Face Paint and Bullhorns for Haiti

You may be saying to yourself, "Hey, I've already seen this picture." Well my next question to you is, "Hey, how come you never asked what it was all about?" It's not every day you see a picture of someone in a bell tower, talking through a megaphone, with their face painted. So you are probably wondering if their is a story behind it. And my answer is: Most definitely.

Back in February, as we were preparing for our Haiti fundraising, I chatted with Mike about how we could get our middle school students involved. Ideas bounced back and forth when all of a sudden, I remembered the time my Youth Pastor did something crazy. Back in the day, my church was trying to save money to buy a church van. My Youth Pastor was also the Head Pastor and he challenged the congregation to raise the money necessary to fund the van. If they were successful, he would dye his hair two different colors and preach from the roof one Sunday. It wasn't long until he had climb that ladder.

Having this in mind, I pitched it to Mike, and if you know him well, you know he loved the idea. I loved it because I was hoping it would inspire them to respond to the need in Haiti. Our church is working closely with an orphanage near Cap-Haitien. Therefore, the monetary gifts would all be used to support the orphanage were working with.

One Thursday night, I presented this challenge before the junior highers. As I made the announcement, "If you can raise $5000 dollars by May 1st, I'll paint my face and teach from the bell tower," I could see the students looking at each other like "is this guy serious?" I don't whether it was that I wanted them to raise $5000 or whether it was that I would paint my face and teach from the bell tower. Nonetheless, they responded.

They didn't quite get to $5000 but I was proud of them for what they did give. In our ministry, we always emphasized about helping out the least of these (Matthew 25). I was proud because they were obedient to God's word and their hearts were moved to help. You have to understand one factor that stands out to me. Every Thursday night, we have a cafe that serves pop, pizza, and candy. This cafe isn't free so the kids have to pay for it. So when they would put the money in the money hat, they were saying that giving to this orphanage was more important than them eating dinner (because for some, the pizza was their dinner), it was more important than drinking pop when they were thirsty (because they run around alot) and it was more important than candy (who middle schooler doesn't love candy?). They did not think about themselves. They were willing to give up the money they had to help those who don't have much. Sometimes, students came up to me and handed me $10 bills. I don't know if these kids get better allowance than I ever did, or whether they got their parents involved to make a difference. All I know is that they gave.

When I got up into that tower (it was really windy), I told them how proud of them I was. I told them that I wasn't up there because I wanted to be, but that I was up there because of them. Because they were moved in their hearts to do something. Because they realized they could make a difference. I told them that according to the scripture they helped the least of these, and when they did that, they were helping the Lord.

If you're in ministry, never doubt for a second (even middle schoolers) that God can't work wonders in them. He will touch their hearts and their faith will come alive. They will see that they made a difference and their hearts will be moved to serve more. They will see how it feels to please the Lord in giving of themselves. In this they will reflect the very heart of God, who has infinitely been giving of Himself.

God will use whatever it takes to show people His love. And if He wants to use a young man in ministry that will paint his face, get in a bell tower, and speak through a megaphone about how awesome God is, He can do that. He's God. He can do whatever He wants.

Be prayerful while we are in Haiti serving from the 18th to the 28th. We all thank you for your prayers.

Crazy Love!

For those of you who actually follow this blog, I would like to apologize for my silence for well over a week. I honestly don't have any excuse other than that I have been lazy. But here is a summary of last week:

Tuesday: Went out to get ice cream with Graham. Enjoyed building that relationship. Then we went to Max's for our small group study. The first half hour was spent playing carpet hockey where we all walked (or crawled) away with red knees and bruised hands. Then our small group discussion was about what it means to hate someone in comparison to disliking them and how the Apostle John spoke strongly against hating our brothers. This made for an interesting discussion and provoked some great questions.

Wednesday: Met up with another student to continue our one on one study of the Gospel of Matthew. Continued to see the heart in this particular student. I look forward to meeting with him weekly because I've always thought one on ones were the most impactful.

Thursday: Office day. Met with Mike. Tried to play street Hockey but no one showed up. Small group about loving the world, another great discussion with great questions. Then it was HOCKEY NIGHT, where I broke my skate during warm ups yet somehow managed to play some of the best goaltending to date. That's probably because Adam wasn't there to own me.

This weekend we finished up our packing for Haiti and loaded it all up yesterday. It's going to be an exciting trip. I want to get to a story about Haiti later but first I want to tune you into something I'm doing this summer.

Crazy Love.

Our program team consists of 7 members. These 7 are continuing to grow in their leadership as the year goes on. For the spring, it spent focusing on physical leadership such as organizational, communicational, and pretty much if they could follow my basic instructions. For the summer, we turn the page just a little and now we are focusing on their spiritual leadership. Even though not all of these students will lead small group come the Fall, I want them to be prepared if the time comes where they have to step in and lead spiritually. This I made very plain to them and I truly believe they are eager to grow in their faith.

This summer we are doing a book study on a book called Crazy Love. Crazy Love is written by the ex-Pastor of Cornerstone Simi Valley, Francis Chan. I say ex-Pastor of Cornerstone because within the past couple weeks he has stepped down and is moving on to do ministry in Los Angeles. Francis has always been one of my favorite authors and Pastors because of his very direct and very straight forward teaching of the Bible. Unlike some famous preachers, Francis Chan will not sugar coat his message about God. He sticks to the scripture and is faithful in teaching it without teaching around tough areas of scripture. I have always been greatful of that as a learner. In his style, the Gospel becomes more relevant and more real. It intercedes with reality in the same measure that breathing does.

Crazy Love was the first book I have ever finished in one day. If you know me well, I am not a fast reader by any means, but I just couldn't put it down. The way he speaks from his heart about the reality of who God is, what He has done, and what He is doing is convicting. He also spends time in the book laying out what scripture says about those who aren't serious about Jesus (Profile of the Lukewarm) and those who can't get enough of Him (Profile of the Obsessed). The thing about the book is that you can't deny what the Word is saying. He isn't bringing in his own theology, he is sticking to the scripture.

Teenage students are always look for something real. They are always in search of what makes sense to them and what they can connect to. Most of the time they turn to relationships, music, or sports, or movies and television. But these things cannot give you what Jesus can. Therefore, the reason why I am doing a study on this particular book is because I believe it presents God in a very real fashion. He is big. We are small. He is complex. We are simple. He is holy. We are not. He does not need us, but He deeply wants us. We do not want Him, but we need Him. Teenagers will search the world over looking for relationships to make them feel whole. They will pour their hearts out only to have them broken. But I want this particular group of teenagers to know that the Lord is the only thing they need. He is their gift. He is their treasure. And I pray that God shows them these things through this book. I pray that God becomes real to them and they desire to serve Him out of love for Him.

God's love for us is crazy. And to not love Him, is crazy.

Golf, Broomball, and Hockey. OH MY!

Yesterday was a very long day, but a very fun day. Although it was a very fun day, I am indeed feeling the physical effects from being active for 7 straight hours. Therefore, I am sore. Since it was a longer day, this entry will be longer as well. But I promise you, it'll be worth the read.

Part of my responsibilities as a Program Director is to organize and facilitate a team of Program Team members. These members are comprised of teens from grades 8th-10th. As of right now, I have 7 team members. They are a great bunch of kids eager to learn the ways of youth ministry (from a guy who is also still in the process of learning youth ministry). This summer I want to dedicate some time spent with these members; to get to know them, to see who they are, their likes and dislikes, their talents and abilities, etc. So yesterday, I asked Graham to go play some golf. Graham is a great kid who loves to be involved, so it wasn't a surprise that he said yes when I asked him to golf.

Also joining in our golfing endevour was Adam Jackley. Adam is the new Youth and Young Adult Pastor at New Community Church. He is a great guy as well that I was eager to build a relationship with. He also earned himself some points with me when he mentioned having lunch with Timothy Keller (one of my favorite authors) and having met Francis Chan (also another one of my favorite authors). Adam and I got caught up on where we came from, what we did growing up, what school we went to, and the journey that brought us to playing golf together on this day. As the day went on, not only was it cool to see Graham and I getting to know one another, but also to see Graham and Adam chatting it up. When Graham and I talked a little, I found out he is a huge The Dark Knight fan. I proceeded to do my nearly flawless impression of The Joker at which he was quite impressed by.

We all had some laughs, we all took some mulligans, we all had a great time. As far as performances went, it was a very good day for us all. It was cool to see Graham evolve (in a good way) in his abilities as the day went on. I happened to get a Par on a hole for the first time in my life! And Adam ended the day by winning the first ever New Community Student Ministries Open. It was the most fun (and best round of golf) I've ever had.

Here are some action shots for the day:



What a great day!

Now on to BROOMBALL


Earlier in the week when I was in the office, I was having a conversation with Mike and Adam Jackley about Broomball. Adam wasn't really sure what it was, so we explained it to him. "It's where you play with sneakers on the ice, with a broom and a small soccer ball, and try to put it into the net." To this statement, Adam replied "why would anyone ever wanna do that?" That's a great question Adam.

This was the first time I had ever played Broomball. My first reaction when it was over was "Are you kidding me?" I have never seen so many bodies flying and sliding across the ice. I have never seen so many broom parts explode before your very eyes. I have never heard so many thuds from bodies hitting the ice. I have never played a game quite like this.

Last night, we had about 20 middle school boys from our Edge ministry show up for this. Mike had also contacted another church to play against our boys. So there was about 27-30 people on the ice at once. All with brooms, all swingin' em. The reality was that we had more players than the other church did. Let's just say that we were on an overwhelming power play. It took the longest time to score a goal, but when it finally happened, it was a pretty sweet moment. There was a scrum in front of the net between 5 of our guys and 2 of theirs, and then a good bounce and a good timed swing resulted in our guys scoring the first goal. It was a great moment when all the kids tackled the goal scorer. Friends celebrating with one another in victory has always been a cool thing to be a part of. After a couple switches between who was on what team, the score became 5-5. An hour later, the kids from our Edge ministry sealed the deal with a last minute goal to put them up 6-5, then they ran out the clock from there.

You shoulda seen the look on their faces when you asked them "did you have fun?" There is no doubt in my mind that if we did this again in the near future, not only would the same kids returned, but I wouldn't be surprised if they brought 2 new friends with them. What a great place and a great activity to connect with kids.

Not only was Thursday a golf and broomball day, but it's also my favorite day of the week. It's my favorite day because:

IT'S A HOCKEY NIGHT IN PITTSBURGH!

Every Thursday night I gear up to play goalie for our youth ministry Hockey night. We are on week 3 and it's been a blast every week. This week we even had some new kids. And one of those new kids happened to pretty much be Sidney Crosby in middle school form. Apperently, this kid had 7 goals alone on me. I only counted two but after two everything just got blurry. Last night was an off night personally, but after watching the film, I'll readjust and get em' next time. The kids had a blast though. It was great to see kids out there who had never skated before. Some kids are apprehensive to do events like this because of the lack of confidence in their abilities. But some kids, like some of the kids last night, could care less about whether they fell every second, they just wanted to be there. And that's what we want to do with an activity like this; we want for it to be a place where kids can be. Where they come and meet new kids, get to know their leaders, and have fun doing it. It's also great to see kids who aren't that good at hockey score a goal (even if it's on me). All the other kids huddle around them and congratulate them on their goal. As a leader, it's among the many things I live for. One of things I wanted to do for my readers is connect them to some of the stuff that goes on at Hockey.

Since it'll be a constant thing throughout the summer, I want to give you some idea of what it looks like. So last night I had a kid shoot a video of two things. The first is of Adam Swiger (the Worship Pastor at New Community Church) taking slapshots at me. The second is of the kids, in constant attack, shooting pucks at me.

Even though I appear to be defeated at the end of this video, I can't help but say: I LOVE THIS STUFF!

Teeing off....for God?

Tomorrow (Lord and weather willing) I am going golfing with a student. We both admit we are not good at golf. In fact, I will admit that I am better at golf than I am at basketball. If you've seen me play basketball, you could only imagine my golf skills. But for me, to golf for the sake of golfing isn't what is at the heart of hitting the links. Tomorrow when I meet up with this student, we will continue to build our relationship. We will laugh at each other when we swing and miss the ball, we will learn what one another finds funny. We will discover who is more competitive between the two of us. We will undoubtedly have a better relationship when we put the clubs back into the car in comparison to when we took the clubs out.

Essentially, this is what a great majority of my summer looks like.

When Mike (THE BOSS) asked me to lead this ministry, I asked him what he wanted me to do this summer. He responded that I should create an environment where I could meet kids and connect with them. I thought to myself, what are some things that I connected with as a kid? That was easy: Sports and Music. God gave me the abilities to do both things (although I don't count golf and basketball, but I give Him the credit for giving me the physicalness possible to try). If He gave me something to use, why waste it?

This summer, I will be using Hockey, Flag Football, Golf, and Music to connect with middle schoolers and interns for Christ. Amber has often joked that I just have kids meet to play sports and then tack the word "ministry" to it. Although I know she is joking, there really is indeed a reason behind why I am using these activities to connect with kids. And the reason simply is that I believe it will work.

Although the times I spend doing these various activities may not always, at least not right away, lead to conversations about God, the quality of relationships will be essential for the future. The kids that take slapshots at me when I'm a goalie could eventually trust me with the struggles of their lives. The youth that I jam with could grow in Christ before my very eyes. And the kids that laugh with me when I keeping putting my golf ball into the trees could be the very kids that I help lead to Christ.

Much like when the Lord met people where they were: "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Luke 15:2), I will meet kids where they are doing things that we both love to do. Our relationships will be forever indebted to those who created these recreational activities. I bet the inventor of hockey would have never have imagined that the bruises taken by a clumsy goalie who loves junior high students would be the very vehicle that could eventually lead them to know Jesus. Thank you Mr. Hockey Inventor (especially for the goalie gear).

I am geared up to play some golf tomorrow. Hopefully the weather holds up. In preparation for tomorrow, it is essential to take golf lessons when you can get them. So here is one for the road:

Who needs Christmas presents?

I have some time in the office waiting for a meeting with Mike, so I figured I'd share one of my favorite memories thus far from working with Middle Schoolers.

One of the duties that I performed as a Graduate Intern was to give a message to the kiddos every other week. One week I talked about how Jesus is the greatest gift (how I managed not to bring this up at Christmas time is beyond me.) I talked about how people just want to "go to Heaven" and that people could care less about spending eternal life with Jesus. I asked the kids how they would feel if they spent all their money, time, and effort on a party where no one would acknowledge them when they came into the party. Some said "sad" or upset" or "used". Then I went on to talk about how Heaven isn't just a place of happiness and chillin', but that it's an eternity spent with the Lord. I finished up with the importance of understanding that Heaven isn't about all the other things but how they are minor perks uncomparable to the time we spend with God.

Then I ended with a quote from John Piper which reads:
"The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—
is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the
friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and
all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties
you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no
human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with
heaven, if Christ were not there? "

After I posed this question we went to small groups. Allow me to paint you a picture. I was sitting in on a small group with 6th and 7th graders. These kids are among some of the wildest group of kids I have ever met in Youth Ministry. The type of kids where you never know what they are going to say next (most of the time you are fearful when they breathe in to speak). In the small group, I chimed in momentarily to pose the above question again to these middle schoolers to see what they would say. If you are smart middle schooler, to avoid gasps and stares by your fellow junior high friends, you would answer the question with a resounding "NO!" But usually that no is followed by a shallow Sunday School statement as to why they said no: (Because the Bible tells me so)

But this time, that was not the case.

I lean in and asked the group "Would you be satisfied with Heaven if Christ wasn't there?" And right on cue, the group says "no". Then I followed with the question of all questions, "Why not?" And the response that I got was worth every moment spent preparing for this talk. Without hesitation, a notriously wild middle schooler responsed by saying: Because that would be like waking up on Christmas morning and getting every present except the one you really wanted.

This response is the fuel to my fire and among the reasons why I do what I do. I hope this story brought you joy, and if you are someone working in youth ministry who may discouraged or unsure why you are even there, let this story be your fuel as well. Because although times can be stressful, much like this life in comparison to our glory in the Lord, the taste of the fruit is worth the hours spent in the field.

So it begins....

In September of 2008, I was a Youth Director at a church in Crafton, PA. That gig did not last that long and the moment I left that ministry, I became weary about what exactly I was supposed to be doing.

In that same month, I attended a PKN (previously known as PYN) meeting, where Pittsburgh youth ministry people would be to gather information about upcoming events and connect with one another. This was the second time I attended a meeting, but this time I was seeking opportunities. I began playing pool with what appeared to be "veterans" of Youth Ministry, Mike Koepfer and Larry Betencourt. I spilled out my heart about the woes of my first ministry experience and they listened intently to my cries. Then Mike says to me, "why don't you come hang out at my youth ministry for a while." And then so it began...

I have been with New Community Church for well over a year and a half now working as a Graduate Intern. I have already experienced a ton of craziness and unforgetable memories. But today I begin as the Middle School Program Director. This is an opportunity that I could not pass up. I have already engrossed so much time into these kids lives to impact them for Christ that it would be senseless not to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. At some points during the past year and a half I wondered what fruit would come of all this time and effort put into this ministry. I wondered if this would be something I just did every Thursday night forever. I wondered if I would ever get the chance to devote all of my time to this. In the parable of the talents, the Lord gives small amounts of money to particular individuals. This money is entrusted to them so that although they would be faithful to hang onto it, that they also may make something more of the little they have been given. I believe that this is where the Lord has said to me "Since you were faithful with few things, I will make you ruler of many things." (Matthew 25:23) I thank the Lord for this opporunity. His grace is the reason why I am here, and His grace is the reason why I am able to do the things I can do while I'm here.

This blog will be committed to the daily activities of all things youth ministry. If what I have experienced in such a small amount of time is any indication of the craziness to come, stay tuned folks, get ready for one wild ride. Come join me on my journey into the world of Middle School Ministry!