All Will Drive
We have a huge opportunity ahead of us. Each year we partner with missionaries around the world in reaching others for Jesus. For the next few weeks are encouraging everybody to scrape, serve, and save your dollar bills, shiny coins, and fat wads of cash. Your money will be used in a really incredible way-purchasing a vehicle for a missionary! We are going to be stretched in our faith, our sacrifice, and our giving as we focus our energy and resources in furthering the Gospel. My desire is that All (missionaries) Will Drive because of our giving.
I am really excited to see how God is going to use you and me to reach more people through our giving. Let's step out in extraordinary faith and be used to impact this world!
You Decide 2008
In the midst of all the election talk, we can't help but realize the significance of the decisions we make day in and day out. The power of our choices make such a significance in our future. Just as our nation is about to make a historical decision of who our next President will be, we too make historical decisions in all that we do. I pray that the sermon series "You Decide 2008" will help you understand how powerful your decisions really are. Check out the series on itunes under "LIFT Student Ministries."
Man Vs. Wild
We just finished up our 6 week sermon series of Man Vs. Wild. I hope you enjoyed the series; I know I did. If you missed any of the messages that addressed the issues of trying to make it out in the wild (school, job, family, media, etc.), be sure you go to the itunes store and check em out for free. Just type in "lift student ministries" in the search toolbar and click on our logo. It is absolutely free.
Remember, lets do more than just try to survive this school year; lets live life to the fullest as we fully rely on God.
Check Out Those Stitches!
Just like a baseball, I too have stitches. I recently had surgery on the lower area of my back. The doc had to remove some tissue but I should be all better soon. Thanks for all the prayers, text messages, and random visits. I appreciate them all.
LIFT Outreach
What an incredible week! A team of 8 went to the Cincinnati area for LIFT Outreach. We scrubbed, painted, cleaned, the entire Cincinnati/Mason metro area. Well, not the ENTIRE area, but we served a lot.
The team went to the City Gospel Mission and cleaned the living quarters of the homeless shelter. While scrubbing, some of us become really close friends with some crawling creatures known as bed bugs. After itching our way through that service project, we hit the streets as we picked up trash and painted some trash can containers on Vine Street in Cincinnati.
After a day of inner-city fun, we teamed up with Lifeland Community Church. We set out to canvas over 950 homes with information about the children's carnival we were putting on over the weekend. With divine intervention of an incredible blessing, we not only handed out info cards to the 950 homes, we handed out muffins too. Yes, muffins. A man walked in the church as we were about to leave and said he felt like he was supposed to stop by and offer us some cases of muffins for door to door ministry. The man ended up blessing the church with 66 cases of mini muffins.
Next we put on a kids carnival with lots of games, inflatables, and tons of candy. It was a great opportunity to show the church's care and ministry for the children in the Mason community.
The last bit of ministry our team did for the week was putting on a children's church service for Lifeland. The team did a great job of ministering to the kids during the Sunday morning service with skits, puppets, games, videos, and giveaways.
Once all the service projects were done, we capped off the entire week with a day at King's Island amusement park. Riding the world's fastest, longest, and tallest wooden roller coasters were a great note to end on.
The first of many LIFT Outreach trips was a great one. Thanks to Lindsay, Miranda, Zack, Nick, Aaron, Blake, Becky and Chris for tearing it up on this awesome week of service.
Sticky-Fingered Fireworks Fiends
A few mornings ago, I woke up at the fireworks stand to a bunch of thunder and lightning. Mother Nature was ever so kindly to make my wakeup call at 5am. If only that were the worst part of the morning.
A few hours after I awoke from the lightning flashes and thunder claps I began to roll up the tent and get ready to open up for business. I quickly noticed that we sold a bunch of big ticket items the night before. After more observation and investigation, much like CSI with the cotton swabs and black lights, I realized that we didn’t sell all these awesome fireworks…we’ve been ripped off.
I feel really sorry for the people who couldn’t resist the urge to steal fireworks from a church that is selling for the sole reason of raising money for missions. As pathetic as it is that some people would stoop so low as to steal fireworks from a youth group, I can’t help but become almost amused at one thing. What is that one thing, you may ask. That one thing is my prayer for these people. I pray that every single firework they stole is a dud, that all the other fireworks tip over and shoot straight at them, and that they suffer from the worse case of Montezuma’s revenge until they fess up to their thievery. LORD, let it be.
Fireworks in Full Swing
Every summer we sell fireworks. Not just any fireworks. TNT Fireworks. Yes, that's right...we are selling the #1 Firework in the world (so they claim). In the adventure of selling fireworks, there seems to always be some sort of issue every year. Last year, we found it very difficult to sell fireworks as a monsoon hit our town. Most people were concerned with their homes being flooded, rather than a "buy one get one free" deal on a package of smoke balls. For this go round, we haven't experienced any floods. Instead, we dealt with something for potent and severe than Mother Nature; we dealt with the local code enforcement.
You know it's gonna be a fun time when three local city inspectors come out to survey your area and right up a huge list of needed permits, all of which we have never needed in the past 10 years of selling. In the midst of the frustration and confusion, I found a great desire to just pack it all up and say it's not really worth it. I then quickly felt guilty for that thought.
The fact is, we sell fireworks in the Oklahoma heat (and sometimes floods) for two weeks in order to raise some extra cash for a missionary. Missionaries deal with a lot more hassle, tons more sacrifice, and a whole slew of frustrations. I think I can deal with a few inspectors and sweat off a few pounds if it gets a missionary a vehicle so he can travel the jungles of Africa.
Return from Camp
It's been just a few days since we returned from camp. Some may think I am mentally unstable for stating this, but I could do 7 more camps in a row and not think twice about it. What other setting pulls you away from all sorts of distractions, creates awesome opportunities for stronger friendships, and makes an undeniable impact in your spiritual life? To me, youth camp is the Christmas of student ministries.
Lessons from an Unlikely Source...Death Ball
So our guys were about to play this killer game at youth camp called "Push Ball." The game automatically gets a bad rap for the simple fact that the overly inflated earth balls are typically referred to as Death Balls. Well, as we are awaiting our face to face match with the spheres of doom, we are watching a younger group of guys battle it out on the gritty iron (not the grid-iron, but gritty-iron, which is basically a sand volleyball pit). The knuckle-busting excitement seemed to never end, due to the fact that the refs were whistle happy. (insert an NBA Finals complaint here if you are a Laker's fan) The refs spent the entire match looking at the ground, monitoring the safety of the game. They figured that the best, most safe way to play the game was to blow the whistle at any moment a body part other than the foot came in contact with the sand.
I think we as Christians mirror the mentality of the Death Ball refs. So often, we just look for anything that may seem unholy or dangerous. In doing so, we quickly blow the whistle at the slightest contact with anything that can remotely seem dangerous. Am I advocating playing with fire? No, not in the least bit. But, are we so consumed with pointing out the dangers of everybody else, that we miss out on the our role all together? We are to be lights, salt, examples, witnesses, etc. Lets stop looking for faults to point out and just live as a better example that safely leads others in the right direction.