Tonight kicks-off our big youth event called Disciple Now Weekend. Our youth will be divided up into 9 host homes with 18 small group leaders from around the state of Oklahoma, mostly college students. Our speaker for the weekend is Anna Meadows who is one of the youth pastors at Life Church in Oklahoma City and our worship band is Kyle Cantrell from Journey Church in Norman. One of the biggest draws for the weekend is our Saturday afternoon paintball. The youth as well as the adult leaders love it.


Our theme is Live Love. What I hope happens this weekend is that our youth and adults will respond to the challenge by the Holy Spirit and respond to Him to live out our lives with love and care for others and through us they will see Christ and be drawn to Him.


I am currently reading a book titled, The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard, which focuses on the understanding of how God changes lives. In the book Willard states that we must practices such things like "...simple and sacrificial living..." and "...service to others." I pray that we will truly understand how to do so and produce godly fruit in our lives.

Flashback with Facebook

The Facebook phenomenon continues to draw in younger people these days. But at the same time, older and older people are increasingly finding their way to this online social network. As a result, I'm suddenly more connected with people who I went to high school and college with over 15-20+ years ago.

And "flashing back" to our own high school and college years can be a real advantage for those of us in youth ministry. I like to have our volunteer youth workers think back to when they were in middle and high school, "What were you like when you were a teenager?" "Which of the students in your small group were you most like when you were in middle or high school?"

• Were you the shy & quiet kid, not making eye contact with anyone?


• Were you the frenzied tornado kid, ricocheting back and forth across the room?


• Were you the kid with way more on your mind than your facial expression revealed?

A little blast from the past can go a long way toward helping you to consider what your ministry feels like to every type of kid. But the "flashback" serves me best when I think about my own journey through middle/high school. How I was trying to figure myself out... and I could have used some adults to help guide me.

How I wanted so much to be "cool"... and yet how tricky that was. And how I had no idea how much Jesus loved me... and what that meant for me. I'm thankful as a youth 18 year old lost college freshmen I had a godly man, John Ramirez, BSU Director, who came into my life and reached out to me with the love of Christ.

When students in our ministries are adults one day, will they "flash back" and think about how much God became real to them through our efforts? May it be so!

(part taken from scott rubin)

Update on Me

Here is an update on my stomach issue. In stead of just an upper GI they did both upper and lower GI's (fun) last Monday, January 26. My wife, Jennifer has some funny stories as some of you know what I'm talking about...you are really out of it. During the lower GI everything looked normal and they took a biopsy of the colon. During the upper GI this is what they saw and did:

• Stretched my Schatzki’s Ring
• Mild reflux
• Gastric mucosal abnormality characterized by erythema (whatever that is) - biopsied
• Erythematous duodenopathy (whatever that is)
• The 2nd & 3rd part of the duodenopathy (whatever that is) - biopsied

The doctor started me on Nexium and I am waiting on the pathology results of the biopsy. It’s been a week now and I still have not heard from the doctor concerning the results. My stomach has done very well the past five days, I even pigged out with my 9/10 grade guys LIFEgroup during our Super Bowl watch party last night and my stomach did not bother me. I guess the Nexium is working well. It's a magical purple pill. I will share the pathology results when I here from the doctor. Thanks for those of you who have asked about me and who are praying for me.