• This was the last night of SCHOOL WARS!  There was a TON of energy in the room for the last night!
• As a part of school wars we had a couple of competitions between the schools.  We are going to be doing school wars through the rest of January.
• Set List: Forever Reign, Like a Lion
• This was the last week in our Not a Fan series.  In this series we’ve been challenging students to not just be a fan of God, but to be an fully committed follower.  This week we looked at the word commitment and talked about the commitment that Jesus called his followers to.
• Main Text: Luke 18:18-30
• Main Point: Being a follower requires our full commitment.  
• Next Up: What’s in the Middle?  A series through some selected Psalms.

You deal with screaming, running, silly games, interruptions, lack of focus, weird smells, etc., and that’s just during small group.  One thing that God has really been showing me lately about this age group is to not just look at them as they are, but to begin to try to see who they can become.  

In the middle of the craziness with an 11-14 year old it’s easy to think that they are never going to really grow out of it and really get what we are trying to teach them.  But, as a middle school leader, we need to have a long-term view of these students.  I know that this is important is because no one gave up on me when I was that middle school boy running around, causing disruptions, and making weird noises (I was the best burper in our youth ministry).  I am no longer that middle school boy, but I am the result of those adults not giving up on me, and continuing to minister to me even when I wasn’t the best behaved.  

Think about the students in your ministry who seem to drive you a little crazy.  Begin to ask God to help you have a long-term view of who they will become one day.  You never know, but that in a few years that student who drove you nuts will have their own family, and could be serving alongside you in ministry.

We love our home schoolers!

• This was our second night of SCHOOL WARS!  Our students came ready to battle in their school colors, with face paint, hair color, etc.  There was a TON of energy in the room!
• As a part of school wars we had a couple of competitions between the schools.  We are going to be doing school wars through the rest of January.
• Set List: Happy Day, Beautiful Things
• This was the second week in our series called Not a Fan this week.  This series is based off of the book Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman.  This week we looked at the word “anyone” and how anyone includes everyone.
• Main Text: Matthew 9:9-13

• This was the first night of SCHOOL WARS!  Our students came ready to battle in their school colors, with face paint, hair color, etc.  There was a TON of energy in the room!
• As a part of school wars we had a couple of competitions between the schools.  We are going to be doing school wars through the rest of January.
• Set List: Glory to God Forever, Surrender
• We started a new series call Not a Fan this week.  This series is based off of the book Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman.  This week we challenged our students to Define their Relationship with God.
• Main Text: John 6:66-68
• Main Point: It’s time for you to define your relationship…Are you a fan?  or Are you a follower?

Last night we had a night life event with our

over at our house.  This was the first of a number of night life events that we are going to be doing throughout the year (not all of them at our house though).

Last night we split our students up by grade and played Fear Factor!  Here is a list of all the events we did:

1. Frozen Sheet – Students had to unfold a frozen sheet and get their whole team standing on it to win.

2. Milkshake – We gave each team 15 mouthwash cups of whole strawberries and syrup blended with spaghetti o’s.

3. Gun Structure – We gave each person on the team a piece of bubble gum and then they had to work together to create the tallest structure.

4. Pinned – The teams had to pin 36 clothes pins to two of their teammates faces.

5. Cream Pie – The teams elected two students to eat a whipped cream pie that had vienna sausages and olives mixed into it.

6. Cake Pops – Each team was given nine “cake pops”.  The “cake pops” were really chocolate covered radishes.  

It was a lot of fun last night, and really messy!  We had 68 people crammed into our house, so you could say that Wendi and I played our own version of Fear Factor!

On the weekends I thought I would take some time to share what’s going on with my running.  My wife and I started running a little over a year ago and have really enjoyed doing this hobby together.  Over the past year we’ve both run in around 10 5k’s, a 10k, 2 half marathons, and I helped out with the local middle schools cross country team.  Running is just something that I really have enjoyed doing!

The end of 2011 was really busy for me, so I hadn’t run in over a month and a half until this week.  My running this week was:  

Thursday            3 miles

Friday                  4 miles

Weekly Total = 7 miles

Year Total =      7 miles

In our Runners World daily calendar this week one of the tips was “After a long break from running don’t compare yourself to where you were.  Just say that this is the best run I’ve had since my comeback.”  

Happy running, and I hope to see you out there!

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If you’ve never heard of Julian Drive you need to check them out.

The Teaching Starts When the First Student Shows Up – This post is for anyone that works with students to understand how important it is to welcome students when they first show up.  You can find this post over at Revolution Speaks.

An Unusual Transition - This is a post about walking into a ministry position after the former youth pastor had retired.  You can find this post over at Average Youth Ministry.

Matt Lawson and Benjamin Kerns have a lot of great youth ministry content that they have written on their blogs.  You should add them both to your blog list.