Where are We Going?

Next week we wrap up "Stories".  For the past several weeks our youth ministry team volunteers have been sharing their stories at Contagious Youth.  All the stories have been different; everyone had some sort of struggle in their life.  While all of the stories are different they had this in common, Jesus changes lives.  Our goal in doing "Stories" was that our students would hear that even though we are old we have had struggles and hopefully some of the students would connect with a story and see how God can impact their lives.  Every story can impact someone's life.  Who are you sharing your story with?

July 8th we move out of The Loft and onto the beach.  We will spend several weeks meeting together for Contagious on the beach.  This is one of our favorite times of the year.  It is a great change of pace and mixes it up a bit.  This summer we will be taking a look at Matthew 5 and specifically the Beatitudes.  Everyone wants to be happy and we are going to unpack what true happiness is all about.

Each week a short 5 to 10 minute devotional talk (cause it's hard to hold attention with the ocean in the background) and that will be followed by a small group time where students will be divided into small groups and spend some time discussing together the topic of the night.

In September we move back to The Loft.  We are going to spend 6 weeks talking about relationships.

Relationship with God - His desire is that we know him and follow Christ

Relationship with Family - Families come in all shapes and sizes but there is one thing we should have in common, respect for each member in the family.

Relationships with Friends - Friends will either make you or break you.  We will look at David and Jonathan and their incredible friendship.

Love Relationships - What is love?  Everyone wants to be loved.  Sometimes we confuse love with other things in relationships.

Relationships with Authority in our lives - We will always answer to someone.  Learn now how to have a healthy relationship with those in authority and reap the benefits as you grow older.

Relationship in the Church - no church is perfect and no one in the church is perfect.  Getting along with other believers. 

Last Night At Contagious

Wow! What a fantastic outreach night. Every 4 to 6 weeks we have a night of youth group that focuses on the gospel. This is a great opportunity for our students to invite their friends to hear how Jesus can change their life.

We started off with a fun video. We are doing a series of "What is Andy doing?" type videos. Last week the students requested I do a search in Nags Head Woods for Goat Man, a creature of local folk lore. Lot of fun shooting the video and lots of fun watching the students watch the video.

Next we showed a video by artist Propaganda about the gospel. Take a look-see if you haven't watched this video before.

Ramon, who has been leading our middle school students Bible study, followed up the video with a great explanation about Jesus Christ and salvation. 4 students put their faith in Jesus Christ!! Three students who have been attending youth group for a while and one was a guest and it was his first night with us.

We now have hang time after our Bible study and POD (small group). Last night we enjoyed Frito chili pie and nachos. Students played ping pong, foosball, Uno and Monopoly. This allowed time and opportunity for our team to follow up with each student who made a decision. We are liking the Hang Time at the end because of the time it allows for follow up and for students to ask us more questions that are related to the Bible study.

The gospel was shared, 4 students put their faith in Christ, hang time was great. I would give the night an A+!

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.

Change in Youth Ministry

Starting in September we move from a youth group gathering for all students in middle and high school to two different nights, one for middle and one for high school.

The whole basis for this change is to better accomplish our purpose of reaching students to discover life in Christ. We want to see students come to know Christ and stay engaged and connected in the youth ministry all the way till they graduate their senior year. We want to teach students at their level and stage in life. We want to maximize the space in our youth room.

There is a huge maturity difference in an 11 year old 6th grader and a 17 year old senior, I see the differences every Sunday night.

I first met with individual team members and shot the idea to them about switching up and making the change. I then gave them a few weeks to consider and think about the change. We then gathered and together and listed the pros and the cons. The pros far outweighed the cons. The whole team was on board with making the change. The elders agreed with our decision.

Will there be some hitches during the change? Possibly. Will some parents and students not fully grasp the reason as to why we are changing? More than likely. Will the change fit everyone's schedule? Probably not. There is no perfect night where everyone can be at youth group. Will some have to make decisions about their schedules and activities? Yes. Ultimately we have to keep our purpose in mind as well as the big picture.

Discipleship is a process. Over the past ten years we have seen many students come to know Christ. Over the years we have seen many juniors and seniors do the "fizzle" and fade away.
We want them to stay engaged because those last couple of years before heading off to college are very important in nailing down their faith and what they believe.

Often we can't go deep on topics and have to stay on the surface because of the wide age range. Now we can give the older students a little more "meat" to chew on. Middle School students will be able to bring friends without any intimidation of being around much older students.
High School students will have their youth ministry that they can be excited about bringing friends to share a cup of coffee or mocha and discuss the lesson of the evening together. Middle School students are always good about bringing friends and we will use that strength in the discipleship process.

This great new beginning allows for and provides:

>Age appropriate and specific teaching and study

>Less intimidation for younger kids

>No “little kids” to discourage HS students from inviting their friends

>Focus on the strengths of the two individual groups

>For MS students the HSM will be something to look forward to. (example – kidmo kids look forward to youth group)

>Older youth with leadership potential will have opportunity to serve and minister to the younger youth on Thursday evening.

This is an excellent time to change:

>New youth room in a couple months so two groups allows us to fill the room twice with students

>New school year

>Great group of middle school kids

>Big crop of high school freshmen to build on

Excellent opportunity for the Parent Pod to birth a new small group! There are plenty of parents here on the OBX who need to be connected first of all to God through Christ but also connected with other parents of youth.

At our Discovering Nags Head Church we are told that if we don't like change than we will have a hard time at NHC because we change.

I'm excited to see how God is going to use this new adventure in our youth ministry!

Last Night At Contagious

11 baptized at Contagious Youth on the Beach last night!!

Last night would be categorized as one of the highlights of my time in youth ministry and my time at Nags Head Church. We had a fantastic turn out for Contagious on the beach. Ramon, one of youth team volunteers, shared and had the pods discuss sharing the gospel and sharing our faith.
Students focused in on picking a friend to share their faith with and to pray for.

We had a student put her faith in Jesus Christ as her Savior at camp so we arranged to baptize her at the beach during youth group last night. Along the way we picked up 10 other kids who had put their faith in Christ but had yet to be baptized. It was a great celebration. I was impressed with the adults from our church who had no youth in the group who turned out at the beach to watch the baptism. It's great to be part of a supportive church. It was also cool to have the dads of some of our youth baptizing their own kids, having baptized my son I know that it is a wonderful moment.

We are in a period of "momentum" at Contagious Youth. My prayer is this momentum carries into the school year and that our students will love their friends at school with the love of Christ and live a life that is different.

Last Night At Contagious

Hang Time had students and YM team members outside playing ultimate frisbee in the parking lot, others were sitting around chatting together. Some students and YM team members were playing table games inside. The red Kool Aid was especially tasty and gave me a good burst of hyperactivity.

Last night was the second installment in our series, Shallow to Deep. We started off with the Contagious band teaching us a new song, You Beautiful. They did a great job! We are praying for some students with the ability to play the bass or electric guitar to become part of our Contagious band and replace the old guys.

POD time was filled with good discussion about spending time with people you love which shifted gears to spending time with God because you love him. Students were also given the opportunity in their POD time to actually read Psalm 119 and spend some time having their own personal quiet time with God. The whole point was to help students see that this is an easy habit to establish in their lives that won't consume large portions of their time. You can spend time with God for 1 minute, 10 minutes, 60 minutes or for hours on end. The important thing to remember is to spend time with God on a daily basis in his Word and in prayer.

In our lesson I talked about how I spend time with my wife because I love her. When we first met I couldn't spend enough time with her. Why? Because I love her.
A few months ago we did a survey and 75% of our students let us know in their response that they did not spend any time in the Bible at all during the week. The biggest excuse was, "I'm too busy" or "I don't have time." We debunked their reasons as excuses and challenged them, if they truly love God, to spend some time everyday with God taking a look at their schedule and making sure Hang Time wiht God is a priority.

This coming Sunday we have Contagious at Rec Park during the end of our church picnic. Should be fun getting students together at the park for some fun and Bible study. We are taking a look at the benefits of spending time with God.

Establishing spiritual disciplines, HABITS, moves us from shallow faith to deep faith.
Did you spend time with God today?

Last Night At Contagious

We had a great time together last night at Contagious.

Students and leaders played some Polish out on the front lawn. Others were sitting and hanging out together and talking our on the sidewalk. The weather was incredible and we all agree that Contagious at the Beach can't come soon enough (June 5, we move Contagious to Bonnet St. access, mp 11)

We took a look at our new series we began last night, Shallow to Deep. We are encouraging students to make the habits that will help their faith and relationship with God to grow part of their daily lives.

Moving from the shallow to the deep doesn't happen from Bible knowledge, the growth comes from applying the knowledge. Our big idea last night was: You are responsible for your spiritual growth.

Students were challenged to take the 5/5 commitment for this series:

1. Make a commitment to be hear each Sunday night.
2. Bring your Bibles with you to Contagious.
3. Read your Bible during the week at home.
4. Pray daily
5. Choose 5 friends you know who are not Christians and pray for them daily during the next 5 weeks, share your faith with them, invite them to Contagious.

In the PODs students and their leaders took a look at the 4 types of soil in Matthew 13. Soil #1 needs a relationship with Christ. Soils #2,#3, #4 could all benefit from the habits it takes to grow in your faith.

Students were given the following for daily reading this week:

Monday - Matthew 12:46-50

Tuesday - Matthew 13:1-23

Wednesday – Matthew 13:24-30

Thursday – Matthew 13:31-35

Friday – Matthew 13:36-43

Saturday - Matthew 13:44-58

This coming Sunday night there is no Contagious so students can treat their moms to some special time together for Mother's Day and so our volunteers can enjoy the special day with their families.

Sunday, May 15, we come back together and spend some time unpacking our response of being in a relationship with Jesus Christ. What do you do when you love someone?

Shallow to Deep

This Sunday night we start a new series, Shallow to Deep, the habits you need to impact your life and the life of others.

A couple of months ago our youth group filled out a survey. I sort of had a hunch about where we are at as a youth group. While we have a few students who are striving to go deep in their faith we are mostly a shallow group when it comes to matters of our faith walk. Sixty five percent of students live in homes (keep in mind the majority of students are “church kids” from “church families”) where the Bible is not read together as a family. Seventy five percent of our students do not read the Bible on their own during the week. We have a small percentage have prayer together as a family.

We are experiencing spiritual anemia. The only time kids are feeding is at youth group or Sunday morning.

For the next several weeks we are going to look at the HABITS it takes for believers to establish in their life that will help them move from the shallows to the deep in their faith.

This Sunday night we have a conversation about this fact: “You are responsible for your spiritual growth.”

What we offer as a youth ministry:
Encouragement for parents to disciple their teens and links to some great resources.

Weekly worship with the church.
Opportunities for ministry and mission involvement.
Weekly youth worship that includes small group discussion and fellowship.
Events and activities with purpose.

So Sunday night we are saying, “Here is the buffet. It’s up to you whether or not you are going to eat. You have the tools and opportunities but the choice is yours.” More about Sunday night next Monday.

Last Night At Contagious

Wow! The weather was awesome last night. The majority of students were out in the front yard playing Polish and Cornhole. Inside I saw a mean game of skip bo happening (they seemed to be making up their own rules) and also bananagrams. Some simply sat on the sidewalk and chatted during hang time. It's great to see students and their youth leaders playing games together and engaging in conversation.

Last week we went and watched Soul Surfer. NHC youth and parents were the large majority of the crowd at the viewing. I would suggest youth ministers and parents take their kids to see this film.

We followed up Soul Surfer last night with Heart of a Soul Surfer a video made by Bethany and her family and friends several years ago. I like this video because students get to hear straight from Bethany about how God is using her life. One thing that stands out to me is that before the shark attack Bethany was asking God to use her life. An amazing perspective from a 13 year old girl.

After the video the students went to their new PODs (now age divided. Seniors should be thrilled to have their own POD) . In the PODs they discussed Bethany's life and the scriptures in she used in the video. I ended the evening by telling students that a shark doesn't have to take your arm in order to be used by God. God has placed you where you are and around who you are around to have an impact on their lives.

This coming Sunday Contagious takes a break so students and the YM team can spend Easter Sunday with their families. We come back together the following week to spend a few weeks hitting hard the habits we need as believers in our lives to grow spiritually. We can provide the resources and the encouragement to the students but ultimately it is their passion and desire to grow in Christ. It is a choice they must make.

Last Night At Contagious

“Christianity is a list of rules. What if I don’t want to obey the rules and live life my own way? Am I still a Christian?”

We continue our series, "Letters from the Mailbox". Students submit their question, verses, topic, etc. and then we build a lesson and small group (POD) discussion around their submission.

The above question above was a good one. We had students write down their parent's rules on a piece of paper and then talk about the rules. Discuss the "why's?" of the rules. Then the students, in their PODs, wrote down "Christianity rules". Most of the rules that they came up with were Biblical, some were not, some were but they didn't realize that they were a "rule". I shifted the term from "rules" to "expectations".

We started with the question, "Am I still a Christian?" first. It was obvious that the student who submitted the question thought that salvation was dependent on us and who we are and what we do rather than salvation being totally dependent on God. We took some time and ruled out "works". If I don't live by my parent's rules am I still their child? If I don't live by society's rules am I no longer a human? If (assuming a person has put their faith in Christ) I don't live by God's rules am I no longer his child?

We boiled it down to this:

• I’m saved because I put my faith in Jesus. (not because I obeyed rules)
  

• God has guard rails. (His expectations protect us)

• So the question isn’t “Am I still a Christian?” The question is, “Do I love God?”
• The question is not “Am I still a Christian?” The question is, “Am I grateful to Jesus Christ?”
• Our love for God and gratefulness to Christ will motivate us to live by His expectations.
  

Scripture we looked at: Ephesians 2:8,9; Luke 15:11-31; Deuteronomy 6:5,6; Jeremiah 17:9; Deuteronomy 8:5.

Last Night At Contagious

The weather was beautiful yesterday on the OBX. The weather had an impact on Contagious in two ways:
1. Some students missing. This happens every spring when the weather turns nice because families are ready to spend time together outdoors enjoying the great weather together which is great because they have "cabin fever", especially after this past winter. This is a part of the natural ebb and blow of youth ministry each year.

2. Hang Time spontaneously moved outdoors! Within minutes cornhole was set up and some intense games were happening. A new game, Polish, was introduced to the students and staff. A few still hung out indoors and played a table game or two and a few played ping pong and Wii.

We added delicious hot dogs, chili and relish to our usual line up of snacks last night. It's great to have a team of folks dedicated to using their desire to serve in the kitchen to impact student's lives. They do more than just hand out snacks. Each students has a contact with yet another caring adult from NHC. This has a great influence on their lives and connection to the church.

Last night we opened another letter from the "mailbox". The letter last night was part B from last week. The question was, "Why did God make me the way I am?".

We started off in our PODS and students discussed John 9:1-39 together with their POD leaders (more contact with more caring adults in their church) guiding them through some discussion questions.

We took a look at this video.
Sarah struggled with self hate, she didn't like who she was.

We then looked at Psalm 139:13,14 some great verses about God's creativity in each one of his masterpiece art works (us).
>God makes no mistakes.
God is perfect so if someone assumes they must be a mistake they are saying, "God made a mistake when he made me." That would mean that God is not perfect and if God is not perfect then he would not be God.

>God made you unique.
No two people have the same fingerprints, we are that unique. Our personality, our skills, who we are as a person is unique. Because we are unique we don't have to compare ourselves to others. When we start playing the comparison game we always lose.

>God is in control.
Not only is God the master artist in creating you he is also sovereign, he is in control. Some who wrestle with self hate often struggle with the fact that they can't control their circumstances, they can't control other's expectations. The great thing about realizing and accepting that God is in control is the freedom to relax in that fact. I don't have to be "in control" of everything in my life. God is in control, I need to trust him.

I'm thinking we are going to continue on this question/theme this coming Sunday night at Contagious. If a student can grasp in their teenage years that God is in control just imagine the difference that would make in their life in the future.

Last Night At Contagious

Last night at Contagious we opened another "Letter from the Mailbox" and answered this question: "Why did God put me in the situation I'm in?"

1. God loves you and wants his best for you.

John 3:16, John 10:10, Romans 12:12

2. Three factors to consider about your situation:

>Others do wrong. Sometimes our situation is the result of someone else's sin. This is the result of living in a fallen world.

>I do wrong. Sometimes our situation is the result of our own sin.

>God knows best. Jeremiah 29:11

3. You can rise above the situation with Christ and through Christ

Romans 8:28

Students followed up the lesson with their POD leaders. Each POD divided in half and did 2 case studies and then shared the studies together. The first study was Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery and was put into a bad situation as the result of being daddy's favorite, the jealousy of his brothers and his own bragging about his dreams. But ultimately Joseph rose above his situation and was used by God to save his family. The second study was on Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary was put into a situation by God. She used her situation to magnify God.

Of course as usual the lesson was proceeded by lot of fun and games and hanging out together during Hang Time.

Sunday Night at Contagious

Last Sunday night was great at Contagious. Again Bananagrams is a huge game for some reason. The ping pong table saw no rest during Hang Time. The big deal is we rolled out two new 32 inch flat screens on a cart into the Lobby with two Wiis on it. Without a youth room to call our own yet we have to be portable. So the cart has a shelf on the bottom for our box of table games and then the top two shelves have the Wiis and the TV's which are mounted back to back. These will be mounted up on the walls of our youth room when we move into "the loft" in the fall.

Tip of the Day: We purchased both new TV's, 32 inch, high def, LG flat screens on E-Bay. Without shipping they were $250 each, way cheaper than you can purchase in a store. We also purchased both Wiis on E-Bay, one for around $125 and the other for $159, again way cheaper than the store and they work great. If we had not used E-Bay and the skills of two of our youth volunteers I would have only purchased one TV and one Wii from the store.

Tap into your volunteers skills! Don't try to do it all by yourself in ministry. Others have skills to use and want to serve and feel like part of something bigger. Anything we can do to make Hang Time more fun is a draw for our students to bring their friends and the return is worth way more than a $900 investment.

Nic McLean came and spoke to our students about godly boy/girl relationships. He knocked it out of the park. God is the creator of marriage and sex so His plan is best and create boundaries ahead of time for your relationships. Good stuff from God's Word through Nic. If you would like Nic to speak to your group or bring along his wife Jessica, an accomplished musician, contact me and I'll get you their contact info. Nic is the director of both Noah's Ark and Walking on Water.
Second Tip of the Day: Bring in people from your community to speak to your students, change it up, guests are often listened to by the students better because they get used to hearing you.

Tonight at Contagious

Two students took the step of faith tonight and now have a relationship with God through his Son, Jesus Christ. This is what it is all about!

Tonight was "Reunion" night (a student's idea). The goal was to get some students who have been missing to come back and to introduce some new students to Contagious. We met our goal!

We continue to do "Letters from the Mailbox" and a student wrote out John 3:16 and asked we do a lesson this verse because it was her (could tell by the handwriting) favorite.

Here is the outline of the talk:

John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life."

• Realize Who this is that loves you.
  1 John 4:8
  

• Realize the depth of his love for you
  Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:10

• Realize the scope of God’s love
  The World
  

• Realize God had a plan
  Jesus' death on the cross was not plan B

• Realize the Result
  2 Peter 3:9
  

• Realize eternity starts right now (the moment you believe in Jesus)
  John 10:10
  

Student then went to their PODs to discuss the lesson and pray together.
It was a great night at youth tonight!

Letters From The Mailbox

We took our second letter from the mailbox tonight and answered the student's question:

"How do you know if you have picked good friends?"

Big Idea: Friends will either make or break you in your relationship with God


The righteous choose their friends carefully, but the way of the wicked leads them astray.
Proverbs 12:26

Did you pick good friends?

Friends don’t abandon you
10 Never abandon a friend—
Proverbs 27:10

Great example of a friend sticking by you:
But Ruth replied, “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.
Ruth 1:16

Bad friends treat you badly.
They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.
Psalm 109:5

A friend who is unreliable will get you messed up
One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 18:24

What is their motivation?
Wealth attracts many friends, but even the closest friend of the poor person deserts them.
Proverbs 19:4

Check out this verse:
Many seek favors from a ruler; everyone is the friend of a person who gives gifts!
Proverbs 19:6

Not smart to be friends with a hot head
Do not make friends with a hot-tempered person, do not associate with one easily angered,
Proverbs 22:24

Break off the friendship if the friend is going in the wrong direction
10 My child, if sinners entice you, turn your back on them!
Proverbs 1:10

You have picked good friends if:

Your friends strengthen your relationship with God.
As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.
Proverbs 27:17

They love you
17A friend loves at all times,
Proverbs 27:17a

Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.
Proverbs 27:6

Next week we will take a look at the friendship between David and Jonathon.

If you would like the full blown notes on the lesson or the POD discussion material drop me an e-mail.

Last Night At Contagious

What a fantastic time we had at Contagious last night. The game bananagrams is addicting and I stink at it, BUT I certainly enjoyed gathering around a table with several students and leaders to play. The old ping-pong table has finally bit the dust after giving us several years of play. My hope is that we can replace it this week or next. I would also like to see us pick up a couple of Wii’s and flat screens. Hang time is so much fun and also vital as we invest in students’ lives in a relaxed atmosphere.

We launched “Letters from the Mailbox” tonight. Our lesson was about godliness. (See the next blog post for the outline and discussion material) Students will be submitting the topic/verses/questions that they would like to see us unpack and answer at Contagious. We have an actual mailbox for them to place their topic/verses/questions in and they can also FB message me their “letter”. I’m looking forward to this series of lessons!

Parent Pod was on break last night. I look forward to them gathering together again for Bible study together and building relationships with each other. Parent Pod is for parents of middle and high school students and childcare for younger siblings is provided.

I’m stoked about our upcoming, first ever, youth ministry team winter retreat. It’s going to be a great time of training and fellowship together. My goal is to make it a spiritually refreshing event as we focus in on ministering to students together.

Letters from the Mailbox

From Contagious on Sunday, January 9th.

“hey Andy, one topic I would like to learn about more is being holy in a non Christian place (for example my parents don't really walk the walk and I would like to know more practical ways where I can be godly and what to do in situations....etc)”

Main Idea: To be godly does not come naturally but it’s what God expects from us.

Godliness take effort. (1 Timothy 4:7)

Godliness is not the “easy” road (1 Timothy 3:12)

God gives us the ability to be godly (Titus 2:11,12; 2 Peter 1:3)

The godly focus on the future not on the present. (2 Peter 3:11)

Godliness looks like . . . (1 Peter 2:11-17)

From the verses above godliness looks like::

• Avoid placing yourself near temptation
  
• Have a good reputation
  
• Respect all human authority
• Live honorable lives.
  
• Respect everyone
• Love your fellow Christ followers
• Fear God

POD discussion:

Name Game –

Say: “I’m going to mention a word and you tell me what that word makes you think.” (one word answers)

La Fogatta

Starbucks

Bush Gardens

President

Algebra

School Teacher

Church

Jesus Christ

Godly

Say: Andy said, “Godliness takes effort”

Ask: What do you think that means?

Say: 1 Timothy 4:7 actually says we are to “train ourselves to be godly”.
Ask: What do you think is involved in that “training”?

Where do you struggle most with training to be godly?

Godliness is not the “easy” road

(have a student read the verse below)

12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,
1 Timothy 3:12

Ask: In what ways have you been persecuted for your faith?

(you may get general answers like, “I was made fun of”. Ask them to be specific and give details if possible)

Ask: If you aren’t catching any heat or persecution what does that possibly indicate about your godliness, your living a godly life?

God gives us the ability to be godly

(have a student read the verses below)

11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,

Titus 2:11,12

(have another students read the verse below)

3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

2 Peter 1:3

Ask: In light of what these verses say how does that make you feel when you think about the task of living a godly life?

Why do you think that we sometimes struggle with living the godly life? (the answer I’m looking for is “we try to do it on our own”.

Ask students to take a moment and do the self evaluation on their sheet:

(this is what is on their sheet)

Am I living a godly life? Yes No It’s hit and miss

What are some steps I need to be taking to train myself to be godly?

Is there a relationship or lifestyle or habit I need to give up today to become more godly? Yes No

This week I will ____­­­____________________________ to become more godly.

Our student worksheet had a perforated tear off that they could pull off and write their question/topic for the mailbox.

Last Night At Contagious

Last night we had a great time at Contagious. I'm not sure what the game is called but the students started some sort of slap the person next to you hand game. They were having fun playing this "elimination" game during Hang Time. Other students and leaders were out on the parking lot playing football while inside there was some ping pong and Apples to Apples going on. Hang Time is one of my favorite times in our youth ministry. It gives us, the youth leaders, a chance to sit around and talk with students and build relationships.

Our lesson last night was "You are not Alone". We played the "I've never..." game where a student stands in the middle and says, "I have never _______" and whoever has _______ must get up and switch seats. The last one standing then goes to the center and says, "I have never _______" and it repeats over and over. We then did a debrief and asked those in the middle how they felt. Some of the answers were, "everyone was looking at me", "alone", "not connected with those in the circle", etc. Sometimes in life we have those feelings and so do many others around us.

We then watched a movie clip from To Save a Life. You can watch it here, click on "I feel so alone."

Following the video clip we pretended the middle of the auditorium represented the river of life's pains. I then asked students to remain silent and if I read a statement that applied to them to walk across the "river". "If you are stressed out" cross the river, almost the entire group crossed. "If your parents are divorced cross the river" and more than a third crossed. We kept repeating different struggles and pains that we face in life. Interestingly enough no one ever crossed the river alone. The point was made, we are never alone and others are going through struggles just like you and I.

In their POD time students and their leaders debriefed the "Cross the River" exercise. From where I sat there were some good conversation going on. Students were opening up and leaders were caring. I think that's huge.

I then shared how we, as humans, tend to value some more than others. Some are twenty dollar bills and others we view as pennies. Jesus, the creator, the Son of God, came as a humble servant. If anyone deserved to have a high value, a crisp brand new one hundred dollar bill, it was Jesus yet he considered himself a servant. He came as a scuffed up penny. This puts life into perspective. We are all pennies. Our value is found in Jesus Christ's love for us. He loved us enough to die for us and that makes us valuable to God.

We took a look at Philippians 2:5-8

It has been 3 weeks since our "reboot". If my math skills are correct our youth group has grown 19% in attendance from the previous month. Students are memorizing scripture and attending Sunday morning worship. Last night our group was comprised of 65% regular Contagious students and 35% guests and MIA's who have come back. I think the "reboot" has been a good thing. My prayer is that God continues to work in Contagious Youth and that our students keep reaching out to their peers.

Last Night At Contagious

We had a great time last night at Contagious! Hang Time is always fun just hanging out and building relationships. Apparently Bananagrams was the hit game last night. We partook of some very healthy Doritos, Cheetos and cake. I got energized by the red Kool Aid, the red one always seems to give me a little extra zip!

Contagious (the band) led us in worship in music. It was great to see some new students in the band doing their thing, using the shape God has given them to serve. Some new techies are being trained to use the sound board and Mac. It will be cool to watch our new ministry teams grow and become and integral part of our youth gathering each week.

We are currently doing the study series, To Save a Life. The series is all about discovering God's love and sharing His love with others. Last night we took a look at Ephesians 1:3-6. This passage took on a whole new look for me this past week as I studied.

At the time Paul wrote this to the church in Ephesus he was writing to a hodge podge of folks that made up this church. Many were slaves and prostitutes. In the Hellenized culture that was bumped up a notch by the Romans the unwanted babies, due to some type of deformity or imperfection or blemish or parents wanted a boy and got a girl, would be taken to a certain mountain side and left to die. Then people would take advantage and go collect these babies to raise them to be slaves or prostitutes for financial gain.

So all their lives they grew up with this idea that they were unloved and not wanted. They were brainwashed to think their only worth to society was the services they provided and nothing to do with who they are. I would encourage you to read this section of scripture from the viewpoint of these "unwanted" people. Think about how they must have felt when they heard that before they were even born God loved them and created them just the way they were blemishes and all.

The point last night was to help students realize that we can't share the love of God with the hurting and lonely until we discover just how much God loves them.

We also viewed a clip from the movie To Save a Life, a scene that showed how some kids aren't accepted because they aren't "cool enough".

Sunday Night at Contagious (the Reboot)

I didn't post yesterday because I was wading through the hundreds of e-mails that accumulated during my holiday.

Sunday night we kicked off the evening with a lovely and moving video from Edwin's Corner. We followed Edwin up with some giveaways from the movie To Save a Life. If that wasn't exciting enough we threw in a race game. The students were divided into three teams and cheered on their team's racing rhino as they raced across the big screen. I would say that by the amount of screaming and cheering the race game was a hit.

We talked about Reboot. If you own a PC (mac owners please excuse me a moment) you know those three magic keys to reboot your computer when it is stuck. It is easy in the Christian life to get "stuck". We talked about Rebooting our time with God in Bible reading and prayer, sharing our faith with our friends, getting involved in ministry and confession.

Part of Reboot revealed that the way we live out our faith has a direct impact on the rest of the group. Each part (tying in with NHC's Body Part series) influences the other parts. The focus was on the personal responsibility for the areas mentioned above.

We had several guests on Sunday night which is always fantastic! Much "fellowship" happened during Hang Time. More on Reboot and next Sunday night to come later this week.