Grundy Mountain Mission School: Day 2

Today was incredible thanks for the prayers! We had such a great time and everyone did such a great job. Hopefully I won't forget anything in the update, but it was a very jam-packed day so forgive me if something slips my mind.

The Sotkiewicz family arrived here safely this evening. Now we have our whole team here. Julie, who is sick, had a good day today and was such a trooper. All the urgent care facilities here around Grundy will open back up tomorrow so she will be able to go get medicine and hopefully get to feeling better right away! Please continue to pray that she has a speedy recovery and that no one else gets sick.

Our day started off with our first set of lessons for VBS. We did it all as a part of their normal Sunday School. Our theme for the week is Courage: Doing what you should do even when you are afraid. Our students jumped right in and showed a great amount of courage too! They did a great job of leading the songs, sharing stories and leading small group time with all of the children. It was so cool to watch them in action. I can't wait until tomorrow so that I can upload some pictures of our team (I don't have the camera with me tonight, sorry!) Everyone did a really great job.

In the afternoon our guys played pick up basketball with their High School Guys. It was so much fun. We held our own and even won a few games. Needless to say we are all tired out from the games, and a few of us have blisters on our feet from all the action.

In the evening our students led the Mountain Mission Students in a prayer time after dinner, and then held an open gym for their Middle School and High School Girls.  Much fun was had by all.


Please continue to pray for our students, families, and the rest of our team. It has been such a special mission trip already and we hope that God lets us continue to serve and be a blessing. Tomorrow we will be working on several projects around the campus, having part 2 of our VBS, and starting our soccer camp as well. Thanks for the prayers. Tomorrow I'll also try to get some of our students and leaders to give the update on the blog. Keep up the prayers!

Worship in a Box

This past weekend in Student Ministry we had our Worship Services in a box.  It's not the conversation that you think is coming either. I've heard a lot of ministers talk about their Sunday morning services as, "Worship in the Big Box." As our Student Ministry team got ready to do a series on Biblical Worship it gave me an idea. We wanted to show students why our Sunday services look like they do. Why do we sing? Why does someone speak? Why do we collect money? Are we really eating Styrofoam wafers during communion?

So instead of getting everyone into a 'big box' and teaching them about every element of our worship service, we put all of the elements into a little box and gave them to our small groups to go outside and explore. Our students and leaders loved going outside and having their own special worship service with their group. 

One of the most memorable parts of the Worship Field Kit was how we 'took up' the offering. When each group opened their box a helium balloon would pop out and just float there, tethered to the box. When it came time for the offering, someone in the group would read the prompt. This is what it said:

Offering  
1 Timothy 6:17-19 (NLT)
"“17 Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. 18 Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. 19 By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life.”"
---
Uh-oh we are talking about money. Why do we collect money during a worship service? Are ministers just too lazy to get a real job? When we give our lives to Jesus we are also giving him everything we have for Him to use as he wants. That'’s why we ‘sacrifice’ and give our money as an ‘offering’ for Him to use. We can give other things besides our money too though. We can also give our time, and use our talents to serve him.
I bet you have been wondering why there was a balloon in your field kit. Hopefully you haven’t popped it or let it fly away yet. Part of giving an offering is trusting God to use what we have given for His Glory.  Hold onto the balloon we are gonna use it in just a second.

Who in the group has a single dollar that they are willing to give to God to use? Put all of the money in the offering envelope in box. Seal the envelope and tie or tape the offering envelope to the balloon ribbon. Have someone who gave a dollar pray that God would use your offerings to bless someone in need. After the prayer, release the balloon. Its ok if it doesn’t fly away. If it stays on the ground just leave it there and trust God that someone will find it who needs it.


It was one of the coolest Offerings I've ever seen collected. Throughout the evening in the park beside our church, groups of students would bring their balloon with the handful of dollars they had collected, pray that God would use their gift, and then release their balloon. None of us know where our Offering Balloons ended up, but we all know that God is going to use what we gave.

Life After Youth Group

A great video from Fuller Youth Institute on life after Youth Group:

What You Need to Know About Life After Youth Group from Fuller Youth Institute on Vimeo.

Intern Update

So it’s July and we are as crazy as ever. As I type this Tanner is trying to get me out of his seat, but in all seriousness we have learned a lot. We’ve all learned how to organize, but mostly we have learned how to serve others with a cheerful heart. Today we went on a prayer walk that taught me personally that God doesn’t care about your “prayer position,” but just that you talk to Him and share what’s on your heart. CIY Move is coming up, and we are all really excited, since we are partially in charge of planning our small group time. All the interns and Matt plan on Move being a life-changing, relationship-growing experience (with each other and God!). We are already brainstorming ideas about how to improve Student Ministry next year! But I can’t forget the best part of the summer so far, TIM DUNN”S CAMP! Camp taught me that no matter what age you are you can impact the world and others around you. It was awesome to see the kids open their hearts up to us (their counselors) and God’s truth that we were trying to instill in them. One of the things that impacted me the most was the heartfelt worship and honesty you could see on the campers’ faces. This type of worship became contagious and the dynamic of the camp changed from then on. Besides the great experience I had with the campers, I also made some tight friendships with the other counselors. The other counselors are now my friends for life. I miss camp, but I’m ready to take on the rest of my already fantastic summer!!!

- Anna

Hey this is Tanner, these girls are driving me crazy, but I am learning to live with these crazy antics and “prom dress” chats. I really do have a great time every day though. I am learning a lot more from things I didn’t think I would learn from. Like cleaning out closets, and wiping down things dirtier than you can imagine. Doing this work has taught me to be a servant. It’s like I’m really starting to understand that it’s not about me, but that I was called to be a servant to God. This includes being a servant to others. Also, TIM DUNN’S JR.HIGH 1 CAMP, as mentioned earlier in Anna’s paragraph. We spent the whole week as “family members” or counselors at this camp. I went into this camp expecting to help middle school students get one more step along the way in there walk with God. Which definitely happened with many students, but what I didn’t expect was to learn so much about myself from those kids. So for the most part I am really enjoying the internship so far.

- Tanner

As another day of the internship begins, I enter Parkside excited to find out what is going to come my way as soon as I open the door to the office. I open the door every Wednesday and Thursday to see my three fellow interns (Dana, Anna and Tanner) and Matt sitting and chatting as I proceed to almost always be the last one there. I guess I am still getting used to the 9-5 job experience. We started reading this book called Radical by David Platt and we discuss a different chapter every week. So far, I have learned a lot just by reading this book. I am not far in the book but I can’t wait to read more. In the past few weeks I have learned many things about working in an office, as well as learn the responsibilities around the church. From learning how to work a copy machine, to organizing and cleaning different things around the teen center, I have learned a lot about having responsibilities and serving in God’s Kingdom. So far it has been an awesome and fun experience. While Matt was in Haiti we attended, TIM DUNN’S JR.HIGH 1 CAMP!!! I, as well as the other interns, each were counselors in a so called “family.” The theme of the camp was “Grown Up.” We heard many different sermons about knowing your faith, and doing your faith and how to apply God’s word to your life. One of the best nights of camp was the interactive worship night. Kids learned how to worship God in other ways besides just singing, reading the Bible, or praying. It brought a new meaning to the idea of worshiping the Lord. Camp was a great opportunity to reach out to Jr. High students and to serve in God’s Kingdom. It was a life-changing experience that furthered my relationship with Jesus Christ, as well as the relationships with the people around me. So far this camp has been one of the highlights of my summer and I learned a lot about becoming a leader and serving. It was a blast, and I hope to stay in contact with the people that I met there. I have learned so much from working in the church these past few weeks, and working in other students lives. This is more than just a 9-5 job, it is all about glorifying God’s Kingdom and leading people into a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. I am loving the internship so far and I can’t wait for our next big thing, CIY MOVE! We have just begun planning and it is going to be a great trip! I am excited to see where God leads me and the rest of the team in the next couple months. It has been a great journey so far!

-Katie

It feels like we’ve been here forever. This internship has been a huge blessing for me. I’ve had so many opportunities to grow my faith and grow relationships. We went to Woodland Lakes Christian Camp last week for Tim Dunn’s ‘Grown UP’ Junior High 1 camp. It was a fantastic experience. I had been praying every day leading up to the camp that the counselors would open their hearts to these kids and pour into them. I also prayed that Kurt, our speaker, would just really hit a chord with these kids and that the kids would be broken down so that God may build them back up.

My faith and leadership were challenged in many ways in this camp. I was able to take an active role in my family group. My group was very closed off at first; conversation was hard to get out of the girls. But by the end of the week, we were all as close as can be. The over all sermons were about having an active faith and to ‘know faith…do faith’. As Christians we need to work on having a genuine faith as well as finding a balance within the works we do. The best part of the week for me wasn’t the sermon, paint-balling, the giant swing, or even the worship. The best thing that happened was that I was able to mend my relationship with my brother.

At the beginning of the camp, each camper was asked what they want to get out of the week. My friend was in my brother’s family group and passed on to me what his response to this question was. He said this: “I would really like to deepen my relationship with God, but I would also like to grow closer to my sister. She’s usually really busy and I never really see her. Plus she’s going away to college this year and I’m gonna miss her.” This was the best thing I could ever hear. By the end of the week, my brother and I were finally on good terms. We even had a nice hug/cry session during our interactive worship day during camp. This camp was such a blessing. It did not only answer my prayers about breaking the kids down to be built back up by God, but the counselors as well were broken down and built back up. Also many friendships blossomed from this camp, as well as in this internship. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer holds!

-Dana

Parent Night at Rel Community

This past month we decided to do something different at Rel Community for one Sunday night. We invited all of the parents to come with their students. We were motivated by our desire to team up with parents in ministry, and our desire to encourage them in the day in and day out challenge they have raising up their kids in the way they should go. Still, we didn't know exactly what the response would be. We put a high value on supporting parents from our student ministry and community so we decided it was something we had to do.

So we put announcements in the bulletin, the e-newsletter, and spent a whole month announcing it to students and giving them take home cards to give to their parents. We prayed a lot that parents would show up. We also prayed that it would be an encouraging time for our parents and our group leaders.

I can't speak for everyone on the Student Ministry team, but I for one was pretty nervous about the Parent night for a couple of reasons. First off, there is unfounded, but pretty inherit fear that most Student Ministers have of parents. I know it is pretty ridiculous, but I'm guessing that its the same kind of feeling that teachers get at times at Parent and Teacher Conferences. It only takes a few times of getting blindsided by a parent to get a little bit apprehensive. Student Ministers and Volunteers spend so much time and passion investing in students' lives, and sometimes parents will unsuspectingly blow us out of the water. It doesn't happen all the time, but it definitely happens, and the scars we get from us can easily affect how we interact with other parents. So not only was I nervous that some of our group leaders would get hurt by a well-intentioned parents words, I also had another fear. I was worried that students would choose not to come because they didn't want their parents to be there.

I spent the week leading up to Parent Night giving my fears up to God and joining other Student Ministry Team Members in prayer for the night. What God did on Parent night was incredible. We had over 35 parents show up and take part in the evening. Not only that, but we also had over 70 students there that evening. Not only did they show up, but everyone participated in the evening's events. We played a HUGE game of Parents vs. Students Dodgeball and nearly everyone played. After that our students taught their moms and dads the Cupid Shuffle, and everyone had a blast!

For our group time that evening we split up our group leaders. Half of them went with their normal group of students, and the other half went to meet with their group's parents. In our parent group time we got to know everyone, shared our biggest fear for our sons and daughters, shared our kids biggest successes, and really just tried to encourage the parents in their God-given role. We ended the night by praying for each other in our circles. It was truly incredible.

One of my favorite parts though was what happened afterwords. I kept getting approached by parents and by group leaders who wanted to say how much they enjoyed getting a chance to interact with each other. Group leaders said they loved hearing form the parents, and the parents kept thanking the group leaders for what they did. On the way home from Rel Community that night I got two phone calls. One was from a group leader. I was worried that someone had said something hurtful or something like that. That wasn't the case at all. They were just calling to say how much fun being with the parents had been. The other call was from a parent. They wanted to let me know how blessed they were to have a ministry for their kids that also wanted to help and encourage the parents. What a blessing those two phone calls were!

Its been a couple weeks since Parent night, and everybody already wants to do something like it again. I talked to some mom's who were at the church the other day, and they said they could hardly wait until they got the chance to come again. I asked them if it would be hard giving up a Sunday evening to come to more Parent Nights. They didn't even hesitate. They said they would be there in a heartbeat. I think God's trying to tell our Student Ministry something. We have loved working alongside of parents, and we are definitely going to be making more opportunities to do it more!

Here is a video to give you a little taste of what the evening's activities were like:

From the Shadows

There are times when Student Ministry feels like a sprint. There are other times when Student Ministry seems like a marathon that really doesn't have a finish line. Over the course of a school year volunteers and group leaders will have highs and lows. There are moments your team will feel like they just climbed Kilimanjaro and others when they will feel like students think they are nothing more than a door mat.

Typically my week has some sort of roller coaster flow to it. One second a student will tell me that their friend is finally coming to them with questions about God, and the next second a parent will be asking me why we haven't had an Air-soft event in the past few months. Sometimes the people questioning or complaining about something are caring and considerate about how they communicate their issue, but a lot of the time they don't even realize how they are coming across.

I'll be honest. There are times that I would like to get off of the roller coaster. It's not always easy to stay balanced. I am sure that similar things take a toll on a lot of our volunteers and group leaders. I really admire their passion and perseverance. It's incredible to see them push through a year full of ups and downs. All that being said I would like to take a minute to share one of our high points that happened this Sunday Night. I hope you will celebrate it with all of us in Student Ministry too.

At the start of this school year there was a Middle School student who was coming to Friday nights at the Crossing and we will call him Danny. We had seen Danny a lot in the previous school year and we had our share of run ins with him as well. He was a guy who was dealing with a lot of different problems that he really didn't know how to handle. There were points we had to pull him aside and talk with him. He could be frustrating at times to say the least.

Our Crossing Staff does a great job and it came to our attention some time in September that Danny had warrant out for his arrest. He hadn't done anything horrendous. He just made a small mistake and missed his court date. On a Friday night we pulled him aside and asked him about it. We told him he needed to do the right thing and go work it out. Danny left in a squad car that night. It was tough on us. That night we committed ourselves to pray for Danny. We also promised Danny that we would follow up with him in a couple of weeks to see how he was doing. We wanted to help him through this.

A few weeks later we went to the address we had in our database for Danny. The house was completely empty. We talked to the neighbors. It seemed that Danny's family had just left abruptly a few days ago. We spent the rest of the day going from park to park and even talking to some of Danny's relatives trying to figure out where he had gone. Our search proved unproductive and the trail went cold. That evening we sent out an email to our church staff, elders, and all of our Student Ministry Volunteers. We wanted everybody to be praying for Danny. We might not have known where he was but Jesus definitely did and we liked that.

That was all that happened until about a month ago. Seemingly out of the shadows Danny reappeared at the Crossing. He told us about where he had moved and what he had been up to. He also told us that he had gone and talked with the judge and everything had been resolved. That was a great night for us at the Crossing. We got to play basketball with him and just catch up with him. We let him know we had been praying for him. He has been at almost each Crossing since that night as well.

We always encourage students who come to the Crossing to take the next step and come to Rel Community. The difference between the Crossing and Rel Community is that the Crossing is a place to come, hang out, and get to know us. At Rel Community, we get together and talk about the person who changed our lives forever, Jesus. Danny never seemed interested in Rel Community, he liked the pick up basketball games at the Crossing.

This Sunday night Danny surprised us again. He and 4 of his friends came to Rel Community. In our groups that night we talked about forgiveness and Matthew 18:21-35. Danny and his friends joined into the conversation. They shared real thoughts and real struggles about forgiveness. After our group time I told Danny that we had been praying for him for a while now because we cared so much about him. His response was, "Thanks. I am really trying to make good decisions."

Last night wasn't the finish line for us or Danny. He still needs to meet Jesus in a life-changing way. In all reality Danny may never come to Rel Community again. He might disappear into the shadows like so many students do. We need to keep praying for him, but something truly incredible did happen on Sunday night. Danny emerged from the shadows to talk about Jesus, and it was our privilege to be able to plant and water seeds in his heart. That's worth celebrating.

Guest Post: Aaron Adams

Aaron is the champion of our Middle School Ministry. He helps out in all sorts of areas and ways. He is currently attending Cincinnati Christian University. Besides being a nice guy he also works at Woodland Lakes Christian Camp, loves sports, and is a HUGE Ohio State Buckeye Fan. I asked him to write a guest post for this blog about all he has learned in his past year of serving in Parkside Student Ministry.

I’ve been fully involved week in and week out in student ministry for close to a year. I’ve gone on all the retreats both middle school and high school, I’m leading the middle school guys rel community group. Through all of this I have learned an incredible amount and have become hungry for more! Student ministry is something that I’m very passionate about, I honestly can’t see myself doing anything else from this point on. Where God will lead me I don’t know but I sure hope it is leading students into a life changing relationship with Jesus. I’m surrounded by so many wonderful men and women at Parkside that have helped develop and grow me to be the best student minister I can be. I went into ministry already knowing it isn’t what most people think. My dad is a pastor so I already had an idea of what I was going to face, but doing it myself has really opened up my eyes to what ministry is all about. It’s not just coming in to the office and sitting at your desk all day, it’s not just praying with people, it’s not just playing dodge ball with students. It’s on a much deeper level, yea I do all those things but it’s not a Monday-Friday job, its constant. But with that being said I’ve come to love that. I’ve come to where I have developed so many wonderful friendships with students that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. I care deeply about each and every student whether they know that or not. With all this learning that has happened this past year it has also forced me to grow deeper in my own relationship with Jesus Christ, and that is something that is amazing for me. To be able to have a stronger connection to Jesus is remarkable. That has enabled be to disciple students in our youth group or just friends of mine. I can’t thank the people that have poured into my growing as a student minister and my own spiritual life enough!

Super Bowl Commercial Videos

Our Student Ministry had a commercial contest with our students this year. All of our students got involved and did a great job. It was a lot of fun. Maybe over the next few weeks I'll upload some of the commercials the students came up with to share with everyone. I think you'll be impressed.

Year in Review: Part 1

January
Bigger Picture: Barack Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States. We all stopped to watch. Then everyone stopped chanting, "Yes We Can!" and started wondering, "Can He?"

In My World: The Buckeyes lost a heart-breaker to Texas (I could cry right now just thinking about it). I also read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. Solid Book.

In Student Ministry: We found out that Brian Roberts wasn't the worlds best skier. I am sure something spiritual happened, but Brian almost dying his first time down the mountain kind of qualifies right?

February
Bigger Picture: Everyone was very very unhappy when the Pittsburgh Steelers did this...

I still don't believe in Steelers fans. They are either non-human or just confused about football. Anyways they barely won and Ben Rothlisberger went to Disney world.

On a whole it wasn't a good month for sports either. Everyone found out that A-Rod did Steroids and Michael Phelps got suspended for another kind of drug use.

In My World: I had a question for the Forest Hills School District. When I called to ask, they put me right through to the Superintendent John Patzwald. I was so shocked and surprised by their amazing service that I immediately voted for every School Levy in Anderson Township for the next 20 years.

Alicia and I went to Montgomery Inn and it was good. We also got to talk a lot about the future, having kids (No, not right now, but we can still be excited right?), and how blessed we were to have each other.

In Student Ministry:Dixie Hazelbaker and the rest of the Rel Community Group Leaders put on an awesome Super Bowl Party. My favorite moments were Kyle Bianco and Company's Halftime Dance and this commercial


March
Bigger Picture: People all around the globe celebrated Earth Hour by turning off all unnecessary lights and electronics for an hour on March 28th. An hour later they all turned their computers on and blogged about it while they caught up on their TV shows.

Terrell Owens signed with the Buffalo Bills and everyone all of a sudden realized that he wasn't relevant anymore.

In My World: The Buckeyes got upset early from the NCAA Tournament by Siena. That hurt. I also read Mission Black List Number 1 which was a Interrogators account of how we caught Saddam Hussein. Incredibly interesting book.

In Student Ministry: We had an awesome High School Retreat that focused on what makes us, well us. Not only was it a blast, but we also had some great time to reflect and think about how we want people to remember us. We learned from Epehesians 4:10-16 that God has a plan for each one of us.And who can forget the Hug Chug Contest?