The Reward

I love the opportunity I get to be in ministry full time. I get the unique opportunity to see life change in students especially more than the average person and its an incredible privilege.

But life happens, a pastors main job is working with people which can be very rewarding and a lot of times can be really frustrating. Sometimes people are rude and unreasonable. Sometimes people want you to solve all of their problems because you’re the “pastor” which is suppose to be magical or something. Ministry is heavy, and every week there are new things that come up that add to the weight of ministry.

However, all of it is worth it. Last night in JV Fusion the Sprit of God was heavy and both my wife and I could feel it. She was singing with Morgan on stage leading us in worship and just felt led to ask the students to kneel if they wanted to as we finished singing the song “I Surrender all”. As we finished the song I just felt like we couldn’t continue in our plans until we gave a chance for students to respond to God moving. I gave a short talk about surrendering it all to God and 12 students came forward or acknowledged that they received Christ.

Its nights like last night that make all the “weight” of ministry all worth it. So honored that I get to do what I do.

Fusion Update

Both Jv and Varsity Fusion are doing very well. I’m really excited about where we are at in both of these ministries and where we are going in the coming months. We’re raising money during the whole school year in order to purchase a mini van for a single mom in town. We’ve already made it to $1,700. The church has decided to match every dollar that we raise as a youth group, very exciting.

Last night in Varsity we had 24 students and we kicked off our new dating series called “Why”. We’re focusing on developing a biblical view of dating so that when students do date they do it in a way that honors God. We currently have 1 High School small group meeting on Tuesday night and 2 more that are launching the first Sunday night in January.

Tonight in JV Fusion we had 48 students, that is a new record. It was really an awesome night tonight, we had a lot of fun with our students. Morgan and Aubrey led worship tonight, and did a great job. One of my leaders, Daniel, lead a group game tonight called “wack em”, its the only way that we can hit students with a foam noodle. We have 6 small groups in JV, each seems to be doing well, lots of good relationships being built.

I love youth ministry, teenagers are lots of fun. Honored to be leading our students.

Fear

This morning in my devotional time this was the last verse that I read, Hebrews 13:6

“So we can say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper,
so I will have no fear.
What can mere people do to me?”
(NLT)

My first thought as I read that was to agree and kind of end my devotional time on a high note. The more I thought about it the more I realized how big of a challenge this is. I mean how many times to I really live like that? Most of the time I am living in fear, I’m afraid or worried about money or friendships or whatever it might be that day. I think we would all agree with this verse, but all of us ought to question our fears.

May we live life to its fullest and not live with the fear of man.

Fusion Update

Very excited about where we’re at as a youth ministry.  This is our second school year as a youth ministry and over the last month we’ve averaged 50 students (20 Varsity, 30 JV).  My personality is to be driven by numbers, I want to see our youth ministry have 100 students next week, but something I have been learning as a youth pastor is about the importance of structure and stability of a ministry.  I would love to see 100 students some day, but what I don’t want is 100 students that are superficial that will leave as soon as something in the ministry doesn’t benefit them.

Small groups is where we’re focusing as a ministry.  In JV we have 6 small groups that meet every Wednesday night.  These small groups are based on each grade and gender.  Varsity currently has 1 small group with 2 more in the works hopefully becoming a reality in November sometime.  In my mind small groups equal empowering leaders in your ministry.  I lead two of these small groups, all of the other ones are being led by my leaders

Very excited to see what happens through our small groups this year in Fusion.

Andy

Leftovers?

Currently in our High School Ministry I am preaching a series based on the book “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan.  If you haven’t read this book I would definitely recommend it. Its been a really challenging book for me to read.

Chapter 5 is titled:  “Serving leftovers to a Holy God”.  I think i just read the title and was convicted.  Something the Lord has really put on my heart lately is the quality of time I spend with Him.  I know in my relationship with Aubrey I try so hard to give her my best.  And I think there’s nothing she appreciates more than when I give her my full attention, all of myself just for her.

I think a lot of times in my life God has been the one that gets short changed.  Its easy to just give him whats leftover, but as long as I read my Bible that day then I pat myself on the back and consider my relationship with Him good.  The truth is, God doesn’t want my leftovers, He wants all of me.

Love this quote from crazy love:

“The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time.”

What do you want said at your funeral?

On Tuesday night at Varsity Fusion we talked about death, not too exciting of a subject. It was really good though, and I think its healthy for us to come to the realization that we’re all going to die at some point. I love what Solomon say’s in Ecclesiastes 7:2 –

“It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.”

I challenged myself and our students to think about what they want to be said at their funeral. For me I told them that I want people to be ecstatic about my love for Jesus, and I hope that is the same for my students as well. For me the real challenge then is asking myself if I’m living in such a way that people will actually be ecstatic about my love for Christ.

Youth went great this week, we had 22 students at Varsity and 32 at JV. Very excited about this school year.

In Him,
Andy

Fusion Update

Varsity went really well last night. I love seeing students connect with each other and really begin to build relationships. That’s central to what I want to see in Fusion, very exciting. Last night we started a Crazy Love series, amazing book written by Francis Chan. I preached a little after the video last night, we talked about the bigness of God. Really talked out of Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, trying to think about who we are really talking to before we pray.

We got JV Fusion happening tonight, we’re also starting our first series called Plugged In tonight, specifically speaking on living our lives with an attitude of worship. Worship is much more than singing on Sunday morning, although I can’t get enough of the Element Worship team.

Love hanging out with students, we have some really great kids!

Andy

Exciting Stuff!

Just got home from our Varsity small group that we have every Sunday night and I have to say that out of all the youth activities we have going through the week this one is my favorite. There are lots of things I love about the other activities, but this one in particular just has so much more depth to it. I love seeing students engage with God’s word and really be challenged spiritually. Happened tonight, and I know it will continue to happen. Very excited to see what God does in the lives of our students this year, very!

Andy

Fusion Tonight

Varsity Fusion starts back up tonight meeting in the church. Doors open to hang out at 6:30 and we s tart at 7:00. I’m very excited about tonight, we have an exciting year ahead of us and tonight is going to be fun casting vision for the school year. Hope to see everybody there tonight.

Andy

Fusion Update!

We probably had one of the funnest weeks at Fusion this last week. On Tuesday night we met everybody at the mini golf place at Lions Park. I scored 57, and I was pretty excited about that. Love hanging out with our High School students, I think we had 15 or so there on Tuesday. Afterward we went to Baskin Robbins for $1 ice cream cones.

Last night for JV we went swimming at the Municipal pool and had a bunch of fun. Minus the fact that i dropped my phone in the urinal (which by the way i got to work again and yes i disinfected it). I had never been there before but we had a lot of fun, had around 25 students there last night.

One of the best parts about youth ministry is having fun with students, I think its probably one of the most vital parts of youth ministry. If students are able to have fun at youth and want to come back, they’ll be there to hear the Gospel.