I am boring...

I know. But I don't have any desire to party or do anything special for New Year's Eve. I feel old.

I just wnat to go to bed at a resonable time, wake up in the morning and know that I know have to write 2007 on my checks. Maybe it is becasue I have a 16 month old who still wakes up every night around 2-4 am and becasue I wake up with him probably teo thirds of the time...

Well, I love him and I just want to stay home...Boring...

The Plan.

So I have revisited my teaching plan fot the Flood(as always) and have made some adjustments (as always...)

Jan 3rd will be kind of a focusing/vision message. I am basically stealing the idea from Granger Community Church, but this is one of those things that is so clear and so focused, I feel like, "Why didn't I think of that!"

Jan 10 - Feb 14 will be a series called "God:101" - Basics in Theology. Sounds like it could be boreing, but nothing I ever do ends up that way (At leaset I don't think so...) We'll cover topics like the Trinity, Heavan and Hell, Absolute Truth and more.

Feb 16-18 will be our annual Winter Retreat. This years theme is "The Journey: Rediscovering Ancient Worship and Discipleship." Again, sounds like it could be boring, but I have faith becasue the Winter Retreat is always a huge success!

Feb 21-March 21 will be a series titles "Go Wide" Again, this is from material that I didn't come up with but is from Dare 2 Share This will be preparation for our upcoming Outreach All-Niter.

March 23-24 Is the annual All-Niter. We typically see our students bring more than double their own numbers in guests, so this is an awesome Outreach Oportunity!

Well, That is the plan...for now...God can always adjust and stuff if He likes!

Colin's First Haircut - Video

Colin gets his first Haircut!

So my son Colin went to get his first haircut. I don;t remember it being this fun when I was young! Video coming very soon!

Coping with Tragedy

Tonight I taught at the Flood about "Coping With Tragedy" Much of this came as a result of the recent events at L'anse Creuse High School, but also as a life lesson for all students to learn how to deal with sudden tragedy, as it seems to be more needed each year.

You cope with tragedy by expressing your grief
Many times we don't know what to do after experiencing tragedy, but we need to learn how we can express this. Wether it is creating something like a video, song, or poem, or maybe it is writing down your thoughts in a journal, or maybe it is talking with a trusted friend or mentor, we all need to express in different ways. I have seen many of the students expressing grief these last few days through MySpace, which is a great avenue for dialog.

You cope with tragedy be looking for God's Mercy
Sometimes we hear people say things like "This was God's plan" and such. However, I believe this is a horrible thing to say. God doesn't desoire pain for any of us, but we live in a broken world. Instead, God offers His mercy to us when we don't deserve it. He offers to give us Peace and Hope, even when the world offers us tragedy. God desires all to know Him and be in a relationship with Him.

You cope with tragedy be ending the search to Discover Why
We may never know or fully understand God's big picture. Becasue of this we will only cause ourselves further pain by trying to see the silver lining in all our pain. We need to know that God is a bigger than we will ever know and still be able to say, "How Great is Our God." Searching for the why will only result in our own distancing from faith in God.

You cope with tragedy be worshipping God
Just as King David worshipped God immediatly after finding out his son had passed away (2 Samuel) we need to respond to God just like the words of "Blessed Be Your Name"

Blessed Be your name, when the sun's shining down on me, when the world's all as it should be, Blessed Be Your Name.
And Blessed Be your name, on the road marked with suffering, when there's pain in the offering, Blessed Be Your Name.

Dealing with Tragedy

This past weekend, a student from one of the local High Schools where many of our students come from died in a tragic car accident. Many of the students in our ministry as well as students who don't necessarily belong to a church are realling struggling with this.

This Wednesday we will be interupting our series to do a focused message on dealing with tragedy. This is definitly a neccesity, for the church to be realavant to the students world today! I think, however, this may be a very difficult messgae to do. Mostly, becasue of the sensitivity of some students dealing head on with this, while others don't really have a clue and aren't faced with anything like this becasue they go to a completely different school.

If you happen to read this, please be praying for the students at L'anse Creuse High School and for the family of the student who died, and for the one student who is still in the hospital.