Merry Christmas

Hey Everyone,

I hope you have a great celebration of Christmas this year with your family and friends. I always think of Christmas as so busy and full of hustle and bustle. I desire to slow my row and reflect on all the good and great things God has provided for me and done for me this year. I hope you will have a great time of reflection and family celebration as you celebrate Jesus Christ's birth to the world and salvation for all.

Great day

Yesterday was a great day. I enjoyed a great morning with the students in sunday morning Fuel. I liked helping with our Extended Teaching Care during the service. I went to lunch with some great folks in the Young Married group. I then helped setup for our church wide Thanksgiving banquet. It was a great success and loved the food. Tear down and cleanup with smooth and quick, it was done before I knew it. Afterwards I went to work out where Eric and I ran 3.2 miles and walked some before and after it as well. We then went and benched some weight which I ended up maxing out at 240. I was very pleased with that amount of weight. We tried to do some crunches and loose some belly fat. Went home and went to sleep soon after. Like I said it was a great day that I enjoyed living. Looking forward to this week, THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Lord for my family, my friends, my church, my job, everything that you entrust to me, volunteers that work with me on a weekly basis, my home, my cars, but thanks most of all for salvation and for loving me and forgiving me every single day!

Attn Captured

I have been wrestling with things much this fall. I am not sure why exactly but I believe much of it relates to my spiritual life being dry and without much growth. My personal time in the word and seeking to know God has been weak. Also the youth ministry I serve, seems to have lost much steam and direction. I wonder if there's a correlation? The answer seems to be Yes. Tonight I spent some time in the scriptures and feel a renewed at least at the current moment. Of course it is 2 am so I am not sure what I am feeling but I am tired of feeling like I am drained and alone in this thing. I want to see God's Glory displayed and His spirit move before me. I want to speak like Moses and say, "God, if you are not going to go with me then I am not moving." I want to live in God's spirit and power and display God's greatness to students and adults. I know God has called me and gifted me in ways but HOW DOES GOD WANT TO USE ME? I am not always certain of the answer to this question. I saw this video tonight that was encouraging, maybe it will talk to you in some way:

prayer

I am tired and in need of lots of prayer.

Diary of a Desiring Youth Worker

I desire to see God move so powerfully through our church and student ministry that people repent and move to share the gospel boldly. I am really disappointed in my leadership as a youth minister because I feel like I just can not lead the youth ministry I am currently serving to grow numerically by reaching nonChristians. I want to see students become Christ followers that live that out passionately not scared of others. We need adults who are passionate about seeing that as well. What we say and what we do is not always the same. I am praying that God would move in our midst and either move us or change us. I think that is the only option for something different among us, Come Holy Spirit in POWER!

working hard

Sometimes working hard doesn't show itself for awhile. You wanna be in shape. You wanna loose weight but there are those times when you are working and working and it's just not happening. I think I am in that time right now. People keep saying, "man you have lost so much weight." Well I have lost a lot of weight compared to how bif I had gotten but I feel like I have so much more to loose. I need to be 20 or 30 pounds lighter to be totally healthy. My good friend(Eric) and I have been working out hard this week. we have been running for about 20 mins and then lifting weights to gain some strength. I really like this gym where we work out. It is called 24 hour Fitness and it is open obviously 24 hours a day but people are there running it 24/7. I have a keycard that I swipe and then go in, do whatever I want, and then go out the exit door. It is a very clean facility with all new workout equipment. I am enjoying working out again and being a lot more healthy than I was a year ago. I just wish my weight would drop like it did during the first six months of the year. Weight, GO DOWN! ok I guess it will now. talk again soon.

love it when it happens

I really enjoyed today even though it wasn't the best day I have ever had. Nothing really awesome happened but don't you just love it when you can look back on your day and say, "today was a good day?" I do. I was really busy planning things for Wednesday nights ReFUEL with the student ministry and working on some other things. I was able to help my friends/coworkers with a project and I always like doing that. I was able to break some things and then fix some things. I lined up some folks to cook some food for the students on Wednesday nights which went really well. They love free food almost as much as I love when they come. Its just great when things come together for a great Wednesday night ReFuel, which it did. I planned to show a couple of videos throughout the night and they went well. I decided to let the Youth band practice without me supervising them because they work better when I get out of the way and let them figure things out. The lead worship very well tonight. I wish I had been recording them because I think it was really spirit-filled. Matt finished his 3 part message to the students tonight and that went really well. God gifts him to speak and he is so much better with words than i am. I really miss it though when I do not get to share my heart and message with our group. It is nice to have a break but I am also excited about our new series coming up in 2 weeks. The students love hanging out at the FLC and I am glad that they have so much fun there and enjoy being with God's church. My only desire is that more students would desire to join us for our exciting journey of life that we are doing together as Immanuel Baptist Student Ministry. Ministry has it's ups and it's downs; glad today it had it's ups!