JV Fusion moved to the Church Wednesday Night

JV Fusion will be meeting at the church this Wednesday night for a movie night instead of the park because of the weather forecast. BYOP (Bring Your Own Pillow, and Pajamas).

Not sure what movie we’ll be watching, but it’s going to be awesome I can tell you that.

6:30 – 8:30 tomorrow night, come hang out with us if you are in Jr. High.

2010 Varsity Ski Retreat

I’m very excited about this trip that we are beginning to plan. January 15-18 we will be teaming up with our church in Gillette to do a big ski retreat in Winter Park Colorado. We’ll ski for 2 days and stay there for 3 nights. If you are in 9th – 12th grade you can come with us on the trip. I have a total of 16 spots for students and they’ll go to the first ones that turn in the first deposit. And unfortunately, I have all of the adult help that I need. So if you are an adult and really want to go you’ll have to either figure out a way to age backwards or go back to high school.

Dairy Queen

I love Dairy Queen, ice cream is just one of my favorite things. Unlike Pastor Jeff, who is extremely picky when it comes to deserts, I absolutely love almost every desert.

Tonight after we played ultimate Frisbee for Varsity Fusion we went to Dairy Queen. Now there is really nothing magical about Dairy Queen, but one of my biggest joys of being a youth pastor is just spending time with my students, hanging out having a good time.

Ministry simply cannot be a 9 to 5 job, its a calling. I can’t imagine being a youth pastor that didn’t enjoy those times just hanging out with my students, what a privilege it is. We’ve got some amazing students at Element Church, so that makes it a lot easier to enjoy so much.

Full from my Resses Blizzard,
Andy

Anticipation

Desperation Conference in Colorado Springs was amazing. I got to witness our students have an incredible experience with the living God. Especially the first night of the conference i caught myself sitting before the service started on the edge of my seat in anticipation of what was about to happen.

I hope that I live my life that way. Just ready, waiting for what the Almighty God is about to do. I think we’re in place as a church where God is about to do some great things. Not just in numbers, although I do think we’re going to see a big influx of people again soon, but I think the Lord is about to just rock people’s lives, and that is exciting.

Anticipating,
Andy

Fusion Update

I think I’m starting to get worse than Pastor Grant at blogging. This has been a crazy summer with Aubrey and I running around and doing all kinds of different things. Fusion has been meeting in Lions park during the summer, just hanging out and playing games together. We’ll start back up our regular youth services the last week of August. I have pictures of our life retreat and the vacation we just took last week up on my facebook page. So if you want to look at my pictures and I’m not your friend on facebook then add me.

We leave for Desperation Conference Thursday at noon in Colorado Springs. My prayer is that it will be a very challenging time and a fun time for our Varsity students. I’m pumped about it.

Exciting things are happening at Element Church, humbled to be a part of it.

Life Retreat 2009

There is something about being in the mountains that the Lord uses every time to draw me closer to him. I love it, the view from the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park is just Phenomenal. I took these pictures sitting on the porch at the Administration Building. This building was the first building to be built here in 1910, crazy! The YMCA of the Rockies owns over 850 acres up here, just beautiful. God has been working in my heart this week, and i know that He’s been working in the hearts of our students. I’m so thankful and blown away by his creation.

The Cost of Ministry

Sometime last Saturday night someone got my car, Pastor Grants Car, Pastor Adams yard with forks, Pastor Curtis’s car, and Pastor Jeff’s Car with gummy worms. Pretty funny!

Funny Story

This morning I was on my way to work and pulled through the drive through at Taco Johns to get one of their amazing meat and potato breakfast burritos.  I opened my wallet to pay and I realized that someone had stolen all 4 of my card out of my wallet.  My personal debit carts, personal credit card, and the daddy of them all the church credit card.  So I’m freaking out all morning, calling the banks and credit card companies getting everything canceled.  I figured out that someone had stolen it from the fitness center while Aubrey and I were working out last night.  I called fitness one to see if they had video footage of someone stealing my credit cards and they said they had found my cards lying on the ground somewhere.

We were still convinced that someone stole them and maybe just decided to not take them because there were video cameras all around.  So the fitness center instructed me to file a police report, I did all of that and she said she was sure that they would be able to catch whoever did it.  About 20 minutes later I get a call from fitness one.  Here’s how the call went:

“Well we looked at the footage and it looks like when you pulled out your wallet to check in with your fitness card your credit cards fell out onto the ground.  While you were working out someone found them and returned them to the desk.  The cards never made it to the locker”

Man I feel like a dork,

Andy

The Determination of David

This morning while I was reading in my devotions I came across one of my favorite stories in the scripture.  It’s the story of David attempting to bring the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem.  David becomes king and his first order of business was to refocus the nation of Israel.  The Ark of the Covenant is where the presence of the Lord was in the Old Testament but the Philistines stole it some years earlier in a battle with the Israelites.  One piece of advice, never steal the Ark of the Covenant, because when the Philistines stole it everyone in their town broke out in disease.  So the Ark got dropped off at some guys house and just kind of stayed there for about 30 years.

David was determined to go get the Ark of the Covenant but the problem was he put it on a “new cart”.  The problem was David failed to follow the specific instructions that God gave to Moses about how to transport the Ark.  So David didn’t listen, screwed up and a guy died because of his mistake.  David got frustrated with the whole thing and dropped the Ark off at another guys house.  About 3 months later David was told how much blessing that was poured out on this guy’s household that had the Ark left at his house.

What I love about David is that he learned from his mistake.  He screwed up the first time, made a pretty significant mistake.  But he picked himself up, went back to get the Ark and this time followed the instructions God had given Moses hundreds of years earlier.  I think failure is a part of life.  If we never learn from our mistakes, suck it up, and try it again we’ll never go on to the great things that God had for us.

Challenged,

Andy

Unqualified?

I love the story of Elijah and Elisha. It is so good and so much to learn from this story. But you have these two prophets, Elijah is like the experienced Prophet and Elisha is the young guy who will take over some day. The story comes to a head where Elisha realizes that God is going to take Elijah away from him and he’s going to be the prophet everyone looks to. The problem is, Elisha knows that he’s under qualified. He knows it, but what I love about Elisha is that he is seeking God. He basically asks Elijah for a double portion of his spirit when he is taken up to heaven. The scholars (not me) agree that Elisha was not asking for more of God’s spirit because he wants to be more recognized but because he realizes that he is going to take over and doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, he knows that he isn’t qualified to take the job.

Most of us first off need to realize that we are not qualified. Then when we do realize that part of it, we need to start seeking God because other people’s souls are relying on it. We are not qualified, I know I am not. That is exactly why we need to start and continue to seek God, because without his spirit, we will remain unqualified.