not to help him. However, a Samaritan man, chooses to go above and beyond to nurse the man to a health. Samaritans were the sworn enemy of the Jews, with Jews believing that even getting dust on your feet that had also touched a Samaritan was sinful, so deep was the hate. Jesus sums it all up by saying that everyone is our neighbor. No one deserves to simply be labeled, judged, and rejected, because we are all God's handywork. To simplify someone down to a label is really to say "oh great work on THAT person God! You really screwed that one up!" We wrapped up with a couple of video clips that taught us that we need to 1) stop the judging and 2) realize that all people are God's handywork.

Middle School Off and Running

Had a very awesome night with our middle school ministry this week. Opened with a couple of quick crazy games, before getting a couple of volunteers to lick peanut butter off Plexiglas. Opened our ReFuel series with a hilarious intro video we put together with the help of Kevin and David Dolfin. Sweet and funny stuff. You can find the video to the right of this post.

Our focus tonight was on explaining that a devotional life with God is not what you think. I spoke about how I personally am always trying to have caffeine fuel me. It works a lot of the time, but inevitably caffeine and sugar will take you from a really awesome high to a sudden and dramatic crash. Isn't the same way in life? We try to fill our lives with happiness through academic and athletic successes, material possessions, friendships, relationships, pride, etc. Those things fill us for awhile, but eventually we crash. The fuel we need to be constantly filling up with is God. Our series theme verse says this: May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God (Ephesians 3:19). What an awesome promise: a love so amazing that we can't even imagine that sort of awesomeness. That just blows me away. That's EXACTLY the sort of thing I want in my life!!!
The problem is that we think a devotional life with God has to be complicated. We have to spend like 2 hours reading scripture, read through the whole Bible in a year, memorize a million verses, etc. But thats not what it's about. ReFueling/connecting with God is about coming to God (Matthew 11:28-29), following God (John 8:12), and being with God (John 14:3). We come to God in prayer, follow God's Word (the Bible), and find some quite time in our crazy lives to just be in God's presence. It's not overly complicated, and it does not have to be. If we want to really live life on full, experiencing life in the most awesome way possible, we simply need to make little but powerful connections with God daily.

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.

Just some quick summer updates

Hey, it's a busy week around here with over 125 kids in VBS, but I wanted to take a moment and just put some quick updates up about our summer.

Kentucky Pictures: In the next 24 hours a KY image gallery should appear to the right. To see full size images simply click on any picture. Pictures are hosted by Picasa, and they allow you to purchase pics from a number of vendors (including Walgreens, which will send them to a local store and thusly no shipping charge). BLAST does not endorse nor profit from any of these vendors, this is simply an option we are able to offer.

Lake Day: We had an amazing lake day for middle school and high school last Wednesday. Nearly 60 middle schoolers were able to participate (it was an outreach event for that ministry), as well as 20 high schoolers (we used it as a community building event for them). Special thanks to Damon Huibregtse for the use of his lake and waterslide, and to Greg Dirkse for the use of his amazing boat.

Middle School Dolfin's Cabin: We had nearly 40 students for an amazing weekend focused on building the Heart of a Champion. The weather really cooperated, meaning we were able to fit in all our great lake activities, including tubing, jet skiis, swimming, the water trampoline, and more. We also had some great activities, including our now famous Woodchipper game. God really moved over the course of the weekend, with 15 students accepting Christ for the first time and many more making some awesome new commitments. Thanks to Todd and Laura Dolfin, as well as our huge team of adult and high school volunteers, for making the weekend such a huge success.

Kentucky mission trip: Wed and Thr

God continues to do amazing things here in Jackson County. Our shed building team has everything all enclosed and is putting the finishing touches on as I write. We plan to hold a dedication in memory of Taylor VanderWeele later tonight. The poor team at the house continues to be plagued by difficulties. Yesterday they simply checked above the ceiling (they were told it was "all good," but thought smart to check anyway), and were summarily bathed in coal dust that had gathered up there from the coal burning stove days. They thusly worked overtime for the second straight day trying to get to a good place. While they may not make it to their goal they have been a massive help and have set the stage very well for the next work group. They have really dealt with some tough set backs and conditions, yet have stayed upbeat and positive because they know they are really making a difference. My hat is really off to that crew.

The daycamp is getting close to wrapping as I write. Not only will we wrap our time with them at 3pm today, but it is also the last daycamp of the summer (many have come for three weeks now). Jackson County School District ended up with only around 30 some days of summer vacation this year due to having over 30 snow days this winter. So, JCM had to cram all their summer programs into one month (which is why there is not only our daycamp this week, but a horse camp, drama camp, and an evening VBS run by a group staying at JCM). There have been some awesome connections made between our students and the daycampers, and some hopefully eternal seeds have been planted in hearts.

Last night we got to hear from Denny Pehrman, the youth chaplain from JCM. He was INCREDIBLE! He shared stories of heartbreak and triumph. Jackson County Schools have had over 30 teen deaths related to drug overdoses and suicides over the past 8 years. In the midst of that Denny has probably saved many times that number of lives, as well as 100's of souls. He challenged out students to move from being believers to being disciples who really act on their faith. It starts simply by reaching out and seeing what needs you can meet at school, in your home, at work, etc. The students were really moved by his message and made some great commitments afterwards.

One of those commitments involved one of the students from the Barnabas Home for at risk youth located at JCM (some are there because they are at risk, some because they have committed crimes). Our students went from being scared of them, to cautiously playing hoops with them, to befriending them. One of the students from the home is moving back home to a tough situation today. Our students wrote him a letter they had the JCM staff deliver to him to offer him guidance, prayers, and encouragement. In fact a basketball game yesterday turned into simply sitting down and talking about life and God. It has been awesome seeing our once scared students MINISTERING to these other kids!

Tomorrow we will have a free day, which will include a trip to Cumberland Falls (the "Niagara of the South" and the original KFC. Should be a nice end to an amazing trip.

KY Mission Trip Day 3

Morning y'all!
WE continue to have an amazing experience here in Jackson County, KY. On Tuesday our daycamp kicked off, with around 50 students attending. We must have done well, because today they all came back and some even brought new friends! Melissa did such a wonderful job planning everything before we got here, and it has run really well. Our students have been awesome teachers, role models, pool toys, and jungle gyms! They are really making a positive impact on the young people here.

Work crew #1 is building a shed in honor of Taylor VanderWeele and, as I speak, are to the point of raising the roof. They should finish tommorrow. Their adults have been really impressed by their work ethic, and they are building a great structure. They did have the joy of raising truses in a mega downpour, but otherwise the rain has done well avoiding them. They are in for two days of scorching heat, so pray for breezes and good hydration as they roof in 100+ temps.

Work crew #2 is working on rehabing a house, with their project being the bathroom. The have torn out EVERYTHING, and are now putting in a new appliances, floording, finishings, walls, etc. They have had quite the experience owing to the lack of coding in KY, which led to poor Jacob going into a crawl space that ended up being where the kitchen and I believe a bathroom had been empting into for decades (he politely requested NEVER to go in there again). Some of the pipes just simply dump to the outside, including a bathroom into a creek. Scott has certainly had his hands full plumbing, but they are getting much done and VASTLY improving the living conditions for the family.

Our team continues to mesh amazingly. It's an amazing community of adults and young people. They are being so unselfish and getting along with everyone, which is really awesome to watch. I'm off to film a roof raising (yes, film, not participate in. The joys of being in charge!) We'll update you all again soon. Blessings!