LIFE Groups start Sunday the 13th!!!

Parents,

We kicked off a new five-week study in our LIFE groups this next week to help our teenagers understand God’s purposes for life. The first lesson, called “Reaching Out to Your Friends,” focused on helping students understand that we are created in God’s image and have the ability to reflect God’s love. Our prayer is that each student will commit to a life of representing God’s love to all people, regardless of their race, sex, skill level, or popularity status.

Sometime this week, maybe around the dinner table or in the car, consider asking these questions to generate some discussion with your teenager about reaching others:
· How active are we as a family in reaching out to others? Do we as a family embrace God’s purposes for life, or is it something we need to work on?
· What are some ways you have tried to reach out to your friends?
· How can we as parents help you to reach out to your friends (prayer, use the house for gatherings, rides, and so on)?

Feel free to let me know if there are specific ways I can pray for your family or for your teenager. God bless and have a great week!

A Week and a Half Later

So, it has been a week and a half since the Chicago trip and I still don't fully know how to put all that God did into words. I have actually logged on three times now to write this blog but have yet to be able to communicate what God has been doing in my heart. So hopefully this time will be different. Hopefully, I will be able to give you a glimpse into how amazing God is and how good he is at making Himself known.

What I got to be a part of in Chicago this year, might be something that I never get to witness again as a youth pastor. It is definitely not like anything I have experienced thus far. For the first time as a leader I didn't have disciplinary problems or drama issues. Thirty-three people worked together with one goal as their prize. The trip was taken to make God famous, and that is precisely what the students and leaders from Gateway did. I have never been more proud of a group and the work they did. I saw passion and excitement in students sharing the gospel. I saw intention and purpose in every activity; I saw broken hearts and Christ-like love in every conversation students had with lost people. MAN! what an amazing week.

I would have to say the thing that set this team apart from any other I have ever taken was the group's intentional mindset. It was like the Holy Spirit put blinders on our students as they stepped onto the plane headed for Chicago. Every conversation, every song, every activity pointed to Christ. And usually when you boast in students, really what you are saying is there were a couple of kids who were lit on fire and they set the tone for the group. Usually, a couple of people have some really amazing stories and it makes the whole team feel as though they had been a part of something special. Usually there is one or two events that make the week seem like it was full of spiritual growth. This year was far from the usual. There weren't two or three students that did the work, it was done by every single person on the trip. There wasn't one or two events where students stepped up to share their faith; it was constant from the plane ride there to the plane ride home. It occurred on the "L" rides, walking down the street, time in the park, shopping in stores. Non-stop all week long, anytime was fair play for sharing the message of Jesus Christ, and no person was off limits from having the gospel preached to them. We had people from every economic class and from every ethic group hear about how God is crazy about them and Jesus Christ gave Himself so that they might be able to know the Father personally. It was amazing!

So there it is. In a very simple and inadequate blog, that is what God did in Chicago. He used a bunch of 12, 13, and 14 year-olds, who lived intentional for a week to make Himself known to countless people and in ways that I will never be able to fully grasp. It is amazing how powerful and meaningful a life can be when it is lived with intention and a belief that God wants to do great things. My prayer for each of you is that you would take hold of that truth and live in that mind set.

Block Party

In less than two hours from now we are hoping to have hundreds of students come to a block party we are holding less than two blocks from the church here in Chicago. Pray that kids would have teachable, receptive hearts to our message. Thank you for you prayers and support.

And if you would like to follow what we are doing and see pictures look at my friends list on facebook and become friends with Sally Walker. She is a made up person who we use as our student ministry facebooker. We have a ton of pictures from the trip soo far. (Probably over 200 as of last night) Thanks again, your prayers are appriciated.

Chicago

Chicago has been amazing. I am writing this post as the students and their leaders are practicing the games they will be leading for the Kid Kraze block party. I am so proud of how our students have worked so far.
I love Chicago! Every time I come here I find myself falling a little more in love with it. However, it has become very clear to our team the hurt that exists here. It's not so much that the people in Chicago are more sinful, messed up, or hurt than in Irmo; I think it's that the sin, pain and hurt are all compacted into a tight concentrated area. There is no hiding from it. Yesterday morning as we spent time with Jesus in a park, Barry and I had a conversation with a Polish man in his thirties named John...or Jonah...or David. He changed his name just about every time he told us. He also told Jade that he was the devil. He later told me, as I asked him if he had ever heard anything about Jesus, that he himself was Jesus (the second coming). I asked him if he had slept in the park the night before and he wasn't sure. He was too drunk to remember where he was the night before. He has been cut off from his family because of a history of violence with them, he has health problems because of his drinking and has hepatitis c. I don't remember the last time I talked with a man that made me as uneasy as he did. But it was completely clear that he is hurting. He cried four or five times as we spoke with him. He's exterior was cold and hard from all that he has weathered. But inside he is screaming for help. He acted tough at the beginning, but shortly into our conversation he showed how starving he was for love from someone.
There are many stories that we have been exposed to, too many to be posted in this blog. But please pray for us daily as our students interact with broken people. There are many. Pray that our students and leaders are broken for the lost. Pray that we would have a heart like Jesus in Matthew 9:36 "When he saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like a sheep without a shepherd." The helpless are many, pray that we might be a help to them this week.
I wish I could write more. There are many experiences we have enjoyed such as the church service, the walk through neighborhoods, and the interaction with people in the park. It has been such a great trip thus far and I can't wait for the chance for our students to share their stories.

p.s. Thank you for your prayers. We love you all. And sometime ask us about Sunday worship. It was awesome.

This Blog

My wife, Connie, has a blog that she runs so that our family and friends from all over the country can see how our two children are growing and changing. She does an amazing job with it and our family loves when she posts. Those types of blogs make sense to me. It allows our family a chance to see my son and daughter as they learn new things or experience new adventures. However, I find myself more hesitant to join in on the blogging world that is simply the expressed opinions of one person or another. Not that some people don't have good things to say, but more so because I feel narcissistic in putting something on the internet assuming that the multitudes will log on to see what I have to say on things. So as you read this, know that I don't have all the answers, and I don't assume to be an authority on everything.

So why have a blog? Though I don't have all the answers, and I am not a leading authority on most topics, God has placed on my heart a desire to equip students to carry out the Great Commission. I believe that God has called me to train students to live lives that change the world for the kingdom of God. I believe that there is a war going on, and our students have not been trained for battle. So, I have buckled and given in on the blogger world in hopes that this might be one more tool for me to equip a student uprising that is willing and able to do battle against mindsets, world views, false doctrine, and invisible kingdoms that are destroying lives and snatching souls. I don't mean to sound over-dramatic, but there is a war being waged and we must be prepared for it.

John Piper made the following statement about a lack of urgency to do battle in the American church, in his book When I Don't Desire God, "Worship services, Bible studies, prayer meetings, and fellowship gatherings in many churches do not have a spirit of earnestness and intensity and fervor and depth because people do not really believe that anything significant is at stake in the fight for joy - least of all their eternal life. The all-important priority seems to be cheerfulness, even jollity."

So... my hope for this blog is that it would be a call for students to do battle, and a means to equip them for their fight. God is placing in my heart a sense of urgency to wage a good fight. This urgency has caused me to take up the discipline of blogging, so enjoy and I hope it is helpful.