reminder about ski trip

weekly wrapup 12.21.08

revelation 22 intro on Vimeo.

jingleball '08 was off the charts. our friends at Revelation 22 simply rocked it all night long.

Lesson Topic: Developing Habits - Tithing & Money
Attendance: Excellent
'Fun' Factor: Excellent - a couple of fun games...Siamese Twins CHRISTmas Present Wrapping and Make a CHRISTmas Tree by tables engaged everyone in a lot of laughs. there's some fun video up on our facebook group page.
Volunteer Involvement: Excellent. I love our volunteers. Such energy and tonight they took it to new levels with some really great food to share as we wrapped up the program for this year.
Music: Revelation 22 gave us an impressive evening of worship rock and roll style. so hop on over to their myspace page and give them some lovin'.
Lesson Quality: Above Average - Adam stepped up to wrap up our series on Developing Habits by talking about tithing. On a night when we had so much fun it was good to see the students take the discussion seriously about how we can grow in our faith by offering God the faithfulness of our tithe. we sent the students home with a plastic container and a challenge to start a "bank of blessings" to invest in our advent conspiracy offering in big church over the next two weeks..
Length of Lesson: 20 minutes.

adam and the band wrapped up the night with...a renedition of you're a mean one mr. grinch, which has fast become the.evolution favorite...
mr grinch @ jingleball '08 on Vimeo.

how seriously do we take challenge to reach?

looking forward to this...your thoughts?


Watch CBS Videos Online

jingle ball '08

be here...this weekend!

weekly wrapup 12.14.08

Lesson Topic: Developing Habits - Involving Yourself in Church
Attendance: Above average
'Fun' Factor: make-a-santa. you can see from the video above how it worked out. just for the record the team on the right was the jr. high...poor Kenny was at the mercy of his peers. andrew is on the left and you can see there was a more creative and artistic look at work...devon and jacob together won the effort.
Volunteer Involvement: Above Average. I love our volunteers. Such energy!
Music: veneration kicked us off with some amped CHRISTmas carols - O Holy Night, First Noel and What Child is This.
Lesson Quality: Above Average
Length of Lesson: we started the night with small groups...which are growing. tonite it took a little more effort to get the sr high women to break up..."we're having so much fun..." good stuff happening! Had a great conversation about what it means to be a apart of the "church". talked about moving from just "attending" to connecting and then really stepping up and serving. students were challenged to reach out to peers with next weeks "jingle ball '08" with revelation 22. its all about a good understanding of Acts 2...and a even better understanding of our mission to "reach and teach."

weekly wrapup 12.07.08

Lesson Topic: Developing Habits - Bible Memorization
Attendance: Average
'Fun' Factor: m&m munch down. four good heart volunteers stepped up for a green m&m eating contest...but we changed it up after they stepped up because the green was so lonely and it is CHRISTmas time...needed some red. left up to the audience...strawberry topping or salsa as a topping...of course the audience chose the medium hot sauce. fun stuff. the winner got a bag of red m&m's for the effort...way to go whitney!
Volunteer Involvement: Average. we were missing a few folks.
Music: veneration kicked us off with some amped CHRISTmas carols
Lesson Quality: above average
Length of Lesson: 25 minutes...before we got to the teaching we spent some great time in small groups. this is working work...in fact we're having a little difficulty getting out of small groups. the discussion tonite was centered around the the "distractanators" that are in our lives when it comes to reading scripture. great transition into developing a habit of memorizing bible verses. reminding the students that memorization is really something they do all the time...with songs and tv shows. i was surprised by how many new the words to the theme song from the brady bunch...or the old school big mac ad...two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, onion on a sesame seed bun. think the point was well made....both old school examples were from three decades ago. one of the take aways for the night was set of 10 key tags with bible verses to begin to memorize. good stuff.

following the Star

here's a nifty online Advent devotional. visit them here

weekly wrapup 11.30.08

Lesson Topic: waiting
Attendance: happening in the middle of a six day school break, with one day to go the numbers were excellent. had several new faces.
'Fun' Factor: tonite was all about fun in a whole new way. the comments heard as folks left was "tonite was amazing!" - "i really connected"
Volunteer Involvement: excellent thoug
Music: tonite was an all acoustic night. the veneration band was on its game. excellent sound and may have set a new bench mark.
Lesson Quality: excellent.
Length of Lesson: 25 minutes.
the night began by not allowing the students to head up to the youth room until most were there. then we dismissed them with the instructions and understanding that tonite was going to be different. i asked for a show of hands while outside the room of those that knew what advent was? two went up. which only confirmed the need to do what we were going to set off on. the students were instructed to enter the space in silence. find a pillow or carpet square and find a space to sit. we tried as best to leave technology behind with the games off and only some colored lights on. there were plenty of candles around the room. as they entered the entered the room the only sound was from gregorian advent chants from the monks of santos damigo. additionally the plan was to end the evening with communion so mrs. stanton had brought her bread maker in. the aroma of the bread baking was another tease on the senses. after 5 minutes we dimissed the students to head off and talk about the expereince and this time of year in small groups. this is our second week of breaking out this way and seems to be a good addition to the program. the students returned after the small groups again to sit in silence. they were given an envelope with 5 cards that asked them to do several different things. think about the word "silence", simply rest where they were, go and write on a poster words of hope, offer their thots about God's peace, as well as to move to another spot and rest some more. the students were engaged and we wrapped up our time talking about what the idea of advent is and how for those that follow Jesus it is the beginning of our new year. we offered a chance to make a commitment or recommit their faith and finished the evening with a time of communion (with the freshly baked bread. the evening was a stretch for all of us, but offered a reflection time that in most of our ministry we don't take the time to make happen.