Last Night in The Loft

We had a great time in our youth group gathering last night in The Loft.  A couple more guests again tonight. 
We continued in our series, Ancient Alive, by taking a look at Queen Esther.  What an awesome story.  The students loved the irony in the story in what unfolded for Haman and the middle school boys really enjoyed the part where Haman was impaled.
So what does Esther have to do with us today?
God has a plan for your life
No matter your background or past
He will even use the bad for his good
He uses other people in your life
He has saved you for "such a time as this".  God wants to use you to reach your world.

We followed up the Bible study in our PODz and the students discussed the story of Esther and how they related to the story.

Hang Time consisted of:
4 large bags of chips
2 Gallons of Kool Aid
4 Liters of Soda  Pop
5 sleeves of Oreos
2 packages of Chips Ahoy
5 bags of popcorn
Banangrams
Guitar hero
Ping Pong
Foosball
Football
Sitting around talking.

It was a great night for the youth of Nags Head Church.

Please Pray for Tricia

My niece, Tricia, got the call this morning to report to the hospital.  She is waiting to see if it's a "go". This will be her second lung transplant.  Please pray for her, her family, the Doctors and transplant team and please lift up in prayer the donor's family.
Thanks.
My nephew's blog:  http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/2013/04/transplant-call.html

The Book of Ruth in 35 Minutes

Last Night in The Loft:

Students arrived and seemed to be excited to be gathering together.
We had several first time guests, which is always fantstic.  One of the young ladies who is on our "5 Friends I'm praying for Poster" brought two of her friends.  It's wonderful to see youth who are excited about learning from God's Word and a passion to reach their friends.


I taught through the entire book of Ruth in 35 minutes.  Focusing in on three aspects of Ruth's life that jump out at me:
Ruth's Love for Naomi
Ruth's Respect for Naomi
The redemption of Ruth by Boaz.

We looked at additional verses about love, respect and redemption.  The students then went to their PODz and talked about Ruth and prayed together.

Hang Time included some great tasting cupcakes a couple of our young ladies prepared for the group, a couple of bags of chips, bunch of cookies, some fruit and veggies and dip.  Along with the cupcakes our strawberry kiwi slushees made in the machine loaned to us by Sea Freeze were a smash!

Lots of games were played and I enjoyed sitting around and talking with the students and watching them build relationships with each other.  I think youth group last night was really good and I would give it an A.

God Made You. God is "Remaking" You.

Last night we had our second "Next Level" worship gathering.   
(Next Level is a night when we spend more time worshipping in song and in the Word than we normally do on "regular" youth group gathering nights and we don't do small group discussion on Next Level nights.)

Order of Worship
Song:  You do All things well by Tenth Avenue North
God Made You - Psalm 139:13-18 - Ramon Sanchez our Middle School Minister (volunteer)
Song:  You Do All Things Well by Chris Tomlin
God is "Remaking" You - Romans 12:1-3 - Andy Lawrenson
Song: Inside Out -  by Hillsong United
Video:  "Born to Lose" - David Ring, I am Second video (see video below)
Song:  Beautiful Things - by Gungor
Closing Prayer for Students in Attendance - prayed for students who need to start a relationship with God, prayed for students who are told by this world that "they are nothing" to realize they are God's masterpiece creation, prayed for Christian students who need to refocus on Christ and the "renewing of their mind".