The End and Beginning

This is my last blog posting for my English class; I know, very sad. However, it will not be the end of this blog! I plan to continue this blog for as long as I can.

For the final portion of the English requirement, I would like to talk about today's encounters. Today I had the chance to talk with many of the pastors here at Vineyard on the subject of student ministry. Not only did I receive great wisdom and advice, but I was also encouraged to fulfill some of my own wants and dreams as I continue my internship at the church. Youth ministry is one of my passions, just because I get to see, and have seen, students totally turn around from broken situations into purpose filled lives. One of the greatest feelings in the world is seeing true joy displayed by students who are loved and understand that people truly care about them, and that they themselves have something to contribute to this world. That is why I am in this ministry right now; who knows where I will be in the future!

I hope you all have enjoyed my blogging so far, and I encourage you to still check out the postings I will throw up here in the future.

God bless you guys!


"For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."

1st Samuel 16:7

I Whip My Hair Back and Forth

Hello again,

Last night was the final Revolution Wednesday for the semester. We jammed it full of fun games that the students really got 'wrapped' up in! Our first game was to wrap a student like a present, and the best looking present would win. Of course, the best present wrappers turned out to be some middle school boys, because they're awesome.  The second game involved pantyhose and a tennis ball; the tennis ball was placed in the pantyhose and was worn as a hat. The point of the game was to 'whip' the ball back and forth 'til it fell off, and for the few that remained, to take your neighbor's hat off using your own. It was an interesting game idea, but I don't feel it went very well. It was not mine, thankfully!

Our talk was on Peter in the bible, and how he took risks. My guys seemed to really enjoy the group discussion on this topic afterwards: we discussed how to take more risks in school, and what it would look like in college.

I am excited for next semester to start! It should be an exciting time!

I will leave you with a Swedish proverb I found quite interesting:

“Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours”

Made me think about the meaning of purpose, especially that of myself, and what my actions and desires point towards. Is my life merely to learn, work, then die? Or is there something greater to the existence of man and what we could potentially be called to? Thoughts?

God bless you guys.

All the Other Kids With the Pumped Up Kicks

Guten tag!

I don't know why I'm speaking German, but it doesn't matter. I am in a traveling type of mood; I really feel like backpacking across Europe right now. The only country I have ever been to is Mexico, so there is a world that is still wide open for exploration, and I do not intend to leave any part unseen! This is just a random blob of information...

The real meat of today's post shall ensue now! On Saturday, a few of the guys from Revolution and I held the very first Macho Man Mania night, and of course, was very manly and filled with macho activities. We made pizzas and raided Walmart for all the chips and dip that this pastoral intern could afford! Our activities included watching movies starring the 'old breed' (Bruce Willis, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Chuch Norris, etc), as well as some hard core wrestling sessions. Being in charge seems to provide wrestling matches with more difficulty: most of the kids took me on in groups! Nevertheless, they lost. We had some fun at Walmart, though: while strolling through the ailses, we stumbled upon foam swords, with which we immediately used for duels. *Disclaimer* To propel any negative thoughts of our actions, understand that no patrons (or students) were harmed in the enjoyment of our night!

It was a great night to bring different students together, and we hope to have many more like it!

I leave you with this quote:

Reason is the natural order of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.
C. S. Lewis

Whipped Cream or Vomit?

Howdy do,

So the semester is nearing the end, and finals are looming in the distance. I'm not too worried; I feel I will be able to pull off some pretty satisfying grades. Nevertheless, with such stress that only school can offer, it is always enjoyable to watch my Revolution students face plant into a pie dish full of whipped cream and gummy bears! That's right folks, we actually pulled off the gummy bear pie game. Eight students were selected in sets of twos, the groups consisting of junior high boys and girls, and high school boys and girls. For a minute these students rooted around for gummy bears, completely covering their face and hair with whipped cream. Glorious. The only problem was that there was nothing for them to spit their mouthful of cream covered gummy bears into, so they used the table...and some of these kids puked out whole mouthfuls of pure whipped cream. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. Despite the grotesqueness in the end, the game was a massive success, and the participants and audiences had a lot of fun. I am brewing some more games for next semester, and believe me, they only get better from here!

Cool phrase for the day that I thought of last week:

Jesus didn't come here to prove that God is right; He came to prove that God is love.

Thought it was cool to think about, just the fact that walking out faith isn't meant to be one that follows a checklist of rights and wrongs, but one that fulfills a relationship with someone who loves you enough to die for you.

Have a good one guys!

Do You Hear What I Hear? Probably Not...

'Ello all,

I have been having all kinds of fun adventures through my internship at church, but most recently was the Christmas party we had yesterday. All of the church staff, including interns, were rounded up and thrown into one of our small auditoriums for 'forced fun'. In other words, we all were required to eat sweets and play games. Terrible, I know. Nevertheless, we divided our group into teams, and I found myself in a group with the senior pastor and my best friend's mother, an interesting group to say the least. Our first game was 'Fill in the Carol Lyrics', and we started off on the wrong foot. An obnoxious group behind us whooped and hollered every time they won a point, mainly because they were winning. The final question, however, was worth three points, and the carol? Mr. Grinch. Who knew the missing lyrics? This guy. Surprisingly, we were the only group to have the correct lyrics too! The best part was that those three points boosted us past the team in the lead (the noisy ones) and allowed us to win that round!

One other round that I must add in, although I hesitate to, involved a cookie. We had to place the cookie on our foreheads and work it down to our mouth, chew it, and prove that we had done the deed...without hands. I myself am a pro at this game, or so I thought. In previous games I had been either the winner or a fraction of a second from winning. Only this time, my nemesis was sitting next to me. I put on the war paint. Go! was shouted, and I did my regular routine of winking at the ceiling; winking provides fast results in any circumstance. I got the cookie to my mouth and locked on to the edge of it, but I decided to stand up because I was the first one done...it was a bad choice! The cookie decided to take a hike, and I had to start all over. I could have won! Instead, I got third out of the 7 or so groups.

While we are on the topic of games, I would like to share with you a sneak peak for tonight! I have been brewing a good idea for a, well, messy game; I feel I have found my answer! Tonight, we are going to play "Dig Through the Whipped Cream and Collect the Most Gummy Bears" game. Like the title? I came up with it myself. I may shorten it to "Diggin' for Bears" though, because it takes less effort to say or write! You guys will never guess how to play this game, however! It is quite complicated. All you have to do is dig through whipped cream pies to collect as many gummy bears as you can, and whoever has the most wins!

Tonight shall be a lot of fun, but with much fun comes great mess-making responsibilities!

It shall be messy!

Missionaries and Hot Wings

Buenos dias!

There is a lot to share since the last time I wrote! Last Wednesday we had guest speakers for Revolution: the Benefields. The Benefields moved to Mazatlan, Mexico to be missionaries a few years ago, and have been growing a strong church ever since. They come back here to Champaign to see family, and we decided to ask them to speak while they were here. A lot of the students really enjoyed their story, as well as the pictures of tarantulas, snakes, and scorpions they brought along.

One of the most impacting stories of the night, however, was about a teen boy from their colonia who had experienced a lot of rejection from home. The young man in the story could not find attention through good, beneficial ways, so he took to inhaling paint. Their story continued to say that, while building their new church, the same young man came along one day and decided to graffiti the newly painted church. Instead of scolding him, however, they asked him if he wanted to help finish painting the church. After finishing their painting, they had the opportunity to pray for him and tell him that God, as well as everyone there, loved him very much; in response he broke down. I feel that it was a powerful story for our students to hear; just the fact that even though we will do things that are wrong, there is a God who loves us extremely much, as well as people who wish to do the same.

I also got the chance to go with our Family Life pastor, and a few other youth pastors and interns, to the Heartland Vineyard in Iowa during the weekend. Basically, it was a conference for the region's youth pastors to come together and talk about how their ministries were doing and offer advice and encouragement, as well as cast vision for where they were heading. Now, if you are not from a church background, imagine having a bunch of people who work with middle school to high school youth in the same room, and how all of their personality types are geared towards that age, and you will see why this was such a good time! We were pretty crazy: at a gas station just inside of Iowa, one of the other interns and I were playing catch, and I decided to punt the ball...against the wind. My brilliant idea swept the ball way over our heads and landed it directly on the roof of the gas station, a good 25 feet above us. If you check Google maps a year from now you may see it up there, still. Other adventures included a late night of hot wings and m&ms, as well as roaming the streets of Waterloo, IA. During this roaming adventure we stopped by a PetSmart, and I almost convinced myself to buy some frogs (animals are a weakness of mine, especially if I can take them home).

Overall, last week was a huge success, and I feel revived and re focused as an intern. In this refreshed state, I feel like throwing out a thought, to which you can ponder and mull over to your hearts content, or throw it out completely and simply think I am crazy:

Is society's 'fear' of, even their animosity towards God fueled by the thought of losing control of their lives because God sets rules to live by? Or does it stem from people who claim to love Him withholding their love and understanding of others and their feelings/lives and choosing to act out in unspeakable mannerisms? I feel that there is a lost connection to the love that God has for us and the amount of free will we DO have, because there are those who don't represent those in their everyday lives. God doesn't have a rule book that He checks every time someone does something wrong, because of something called grace. Likewise, there is no call for people to hate others, to fight wars in his name, or to choose what party in politics is 'Godly': He only asks us to love Him and to love those around us.

Anyway, this was just a thought, if you have any questions or want to talk over it, feel free to! Have a great Thanksgiving everyone!

Kids: 1 - Pants: 0

Hello again, world!

Don't worry, I'm not dead! It has been super busy on my end of things: classes are entering into their end of the year projects, scholarships are needing to be turned in, and the work load for my internship is ramping up as it focuses more on the holidays and next semester.

My internship has been most enjoyable, nonetheless. We have had several meetings at the HS pastor's house, which we call V2, or Vineyard Values. Basically, it is an opportunity for youth to voice their questions and ideas about their faith, and as a group discuss ways to answer or digest such questions and ideas. These meetings are always well attended, and have an amazing spread of food. Good food. Of course, when you get a lot of young high school kids together in a house (we meet in the basement), there is going to be some rough housing. The back pocket on a pair of jeans I owned fell prey to such rough housing, and was torn clean off as I wrestled three brothers to the ground. Disclaimer: no children were harmed in this take-down.

It has been awesome to gain students respect and trust as I dive deeper into this internship. I have had the opportunity to really mentor these kids, and let them know their worth. That in itself is worth all of the hard work I am putting forth in school and the internship.

On an exciting note, this weekend I am heading to Iowa for a youth pastor's conference! The best part of this is that the company I will be traveling with is, by far, the best. Imagine throwing middle and high school pastors into the same vehicle; the amount of laughs, pranks, and awesome games is going to concoct a marvelous time!

God bless yall!