Archive for 'teens'
The big “mo”
Posted on August 19, 2008, by steve ingold, under church, parents, teens.
Good morning and everything to all you Life Churchers. As we enter into this new season of ministry we are definitely already seeing the advantage to having our students back in school. This past week we were packed out at our junior high and high school worship gatherings. This causes an amazing problem. We are running out of room! The best part about this problem is that we already have a resolution. But before I fill you all in on that, I have to say something real quick…
In youth ministries across the nation, pastors are talking about momentum. When I look at our youth ministry we are just now starting to build our momentum, with students coming back from summer vacation. The best thing that we can do is find ways to take advantage of this momentum. If we can do this we will begin to find students that stick, students that hear Christ’s message, students that develop in community, and students that have a real relationship with Christ. For a while I have gone back in forth on how to do this, and it has led to our newest structure for our mid week and weekend programs.
In the middle of September we will begin our Student Life Groups. This will be our mid-week group that will meet in homes around the community for both the junior high and high school. Sunday mornings will continue to be our worship gathering. We will have a relevant message, as well as worship from our newly formed student worship band. On Saturday Nights we will have our outreach night, filled with skate parks, video game systems, and whatever else we can think of! This last one is something I have gone back in forth about because it is basically going to be a high school and junior high hang out. How will they develop spiritually? Well I have come to the conclusion, with guidance and counseling from some of our other pastoral staff, that if we provide a venue to bring students in, hopefully we will be able to form relationships where they will want to come back on a sunday morning our tuesday night. Now the biggest and most exciting part about all this is that we do have a new place for our students to meet.
Just down the hill from Life church we have found 2 units that we can occupy with our student ministries. One unit will be our worship gathering and right next door will be our indoor skate park and games area. The units are both about 3 to 4 times larger then what we have now!!
So what does all this mean? Basically, a lot of work. We need to use that momentum as best as we can to make sure that we do not make this move a drawn out process. As we move into these two units and create an amazing environment for our students we have to make sure that we continue to move forward with our youth ministry.
This is an extremely exciting time, and God knows that I cannot make this transition happen on my own. If you are willing lend a helping hand with anything (skate park construction, donations, video game systems, worship room design, etc.) please let me know. I want our students and parents to own this room. I want us to be able to say that we put this together. If we can get this thing done the right way, there is no telling how much momentum we will truly gain, and what God will do with it.
Love you,
Steve
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Intern Position Available: Youth Worship
Posted on August 9, 2008, by alex mclean, under music, teens.
We’re looking for a passionate & motivated leader to come in and take the reigns with our Youth Worship Band. We’ve been developing the worship program for our Youth over the past few months and now we are ready for the right person to come on board and knock it out of the park! We’ve got about 15 young people interested in using their gifts of music, and over the past month we’ve been meeting regularly at 8:30am on Sundays for leadership training.
This leader needs to have a good feel for modern worship music, be proficiant on guitar or keyboards, have love for youth, and of course a love for God and a personal relationship with him. Time commitment would be from 8:30am-12:30pm Sundays and possibly one evening every couple weeks.
If you are interested or know someone who might be, please shoot us an email. This is an exciting opportunity to get in at the ground level and build an amazing worship ministry for our Youth!
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Road Trip
Posted on July 30, 2008, by steve ingold, under church, parents, teens.
well i am finally back from my two weeks of junior high and high school camp. these past weeks have been exhausting, exciting, educational, and incredibly encouraging. Wow, i didn’t even know that i knew that many words that start with “e”.
From July 13-19 I was at Hume Lake with our junior highers for camp and the best part of that week was not launching one of our students 60 feet into the air off the blob. the best part was not the delicious shakes at the snack shop. The best part of the week proved to be the way in which our junior highers have taken the step towards making their faith their own. My biggest concern for our students in today’s culture is that they will go through their time in the student ministries as zombies and robots. Going to church because their parents do, believing in Christ because they are told to, and doing good things because they want to be glorified. I want our students to have a faith that is real and a faith that is pure. So when a junior high student says that they don’t agree with something the pastor said in his message, then I get extremely excited about the discussion and dialog that is about to happen. We had amazing conversations in our cabin time and i was so encouraged by where our students are at and how they are maturing. I also realized that junior highers haven’t changed much from the last time that i did junior high ministry, 3 years ago.
Our high school trip, July 21-25, was just as exciting and encouraging. The week started with a few bumps and bruises (mainly because of the fact that i slid down the rock we were climbing), but the trip ended up being pretty amazing. We started the week by camping at the kern river, then on tuesday we went white water rafting, followed by six flags on wednesday, wild rivers water park on thursday, and la jolla shores for a day at the beach on friday to end the trip. I had a couple of students from my old churh join us on the last couple days and all our students could do was brag and boast about how incredible the trip was. I know it probably wasn’t right, but it felt good to have our students so excited about what we were doing. However, I think the best part of the trip was when i got home. Not because I was exhausted (which I was), and not because I missed my wife so much (which I did, even though she was with us on the trip), but because of the myspace message i received from one of our students that was a last minute addition to this trip. It was really looking like he was not going to be able to go, but because of some extremely giving hearts in our church body he was able to go. It was definitely well worth the donations. So I will leave you with what he said to me, and i hope you are as encouraged as i was with the direction our students are headed. Love you. Steve.
“dude thanks for putting that trip together and doing ur bible studdies i think that was the best part because i really was more focused on god and not on doing dumb things in my life and screwing it all up and it just really pulled me more in to go and make my relashinship with god way stronger. u and amanda made my weeek just the best i have ever had in my entrie life thanks alot for that trip”
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sleep
Posted on July 8, 2008, by steve ingold, under parents, teens.
hey everyone it’s steve ingold and alex has been asking me to blog for about 10 years now, well maybe not that long, but i am finally doin it. as summer hits it’s midway point i am now starting to realize how crazy my life is and how many different things i have going right now. last night i didn’t go to sleep til about 3:30am, not by choice, but because of a combination of things. one being that my wife and my air conditioning isn’t quite working the way it should be, two my wife spent the night down in san diego at her folks house so she wouldn’t have to drive up to temecula, then back down to san diego for work today. It was her mom’s b-day yesterday so we were kinda haning out for dinner and stuff down there. (sorry to get so sentimental there, i missed my wifey) finally, the third reason why i couldn’t fall asleep last night is because my mind was going about a million miles a minute. with hume lake approaching this week and the road trip for the high schoolers following the week after, i can’t stop thinking about all that needs to happen and all of the questions that need to be answered. then i start thinking about the rest of my summer schedule, our mid weeks, our saturday night hang out night, teaching on sunday morning, and i think i actually start to get a little stressed out. BUT HONESTLY, how rad is my job? i get to hang out with the coolest students and see their lives be impacted in such a positive way, however i have realized that i need to remember something…
my relationship with God. as we sat in our staff meeting today we went over a few dangers facing the church, and one of them was that our character can suffer because we begin to love the work we do for God and stop or cut back on investing time with our relationship the God that we love. This was a definite wake up call for me because I have begun to let my schedule dictate my life and i try to squeeze God in. For all the times that i have taught on hurry, and busyness, i can’t get it straight in my own life. Sometimes I wonder why God let’s me do this job when i choose to ignore him at times. What if God just squeezed me in? What if I wasn’t His primary focus? Problem is I am, and that needs to be reciprocated. Pastor’s that fit God into their schedule instead of fitting their lives into God’s schedule, are a train wreck waiting to happen. So I think I’m realizing that I don’t want that, less is more when it comes to my schedule, not when it comes to my relationship with God.
So i blogged and it wasn’t half bad, i think i’ll be back to this thing in three weeks when I’m back from my road trips and sumer camps. please pray for me, the ministry, and our junior high and high schoolers. thanks love you.
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