Chicag09 Pictures

Here are some pictures from our trip. Even though we only had one camera we took a ton of pictures.



You can see Jeff's from day 1 before our equipment was stolen here.

Chicag09 is Here!

We have arrived safely in Chicago and are getting cleaned up from our first day of serving. I'll be posting daily on our Chicag09 blog so stop by and check it out.

Leave a message for the team. They love them...even if they don't know who it is from. They've been asking me all day if anyone has left a comment and we haven't even been here 24 hours.

Thanks so much for those of you who are praying for us. God is going to do some great things this week.

GSM High School Girls Retreat

Chicag09 Meeting #3

MS Girls Retreat, Part 1

Here are some of the pictures from our middle school girls retreat last weekend. For some reason I took WAY too many pictures. None of these are edited and some how the settings got changed in the middle of the group pictures. So please don't judge me too harshly. More thoughts on the weekend coming soon. Enjoy!

March Chick Nite

This month we decided to try something completely new for Chick Nite and do a murder mystery. It was an absolute blast and complete success! We found a great package that had plenty of characters and an appropriate plot. The best part is there were only five male parts that five of us agreed to cover.

Here are all the pictures I took tonight. None of them are edited or sorted. If you want you can head over to my facebook and see the edited pictures that help tell the story of the night. This was one of my favorite Chick Nites yet. Good times with amazing students and incredible leaders. I love it!

March Girls Only

Here are the pictures from Friday night's Girls Only fun. I also thought I would share a few funny moments from the evening.

skoutz: That's not true. I lied.
Tia: Nice. So you took a bite of the apple with Eve?
skoutz: Yup. I sure did. It was wheat-free.


Blake: (reading a Laffy Taffy wrapper) What kind of shoes do mice wear?
skoutz: I don't know! Tiny ones?
Blake: Squeakers
Tia: Aaahhh!!! That is my life verse!


And Eden's life verse...
What do you call a nun sleepwalking?
A Roman Catholic

Yes we ate and read lots of Laffy Taffy wrapper. This has lead me to make an executive decision to open the second chapter of the Laffy Taffy Club. It is a great honor to welcome the new GCC chapter. In honor of this great moment I leave you with this question.

Where do you put noisy dogs?

March First Wednesday

Last Wednesday was First Wednesday, which means an amazing time of worship at GCC. This month's focus was on spreading God's love around the globe. It was a little different that most First Wednesdays but it lands on the charts as one of my favorites!

I've never met anyone as passionate about missions as Rob Wegner. He shared about the heart of God and how fast it beats for His people. At the end of the service he shared about the number of unreached people group who still have yet to hear the name of Christ. Everyone was given the name of a people group and the country in which they live and was asked to keep that people group in your prayers. I was very excited to find my card had the Azerbaijani nation in the northern part of Moldova. My little sister, Lois, went to Moldova on a mission trip when she was in college.

If you want to learn more about unreached people groups visit the Joshua Project website.

Dear God Series - Why do you feel so distant?

We wrapped up our Dear God series at GSM this week. We kicked off the evening with an incredible arts package using media, song specials, and drama. It was so much fun!!! I've loved continuing the conversation with students at school. I was going to say more about it but DC and Jeffrey have already done a great job. Check our their sites for a great summary of the evening and all the arts elements.

I will include one of the songs we did though. Many of you know I am a John Mayer fan. Gravity is an incredible song and I loved playing it with the band.


GSM "Gravity" from Jeffrey Myers on Vimeo.

Thankful for the Valley

The last few days I've found myself being a little more thankful for the darkest valley I've ever had to walk through. It started almost five years ago when I was informed I was being let go from my dream job due to financial difficulties. For the last few days several of my friends have been dreading the same news.

There are so many mixed emotions. I've found myself breathing huge sighs of relief and celebrating as the text and e-mails come from friends who get to keep their jobs. But as other messages of friends hurting come, I've found myself experiences once again all the same emotions as that horrible day. But in the midst of the tears, pain and uncertainty I've seen something beautiful.

I've seen the church. I've seen friends rally together. I've seen grace lived out. I've begun to understand why I had to walk through the valley myself. It wasn't a pleasant part of my journey by any means. But looking back I'm not sure I would have grown as much as I have without that pain. I'm praying that in time my friends that find themselves in this valley today will one day look back and say the valley hurt but it was good.

I know I've posted this verse a hundred times but it sums up the valleys for me.

"Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces;
now he will heal us.
He has injured us;
now he will bandage our wounds.
In just a short time he will restore us,
so that we may live in his presence.
Oh, that we might know the Lord!
Let us press on to know him.
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn
or the coming of rains in early spring.”
Hosea 6:1-3

Friendship

One of the Journey Class teachers this month is my friend Jason Miller. He is one of those friends who seems to be always teaching you something. So when I found out he was teaching a class on the friendships, I signed up quickly! I'm so glad I did!

Jason did an incredible job tonight. It was by far my favorite night of journey class so far. One of the major reasons I signed up for his class is because I really want to start being a better friend. J gave great practical steps to take as a friend. More importantly he nailed something I think too many people forget about. Friendship isn't just about having people around you nor is it all about what those friends do for you. Take a look and what else J had to share.


Class: Spiritual Practices: Friendships
Teacher: Jason Miller
When we talk about Christ-centered relationships we tend to refer to relationships that are static and often have an inward focus. We want those relationships to fit our needs. It becomes about acquiring people instead of building relationships.

Instead we should be building Christ-pursuing relationships. In these relationships we are moving towards Christ and trying to look more like Him and encouraging others to do the same. What does this type of friendship look like? It is a...

• Prayerful Friendship - Invite the power of God into our lives and our friends' lives (James 5:15-18)
  
• Confessional Friendship - Lay down our pride and shake of the things that pull us back (James 5:16)
  
• Confrontational Friendship - Challenge the old identity (James 5:19-20)
  
• Sacrificial Friendship - Stop being selfish and start doing (John 15:9-17)

Dear God Series - Grace

One quick thing before the Dear God info - If you weren't able to make it to a weekend service or live out of town, take some time to watch this weekend's service. Mark's message was incredible. The art elements were great. Easily one of the top five services I've experienced at GCC. Check it out here.

Several students have asked me for the quotes and passages I used at GSM this week. I thought I would post them for you. Also, you can head over to DC's blog and he has the wrap up of the week. Keep resting in God's grace my friends.


Series: Dear God - Week 2
Message Title: Why does God still love me when I make so many mistakes?
Topic: Grace

"We cannot assume that He feels about us the way we feel about ourselves--unless we love ourselves compassionately, intensely, and freely." Brennan Manning, Abba's Child

"God doesn't love us because we are lovable, but because he is love." C. S. Lewis

John 8:1-11

Romans 5:5-8

2 Corinthians 12:9

Four Day Weekend

This four day weekend is off to a great start. So far...

• SLEPT IN Friday morning
• Allison and I did some secret agent work.
  
• Threw a surprise dinner (w/other volunteers) for our GSM staff to say thank you for all they do for us. (If you are volunteering in a student ministry, take a few minutes to say thank you to your student ministry staff. Most likely they don't hear that enough!)
• SLEPT IN Saturday morning
• Heat wave with temperatures in the 20s
  
• Grocery shopping which got cut short due to the VERY busy Meijer
• Incredible service at GCC - The service can be found here on Monday. Don't miss this one!
• After service fun at the Curry house.
  

Tomorrow I plan on sleeping in again and spending the day at GSM. That guarentees to be a great day!

SMT Prayer Guide

This is from a post on my friend, Dan's blog. This is a great way for us to be praying for our leaders at GCC. Join the fun.

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The five members of our Senior Management Team from Granger Community Church are going on a multi-day retreat this week to pray, plan and strategize for the coming year/years of ministry.

My friend, and teammate, Adam Callender came up with this idea:

For the 5 leaders of our church, pray 5 minutes at 5pm for this entire week.

I love to see the pastoral heart of Adam in this. Here was his email to our staff:

I don’t think I need to convince anyone that this is a very important time for Granger, not because of budget, but because we have a whole community, country, and world that needs to know Jesus TODAY, all while we face challenges like we have never faced before. Because of that significance I’d like to ask you to join me by praying for them this week. I will be praying for our 5 pastors for 5 minutes at 5pm everyday this week. With that here are the five things I’ll be praying for:

· Their families—that God protect them and show them love and peace while they are away

· Wisdom and Discernment to make sense of our current situation

· Unity—that God grows them together as one during this time

· Strength—to persevere for the 5 days of meetings and conversations

· Courage—Mark (and I believe God) made it very clear to us last year what his One Prayer is for His church and I don’t think that has changed today. Pray for courage for them to lead boldly not cautiously, so we can be a courageous church that gives glory to God.

Again, this is what I’m doing. You may choose to do more or less but I do encourage you to do something special this week.

Adam

Dear God Series

It is a new year at GSM and we are running hard after God. This weekend we kicked off our new series called Dear God. During a previous series we wrote letters to God asking him one question. All the letters were anonymous so students had the freedom to has anything they wanted. The staff team took those letters and found the common questions and themes. Using those themes they created this series where we'll take a look at what God has to say about the questions.

I've been reading some of the questions as I prepare for this week's message. (I am praying big time that God will speak clearly through me next week!) They are incredible! And I love that our staff decided to do this series. Our students are asking questions and we are going to go to the Scripture and see what God has to say about those questions. Here are some reasons I love this series

• Students determine the topics and they are relevant to them.
  
• We meet students where they are.
• We look to God for answers, not our own ideas.
• We tackle tough questions that may be keeping student from taking their next steps.
• We show students asking questions isn't a bad thing.

If you are a middle school or high school student you need to come check this series out. I have a feeling you won't regret it.

The last GSM of 2008

Sunday night we had the last GSM of the year. It was a night full of excitement. We did another band audition and only have a couple more to go before round 2 starts. (At least I think so. I just do what Seth and Jeffrey tell me to do!) In between middle school and high school Seth and Jeff put together an amazing concert for all of our students. Riley and Maddie even did a few numbers for the crowd. It was so nice to have all of our students together to do nothing but hang out and enjoy some great music. Here are some pictures from the night.

Adopt-a-Family X

This weekend had been named GSM Weekend and I'm excited about it. As you can clearly see we had a blast tonight at Adopt-a-Family. Each year we adapt a few families and give them every thing they need for a great Christmas. This year we were also able to adopt an apartment complex that is run by the housing authority. It is really awesome how God worked out the whole thing.

In case you couldn't figure it out from the past 9 posts, here is what we do. Our middle school and high school students meet at the church and divide into groups. Each group is given a family member and a list of things they want for Christmas. We all pile on a bus and head to Wal-Mart to buy the things they asked for and then some. After that we head back to the church and wrap all the gifts.

Now this is the best part. The gifts are placed in black trash bags and delivered without the children in the family knowing. We don't tell them who the gifts are from. Nothing has the churches name on it. On Christmas morning the children wake up to see a living room full of gifts with their names on it!

Our students did an incredible job tonight. I'm so proud of all of them. I wasn't planning on blogging all night. I wanted to post one picture of the group and then dig in to our project. They girls loved that I was putting it on my blog so I thought I would do another one later in the night. Somehow, very quickly, it became my only job for the night. It was fun!

Tomorrow morning we get up and head to Feed the Children to pack boxes for the Food Drop. And that is only the halfway point of the great weekend.

Adopt-a-family IX

Things that happen in the atrium after a GSM events:
-Duck duck goose
-Random dancing and singing
-Things being thrown from the GSM office windows
-Leap frog

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Adopt-a-family VIII

Team Steph had an awesome idea to make a blanket for a high school girl in their family. Here is the finished product!
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Adopt-a-family VII

This is Karen. She is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. We get to wrap all the gifts now. Exciting!
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