Category: light force

  • GroupLink was Hit

    GrouplinkToday was the much anticipated debut of GroupLink. Simply put, GroupLink is an event that the church puts together that connects people looking to join a small group to a new small group.

    As a GroupLife leader, I was anxious about this because I wasn’t certain I was going to have very many people in my small group. So I was very pleased to see 40-50 people there today after church. I don’t actually know who is in my small group, but I trust that I now have an adult small group to lead and that it’s populated with real, breathing, people. So it’s very exciting for me personally and I hope for the whole church.

  • Game for next weeks Light Force

    In an attempt to bring you the very best in youth group games, this is a preview of the game for next Wednesday night.

  • Starting to see it…

    A lot has been said and talked about, to me at least, with the church’s "new vision/direction/whatever you’d like to call it."

    Here is one place where the results are starting to show through. Light Force

    We’ve been measuring our nights by this phrase, "Are our small groups having meaningful conversations?" When I’ve talked to the small group leaders over the past 3 weeks, the answer is progressively getting to be "Yes!" It started out with "I went well, not there yet." To "we’re getting there" To last night some of the leaders were saying "We’re getting meaningful." It’s a progression that is fantastic because as the leaders and students begin to trust one another more and more…. those meaningful conversations will happen. Students and group leaders will know they are safe and life-change will happen.

    That’s really encouraging churchwide. As this weekend GroupLink happens and adults start learning who their small groups will be… I can look into the future (not with a crystal ball but through my lenses of the Light Force experience) and see how fantastic GroupLife is going to be for our adults.

    Can I insert my little old school Toyota commercial leap here? (Dating myself there, right?)

  • Light Force Talk Notes

    Lightforcelogo_blue_greyA few people have asked about this, so I want everyone to know. I’ve updated my talk notes link on the blog. On the right side is a category called "My Life" where you will find a link to "My Talk Notes." This will take you to the Light Force website and you can download all of the transcripts from my Light Force talks.

    I think the truth is that Ryan Neilson is secretly using my note for his group each week. I won’t tell your pastor Ryan. 🙂

  • Protect Yourself from Cyber Bullies

    Protect Yourself from Cyber Bullies

    The following is an article I’ve submitted for publication to the Romeo Peach. I thinks it’s a relevant topic for anyone who uses the internet for community purposes.

    The other day Kristen and I watched a Primtime special
    called, “How Mean Can Teens Be?” The investigation was about a new form of
    bullying that many students participate and experience, online bullying. “Cell phones, instant messaging and personal Web sites like
    MySpace and Facebook are now common weapons of “cyberbullying,” used
    to spread gossip, rumors and bequeath public lashings — leaving teenagers with
    painful battle scars.”     http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2421562

    (more…)

  • Heart thumping…

    Church_014
    Nearly two weeks ago the church staff decided that September 10th wouldn’t just be the day we went to two services, started KidsTown (Including building KidsTown) and really moved forward with our vision… we decided this was going to be the day that we wrapped up our Phase One building project as much as possible.

    Exteriorview
    The last 12 days were spent painting, finishing drywall, ripping out old carpet, installing new lighting, finalizing the Resource Center, pushing the elevator inspections, pushing the final 3-4 contratrators to complete the exterior and basically getting the foyer to the point where we can say… it’s 99% completed.

    Resourcecenter
    The changes to the look of the church have been dramatic over the past 12-14 months. Before, the building was antiquated. It was a nice place to worship, it had a good feel to it, but everything about the building was 20-30 years old. It’s been a collasal amount of work (Barely any on my part, mostly on the shoulders of George Fisher and an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition style crew of volunteers) to remodel the offices, then the sanctuary, then the foyer, while contrators tore the face of the building off, added an elevator, all new windows, an new entrance, and a new face to the exterior.
    Newdoors
    In the meantime, all of the "new stuff" has been finalized as well. Light Force led the way Wednesday night as it became the first arm of the church to implement the changes. KidsTown is next… it launches this Sunday with a whole team of very excited volunteers.

    Not forgetting about God. Yeah, while these last few weeks have been stressful… they are also quite peaceful. I don’t know any other way to describe how I feel about this in my walk with the Lord. I know that I am doing the absolute best I know how. As I hang out in Acts and 1 & 2 Peter in my devotions I clearly see God’s fingerprints everywhere I turn with the work being done.  I long for people to join us in experiencing freedom and forgiveness of the past through Christ. I long for this to happen:

    They [false teachers of the world] promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. If
    they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and
    Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they
    are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 2 Peter 2:19-20

    I think that the King James actually captures this passage best. [See the link above for KJV] I know there are many in our community (in the church and out of it) who have given themselves to one bondage or another. They desire liberty but are put into bondage. Oh, that we would continually teach that Jesus brings liberty into lives given through birth and bad decision to sin! It kills me to see so many people flee Christ because they see bondage or judgement or religion’s rules and much, much more. They have an incorrect view of the cross!

    As we say in Light Force… people think they are alive, they think they are healthy… but without being "infected" with Christ, they are really dead. They need to die to themselves by getting infected with Jesus in order to truly live the best life God has for them.

  • Praise God for Delegation

    Today is already an insane day. Lots of plates spinning, lots of good things happening, and lots of new plates popping into view today. Sorry I’m not talking in specifics… but I just want to say that I it’s days like today when I am especially glad I have a team of people I can hand things off to in a pinch.

  • Leaders lead… sometimes in weird stuff too

    It may come as a suprise that most of my work week has not been very ministry focused. In fact, I think 90% of my time this week has been spent painting the foyer. While that may sound weird, and I know plenty of friends in ministry who would never jump on board with such a project, here are some reasons I’ve thought of while staring at the ceiling.

    • I think environment is important. We’re putting a lot of emphasis on our fall launch this September 10th… I’ll do just about anything to welcome our people into a great environment… from the basement to the foyer to the sanctuary.
    • I’m willing to lead when no one seems to care. This foyer project had really dragged to a halt. It’s been cool to see the office staff wear paint clothes and just try to finish it.
    • A little physical labor is great! I love my job, but it’s often times hard to see the tangible results of my labor. But painting and doing finish work in the foyer is easy to measure. And I’ll be able to walk in there Sunday morning and feel good about knowing I played a part.
    • I know that hard work is contagious. We’re not doing this to make anyone feel guilty, but we are ask SO MUCH of our people… I want to be a part of leading the way in working hard.

  • No more Dave-ness

    Well, he’s gone. The party ended about 5:00 PM as we left Dave at the security check point. The whole way there and even seeing him start to say goodbye to a lot of people didn’t make it set in… but at the airport it started to hit us. As we said our final goodbyes and he got in line, reality hit our little group hard.

    As we sadly and silently worked our way back to the van I held Megan’s hand tightly. Whereas she had been playing and singing only a few minutes before, she walked quietly and hugged my leg as I paid for the parking. The silence continued as we left the parking lot and headed onto the highway.

    It was superficial, but I decided that we needed to break the mood a little. So we stopped at Ikea on the way home to try to chear everyone up. It worked a little and superficially.

    What an incredible experience for Dave and our little church! As we talked earlier in the day it was clear we would give him an "A" for his internship. He worked very hard. He was stretched in a lot of areas in his life. He stretched us. On and on and on. It was a great experience. Perhaps this was some of the reason we were having such a hard time leaving him? At some point along the way he stopped being an intern and starting being part of our church. Likewise, he had stopped being a guest in our home and had become a part of the family.

    Something else really hard to watch: I can’t tell a lie. Some of the pain of dropping off Dave had nothing to do with him. As he made his way through the security checkpoint (Big mistake making him take off his shoes… Nacho cheese!) there was a young soldier on his way back somewhere. Proudly wearing his uniform, this massive young man was having a very hard time leaving. He carried his 2 week old baby around and couldn’t bear letting her go. As he tried to say goodbye he started weeping. (This greatly accelerated the tears in the concourse as well! We didn’t even know the guy.) He took his baby girl into the security checkpoint with him, the tears flowing freely as the reality of leaving his wife and newborn daughter behind. He simply didn’t want to give her back. The reality of life was calling him and he couldn’t bear it. For me, it was a huge reminder of the daily sacrifices young men like him make on a daily basis. Likewise, all over this country thousands of young moms take care of babies wondering when or if daddy will be home. While I am excited of the work our troops are doing in the Middle East, it isn’t free.

  • KidsTown logo

    Kidstown3rev_nhrWe’re not 100% final here… but this is a sneak peak at what our new KidsTown logo will look like. There are a couple of things that really stick out to me as "huge" for the KidsTown logo… but I’ll keep them to myself for now.

    We’re hoping to have the graphics in hand and t-shirts ordered in the next several days.