A Not So Popular View of the Michael Madness…

All over the television yesterday Michael Jackson’s Memorial Service was broadcasted.  Many comments were stated, one that stuck out to me the most (even though I didn’t watch it) was by Stevie Wonder who was quoted as saying:

“This is a moment I wish that I didn’t live to see come.  But as much as I can say that and mean it, I do know that God is good and I do know that as much as we may feel – and we do – that we need Michael here with us, God must have needed him far more.”

There was a lot of talk about Michael and Heaven and while I’m not the one to judge, it didn’t seem evident that we knew Christ as his personal Savior or demonstrated his love for Christ.  Did he bring people together with his music?  Absolutely.  Was he a talented musician? Yes.  These are the things dwelled upon. 

My goal here is not to bash Michael in any way.  As a matter of fact, I feel convicted for not praying for Michael.  But to see the idolatry of the people all over the world to support this man and what he stood for I feel is absurd.  As I watched other programs on TV and saw the tweets come through of thoughts and comments from others, I was flabbergasted. 

Am I sad Michael died?  Yes.  Why?  Not because of his fame.  Not because of his money.  But because I personally believe he didn’t know Christ as his personal Savior.

I think we as people, not even jsut in the US, but the world as well should really take a deep look at ourselves.  Who are we serving?  Who are we “worshipping”? 

While the passing of Michael was a shock to the world, why don’t we keep our eyes focused on and worshipped our Creator. 

I’ll leave you with a quote from Steve Fee over twitter that Steve posted the day of Michael’s death and I think it explains my points well:

“The ‘King of Pop’ stands before the ‘King of Glory’ today…fame refined.”

Why I Love Momentum, Part 3

#3.  I love the Youth Group times at the end of the day!

Some conferences do this, others don’t.  I find it super exciting to end the night with Youth Group time.  Why you ask?  Because it’s a great time of debriefing the day, answering questions and discussing the sessions in greater detail with the students.

Plus, it’s an added bonus to have that Youth Group community time where people who might not ever hang out grow closer to each other.  I have seen some amazing things said in these times which were then followed up by action.  It also helps with accountability too!

It’s coming sooner than we know it!  I’m so excited!!!!

Why I Love Momentum, Part 2…

Yesterday I started a blog telling you why I enjoy our national youth conference called “Momentum”.  Today I will continue with my thoughts.

#2. I love Momentum for the serving opportunities!

Every year we go to Momentum, we are always informed about service projects.  Every year each teen has something they come away with for our service project.

In 2007, we stayed at the University of Southern Mississippi and we helped out vicitims from Hurricane Katrina.  Some built homes, some fixed up homes, and some did other things.  It was incredible to help those people in need.

In 2008, we stayed at Cedarville University and went down to the City of Dayton.  Our group handed out food to the homeless and what an incredible experience it was for our group.  The teens really realized how much they had.

As of yesterday, our group found out one thing we will be doing on one of our volunteer serving days.  We will be helping out World Vision with a Food Drive.  Then on Saturday we will be going to a place called McKee’s Rock near Pittsburgh to help out that town.  A majority of the town is under the poverty level and I’m so excited to see what God will do!

Momentum is not just about sitting and listening.  It’s about living out the Scriptures and caring for the widows, orphans, the poor, and others!

Why I Love the Momentum Youth Conference…

It’s coming…

July 13-19…

MOMENTUM!!!!!

Momentum is our annual youth conference held on a different college campus every summer.  Over the next couple of days, I’ll be relaying to you why I love this conference!  These are not in any specific order by the way…

#1.  It’s not only challenging to students, but to the leaders as well.

Sometimes you go to a conference and its so fluffy you want your money back!  Not this conference.  This will be my 3rd year going and I am challenged on a constant basis by the speakers.  Both Students and Leaders WILL be challenged on a daily basis by the line-up of speakers every year.

I appreciate not having watered down messaages that the teens can still understand, but be challenged enough to do something about it.

That is the first thing I love about this conference!

Check back tomorrow for some more…

Thank You…

Well, it’s officially summertime.  All the kids are out of school and we are into and have been into summer programming for the past couple of weeks.  Student Ministry is tough.  It takes not only a lot of effort once or twice a week, but also outside of the church building.

I have an amazing staff.  A staff who can put up with me.  A staff who can put up with my frequent changes.  A staff who is open and honest.  I would like to thank each one of them right now…ladies first…

My Beautiful Wife – Thank you so much for all you do!  You have discipled and mentored many girls in the group and I appreciate doing ministry with you each and every day!  You are amazing!

Tara Heller – Thank you, too, for all you do! I really appreciate how, when given a task, you take it and run with it.  Thank you for wo-maning it up and taking on the Jr. High Girls Small Group!

Carly Witwer – Thanks for all your help in this first year of being a leader.  You are always willing to lend a helping hand and you always have a cheerful attitude!

Melissa Witwer – I know you probably feel like you don’t do much, Melissa, but you do!  I have always appreciated how you come back from college and jump right into ministry!  Thank you so much!

Arianna Shaffer – Thank you so much for your heart in ministry.  You have a way to communicate to the girls in our Student Ministry and it shows!  Keep up the good work!

Eric Burkhart – Thank you for all that you have picked up and done this year!  Your backdrops for our lesson series blow my mind!  God has definitely given you a special talent and I’m glad we can put it to good use!

Joe Heller – Thank you for being willing to help in any way possible! Thank you also for stepping up and taking leadership over the Sr. High guys Small Group.  You have made huge strides and I appreciate your leadership!

Darren Sandoe – Thank you for all you do too, Darren!  While you think you are the “regulator” in a negative term, you have definitely pushed our leadership team to do their jobs.  Thank you for all you do for your enthusiasm to learn!

You guys have all made me so proud that you are a part of our team!  Great work guys and I can’t wait for our next adventure together!

Just A Little Diddy…

Every year our Student Ministry goes to our annual conference known as “Momentum”.  Every year seems to get better and better.  I’m so excited and getting ready to go this year.  We will be heading out to Robert Morris University July 13-19.

One of the highlights for myself and from my teens is the worship.  Two years ago we were introduced to a guy by the name of Steve Fee.  He is an amazing worship leader.  Last year he introduced us to a chorus of a song that was to finished at a later date.  The song was “Glory to God Forever”.  I found our teens singing it all of the time and we’ve even used it on Sunday mornings.

Well, Fee is coming out with a new album soon and has released a video describing what the song is all about now that it is finished and here it is:

A New Attitude…

Lately I’ve been reading, thinking, preaching, and teaching about the idea of how we as human beings react in certain situations.  As a leader in ministry, we all have some sort of critics that are critiqueing us or even trying to bring us down with some things we may be doing in our ministry.

I’ve been teaching an Andy Stanley series to my teen’s on Wednesday Nights that just wrapped up last night called “5 Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith”.  It has been very beneficial and I believe the teens are getting something out of it.  Last night (Wednesday) was talkning about Pivotal Circumstances.  These circumstances look so different.  They can be good or bad.  They could be positive or negative.  But the question that needs to be asked is how do we respond in negative or tough situations, especially when we are being “called out” by someone.

Lately, I’ve responded in a poor way.  I’ve let it get the best of me.  I’ve asked “Why me God?”, so on and so forth.

I want to live with a new attitude!  I want to live with the attitude that God will take care of everything.  I want to live with the idea that God will ultimately some day take care of my critics and that anything that I can do means nothing unless God is involved!

Just needed to get that off of my chest! 

Crazy Love…

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is going to be a great day.  Why?  We have 11 students and leaders signed up to come to our Fellowship Hall for a book study of Francis Chan’s “Crazy Love” book.

I admire Francis and his challenges.  He always seems to challenge me and my spiritual walk in so many ways.  I love how he is so easy to understand, but yet he adds those challenging words when he speaks and as he pens this book.

We are using this resource as a discipleship resource for the summer.  I have heard nothing, but good about this book.  One of our former students read the book this past year at college and said she has completely changed her goals in life.

So, why am I writing this post?  Well, first I’m super excited about introducing this book to the teens, but also if you are reading this I would ask that you cover our next few weeks in prayer.  My prayer is that these students will be challenged in their thinking and in their spiritual walk.

Better Late Than Never…

Sometimes it’s better late than never to post something on here.  The fact of the matter is I’m upset a few “Christians” in the United States.  Why you ask?  I’ll tell you why.

I enjoy reading blogs.  Most of you know that.  I get a lot of leadership insights from a lot of great people.  One blog I enjoy reading is “Monday Morning Insight”.  They always have intriguing articles and keep up with churches around the country.  This past Monday morning (June 8 ) I was reading and found out about the Gary Lamb situation.  If you don’t know what happened check out his blog post here. 

Let me share a few thoughts of my own.  I am very interested in planting a church some day and Gary’s blog was a good outlet with good ideas about church planting.  I don’t know Gary personally and have never met him.  I also do not know all of the details about the affair.

What I do know is that there are a lot of Christians beating the snot out of Gary verbally on there blogs and so forth.  Not just random people, but PASTORS!  Please understand me, I am totally against affairs, sexual immorality, etc., but people called by the men of God are bashing him with words.  We of all people should know that we should be praying for him and especially his family as we go through this. 

From what I understood from his blog posts, his church was doing really well.  It seems like everytime a church is doing well, seeing people come to Christ, bapitzing them, etc., people are always looking at ways to tear them down.

Folks, what ever happened to church serving one purpose.  I understand we have denominations, but why do we have to tear a brother down like this?  I’m not condoning what he did, but I’m also not tearing anyone down.

I’m tired of so called “pastors” tearing other pastors down because they doing great things!  Buck up guys!  Stop acting like junior-highers and pray for the guy instead of tearing them down. 

We all know that when great things are happening when God is in the picture, the enemy hates it and will do anything he can to destroy it! 

So why not start today?  I ask, pray, even beg of those who have slandered against Gary and his ministry that you would ask God for forgiveness and that you start praying and stop ripping him apart with your words!

Bittersweet Week (Ode to Jubes)

Well this week is going to be crazy awesome/bittersweet.  This week I get to preach in our Sunday Services, but before that something crazy cool is going to happen.

Julia Smith, pictured above, is heading out to Ohio for Operation Barnabas.  Operation Barnabas (also known as OB) is a 7-weekish ministry training trip for Juniors and Seniors in High School.  I have seen incredible changes in students through this trip and am excited that Julia is taking the step to do this.

So, since my handwriting sucks and I can get away with poor grammar on this blog, here is my letter to Julia:

Dear Julia,

I’m so excited for you to go on OB this year.  I  have seen so much life change in other students and cannot wait to see what God does in your heart and life through serving people and other churches.

You have such a servant’s heart and I have always appreciated that about you!  You are always willing to pick up and help wherever needed and that’s the kind of people that OB supports and loves.

I have no doubt that you will have a great experience and grow closer to God through this experience.  My prayer is that God will stretch you and challenge you so much that you lean on Him and by His grace have endurance to complete the tasks given to you.

In the past 2 years of working at the church I have seen so much spiritual growth come out of you.  You are truly a leader in our youth group’s eyes.  We all admire your maturity and your patience with many things.

May God bless you these next 7 or so weeks as you travel to different states and churches and come into contact with people.  I know you will succeed and go very far and am excited to hear all of the stories when you get back!

We’ll all be praying for you!

In Christ,

Pastor Chris