CCSM Weekend Update 12/20/09

My Playlist
I headed to Jonahscall.com, clicked on the music link at the top of the page, and downloaded a lot of Christmas songs. All are great, but my favorite is "I heard the Bells on Christmas day"

Lesson: Christmas Party

Talk in a Sentence: No talk, just Baby Jesus lovin fun.

Scriptures:
Matthew 1:18-25 (The Nativity story)

Food:
This was a covered dish evening. The food was great. Alexia' brought cookie dough, refused to cook it, cut it into slices, and put it on a platter. We had hot chocolate, meatballs, tera misu, cookies, cake balls, and more more more.

Music:
I have never done this before, and I was skeptical at how it might work. I downloaded three of my favorite songs, typed the music onto a powerpoint slide, and the youth sang with the ipod. Suprisinly this went well. I will try this again next time i dont have a music leader.

Game: We did a white elephant gift exchange. Most popular gifts were a $10 Starbucks gift card, a suction cup pistol, and a suction cup blowdart. Mucho fun.

Moment of the night: I was forced to put Zach Remick into "the million dollar dream" when he would not calm down.

After youth group:
All of our leaders headed to outback for our Christmas dinner. This was a wonderful time

CCSM Weekend Update 12/13/09

CCSM Weekend Update 12/13/09

My Playlist
“BNL Christmas album”
“Joy to the world” a Christmas album from Ed Cash, Allen Levi, and Bebo Norman.

Lesson: Born to Bleed

Talk in a Sentence: Christmas need to be less consumer and secular driven and a lot more about baby Jesus and his purpose.

Scriptures:
Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Matthew 1:18-25 (The Nativity story)

John 15:19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

Some detail from the talk: This weekend we talked about the fact that as Christians our citizenship is in heaven and we should live a bit outside the normal culture. Christmas for most folks is consumer and secular driven. While we Christians should enjoy the gifts, the lights, the color, and the magic of Christmas we need to keep our focus on Jesus. We need to celebrate the birth of Jesus, and we need to be aware of His purpose for coming to earth. His purpose is to show us a better way to live and to die so through belief in Him we can live eternally.

Game: We played a table game where I gave groups extremely wordy sentences. The groups had to figure out which Christmas Carol the sentence was about.
We also played a round of “Who wants to be a hundred-dollar-aire. The crowd got into watching this game more than I thought they would. Hallie had fun, but was a bit perturbed when she only won 10 cent.

Moment of the night: It was during my lesson that a 6th grade girl learned that Santa is not real. It was painful. As one of my leaders left the youth room he jokingly yelled back to me, “great youth group tonight, you jerk”.

What God is teaching me?
My body belongs to God, and it is my responsibility to take care of it to do his work.

Youth Ministry Stories #3 (Raymond's office/newspaper)

Youth Ministry Stories #3 (Raymond's Office/ Newspaper)

I am compiling stories for the past 17 years of youth ministry. This one predates me being in ministry. This story is from Lakeside Baptist Church, in North Myrtle Beach, SC. I was a junior in High School.

Youth Ministry #3 (Raymond's Office/ Newspaper)
When I was a junior in high school my youth director, Raymond Timmermann, was heading out of town on vacation for a week. Penny Jackson and I headed over to say goodbye to him, although we did have other plans. We hung out and talked with with him for a bit, and right before we had to leave I told him to have a good trip and gave him a hug. Penny stepped in to say goodbye and when he hugged her, I stepped back and unlocked his window. That afternoon Raymond left town with his family.

Penny, about 6 other youth (which I am sorry I can't remember who), and I headed to the public dumpsters, where next to the trash was a recycle bin for unused newspaper. We climbed in the dumpster and loaded all the newspapers we could into our cars. We headed back to Lakeside Baptist Church, opened the unlocked window, and put all of the stacks of newspapers in his office. For the next 4-5 days after school we sat in his office talking, balling up papers, and throwing the paper on the floor until after midnight.

Raymond returned on Sunday morning, and He headed straight to his office to pick up the Sunday school lesson notes he would be teaching from, unaware of the group of teens that were peeking around the corner, watching as he tries (to no avail) to open his office door. He could only open the door about 4 inches, and he could see balled up newspaper everywhere the door was able to open. He eventually climbed in his office, while we laughed our tails off. His desk, chairs, and bookcases were totally covered. The side of the room where his door was was filled to the ceiling. The rest of the room was over half full.

I was remembered this event when I headed out of town for my family vacation. When I returned I found two pizza boxes taped to my door. I headed inside the office to find everything (scissors, stapler, books, DVDs, CD's, puppets, toys,)taped to the walls and ceiling. I am glad my youth leaders encouraged my youth to have an enjoyable evening, and I thank them for initiating their own demise.