Last Weekend in Texas

To all my Twitter followers: I'm sorry, but I was swamped with work today and wasn't able to sit down to blog during lunch. But here's the update on how our trip to Texas went this weekend.

My wife, daughter and I went to Gun Barrel City, TX this last weekend to visit Christian Life Center Church. It was an awesome experience. We stayed at the Comfort Suites in Mabank, TX and had one of the best night's sleep we've had in a while. The bed was one of the most comfortable that I've ever slept in.

The church was great. From the moment we walked in we knew we were welcome. The greeter at the door was great, handing us a bulletin and letting us know where the nursery was in case we would like to take our daughter there during the gathering. The music was contemporary and the you could really feel God there. It was great.

Pastor Barry Boatright, preached on having a passionate, extravagant love for God and even shot an arrow across the stage to hit a heart shaped target. The message was challenging and applicable to everyday life. We ate lunch Sunday with the pastor and his family and then met with him afterward. We talked about the opportunity of coming to serve there at CLC and the pastor's heart for the community there.

Pastor Barry is planning on having the Youth Pastor position filled by May 1st so we should hear something by then. Please be in prayer that we stay in God's will and serve where he wants us.

God has great plans...even when we don't know them!

Wow, it's been a long time since I wrote here on the YP Outpost. At my last post my wife and I had started to look into the possibility that God was leading us toward planting a church. And though that is still there in the back of our minds and spirits we are continuing our search for a church that would like to have us come and be their youth pastors.

Currently we've heard back from two different churches this month. We went and tried out at a church in Jones, OK but it doesn't seem that is where God wants us to be. (we received our letter from them today). However we are going to visit a very contemporary church, Christian Life Center in Gun Barrel City, TX. We'll be going down to spend the weekend with them on the 27-28th of February.

To our friends and family out there, be in prayer that we will be in God's will and He will open doors that need to be opened for us.

And for those of you here at Crosspointe Church in Ada, OK. Get ready for a great message on serving tonight in our Wednesday Gathering. Love you guys!!!

A New Direction...

Amy and I have been looking for a church to minister at for nearly 8 months now and currently we are feeling that God is broadening our horizons a bit. You see about 2 years ago God had laid church planting on our hearts and we were just about to begin the very first steps when He opened the door for us to minister down in the Texas gulf coast.

Now it seems that He may be opening the door for church planting again...well, at least in a way. We are looking at possibly joining with a church plant as volunteers and learning as much as we can about it in the process as we serve there.

Anyway, please keep us in prayer as we explore this new direction. We always need God's guidance and leading.

One Reason Our God is Awesome

Because although He's the almighty God of the Universe He takes the time to care about us. It always amazes me how much God cares about his children.

I've been looking for a church to serve at as youth pastor and have only had a few leads but nothing solid. I was starting to get frustrated and feel down. I asked several minister friends of mine to pray for me. Well over the last week I've seen several churches open up and most of them are contemporary and progressive like we are looking for.

They've answered my emails quickly and one church even sent me a questionnaire to fill out. So we'll just have to wait and see.

It's just awesome that God took the time to show me a glimmer of hope, when i was so down. God You're just amazing!!!

Random Thought from a Caffinated Mind

I'm so ready to get back into youth ministry. I just love hanging out with the teenagers, playing video games, drinking mochas, and discussing God-stuff.

It's been more than three months since I left Magnolia Church and we're still looking for a church to open up. It gets kinda depressing looking for a job, but I'm just hoping that God uses this time in our lives so that we can relate with other people who are going through the same thing.

I don't know what we're going to do...I'm not sure where we are going to go..or what ministry God has planned for us. But I've gotta be honest...I sure wish that God would answer our prayers faster.

We'll just stay in prayer and see what God has in store...I just believe that God is taking his time to prepare a greater comeback than what we would ever think about having.

A Whole New Life

I know it's been awhile since my last update, but when you finish reading this you'll understand why its been so long since I wrote last.

Well, about a month ago I was officially released from ministry at Magnolia Church. I'm currently looking for another ministry position where Amy and I can serve. I won't lie, it's been quite a letdown and I've kinda found it hard to deal with because I totally didn't see it coming, but Amy and I are making it through together.

To compound the stress of all of that (but greatly increasing the joy in our lives) Amy and I welcomed our baby girl, Jadyn Fayth into our lives on March 5th. It has been a whirlwind of emotions...joy, anxiousness, gratefulness, feeling overwhelmed, and then back to joy.

Not sure where we are going to end up, but one thing is for sure...We're doing alright, but we are really needing God to answer our prayers...and soon.

Awesome Stuff Planned for 2009

Just want to list a few of the ideas that we are planning for 2009

+ A totally revamped youth room. We've taken down the shutters and the beach themed stuff and we are going in a whole new direction. We'll be painting the walls and adding splatter paint. We're also working on designing a permanent stage that will have the same flare as the rest of the room.

+ Building a portable Welcome Center where students can sign in and guests can fill our Basic Info Cards. This is going to go outside the youth room in the hallway and will be able to be wheeled back into the youth room after our gatherings.

+ {HE}brews Coffee House will be created in the current Welcome Center. This will eventually grow to be self sustaining. It will also offer some of our students a place to minister through service.

+ All new signage. We are going to be adding two static cling 2ft x 3ft posters to the front glass doors as well as signage for the new {HE}brews Coffee House. And also some moveable posters for the Welcome center that will say, "Welcome to NSM."

NSM New Year's Lock-in

It's that time of year again. The Annual NSM New Year's Lock-in is coming up this week. I just want to take the time to invite you to come join us for what promises to be one of the best events of the year.

Events include: Relay races, Underground Church, Indoor Soccer, Ultimate Dodgeball and many more.

Invite all your friends to come this is going to be Awesome!

When: Wednesday Dec. 31st - January 1st
From 8PM - 9AM

Where: Magnolia Church Family Life Center
2215 Nall St.
Port Neches, TX

How Much: Cost is $5 per student. This will cover your food for the night. Dinner and breakfast.

Pre - Youth Convention

Youth Convention fever has hit our youth as we prepare to head out for two days of extravagant worship and lives being rocked by God. This year Planet Shakers is going to providing worship with speakers: Rick Lorimer, Mary Burroughs, and Russell Evans.

This is going to be awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

Guys and Girls Cell Groups

Sunday Nov. 16th and Dec. 7th

@ 7 PM

on the Magnolia Church Campus

I am so psyched to announce that we are going to be kicking off Guys and Girls Cell Groups on Nov. 16 and Dec. 7th at 7 PM on the Magnolia Church Campus. This is going to be a great time for our guys to get together and discover how to fulfill God's calling in our lives...to be men of God.

It's also going to be an amazing time for our young women to get together and discover how they can become the mighty women of God that they were created to become.

Come join us this Sunday night and find out what you were created for!

Ministry Teams

I'm totally excited about what we are going to be doing this week in NSM. We've had several students express interest in doing ministry in several areas, but it is so hard for us to get kids to come out on a day that they aren't already at the church. So what we've decided to do is use this Wednesday night as a Ministry Teams Night.

We are going to be talking with students about several different areas where they can get involved and then training them in the areas that they express interest. A few of the Ministry Teams are:

+Prayer/Hospital Prayer Team
+Coffee Shop Team
+Pro Crew Team (Live audio/video during service)
+Graphic Design Team
+Video Production Team
+Welcome Team
+Drama Team

The students are really excited about doing different stuff in youth and I'm praying that it'll be the pull to get them to bring their friends. I'm ready to hear, "Hey you need to come to The Network with me, I'm doing this awesome skit and it's going to be amazing."

Palm Valley MC Crew Headed This Way

Just got off the phone with Micah Crump the Master's Commission leader at Palm Valley Church in Mission, TX. We spent a week with them back in July ministering in their annual Mexico Outreach and hooked up with his team. They are headed down this way to minister at The Network tonight and then they are going to head to First A/G in Port Neches and help them out tomorrow.

This is going to be one of the best services that we've had. The AMP Band is pumped and ready to go. The students are really fired up, and it looks like everything should run smoothly.

I pray that the students here at NSM are totally rocked by what PV MC is bringing!

[RE]FUEL: all-new series

We just kicked off an all-new series here at Network Student Ministries entitled [RE]FUEL. We had an awesome relaunch service for the new school year. 18 students showed up and we had 8 students say that they wanted to refocus their lives on Jesus (rededications). It was amazing!

Props to all the youth staff who did an awesome job of making sure our gathering ran smoothly, no one got killed, and we had plenty of lemonade & Kool-aid.

What I want to see...

Over the last few weeks, God has really been working in my heart. I've been reevaluating why we do what we do in youth ministry here at NSM and what I want to see in our youth ministry and students in the future. Out of several days of prayer, soaking in the Word, and spending time with God this list was birthed. It wasn't something that I had set out to create, but rather, was birthed from my heart in a time when I was seeking God for direction.

Sometime this week I'm going to be gathering students to prayer, read this vision, and act on it. You see, this list is more than a mere to do list; it is a vision that I believe we will see come to pass here at Network Student Ministries, if we continue to seek after God. We will be reLaunching our youth ministry next Wednesday, striving to fulfill the vision God has given us. May you be blessed and challenged as you read. Find out what part of this vision touches your heart the most. What can you do to see this come to pass?

What I want to see...

· I want to see students leading other students to Christ inside and outside of our gatherings.

· I want to see students totally devoted to God in every aspect of their life.

· I want to see a youth ministry that moves as one unit to fulfill its purpose.

· I want to see student leadership arise, take ownership of and be committed to this ministry.

· I want to see adult staff leading small groups of students.

· I want to see cell ministry explode in our youth.

· I want to see prayer being a radical passionate outcry to the Lord and the foundation of our ministry; students realizing that if Jesus, being the Son of God, thought that prayer was important, that we should find it important even more so.

· I want to see students using their gifts, talent, and skills for the glory of God, displaying them weekly in our gatherings.

· I want students to dig deep into the Word, strengthening the roots of their faith through personal devotional time, prayer time, giving, serving and accountability so that when they graduate high school they will not be part of the 80% that fall away from Christ.

· I want to see lives totally transformed by the power of Jesus.

· I want to see students coming to Christ; the skaters, emos, rockers, hipsters, preps, nerds, geeks, outcasts, loners, school band members, athletes, the riff raff, forgotten, hurt, discouraged, bullied, poor, the popular, and the affluent.

· I want to see students who run toward the challenge of living for a higher standard than this world has to offer.

· I want to see students for whom apathy is not an option.

· I want to see students who really get and idea of what is happening to their generation; how students are going to Hell in droves, because no one is willing to step up and do anything about it.

· I want to see the end of the church-camp-to-comfortable-Christian cycle; where you get totally rocked by God at a conference or youth camp and lose your fire within weeks of returning home.

· I want to see students totally emptied of themselves so that they can be full of God and be totally lost in Him. That wherever they go people see God through them.

· I want to see students wake up and realize that church and youth ministry is more than songs, games, offerings, hanging out with friends and sitting in a pew to listen to a speaker; that the real reason we are here is to serve God in whatever capacity that God wants to use them, be it litte (like getting the youth hall or LifeGroup room ready and setting up chairs) or large (like drama, welcome team, connection team, worship band, or preaching) and that the reason we do those things is so that other students will come to Christ.

· I want to see students who don’t care about themselves and what makes them feel comfortable, but will do whatever it takes to see their friends, family, and schoolmates changed by the love and sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

· I want to see ministry teams develop beyond the ordinary worship band, welcome team, connection team. I want to see skater outreach teams, food for the hungry teams, and others where students are willing to sacrifice of themselves so that others might see Christ; ministries that people may have never seen before.

· I want to see students take ownership of this ministry.

Mexico Outreach '08

Take a week of your life, mix in a dash of ministry, a sprinkle of worship, a tidbit of hard work, and for flavor add 1 Hurricane Dolly...and what do you get?

Mexico Outreach '08!!!

Wow, what an awesome experience! I took 7 students with me to Palm Valley Church in Mission,TX which became the launch pad for our mission trip to mexico. We were able to go in for three days, though we were momentarily halted by Hurricane Dolly which ransacked much of the area that we were ministering in.

We grabbed our hand saws and axes and headed over on Thursday morning to help a local pastor "clear some branches". What we ended up doing was cutting down three large trees by hand! The students and leaders remained in good spirits though, toughing out the heat and humidity like champs. We were able to clear the trees in a matter of hours and then be on our way to do another street presentation of the Gospel.

Many lives were changed, and we were able to bring life into a church who's pastor had just passed away. We made some lifetime friendships and saw some miracles. We're ready to head back next year!!!

Master's Commission, 220i and other things I wish I would have known about.

It's amazing to me all of the different ministry opportunities that are out there for teenagers. I mean I never even heard about Fine Arts, Master's Commission, much less intenship programs like 220i from Bethany World Prayer Center in Baton Rouge. I wish I would have been given the opportunity to get involved like that.

These things are really great and I encourage all of you guys and gals to check them out. If you have just graduated or I'd your in collegee, it would be great for you to take a semester off and just serve the Loerd through MC or 220i.

LifeGroup Revamp'd

We've revamped LifeGroup making it more laid back. We'll be discussing how the Bilbe can be applied to our lives. Drop by for a cup of coffee and join the conversation this Sunday @ 9:45am in room 103!

C2 @ Rao's

Last night was great. There were several of the college and career aged young adults that attended our first gathering. It was a great time of connection and making some new friends. I want to give a shout out to Laura Marrs for joining us. It will be great getting to know you better. Stay strong for God!

Rao's in Nederland did a wonderful job of hosting our little band of marauders. LOL It was really funny, when we arrived there were already two other groups of people trying to do Bible studies. But the baristas were able to keep up with us and offered impeccable service and a killer White Chocolate Mocha.

After we closed Rao's down at 9:30 several people came over to hang out at our house until about 1:00 AM. We talked about everything from the spiritual representations in Lord of the Rings, our favorite movie car chases of all times, to why catching king crab in the Bering Sea of Alaska is the world's most dangerous job.

We had a great time and I'm definitely looking forward to gathering together again.

Awesome Night

Tonight we had one of the best nights so far at The Network. I worked with Josh Sport, Rory Smith, and Michael Crawford Monday and we put together a set of songs for the first night with live praise and worship. We mixed up the service schedule doing all the logistical stuff (welcome and announcements), then I spoke on Worship, and then we had an awesome time of praise and worship.

We had a guest who was really touched by God and said that she would definitely be back. That is why we do what we do. To lead people to an experience with the one and only living God and watching their lives be changed. Several of the students told me that it was awesome. I'm looking forward to building on the momentum from this night through out the summer.

Keep your eyes open for more great things to some.

Out of School Blowout '08

Tonight was great. We had 21 here at The Network for our Out of School Blowout. We had an awesome time of voleyball, basketball, video games, and a washerboard tourney.

My thanks go out to my amazing wife, Amy, and our wonderful sponsor, Audrey, for putting together sodas and chili cheese nachos forus to eat tonight. That coupled with a giant cookie cake made our stomachs full and put smiles on our faces.

What topped off the night was that we had several visitors come and have a good time along side us. It was good to see that our students are bringing their friends. Hopefully this will be the first step toward seeing lives changed.