The last Wednesday of the month is game night. Tonight we had a murder mystery party. I looked into buying a kit but didn't feel like spending the money when I didn't know if the students would enjoy it.I say about 75% or so got into the game and the ones that got into it enjoyed it. I made 50 character cards and used most of them. The game was pretty involved, but I think it might have been a bit too involved for them.There were the obvious players, a dead person, a murderer, and everyone had some reason to kill the dead guy. Most people had alibis but a few didn't. There were also … [Read more...]

Yesterday I was disappointed to read a comment suggesting that pastors should stick to the preaching time because it is inconsiderate to cut into "my time." Now maybe I misunderstood this particular commenter but this is something I've heard said about long winded preachers.The basic problem I have is this idea that the pastor is actually cutting into someone else's time. I wonder how this measures up to reality. Let's assume that the minimum we should give to God is 10%, which I think can be justified by the Bible so it seems like a good place to start. Now let's say that this can be … [Read more...]

And now you know, and knowing is half the battle.I wrote the post below on Saturday because our annual church business meeting was scheduled for yesterday and I knew that I wouldn't have time to write anything last night. I was correct. The meeting started at 4pm and ran till 7:30 then we had a time of worship and took communion. I left a bit before 9 and went to fill a prayer slot for our 24-7 prayer. I made it back home around 10:20 to exhausted to even think about writing. Actually I didn't even turn my computer on which is saying something for an internet addict such as … [Read more...]

So for the third week in a row we had new kids. I'm pretty excited about the new teens this week because one of the visitors from last week brought friends and family this week. Generally things went well tonight. There was some minor drama but overall it was calm compared to the first night when we had so many extra in a single night. I finished our "love, lust, and sex" series tonight by talking about our relationship with God. I really love preaching for Youth. I have learned that the attention span of Youth is roughly 2 minutes longer than mine. I try to keep my sermons between 10 … [Read more...]

I have mentioned the 24-7 prayer that we are planning. I explained how I feel God has led us to this and quite frankly God is working well to pave the way. Unfortunately I am running headlong into some of the same old crap that is the basis for why we need this.I recently got an email forwarded to me by one of the other Youth ministers that I am working closely with to get the ball rolling on this. He informed a member of the local ministerial alliance so they could get the other ministers clued in and moving forward on this. OK fine we talked about this and it needed to happen. The guy … [Read more...]