Old Skool Jesus #7 & #8

Old Skool Jesus week 7- Why Should I Worship Jesus



We as humans are created to worship. It is in our very nature to worship something or someone. I shared with the Middle Schoolers that whether they like it or not, they are worshippers. I shared a quick little illustration where I asked them to think about countries where they worship idols made of wood, gold or whatever. I asked them, "If you walked into their world and saw them bowing down to a wood idol that had three weirdly carved faces, what would you think?" Most said they'd think it was funny, and weird that these people were worshipping a piece of wood. They said they'd feel a bit weirded out and want to laugh.



I then asked them another question: "What would those people think, if they came to America and decided to go to a Pittsburgh Steelers game?"



They instantly and collectively said: "AHH, they'd think we were worshipping the Steelers!"



I was overjoyed at how they instantly connected the two. I shared with them that we worship or "give glory to" many things. We shout out praises to teams, we spend money on clothes, we love movies and such. One sign I recently read from Wendy's said: "Love the egg, Love the bicuit, worship the bacon". Because even Wendy's gets that we must worship something.



Of all the things in life we could worhsip or give glory to, what makes Jesus worthy of our praise? Why should we worship Jesus?



The answer is very lengthy, but also very short. Jesus is, was and will be God! Jesus came to this earth as a King but lived the life of a poor traveling preacher and for the first 30 years of hus life had the hands of a blue collared worker, even though he was worthy of never having to work a day in his life!



We sacrifice so much of ourselves to things that aren't worth our worship! We bow down to sports teams, we bow down to money, we honro, scream out loud for video games, movie stars, we give over to sex, drugs and fame as things that will be worshipped by us.



The truth is, they will all leave us dead and dry in the end. Jesus is the only thing in this world that will never leave us. Anything and anyone else will disaapoint us, because we'll always want more things and we'll always want a better friend, or something just more than what we have. With Jesus, He is enough, He is all we need! That's why we should worship Jesus!



I showed a silly video from Bluefishtv about a "worship guy" who was "worshipping God" but in reality he was worshipping Chicks!

Old Skool Jesus week 8- Jesus---The Right Way

Don't all roads lead to God in the end anyways? I'm in church, but people say god is god and they all lead to the same place. What's the difference about Jesus? Some sections of the "New Skool" of Jesus followers in todays culture would tend to say that universilism is a good avenue, however the Old Skool Jesus clearly says that he is the ONLY way to Heaven. John 14:6 says: "Jesus answered 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."



Jesus made no bones about salvation. he said he is THE way, THE truth and THE life. It's only through Him! Other religions lead up mountains to be sure, but they are all different mountains, not the same! Dan Kimball in his book They Like Jesus But Not the Church on pages 180-181 has a great illustration of these two modes of thinking.



Some religions lead to you being the god of your own planet (Morman), others say that only a certain number of people if they are just good enough will reach the Father, but its all in how you live (Jehovah's Witness), still others say there are many gods and goddesses and obeying them and doing good to them will make them happy enough to reincarnate you (Eastern religions). All are different means to completely different ends.



Jesus is the Right way because 1. He claims to be the ONLY way; 2. He made a way FOR us and it isn't contigent upon us.





All religions besides Christianity are about what YOU DO for the gods. Christianity is about what GOD DOES for you. He made the way, because we are not good enough to make our own. God loves us enough to make a way.

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Christmas Ideas for Youth Ministry

Christmas always seems like a tough time of year to get lessons and stuff off the ground. In a sense it's easy because you know the topics, you know the stories, but it consistently comes to the point that you feel like you say the same thing over and over again.

We as youth pastors also have a tough time as to make this timeless truth timely and relevant to the lives of our students.

I've been developing some cool things that I hope will help you along your journey this Holiday Season. I took a break from Old Skool Jesus posts (which will resume tomorrow, with a double portion!) so that I could share this stuff with you.

As I sat down to think about this season, I asked myself what do these Middle Schoolers need to hear about the Christmas message? Some things came to mind: Jesus is "the reason for the season" type stuff, Drop materialism, seek God this Christmas...all of those ideas came. however one thought was pervasive: Christmas and the reality thereof is shrouded in darkness. The true heart of Christmas has been darkened by the evil one...we must turn on the light to our teens understanding about Christmas.

It isn't just about telling nice pretty stories about Jesus and Mary or the Wise men and the Shepherds, it about Turning the Lights on to what Christmas foreshadowed, what it means to the heart of humanity...not what it means to the heart of consumerism.

So, I thought about Rudolph and how when he turned on the Lights, he saved Christmas...why can't he do it again?

Dale Harris (one of my Middle School Leaders), myself and a group of teens put together a video, which will foreshadow this whole theme for our BIG Christmas party on December 23, 2009. Below is episode 1...I will leak more as time goes on. This is my take on what God has for teens this year: Turn on the Lights ("Save Christmas, Save the World")

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Old Skool Jesus #6

Last week, we talked about one of my favorite subjects: The Resurrection of Jesus Christ!

I opened the night with a great little video I'm sure most of you have seen called: "Jesus is my Friend" (below) and got them laughing to begin.

Then I went back to a couple of my earlier talks about Jesus being God and a quick recap of the cross. I shared that the people who doubted (i.e. Jesus' family and disciples) that he was in fact God, no longer doubted after the resurrection!

The Main text I went to was 1 Corinthians 15 and delved into the discussion with them about how Jesus showed up to more than 500 people at one time. I asked them if we took the whole room (about 62 of them) put them all in the same "dream center" when they woke if they'd all had the same dream.

They said it would be impossible for all of them to have the same dream. I shared how some people have tried to say that all 500 people that Paul is referring to (some who are still alive at the point of the writing) were high and all tripping at the same time and somehow all had the same hallucination. It just can't happen!

There were tons of other things sprinkled into prove that he really did rise, but I ended with the one that is most convincing to me...that of Paul seeing the resurrected Christ!

Saul before he became Paul, hated Jesus. He despised his followers and felt that it was his mission to watch as many of them die for their stupid belief in Jesus. He would stand by and gladly watch Christian after Christian die, until Jesus came to him.

Jesus stopped him on the road (a route he was taking to slaughter upwards of 150 Christians) in bodily form and declared his deity as well as resurrection to Saul. From that moment on, Saul believed and was renamed Paul.

I told the teens; the only explanation for such a change in Saul is that Jesus really is alive. All of the nay-sayers who have their theories have weak explanations that are ignorant of the facts at best and plain idiocy at worst.

JESUS IS ALIVE! It's the base of our faith, without it the cross, Jesus birth and Christianity would be worthless...but He indeed did rise and our faith is the one true faith because JESUS IS THE Way!

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Old Skool Jesus #5

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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Old Skool Jesus #4

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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Atomic Blast---Gladiators!

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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Old Skool Jesus #3

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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