Currently Working On...

Right now I am gearing up for a few things. My study is broad so I will just key you in on the majors.

For youth group I am working on a series on prayer that will carry us through the summer. I am very excited about this topic because it will force me to pray more diligently. One of the many pitfalls of working at a church is that I fall into a professional type of Christianity that de-values prayer, not in profession but in practise. I have periodically fallen into the habit of only praying in public or during preparation and have neglected a healthy communication with God apart from my responsibilities as a pastor.

At first, this was going to be a series called Praying with Paul, where I would walk them through the prayers of the Apostle Paul. But, I am looking into maybe some Old Testament prayers because I have been Paul heavy lately.

For Camp: The theme for the year is extreme and with the help of some of the Outdoor Outreach staff we landed on Extreme Acts! This means I am working on 5 talks from the book of Acts. Extreme Change (Acts 9), Extreme Calling and Preparation (Acts 13), Extreme Worship (Acts 16), Extreme Community (Acts 16-18), and Extreme Task. This is getting me pretty excited. We chose an illustrated bible and just got it in the mail. It is awesome!

Lastly, I am working on a talk for "big Church" this August. The assignment for those of us that are preaching while David is on break is to tackle the questions that came from our recent Habakkuk Series. These questions are really tough! It will be a student led weekend so I want to tie it all together. Therefore, I am leaning toward doing a talk entitled, Teaching Students to Suffer Well. Problems are coming. Soon these students will be adults asking the same difficult questions our congregation is asking. So, do they have enough bible to keep them afloat when Satan pounds on them? Can they with stand the life that is going to happen to them? Are we giving our students enough of a foundation to help them navigate the storms or are we just having pizza parties? I can answer those questions confidently that we are giving them what they need... a healthy diet of rock solid biblical truth straight from the Word of God!