Sr. High Lake Champion 08

We got back from Lake Champion yesterday afternoon and there is TONS to talk about. First, let me give some well deserved shout outs: to my wife, who rocks my world! She did an amazing job this weekend...love you! Also to Marko, the world's most versatile and awesome intern! He was asked on Friday night to take over the sound board for the rest of the weekend and he did an AMAZING JOB! Also shouts go to Justin, Lauren and Alex who are some pretty sweet leaders..I actually think my leader crew is the envy of all youth pastors!!!


God did some incredible things this weekend! Erik with a 'K' was our speaker, and Chasing Aslan (asians) AKA My Book Your Sandwich was our band and God used all of them! Erik was talking about out identity in Christ, where our security is and where we are putting our trust. All of his talks sparked some serious small group discussion, which our group s amazing at!

Honestly, the openness and time of discussion is one of the reasons I love our group so much! I mean literally, we sat and discussed on Saturday night for about 1.5 hours! It was pretty sweet!

Chasing Aslan did an excellent job of bringing us to the cross of Christ and worshiping Him! I love their style of worship as did our kids...we were all engaged and pumped for our worship time!

All in all, God landed. Marko and I prayed over student, and God nailed the boy! God was saying things into his heart that brought him to a point of crying. He told us later he NEEDED to hear what God said and hadn't cried since the 7th grade! WOW!!

This is the stuff that makes me LOVE what I do. Being able to just chill with teens for a WHOLE weekend, worshiping God with them, speaking truth into their lives, ad watching God come to Life in their lives is it!

Praise God for His wondrous gifts and blessings!!

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New update coming...

Hey, SUPER BUSY WEEK...did the Sunrise service, hopped on a plane to Cali, came back on Friday morning and on Friday afternoon, headed to Lake Champion!! Woo Hoo! SOSOSOSOSOSO tired tho, so I will give a sweet BLOG in da noontime of the morrow!

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Got Water?

You know the feeling when it's a hot day, sweat dripping off your brow and the annoying yet ever present cotton tongue? That's the feeling that you get when your body is telling you to replenish, refill, and quench me with the wonders of the chemical H2O. Water, a simple enough equation, a simple solution to our cotton tongue.

When this parchment of the pallet happens, I know you reach for water at first sight, you drink the coldest, most refreshing glass of water you can, right?

This is because you know the only thing that can supply the ever needed refreshment is in that glass, it's water.

How long have we (yes I am included) let our "Spiritual Cotton Mouth" go un-quenched, un-sated? Sometimes I let myself get so dry that I almost faint with exhaustion. I run my race, and I keep on keepin' on but I don't grab the ever living God to fill me, to refresh me, I just do it on my own. God desires to pour out his loving, living and refreshing spirit over us, and in us...yet we choose to get cotton mouthed and dry. I know I've done it and boy the race sure gets hard without the water.

This Easter, let's drink deep of our Savior, let's let go of doing it alone and allow our God to refresh our souls, hearts, lives, marriages, work and bodies! He's more than willing (and NOT just during Easter either). Ask the Spirit of the Living God to Rain Down on you!

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Song of Solomon (Songs) Part 2...

Last Night's youth group went really well! Dee, Becky and Stephanie Leone put together our whole Easter Egg hunt (with rice crispies inside as well as a hidden $5 bill)! We enjoyed each other's company, and had a great time finding eggs as well as playing HUMAN FOOSBALL!

The main point that I taught last night was NOT settling for less than God's best. I opened with the "fantastical" scene in the beginning of the new movie "Enchanted" which is the song "True Loves First Kiss". I asked them if that was reality in true love, to which they answered no. I shared portion after portion of the love between the lovers in Song of Songs and I showed the Sr. High teens how passionately in love the couple was. I said they didn't settle for less than God's best.

It's truly hard to re-create the evening, especially when I know the Spirit was speaking through me, but I challenged our students that true love isn't easy as pie and that Hollywood tends to lie about the truths of love and sex. I shared with them my own marital experience, which is limited to 2 years, but I shared how I know I didn't settle. Yes marriage can be tough at times, its not always lovey dovey, nor should it be but when you are with the person God intended, oh how magnificent!

I shared a bit about how if you settle either by having sex outside of marriage or just settling for the guy/girl you think you love, you may end up like a lot of America, either divorced or in a loveless marriage. So I challenged them to think hard, and pray hard when it comes to both true love and sex.

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Come Thirsty...

I am in the midst of reading Max Lucado's: "Come Thirsty" and I must say I love it. Instantly he challenges my relationship with the Lord, asking how much Jesus Drink I've been drinking. The greatest thing is he doesn't bring it to the reader as a "to do list" or a "how to" manual, but rather asks simple questions that make you see you need more drinking of your Lord, because it is he that sustains, He that gives life and without him we end up becoming dry, thirsty and needy.

We don't deny our bodies water do we? If we do, we become dry mouthed, soon we become irritable angry and then faint. The same happens when we deny our bodies the drink of Jesus Christ. I am encouraged by this idea of drinking Jesus and I hope to slake my thirst!


BTW Matt's gone now, my mom is home from the hospital and life is starting to swing back to normal, but will soon again be shook up, because on Easter Night, Hilary and I are flying to California!!

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Today

My boy Matt Jackson is in town, starting today, just hanging an chillin'. Funny thing happened though, he called me this morning to pick him up, telling me he was taxiing to the gate. I thought he said he was taxiing to leave DC, to come to NY, so basically I was late picking him up...oh well.

My mom came out of surgery healthy and well! So that was good news to hear today!

Basically, I'm chillin' with Hilary and Matt, got a board meeting tonight, but then I'm done for the weekend! Goin to NYC on Saturday and then The Phantom of the Opera at Nyack High School.

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Tonight's Youth Group (March 12, 2008)

This month's theme is all about FAITH. Last week, we defined faith, looked at it from the dictionary and the Bible's point of view and really wrapped out heads around the idea.

Tonight, we asked ourselves the question: Why Faith? Why should we have faith at all, why's faith in God matter? To get the ball rolling, I opened up with a clip from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (see below video). I then asked a tough question to keep the ball rolling: "What if a friend you you thought you could trust, ruined the faith you had in them?" Most said it would ruin the friendship...I told them to hold that in their minds until the end.

After the BIG question of why faith, I shared the story of Aidan the monk from the book Byzantium by Stephen R. Lawhead (Read blog titled "GREAT BOOK"). I shared with them Aidan's loss of Faith in Christ and his re-dedication so to speak into faith realizing that Christ suffered more than he ever did or could on our behalf. I also shared a bit of my testimony to share that I too doubted my faith. Shortly after, I told the students that Christ will never betray your trust, he will never be proven to cause doubt, he is ever faithful!

This again is a brief outline of the talk, but the main points are intact. Hebrews 11:1 was our focus again, describing how we can have such faith as it defines.

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Last Nights Youth Group...

Last nights Youth Group meeting was about Love According to Song of Solomon (Songs). Let me tell you as a youth pastor this is a difficult book to teach on. I am blown away at the book as a whole and really had a difficult time of narrowing down a focal point in this book. However, God is good and I focussed last nights talk on two different points: Sex inside marriage is a good, Holy and amazing gift; and Do Not arouse or awaken Love until it so desires. I admonished our teens to take heed to the warning that the Beloved gives us in this little book. She says is 3 times, so it must be significant! I shared with the teens that Love only desires to be awakened within the context of marriage, any other way, the gift of sex will not be as joyful, amazing or Holy as it was always intended to be!

I really tried to show them that our culture doesn't understand true love, or true sexuality, because the worlds message is: "Sex is AWESOME and there are no real bad side-effects". However, true Biblical sexuality says: "Sex is amazing, Holy, wonderful and Good, but it has to desire to be awakened, and that only comes inside of marriage". As always, talking about sex to a teen culture that has hear mixed signals all their lives from church to school to TV about sex is tough, but I know God hit our teens with truth last night.

After the games and talk, we went into small groups and talked for over 30 minutes! Below is the funny video used to open up the idea of the Song of Songs as well as the theme picture for the month.

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Update...

Just finished yesterday my first Paper (Christ Our Savior) for Ordination...on to the second! I am also now starting the 4th book out of 7. If your wandering, the book is Wholly Sanctified by A.B. Simpson. Just wanted to let yall know!

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GREAT BOOK

Recently, I've been reading a lot of Stephen R. Lawhead. His books are steeped in literary art, as well as Old English, Scottish, Welsh and Norse lore! All of those things have HUGE appeal with me...but what REALLY has the appeal is how he weaves his faith into his books.


The most recent book of his I read was Byzantium. It's the story of an Irish Monk who sets out on a journey to deliver a hand-written, hand-crafted Bible to the Emperor of the Roman empire (who happens to live in Constantinople or Byzantium). His quest puts him through many trials, similar to those of Paul (except Aidan, the monk becomes a slave). He loses his faith in God during the travails in his life because he feels God has abandoned him.


Here's where I really get into the book...he loses his faith. Stephen Lawhead (a Christian himself) really explores what it means for a person wallowing in doubt about God. I related with a lot of Aidan's feelings! However, in the end of the book, he finds his faith a new and it's because he realizes that Christ himself suffered on our behalf! Christ has gone through tribulations that you and I can't even fathom (can you say complete separation from God?) He suffered and died for us! NOTHING I go through could compare to that...and that's why God hasn't abandoned us...

Life is FULL of trials and tribulations, why do we say God is good when life is good and God is bad when life is bad? He suffered just like we do...why would we expect wonderful, perfect lives? Praise God for His love, mercy and grace!

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Weekends!

Hey, just for da info...I probably won't be writing blogs during the weekends...I know you're so depressed about it, but for the most part, I will write a "how the weekend was" if there was anything of interest....SO ne ways...this weekend was pretty hectic/slash sweet! We had our second lent service at the church, which was awesome! We did a stations of the cross type deal and it was really well planned, set up and executed! Can't give higher props to Dan Hammer! Also, we had drama practice going on for the Easter Egg-Stravaganza, choir practice and I had small group tonight. (I know you're thinking: Marv in choir practice?!?!?) Hey, the choir has come along great (no help to my lack of reading music) and we've honed our song into almost perfection. Not usually my scene, but it's LOADS of fun and I am thoroughly enjoying myself!
I am going to California for about 4-5 days so Hilary and I can hang out with my Grandma whom we haven't seen in awhile!! Also THIS week one of my BEST friends: Mattie J or Matt Jackson is coming into town. He doesn't know it yet, but we have tons planned to do and it will be a BLAST.
Also if you are thinking about it, my mom is going to have a hysterectomy on Thursday, so be praying for her! That's all for the weekend update on me and Hilary. *PEacE*

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Ordination

As many of you know (and many may not) I am going through the process of Ordination at the present time. Currently, I have read: 3/7 of the required books and am right now in the middle of my first paper (Christ Our Savior). I feel a little shall we say: "Out of Practice" when it comes to writing a paper, with specific boundaries. At first I thought it was only a 5 page paper (no biggy) then I read the small print and realized it has to be AT LEAST 8...still nothing to holla at, but still. If you want to pray for me today, pray that I will be able to successfully get this paper done today and that the reading requirements will fly by easily from this point on. This is a necessary step for my future in ministry and while I enjoy being challenged, I simply want to get this done. Pray also that I will receive patience from the Father and not just do this to do it, but also for my own betterment. In every phase of life, there is something God wants to teach us, so I don't want to miss what he has for me!

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Communication

All relationships can be made or broken by one word: communication. Getting married has taught me this over and over again. However, as a typical male, I sometimes forget to employ this new-found revelation on the importance of communication. I have been convicted more than once on my lack thereof and am making steps in order to communicate. You'd think a Pastor who preaches/teaches would have the communication bit down...well I don't but I'm trying to. So, if I haven't communicated with you in awhile, give me a shout by way of call and I will remedy the lack of communication!
Also poor communication, not just lack of communication can cause things to go sour too, so don't be afraid to tell me when I've been a poor communicator, cuz that also needs work :)

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Tonight's Youth Group (March 5, 2008)

Tonight for Jr. High, we discussed the topic of FAITH. I gave the teens the "dictionary.com" definition and the Biblical Definition (Heb. 11:1). I showed an interesting video that I plucked from the great realm of youtube.com. (If you want to see it, go to youtube.com and type in "trust fall" in the search column, should be the first video with Todd Conner in it.) In which a man asks a woman to trust him to catch her if she falls from a ladder, and he purposefully lets her fall! I opened up with that story and asked if they would trust Todd Conner, all said NO!
I then went on to show them how faith is in everything we do, form brushing our teeth to driving in a car, we have faith that these things will do what we expect them to do.
I tied it off by describing that we have Faith in a real God. I used the old Billy Graham argument about Faith, which is the wind illustration. We can't see the wind, but we can feel it and see it's effects, the same is with God! We broke off into small groups and discussed Faith in depth. (This was an intro to the whole month. We will be going deeper into the idea of faith as we go along).

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"Un-Comfortable"

Ministry is a hard road to toll. So many things happen, both good and bad. Sometimes, there are super highs, and super lows. I hate the lows and feel so un-comfortable. I never like being in the low category. However, as I look at the Life of Jesus I am reminded that his whole life was lived in the "Un-comfortable" position. Nothing he did was what we'd consider comfortable. His birth and death defined the Man-God we know as Jesus. He was fully Man and fully God, born in a stinky barn inside of a feeding trough, then hung on a cross as a curse for all...not very comfortable is it? Why do we, His followers, especially His ministers expect different?

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The Story of a Youth Master

One evening, I was leaving the city of New York, by way of the G.W. Bridge (for you non-Newyorkers, that's the George Washington Bridge). Once I crossed over into New Jersey, I hit the gas a little trying to get home, when Hilary (my lovely wife) suggested I slow down, so as not to get a ticket, to which I say: "We're fine, we won't get pulled over". Literally as I was finishing the words: "pulled over" a flash of red and blue went off in my rear view mirror, I was getting pulled over.
This is where normalcy took a back seat to weird. Three undercover cops get out of their unmarked car, stroll to my window and ask me for me license, registration and drugs. No joke! I told him that I have no drugs, and no one in my car does either. He then asked me to get out of the car and began to interrogate me with his two other cronie officers standing by. He asked me where I was going, what I was doing and such. Shortly into the interrogation, he stopped and made it clear that he thought I had drugs: "Where are the drugs? I have dogs at exit 1 that can and will sniff out your car for the drugs." It was then he noticed my rather muscular Italian friend in the back seat and asked: "That big guy, he has drugs, right?" I said: "No officer, we all go to a Christian college, I am studying to be a Youth Pastor and he (my muscular friend) is studying to be a Pastor". Right in the middle of this story however, one of the other officers gets right in my face and asks: "What the heck is a YOUTH MASTER!?!"

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