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.

Pray 4 Me

Just asking for some prayer as my stomach has been bothering me for about a month now. Today I finally was able to see the Gastroenterology & Internal Medicine Specialist, Dr. Jeff Bigler, who is very cool. I answered tons of Q's for him. He has scheduled an upper GI scope, lab work, and an abdominal CT scan. So we will see what happens with all of this. Thank you for praying for me and I know that the Lord will take care of me and restore my body. Pressing on!

Facebook - 150 Million Active Users

I like using facebook. I enjoy connecting with friends and people who I have not seen or talked to in many, many years as well as current friends. I have been a member of myspace and facebook and a few other social networks but my favorite has to be facebook. I like its structure, its security, its ease of use, its applications, and more. I know facebook has been catching on recently, but I had no idea how much.
Check this out...today I came upon this description of the growth of facebook and how it is expanding, and expected to continue growing in 2009. AMAZING. Check it out...

10,000 Text Messages

According to Telegraph the average teenager sends almost 10,000 text messages per year, and is so worried about missing an important call that they leave their mobile phone switched on overnight, according to the latest survey into the digital habits of young people.

The research, which was carried out by Bebo, a social networking site popular with teenagers, reveals that more than two-thirds of young people use their mobile phones and digital cameras to keep a photographic record of their lives. Almost 75 per cent of those surveyed said they used social networking websites to share photos and keep in touch with friends.

Around half of those questioned said they had as many as 250 "friends" with whom they kept in regular contact via the internet. Most of the teenagers who responded to the survey, which was posted globally on the Bebo website, said they spent the majority of their spare time on the web, with almost one third saying they watched more than 50 online videos per week, usually on sites such as YouTube and Bebo, and other social networking websites such as MySpace.

But watching traditional, broadcast television is still a popular pursuit for many young people, with 31 per cent admitting to watching more than five hours of television per day, and 32 per cent stating that they watched TV for between three and five hours per day.

"Communicating with one another is one of the most popular hobbies among teenagers today," said Sarah Gavin, global director of communications for Bebo, which has more than 11 million users in the UK. "If technology enables them to do this more easily, then it makes the experience all the more appealing to them."

And new research suggests that using social networking sites might even be beneficial to youngsters. A study by the MacArthur Foundation in the United States concluded that use of sites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace helped young people to learn crucial life skills.

Teens who Lie, Steal, & Cheat see themsleves as Ethical

With finals coming up for students in a few days here is an article on Drudge Report. You can read it here. Here are some of the most concerning points of the article.

• “American teenagers lie, steal and cheat more at "alarming rates," a study of nearly 30,000 public and Christian school high school students concluded Monday.
  
• The attitudes and conduct of some 29,760 high school students across the United States "doesn't bode well for the future when these youngsters become the next generation's politicians and parents, cops and corporate executives, and journalists and generals," the non-profit Josephson Institute said.
  
• Boys were found to lie and steal more than girls.
  
• Overall, 30 percent of students admitted to stealing from a store within the past year, a two percent rise from 2006. More than one third of boys (35 percent) said they had stolen goods, compared to 26 percent of girls.
• An overwhelming majority, 83 percent, of public school and private religious school students admitted to lying to their parents about something significant, compared to 78 percent for those attending independent non-religious schools.
  
• Despite no significant gender differences on exam cheating, students from non-religious independent schools had the lowest cheating rate, 47 percent, compared to 63 percent of students attending religious schools.
  
• Despite these high levels of dishonesty, these same kids have a high self-image when it comes to ethics."
  
• Some 93 percent of students indicated satisfaction with their own character and ethics, with 77 percent saying that "when it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.”