This week was pretty freakin' sweet! We went to the deep level of walking through the crucifixion, step by gory step.


I started by telling the students that we don't remember or even know the true depth of pain, humiliation and torture that Jesus went through on the cross. In Jesus' day, the word "cross" was equivalent to a swear word, because it was so gory, so nasty that it wasn't even spoken in normal conversation.

We have trivialized the cross to a common saying similar to: "Oh, Jesus died on the cross, yea, cool".


It's not that easy to just flippantly say, because when we go to the cross with Jesus and discover the radical depth of what happened there, we should no longer be able to say "Jesus died on the cross" sans emotion.


I started in the Garden in Matthew 26, talked about Jesus' apparent stress over his impending death. He was so stressed that he sweat blood. Then came the emotional stress of being betrayed by one of his closest friends, Judas.



I next moved to his time with Pilate, then the walk from there to Herod's, then the walk back to Pilate's, all the while mentioning the beatings that he took at each place. Jesus by the second time he was in front of Pilate was a tired, emotionally spent and all together done physically.



That's when the cat of 9-tails came out and the crown of thorns was beat into Jesus head. The whip which Jesus was beat with had 9 long leather straps, each laced with: bones, metal balls, glass shards, metal shards and metal hooks.


He was tried By Pilate and the Sanhedrin, where everyone screamed for his death by crucifixion, except for Pilate who thought beating Jesus to the brink of death would satisfy the Jews. So, Pilate washed his hands of Jesus and allowed Him to be crucified.

Then 9inch Spikes went deep into Jesus wrists and feet wrists, in which they struck 4 gigantic nerves that drove electric shock waves of pain all through the Body of Jesus. They then hung him on the rugged cross, where he eventually died of asphyxiation.


This of course was a synopsis of the talk, but even in that tiny bit of it, we can see the cross was no easy task. In fact 99% of people who were recorded as having been whipped 40 times with the Roman cat of 9tails died. Jesus was whipped 39 times...


I shared my favorite verse (Which is also tattooed to my arm) 1 Peter 2:24: "(A) He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we(B) might die to sin and(C) live to righteousness.(D) By his wounds you have been healed."

I then jumped into the topic of what the cross does for us, in which I defined the Doctrine of Justification. I know you're thinking: You talked about a Doctrine to Middle Schoolers? Yes...I did.

I broke it down in Middle School terms. I said imagine a Jelly Donut. Now, realize that that Jelly Donut is you and due to Romans 3:23, we know we have junk in our lives. So your jelly donut, instead of filled with good jelly (or custard, whichever your preference is) it is filled with a big, fat pile of steaming cat poop, that poop is the sin in your heart and life.

When Jesus died on the cross, he was dying for the sin in that donut of your life. That's why 1 Peter 2:24 says: "He Himself BORE OUR SINS...". Jesus had us in mind when He was on the cross, saying: "I Love you, that is why I am enduring this pain".

When we believe in this truth and accept Jesus as our God and Savior, He wipes all the poop out of our donuts, so we are now made right before God. However, he doesn't leave it an empty shell of a donut, he fills it with the best jelly/custard in the universe...The Righteousness of Jesus!

Not only are you made right before God, but He now sees Jesus in you and He forgets and forgives the sins (cleaning out the donut) and sees only Jesus!!!

After this last part of the talk, I broke them up into small groups to talk about the horrific death of Jesus and made it a bit more comfortable for them if they wanted to make a decision for Jesus. They really got it and understood not only the doctrine of Justification, but the truth and importance of the cross! It was a great night.

The Discussion questions can be downloaded for the entire series here: http://www.archive.org/details/OldSkoolJesus

Also, here is the video I showed this week to "lighten things up":

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This week, we came back to our theme: "Old Skool Jesus" with a talk on "Why Did Jesus Come?"

One of the leaders in the Middle School Ministry (Pete) spoke to the teens on Tuesday night and I spoke to them Wednesday Night.

Pete had a great opening (which I stole) where he placed around the room pictures of people who needed help. Some were hilarious pictures of people getting hurt and others were more serious in nature where people were fleeing from armies for their very lives.

We had a piece of paper next to each picture and we asked the teens to go around the room and write out what they thought these people needed in this moment of crisis.

Some kids of course wrote sill things, others were serious. The overall idea was that some people need help and "earthly" things just won't do.

We asked the Big Question: "Why Did Jesus Come?" (Pete took a different tack than I did, so I will share what I did)

Jesus in John 6:38-40 says this: "For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

Jesus came to do the will of His Father and His Father's will is that people would look to Jesus for eternal Salvation.

Jesus also said that he came to seek and save the lost(Luke 19:10: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.") and he came to be a doctor to the sick (Luke 5:31-32: "And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.")

Finally, I shared with the students that Jesus came to fulfill the Law, because He had to, we needed Him to. He fulfilled the roles of: Prophet, Priest and King. I gave some funny stories of Kings, like where David cuts Saul's robes while he's pooping (1 Samuel 24:1-4). I also gave some funny stories of Prophets, like Ezekiel cooking food over poop (Ezekiel 4:12-14), as well as making a "Lego version" of Jerusalem and destroying it (Ezekiel 4:1-3).

Lastly I was very serious about Priests and described that Jesus came not only to offer sacrifice for our sins, but he was THE Sacrifice for our sins! I shared that in Hebrews it says that without the shedding of blood, there can be no forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 9:22), so Jesus had to come and he had to die. Jesus is our Prophet who came and preached the truth of God (just like the prophets of old), he is also our King, for He talked about His Kingdom (John 18:36-37) and claimed to be God (which He is!). He will one day come back with a sword in his hand and a tattoo on His leg and take down those who oppose Him (Revelation 19:11-21). Finally, He is our Priest who offered Himself as our sacrifice!

Here is the video we showed as a "funny intro"

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This w eek, we've taken a break from the "Old Skool Jesus" series and did a Big Event Outreach.



We do these large events every 3 months and the focus is evangelism. Our hope is to see kids come to Christ not by forcing it down their throats, but by engaging in a conversation.

We have HUGE games, great food, excellent music and a good speaker to bring a personal story about Jesus.

I will be giving you all the games we did and descriptions of them below. I've uploaded a diagram of each game into one PDF file, here is the link: http://www.archive.org/details/GladiatorGames
(first page is blank)

My handwriting is horrible, so the text for each game and the description will be below. This game worked well with 65 people and we will do it again tonight with another 115 people (approx.). However, I think you could utilize all of these games with a group of about 10 or more (just make less teams and smaller numbers).

Lastly about the diagrams, we set up the "paint ball obstacles" for the whole night...it added a cool dynamic as well as added to the challenges of the other games.

Game Descriptions:

Game #1 Ball Brawl
- 4 Teams, one at each corner of the gym
- Each team chooses 4 people to stand in front of the stages for their perspective teams.
- For each team of four, 2 will be bound together as will the other 2. So there will be 16 people in the front all together in 8 pairs
- The rest of the team members will stand on their perspective stages
- The students in front of the stages will then (when the whistle blows) go for the balls in the middle of the gym
- They will then toss the balls back to their teammates on the stage so they (the ones on stage) can shoot the ball into the trash can across the gym diagonally
- The team with the most points at the end of the allotted time wins

Game #2 Realays
- Every team and team meber must play
- We will divide each team into sets of pairs
- The pairs will run the relay and when they are done, smack hands to the next pair until the last pair goes.
- The team that has all there team members complete the relay first wins
-One of the pair members will sit on a wooden scooter to begin with, the other will pull them by their foot
- When they get to the big tube, the sitter will crawl through, while the puller waits for them to get out on the other side.
- The sitter will then sit again and be pulled to the baseball bat set in front of the stage diagonally across from theirs.
- The sitter will then spin around the bat 5 times
- The sitter will then be the puller
- The puller will pull the new sitter to the big tube, let the new sitter crawl through while going to the other side waiting for them to come out.
- The sitter will sit back on the scooter and the puller will pull them back to their stage, smack hands with the next pair and this will continue until over.

Game #3 Bedlam Gauntlet
- The leaders will all go to one side of the gym, while the students go to the other
- The students will attempt to go from one side of the gym to the other in 3 minutes time
- The leaders will be equipped with either a dodge ball or a Nerf gun to shoot at and try to hit the teens
- The gym will have obstacles the kids can hide behind, but close objects leaders can sneak behind and fire!
- If there are more than 4 that can make it across in the 3 minute time, we will continue until 4 remain

Game #4 Jousting (the 4 winning people from the Gauntlet get to play)
- Just like at JOLT-- Our District Retreat
- We will have 2 pushers and 2 riders
- the riders will attempt to knock off the tennis ball on top of the other riders head
- They joust until the ball falls off.
- If there is time, we will choose 4 more (leaders??)


"Old Skool Jesus" will continue next week with the lesson "Why Did Jesus Come?"

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As part of our ongoing "Old Skool Jesus" series, I have been uploading information for you all to utilize and work with.

If you haven't downloaded the "Old Skool Jesus" small group questions/teaching guide go here: http://www.archive.org/details/OldSkoolJesus

This is for week 3 on the guide titled: "The REAL Jesus". This week we take a look at the humanity of Christ and answer the question: "Why does Jesus have to be human?" (Hebrews 4:15; Matthew 4:11) Also, the "How Human was Jesus?" question gets answered.

I've uploaded a document called: "Biblical Proof for Christ's Humanity" which you can download here: http://www.archive.org/details/BiblicalProofOfChristsHumanity

As you can probably tell, I'm loving this series! Below is the video I'll be showing this week. It comes from vintage21.com and is just hilarious!

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Old Skool Jesus is now in full swing. We have 1 week down and 11 to go, starting tonight with week 2's talk entitled: "Who Is Jesus?".


I said I would post the tools I used for my lessons and I am no liar :) Below is the intro video I showed to jumpstart the series. I will also post below the video and the handout for tonight. This way you can see where we were last week and see where we are this week. I hope you all can utilize this series, that's why I am putting the efforts into posting it all for you to check out! If you still need the Outline, the url is here: http://www.archive.org/details/OldSkoolJesus

Last Weeks Video:

Along with "Who Is Jesus" is a take home handout which outlines all of the 'I AM' statements thet Jesus made as well as where they are found in the Bible. Here is the url to snag this document: http://www.archive.org/details/JesusIAmSayings

This Weeks Video:



To answer a couple questions:

1. When you teach, is this your whole talk or just and outline you have with you?
Answer: Just an outline. I read the texts, and utilize the questions as items I try to address in the talk.

2. Why are you doing a series on Jesus for 12 whole weeks?
Answer: I think Middle School is where teens can start to "get it". Taking 12 weeks to talk about Jesus is in my mind almost too short of a time. Jesus should be the key/central focal point of minsitry...so we need to preach Him as much as we can.

3. What books did you use to plan/study for this series?
Answer: The main text I used was Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll, but I also leaned heavily on: Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, Your Jesus is Too Safe by Jared Wilson, Surprised By Hope by N.T. Wright, The Reason For God by Timothy Keller. A took BITS from: Jesus Brand Spirituality by Ken Wilson and Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zaccherius.

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As I promised, I have put together my 12 week series on "Old Skool Jesus" and I wanted to share the whole thing here!

At the end of this post will be a link for you to download a PDF of all 12 weeks. It is set up in I.D.E.A format (Introduction, Description, Explanation and Application).

I hope you all can use these either in total or as a spinrgboard for your own thoughts.

The book I got most of my in-depth stuff (other than the Bible) was Mark Driscoll's book Vintage Jesus which gives incredible insight into the God-hood, personhood and life of Jesus!

You'll notice that there are pieces of "give-aways" mentioned within the discussion guides. I will post those as I make them. Again, enjoy!!

Here is the link: http://www.archive.org/details/OldSkoolJesus

When you get there, look in the "view the book" box to the left and click "PDF" in order to download the document!

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I've moved from Nyack, NY back to my hometown in Pittsburgh, PA. I am now one of 5 Youth Pastors on staff at Allegheny Center Alliance Church (http://www.acacstudenministries.net/). My main focus is the Middle School area of Student Ministries. I am loving my new job and have been doing a series called iBelong to kick off the school year. I've done it before, but it is still very good!

As I sat back and prayed as to what God wanted me to teach on next, I couldn't stop thinking about Jesus. So, I'm going to do a risky thing and do a 12 week series on Jesus.

Why is it risky? It's risky because it's a long time to talk about one man. It's risky because it's not a "super hip" series. It's risky because most people just don't do it.

I've been convicted that Jesus is first and foremost. I am pumped about this new series and have been working away at producing some material the leaders can take with them, read ahead of time and come each week fully prepared. My hope is to have the 12 weeks of stuff done by next week. We won't kick off this series until October (either the first or second week).

Old Skool Jesus will take the "New Skool Jesus" and kick his butt. He wasn't just a good man, nice teacher or a homeboy...He is fully God, fully Man and 100% He-Man! I will blog about each week when it kicks off, I will post my media productions, small group productions and talk sheets so anyone who wants to see where I've been going, or wants to do something similar, you have some material to look at!

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