SOME (final?) THOUGHTS FROM HUME/SD 2010
First of all, I'll just say that I'm as excited, encouraged, and motivated to work with High School students as I've ever been! What a great finish to the week as we went down to the beach and baptized a number of students! Next to talking with and leading a person as they pray to receive Christ, there is no greater joy for me than to baptize a brother or sister in Christ :)
On an update note, the young man, that I mentioned in my previous blog, and I are communicating and there is definitely a strong movement towards the restoration of our relationship, so your prayers are being answered, praise God!
Back to the week...just some totally random thoughts as my mind wanders and thinks of different things from the week...
Our group meetings of about 30 guys at night in the dorms were some of my favorite times of the week. Just seems like these guys truly became a band of brothers in Christ. Didn't have the "freshman are newbies, and as upperclassmen we can treat them poorly" feel to it at all.
Corporate worship, whether with a group of my peers, or a group of teenagers has always been and will always be one of my favorite parts of being a Christian. What a blessing we will have in Heaven to sing with the saints in the Bible as well as the Angels and our friends!
Our volunteer staff this week was incredible. They gave everything they had for the whole week. They were the true youth pastors this week and were there for every moment for the kids they were linked with. I love pouring into our staff, and empowering, encouraging, and enabling them to do Christ's work as He leads them!
Roberto's Mexican food in San Diego at midnight is still one of the best meals on the planet! We had an order of over $240 for all the kids, and it was amazing.
I'm so proud of how our guys showed respect for each other all week. And the way they interacted and cleaned up the dorms so quickly. They totally captured the theme of Excuse Mwa this week, and did not live for themselves, but put other guys first. If our teens can capture this nature, and be an example to all of us men, our church, and The Church, would be forever different and more like what I believe Christ intended it to be.
This was one of, if not the best, themes and implementations of the theme, in the history of my time associated with Hume Lake Ministries. That's over 25 years speaking...
In spite of the fact we only get to spend a few precious days together every year, Cliff Carey and Jay Johnson are truly two of the best friends I have. I love and respect them so very much, and I'm blessed to be a part of teen ministry with them.
About an hour and a half outside of home, I predicted a 6:40 arrival time...the front wheels of the bus crossed the driveway of the church at exactly 6:40 pm...just sayin...
Jared has inspired me to finally begin P90x...hopefully starting Monday!
Aubrey (the main office administrator at the Hume/SD) is truly a blessing. She always takes care of us here at Horizons. And anyone who can put up with my hi-maintenance self should be appreciated!
Somehow I need to have my wife at these things. It's so hard to have these truly neat and deep spiritual times of my life without having her, my partner, experience them with me.
I'm so glad I get to do what I do for a living. I pray I'll always be involved with youth ministry in some capacity. Whether speaking from time to time, or just having a small group of guys...simply a joy of my life.
Paper-Plate awards are cool!
I was so bummed that a couple of our kids didn't get to experience camp as planned. Jesse had got sick two days before camp, but J-Dub got to go in his place, and God totally worked in his life! Kyle was sick after the bus ride over to the other church that we traveled with and wasn't able to go, and Alyssa had to go home at the end of the first day because she also became sick. It was good to see her at the baptisms though! :) We missed you guys!
McDonald's BBQ packs shouldn't cost .11! Especially when you bring a group of 55 people and their money into your restaurant!
and finally...
I guess to sum it all up I can just say how proud I am of these students. With the size of our group being about 25 more than any group I've ever led to camp, it was harder than ever to get quality time with individual students (which again emphasizes the importance of our volunteer staff!) and I truly miss that part of having a smaller group. At the same time, the fact that our students heard so loudly and responded so faithfully to what He is challenging them is the way it's supposed to be! Can't wait to see the next year of our High School ministry as the friendships grow, the commitments made are lived up to, and God continues to do His work in His Ministry!
GOD RULZ!
TN
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Satan is defeated, but he is no idiot...
We had a great close to camp. Worship that I "tweeted" about was filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit...the message from Brad Bell was simple and to the point...our old life is still at home, waiting for us, and those same old habbits will be pursuing us...we have to be ready...With new lives in Christ we haven't arrived at the end of our journey, it's only just beginning...we are to FOLLOW CHRIST...time to turn away from many things...
From there it was off to Victory Circle...an outdoor amphitheatre known as "The Greek" cuz it kind of looks like something well, Greek. We had some more acoustic worship and then students asked to share, in 3 words, what God had done in their lives. What had he shown them? The responses were genuine, and felt. If you've ever thought you couldn't talk to your friends about Jesus, how about narrowing it down to 3 words and starting from there. I've just seen it from teens, you can do it...
After they dismissed the ladies, Brad came one more time to challenge the guys to three things based on "weak-sauce sissy Adam" in the Garden: 1) Reject Passivity 2) Accept Responsibility 3) Lead courageously ...
Finally it was back to the dorms...where we started packing and then met one more time as a group of guys from Horizons (one of my favorite things about what we've done this year)...
I challenged each of the guys to write down one specific action they would take before church on Sunday as a result of this week...responses simply gave me goosebumps..can't wait to hear about it on Sunday!
and then, on a personal note...the rug was pulled from under me...one of my former kids, a 23 year old young man I love and have knows since he was 7 or 8, absolutely tore into me for all the ways I've failed him and his family. He posted it all over my facebook, which I deleted, but they'd been up for an hour or so...decided it was probably best to block everyone from posting at this point, I don't want to block him as a friend, as I still care for him and want the chance to respond. Tried to deal with it for a while, knowing that it was absolutely Satan's timing to attack me, but still needed to talk w/ Liz. So with lots of tears, I called her at 1:30am or so. Instant cheer up as Caleb actually answered the phone! And Liz was the support I knew she'd be.
I'm so far from a perfect man, but I love these kids dearly. Whether it was this week, or this young man from many years ago. It hurts to know that maybe I could/should have done more to stay in touch when he was graduated and then moved away. I'm not a good "follow-up" person, as many of you know. I'm a fairly good "responder", to a crisis, a need, a text, an email, you get the idea. But if I don't respond right away, I often/usually forget to follow-up. And that's a big part of what this fiasco is about. Pray for my young friend, and that hopefully he and I can have a Matthew 18 moment as I go to him in love, but so far he isn't really responding to me.
But now I just can't sleep. I haven't packed yet, we've got so much to do to be out of here in 5 hours...packing and leaving dorm before breakast at 8:00am. We've got our Tradition of the last day (can't say because it's a secret from the first timers)..then it's off to the beach where we'll be having a number of baptisms! Hopefully heading home by 11:00am or so. I'll write one more hopefully by Saturday afternoon.
I will still say...awesome week!!
GOD RULZ!
TN
We had a great close to camp. Worship that I "tweeted" about was filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit...the message from Brad Bell was simple and to the point...our old life is still at home, waiting for us, and those same old habbits will be pursuing us...we have to be ready...With new lives in Christ we haven't arrived at the end of our journey, it's only just beginning...we are to FOLLOW CHRIST...time to turn away from many things...
From there it was off to Victory Circle...an outdoor amphitheatre known as "The Greek" cuz it kind of looks like something well, Greek. We had some more acoustic worship and then students asked to share, in 3 words, what God had done in their lives. What had he shown them? The responses were genuine, and felt. If you've ever thought you couldn't talk to your friends about Jesus, how about narrowing it down to 3 words and starting from there. I've just seen it from teens, you can do it...
After they dismissed the ladies, Brad came one more time to challenge the guys to three things based on "weak-sauce sissy Adam" in the Garden: 1) Reject Passivity 2) Accept Responsibility 3) Lead courageously ...
Finally it was back to the dorms...where we started packing and then met one more time as a group of guys from Horizons (one of my favorite things about what we've done this year)...
I challenged each of the guys to write down one specific action they would take before church on Sunday as a result of this week...responses simply gave me goosebumps..can't wait to hear about it on Sunday!
and then, on a personal note...the rug was pulled from under me...one of my former kids, a 23 year old young man I love and have knows since he was 7 or 8, absolutely tore into me for all the ways I've failed him and his family. He posted it all over my facebook, which I deleted, but they'd been up for an hour or so...decided it was probably best to block everyone from posting at this point, I don't want to block him as a friend, as I still care for him and want the chance to respond. Tried to deal with it for a while, knowing that it was absolutely Satan's timing to attack me, but still needed to talk w/ Liz. So with lots of tears, I called her at 1:30am or so. Instant cheer up as Caleb actually answered the phone! And Liz was the support I knew she'd be.
I'm so far from a perfect man, but I love these kids dearly. Whether it was this week, or this young man from many years ago. It hurts to know that maybe I could/should have done more to stay in touch when he was graduated and then moved away. I'm not a good "follow-up" person, as many of you know. I'm a fairly good "responder", to a crisis, a need, a text, an email, you get the idea. But if I don't respond right away, I often/usually forget to follow-up. And that's a big part of what this fiasco is about. Pray for my young friend, and that hopefully he and I can have a Matthew 18 moment as I go to him in love, but so far he isn't really responding to me.
But now I just can't sleep. I haven't packed yet, we've got so much to do to be out of here in 5 hours...packing and leaving dorm before breakast at 8:00am. We've got our Tradition of the last day (can't say because it's a secret from the first timers)..then it's off to the beach where we'll be having a number of baptisms! Hopefully heading home by 11:00am or so. I'll write one more hopefully by Saturday afternoon.
I will still say...awesome week!!
GOD RULZ!
TN
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