Youth Room Dedication

Sunday night we had a fantastic turn out for the dedication of the new youth room, a space dedicated to be used in reaching students to discover life in Christ. I'm glad to be a partner in a church that has a passion for reaching students. Nags Head Church has made a huge investment in the youth ministry to finish out this 1600 square foot space. I was impressed by the church partners who showed up for the dedication who had no connection to the students other than the fact of being a partner in the church, their participation in the dedication showed their passion as a church to invest into the lives of the youth.

The room was dedicated also in the memory of Shana Lawler. Shana was a youth in the NHC youth ministry several years ago. Her life ended in a tragic car accident. Shana was a 17 year old who loved the Jesus Christ. Her family came back to town for the dedication and her sister, Erin, shared some great words both about Shana and also challenged the students. NHC loves the Lawler family! A picture and plague will hang in the youth room.

The youth room has a kitchen/coffee bar, comfortable seating areas, flat screens and a projector, ping pong, foosball and table games, a space for chairs for gathering for worship. The room has lots of windows with a great view of Jockey's Ridge, the largest sand dune on the east coast.

The whole space was designed to be open and easily reconfigured for different events or needs. Their are several bistro tables for students to gather and play games or just sit and snack together and talk. A couple of seating areas with sofas and comfortable chairs to encourage fellowship and offer space for the youth ministry team to build relationships with the students. The spaces are separated by different paint colors which were taken from a retro surf design. The look is like a coffee shop/restaurant feel complete with brushed metal pendant lights.

We look forward to using this room to reach students!

A shot of the room from the west end.
50 folding chairs allow us to configure the room in different
ways to meet whatever need of the event taking place
in the room.

The Hukilau Surf Camp surfboard. Hukilau is an outreach of NHC and is led by
Pastor Steve. Each summer several camps are held and use surfing as an
avenue to share the gospel.

Pastor Steve is allowing us to store some of his antique surfboards. A great way
to dress up an open ceiling.

There are several tables around the room that allow for space for students
and the team to play games together. The tables are easy to move
to change the configuration of the room.

We used a couple of garage type tool cabinets that are fairly inexpensive to house
the tech equipment.

Currently we have two flat screens up on the walls. We have the cable and
outlets run for 3 more. The TV's are all hooked to a switcher and a distribution amp. We streamed the big game on this system which is also tied to the projector.
We did this "in house" saving the church a couple grand.
These flat screens and projector can be used for showing videos, movies, games
and presentations.

A shot of the door that leads out of the room. Our lizard.

During construction. Cork floor which is awesome and sound absorbing. A view of
the coffee bar and kitchen. We put up mirror tiles above the sink so
while cleaning up a person can still keep an eye on what's happening behind them
as well as a giving those sitting at the bar a view of what's happening in the room.

The cabinets and counter top. We put electrical outlets in the counter so we
can plug up crock pots and roaster ovens to keep important youth ministry tools
like queso and hot wings hot and tasty.

We purchased 50 folding chairs with cushy seats. The projector and screen are
recycled from the old church building.

A shot of one of the seating areas. We were given a couple of sofas and then
I went around the church and "stole" other chairs to put in the space. The blurry
dude is Chris who helped me paint the room.

Last Night At Contagious

We had another great night at Contagious last night!!

Students showed up and we quickly turned them loose in their new kitchen in the youth room and now the students are responsible for putting out the snacks and beverages. New ministry team in the makings.

The youth room is working out great. The comfortable seating areas are drawing students and their adult leaders together for an hour of just talking and building relationships. The tables are great areas for us to sit around over some red Kool Aid and Cheetos or play a game of bananagrams together. The ping pong table and foosball table are getting good use. All with some great music in the background. This new youth room has bumped Hang Time up to a whole new level.

The past few weeks we have had new students checking us out each week. Some of our students are catching on to the importance of bringing friends. Our prayer is that there will be a fire lit under our students in reaching their friends and also growing in their own faith.

Last night we continued our series, Great Expectations. We were in 1 Timothy 2:8-15. Our theme for the evening was "Attitude Affects Worship". Some great discussion about this passage took place in our PODs.

What a fantastic team of caring adults we have investing into the lives of these students during the two hours a week we have them here with us.

Super Bowl Party on a Shoe String Budget

Last night we had our first Super Bowl party in our new youth room. Turn out was good and we had some guests which is always fantastic. The main purpose of the event was to share the good news of Jesus Christ during the half time. I took about ten minutes and talked about Jesus our Mediator from 1 Timothy 2:3,4. No students made a decision that we are aware of but the seed was planted and we pray our guests had a good time and will return again this coming week.

With a 30% cut in our budget from last year and basically a spending freeze in effect we had to pull this event off on a shoe string budget. Here is the run down on how we accomplished that:

Stream the game via Internet - FREE! The quality of the video was great. We missed the big commercials but that's OK since a person can go back and watch them on the Internet. This saved the church about $1200 since we didn't have to install cable or satellite.
Hot Wings and Queso Dip - $65 A few from our team showed up early and cooked the hot wings and made the queso and got things set up and ready to roll.

Snacks and Drinks - FREE! We had the boys bring a sweet snack and the girls bring a salty snack and they all brought a 2 liter of soda.

Meat and Cheese Stadium - FREE!! Because of the donations of our local Boar's Head distributor and the donations of some parents of youth we were able to feast on the most incredible party platter I have ever seen.

So for a little more than a buck a person we hosted a fun Super Bowl Party where the love of Jesus Christ was shared.

When we share the love of Christ in practical ways these are the things students remember about their "church experience" long after high school. They don't remember all the lessons or sermons we teach, they remember the fact that some adults loved them and cared for them enough to spend an evening hosting a fun party with an incredible meat stadium and time spent playing foosball and bananagrams. That is what they will remember when they are 21. This act of sharing the love of Christ in a fun and practical way is what will stick with them.

Thanks to the best youth ministry team in the world! I appreciate the time you give to God serving students and I know the students appreciate it too. Thanks to the parents who kicked in the snacks!