GSM Middle School Challenge: Meditation and Solitude

from Radio Free Babylon

I saw this comic strip today and it reminded me of our conversation on Sunday about the spiritual disciplines or practices of meditation and solitude. I thought I would share it with you and encourage you to keep practicing all of the spiritual disciplines we've talked about this semester.

If you aren't sure of what a next step might be, I thought I would share with you a couple passages you might spend some time wrestling with this week.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me." John 14:6

 He must become greater; I must become less. John 3:30

Grab your Bible and journal. Turn off the tv, video games, and music and find some space to be with God. Find some GSM friends to share your experience with before next week. Dig in an be ready to hear what God wants to share with you.

Psalm 1:1-2
Blessed is the one 
who does not walk in the step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers, 
but whose delight is in the law of the Lord
and who meditates (hagah) on his law day and night.

Life is Good!

There is really no point to this post other than to blog and share a great picture DC took at GSM yesterday. And since this is my blog, I can ramble all I want...in list form of course.

- God is doing some amazing things on South Bend campuses. We've started our Core Group Bible study. We have an incredible group of students who are passionate about following Christ and anxious to share with their fellow students.

- GSM is in full swing and the school year is off to an incredible start. John taught during middle school on evil this week. Check out this awesome picture DC took during his message. Hilarious!!!
- I'm trying to find a way to take a mini-personal retreat in Kentucky. I've been waiting so long to go and visit my friends there and learn more from them. It actually looks like it could happen now. This is very exciting to me.

- I am in Michigan connecting with some students I've coached and mentored, as well as catch up with some friends and family. I made a surprise stop at the St. John's Speedway to visit my camp buddies, Jeff and Mitch. I love making quick surprise stops like that.

- I had the privilege to catch up with a good friend, Matt Schantz. I've posted before about how much I've learned from him. He has been doing campus ministry at Central Michigan for many years. He had some great advice and was incredibly encouraging. I'm very thankful we were able to connect today.

- I had a date with my Daddy tonight. He took me to my favorite restaurant back home, La Senorita's. And to make it even better was the fact that Mom got to join us since she didn't have to go in for jury duty!!! It was so much fun to just sit and hang out.

- I'm looking forward to connecting with some former students tomorrow and some other Lansing friends. These Road trips are always so refreshing.

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.

Chicag09 is coming soon!

Tuesday we'll load up a GCC shuttle and head to Chicago for a week. Here are some pictures of our last team meeting. I absolutely love this team and can't wait to see what God has in store for us.

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!

Pure Randomness

Spooky Week - If you are into superstitions, you know this week had the potential to be down right horrible. There was a full moon earlier in the week and today was Friday the 13th. The full moon seemed to have the opposite affect on my students this week. (Thank you Jesus!) And my younger students proved everything true about Friday the 13th. They were a hot mess today.

Middle School Dances - I am the worst middle school dance chaperone there is because all I can do is laugh. I almost fell off the bleachers today as I was chaperoning. That is pure entertainment my friends.

Valentine's Day - Much like St. Patrick's day, I often forget this holiday exists. But I did receive some wonderful valentines from some students and staff members, including a "cheese cake." I'll be spending the day with my parents and brother on a little road trip to see my little sisters.

Cats - I'm sure I'll lose readers due to this comment but I hate cats! 'Nuff said.

Memphis - This is where I wish I was this weekend. Some of our GSM students and leaders hopped on a bus this morning to head south for the Student Life Conference. Kristian Stanfill is leading worship and Francis Chan is teaching. The good news is I was able to catch tonight's session online. Francis Chan was incredible!!!! I wish all of you could have heard it. Did I mention the bus has WiFi?

Packing - I hate it too. I'm waiting until the last minute and packing tomorrow morning. I'll probably regret it but I'm over it.

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.

Chick Nite - Jan 09

Tonight our high school guys were playing video games at the church with some of our leaders while I had the chance to hang out with some of our incredible high school ladies and phenominal leaders. We changed things up a bit and went ice skating at Merrifield park and then played games as we warmed up at Castle Manor. I had a blast!

I haven't skated in years and was very nervous about it. I'm not always a huge fan of new things. However, it turns out I'm not that bad of a skater. Who would have known?!

As exciting as that was, one of my favorite highlights was starting the fire in our cabin in record time! No we didn't use a starter log or lighter fluid. It was the craziest thing ever...well...except for our massive game of STRAWS!!!

Sure you've played Spoons and I'm sure you have lots of great stories but none of them will compare to tonight's game of straws. We split into two circles and placed straws in each circle. Once someone gets four of a kind everyone runs to the opposite circle and grabs a straw. Hilarious. Enjoy the photos and be prepared to laugh.

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!

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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