Summer Camp Prayer Points

Our Prayer Ministry Leader Brian sent me these prayer points for camp today. Please be praying for camp really hard the next two weeks! Check it out -

Collision of Worlds:

Prayer List

Theme of Camp: “Collision of Worlds”

Prayer Points Over our Theme:
1) Every person going to camp will have the revelation that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins. (vs. 39)
2) The work that God wishes to accomplish in each life represented would be accomplished. (vs.38) Jesus accomplished what He set out to do on the earth and on the cross.)

Prayer Points for Pastors/Speakers:
-Danny and Jamie, Steve and Taunia, J.O. and Raydeane Owens, Doug and Donna Lasit, Joe and Kirsten Tuttle, Stephanie and Trevin, Caleb, Kyle
* Acts 6:5-10
1) Pray specifically that they would have the anointing to break all forms of resistance (vs. 10)
2) That they would all carry a greater level of wisdom and discernment to speak to certain students and change the atmosphere (vs. 10)
3) That the passion they posses would be rubbed off on every person (vs.7)
4) They would be full of faith and power to preach the word (vs. 8)
- Also be praying against sickness in their bodies, that they would be healthy, their sleep would be good, nothing would come up to conflict their schedule,

All Leaders Counselors/Co-Counselors)
1) Ask God to remove any vain spirit from you (Ps. 127:1)
-And that the Lord will build His house, you would just simply be obedient (Ps.127:1)
2) Pray that God would give you a clear vision for your cabin/those students you will be pasturing (Prov. 29:18)
*Don’t just go to camp this year, this is the ideal time to gather people for your small group and see them brought into the church and discipled
3) (Staying w/ the theme of our youth staff meeting last Sunday): We have to have a violence in our spirit to see that these kids live in the perfect will of God (Matt. 11:12, Matt. 6:10)
-pray that God would stir in you a righteous violence to overcome

Worship/Sound

Ps. 40:3 “He has put a new song in my mouth- praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord.”
Ps. 50:23 “Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; and to him who orders his conduct aright, I will show the salvation of God.”
*God is putting an “aggressive passion” on our worship team. I believe He is giving them an anointing to overcome obstacles that would cause resistance in our kids’ hearts. As they lead us, God will place a new song in the heart of our kids’ that will carry on to their campuses, in to their homes, and on to their friends.
1) There would be a new song put in our mouths
2) That in the presence of God, every person would know that God is in control and He can be trusted with our lives
3) There would be an atmosphere of: freedom, repentance, and deliverance in worship(Ps. 50:15)
4) Pray for worship team members by name
5) The supernatural power of God would be present to see healing (Ps. 30:2, 2 Chron. 7:14, Ps. 147:3)

Sound Team:
-Pray for Lorelei, Casey Jordan, and Jonathan Schaffan
-Pray that we wouldn’t have any technical problems, sound issues,that they would be able to adjust quickly to the room, etc.

Games

1) For safety, that we wouldn’t have any broken bones, concussions, etc. (bumps and bruises are inevitable )
2) Pray for organization (specifically praying for Kyle/Trent who are leading)- we need everything to run smoothly to save time
3) Pray that they kids would have the most fun they have ever had at camp!
The NXT/Pulse as a Whole
*Proverbs 14:14 “The backslider in heart will be filled with his own ways, but a good man will be satisfied from above.”
1) Pray for a consistency in our lives after we leave from camp
2) Pray against pride and being filled with our own ways
3) Pray that they would get planted in the house of God and they wouldn’t turn away from church
4) That they would make the choice to live as disciples of Christ
-I believe God is wanting to target those kids with parents who are not saved
*Pray that in spite of what parents would say, they would choose to trust God and believe that what happened at camp can happen every day.

-Thanks for all that you guys do, please be praying over these few points throughout this next week. This year is going to be awesome!

Product Review – Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament

I recently signed up for a program through Thomas Nelson Publishing where they will send books and resources to bloggers for free if they commit to review them honestly on their blogs. If you’re interested in reviewing Thomas Nelson products on your own blog follow this link - http://brb.thomasnelson.com/. So this is my first review of the first resource they sent me.

I finished listening to the Word of Promise Next Generation New Testament on MP3. Honestly, this audio version of the New Testament was not my favorite. It is specifically marketed to children and youth, which was one of the reasons I decided to listen to it for review. All of the voices used for the narratives are young people – mostly teens. This sounded like a cool idea but listening to it was honestly a little annoying.

The most disappointing part of the product was the voice of Jesus. The guy that did Jesus’ voice throughout the whole New Testament sounded like a weak, tired and broken little man. Every phrase sounded like he was about to die on the cross. It just made Jesus feel fake and unbelievable – like he wasn’t a real guy with a normal voice.

Other than the voices everything else is pretty good for an audio New Testament. The background music was enjoyable. The format of the MP3’s on the CD was easy enough to navigate on my ipod. I could find different chapters of the New Testament quickly with no trouble. Most of the expressiveness of the characters were fine…it’s just when the most important character in the whole story sounds like a weak and dying teenager it ruins the whole thing for me.

If you’re looking for an audio bible for your teenager, I’d pass on this one. Maybe the adult version has Jesus sounding like the man he was. Give that one a try.

Creating Culture Part 3 - Serving

The next culture I want to discuss is the culture of serving. This one is a little more talked about in the church, although most people getting involved still need to catch the revelation on the value of serving in the kingdom. Jesus was a servant and is into his followers having the heart and life of a servant.

Matthew 20:25-28 - ^25 But Jesus called them to Himself and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. ^26 Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. ^27 And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave— ^28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

John 12:26 - If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.
Mark 8:6 - And He directed the people to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven loaves, He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them, and they served them to the people.

One culture I'm desperate to create in the NXT is a culture of "serving down". Meaning that the older students value and serve the younger. My young adults should be laying down their lives for the high school students. And the high schoolers should be serving the Jr. Highers. This is what really makes our generation model work well. If we were really to establish this culture effectively there's no telling what could happen over the course of a couple years.

Do we as a church give people clear channels to serve the Lord? Do we do well at articulating a vision of serving Him and not merely building our own kingdom? Do we really serve those that need it in our communities? How do we get better? What can we do to create the "serve down" culture?c

Prayer Requests for March

Hey all -

Thought I'd post some more prayer requests for you. Thanks for your continued covering. Prayer literally paves the way for life changing ministry.

• Pray for our sermon series going on right now called "U & Me". We're tackling the huge issue of dating and preparation for marriage. It's a big deal in the lives of young people and I'm believing God to bring alignment in all of our relationships.
  
• Continue to cover the issue of purity in our young people. Something broke loose in the church last month in this area and it's caused a great deal of work for us pastorally. It's the best though - young people are being set free!
• Pray for our upcoming mini youth conference called "Define". The date is March 25th. It's kind of a last minute thing, but it's going to impact our youth and our region. Pray that Pastor Poncho Lowder is anointed to bring a powerful word to the youth of our city. We're also going to be doing some service projects at Nampa High School that day.
  
• Pray for Pastors Steve and Taunia. They continue to need health, rest and peace as they fight the good fight of faith and continue to heal from the accident.
• Pray for advancement in every area of the church. We're not in a season of retreat. It's time to advance. Pray for advancement in individual lives and the church as a whole.
  
• Pray for our new semester of life groups that launches on March 8th. It's going to be the best set of groups we've had so far! New groups include Brian Gorseth's and Calvin Abbott's. I'm really excited about them.

Thanks again! We're all in this together.

Creating Culture Part 2 - Encouragement

On with our discussion on creating culture (although I sure would like a few more of you to chime in on this discussion). The culture we're going to look at today is a culture of encouragement.

I think one of the most common weapons used by the enemy on Christian is discouragement. As a youth pastor, if there's anything that can slow me down in ministry it's becoming discouraged that my ministry isn't working, that we aren't reaching enough kids, that my leaders just aren't getting it, etc. With the devil working around the clock to bring discouragement, one of the most important cultures we must have in the church is encouragement.

The church should be a place where people can come and be built up and encouraged. They should leave our gatherings filled with hope and faith. I believe there must be a more concentrated effort from leaders to encourage young people in their life, ministries, and their calling.

Romans 1:11-12 - For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established— ^that is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.

The challenging part is that we're committed to biblical community. So while we want to bring encouragement, love, and hope to people, we're never going to stop preaching against sin and challenging people to change. That would be unhealthy for everyone. We're in youth ministry to transform ordinary young people into radical, world changing disciples.

Our strategy in accomplishing this so far is to have a two pronged attack. From the pulpit, I really preach hard against sin and foolishness. I never apologize or hold back. We bring real, relevant truth to the young people every Wed night. The second part of the strategy is this - there's a youth staff of around 50 young leaders who understand that their main job is to love and encourage young people like they've never experienced. These youth staff minister to students from a place of encouragement and unconditional love.

If both parties do their job, we should be creating a culture that is incredibly encouraging and challenging at the same time. This is a culture where young people can experience real life change. They can't listen to the message preached and stay comfortable in their sin. And when they respond, there are leaders there to walk with them and encourage them that they can and will succeed.

I feel like we are making some good progress with this approach. But I'm always looking for ways to encourage young people more.

What do you think?

What are some things we can do to create a culture of encouragement in the church? (BTW, you certainly don't have to go to FLC to weigh in. I'd love to hear from you wherever you are!!)

Podcast is Here!!

Just wanted to let everyone know that the NXT podcast has officially arrived. Feel free to check us out on Itunes or subscribe at the website - www.the-nxt.com

Special thanks to Brent Earwicker, Evan Earwicker, Lorelei Williams and Caleb Brown who put in the time to figure podcasting out and get us rolling. It'll be fun to hear how God takes the messages and spreads them.

Enjoy!!

Creating Culture Part 1 - Inclusiveness

I think it was Erwin McManus who really started to get me thinking about the role of leadership in creating culture in the church. When we first got to Westside, Jamie and I read his book Unstoppable Force and learned about how his job title at Mosaic was a "Cultural Architect". He talks about his primary duty as a leader to create culture in the church and the city.

It's been a while since I've read the book so the details are a bit blurry. But I've been thinking a lot about how to create culture since coming on staff at Family Life Church. It was really interesting starting the NXT Youth Minsitry from scratch and having a huge part in creating the culture. It was an amazing thought for us when we realized that anything we did not like about the culture of our youth ministry was up to us to change. As youth pastors, we are cultural architects.

A couple weeks ago, Pastor Steve challenged his pastoral leadership to create culture in the church focusing on 10 specific areas. I thought I'd do a series of blog posts on the list and start a conversation about creating culture in each area. I'd love to know your thoughts, ideas, experiences, frustrations, rants, dreams etc. as we explore church culture over the next few weeks. Let's get some discussion going!

Culture #1 - Inclusiveness

The church in America has come a long way in creating a culture of inclusiveness over the last 10-15 years. But I think we need to go beyond just welcoming visitors and making services feel more comfortable and understandable. I believe that trend has run its course. God wants this to run deeper in our hearts.

It's a common complaint among young people that our churches have too many cliques. There's always a sense of competition and popularity when you're gathering a group of young people together. But the culture of inclusiveness can be created.

I remember being in high school and visiting different youth ministries in our city. The difference in the inclusiveness was one of the first things I noticed. As as new person, some groups cared that I was there and some didn't. I ended up making some of my best friends through the youth ministries where they had an inclusive culture. Why? Because they reached out and loved me - and I in turn responded to that. Pretty simple.

In our youth ministry we have a "connect team". Their responsibility is to connect with new students on Wednesday nights, set up coffee with them or something, and see how they can help get them involved in Family Life Church. But I really believe we need to do much more than just have a team of people who take this responsibility on. When inclusiveness becomes a robotic and starile or a delegated responsibility we're not truly acheiving our goal. I appreciate all that our connect team does, but I have a deep conviction that every member of our youth ministry should be on the team. In fact, I see a day where we don't need a team because it's just who we are. We include everyone.

I believe that inclusiveness must become a culture throughout the youth ministry and the whole church. I believe that God has called us to do supernatural things. And I believe it is supernatural to get young people to stop thinking about themselves, let go of insecurity and think about how new people can be included. I believe it's possible and I believe it's something that God wants us to focus on this year.

Time for you to chime in -

How do we as leaders create a culture in the church where everybody is welcome?

By the Hand - Part 2

Genesis 21:17-18

^17 And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, “What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. ^18 Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation.”

It's not just sin that we need to lead young people out of. We need to lead them out of agony, depression, loneliness and pain. The toll that our culture has taken on the lives of our youth is astounding. Someone has to hear the Lord calling out and speaking to them - "lift up the lad".

It's our job as youth leaders. We're called by God to lift up a generation of young people who have a destiny in God that remains. He's the God who sees, as Hagar found out. He sees them right where they are at - desolate and wandering without direction or purpose. God hears their cry for help in desperation - wonderful, simple unorthodox prayers. Sometimes just tears...

I'm praying that there will be a whole army of leaders that hear from God and answer His call to bring hope, purpose and restored vision to this wandering and hopeless generation. I'm praying for an onslaught of leaders to arise and take a generation by the hand and lead them to the source of living water that is just around the corner.

The movement has begun...are you a part of it?

By the Hand

In Genesis 19, God is absolutely done with the wickedness of Sodom and Gommorah. Certain judgment is on the way for the immoral people of these two cities. There is but one righteous family the midst - Abram's nephew Lot. So God warns Lot to get his family together and get the heck out of those condemned cities.

I've always struggled with the character of Lot. 2 Peter clearly calls Lot righteous. But what was he doing living in a city of such depravity and wickedness? Highly suspect. Lot certainly was righteous (in a right place with God), but he was also entangled.

Genesis 19:15-16 - As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” ¹⁶ But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.

He lingered. There was something in his heart that just wasn't ok leaving. There was something that longed to stay in the midst of the wicked culture. I believe that same thing was in his wife's heart...and Lot lost her because of it.

What are the things that cause you to linger? Linger at the party when you know its time to be home...linger at the boyfriends house when it's really getting late...linger on that website when you're clearly convicted by the Holy Spirit...linger in that conversation when its obviously going in the wrong direction. You feel me?

What hit my this morning was this - God's mercy was grabbing Lot and his family by the hands and dragging them out of the city. We usually preach the "Holy Spirit is a gentlemen" message. Apparently not this time. The angels grabbed them and forced them out of the city before it was destroyed.

Sometimes as youth pastors and leaders that's our job. Sometimes we reason, sometimes we plead, sometimes we pray. But I believe there are times when we're literally supposed to drag young people out of their entanglement in sin. Certain judgment is on the way. It may seem a little forceful, it may be a little uncomfortable, it may be awkward. But Lot was sure glad in the end that they dragged him out. Being a vessel of God's mercy doesn't always mean being mild and gentle - sometimes force is required.

A New Year for Reading

Hey All -

One of the best decisions I ever made in my life was establishing the discipline of reading the Bible every day. I'd list it in the top 5 choices of my life. Bible reading is something that is normally encouraged in church but often given half-hearted effort or ignored all together. One of the reasons people struggle with Bible reading is because they do not follow a plan. People tend to read the Bible with a shotgun approach, randomly selecting what they'll read each day. This is a really difficult and confusing way to approach the Bible.

When I started reading the Bible systematically through a Bible reading plan, my whole perspective on scripture, God and all of Christianity changed. At first I felt a little "unspiritual" or mechanical because I felt I wasn't necessarily reading exactly what God wanted me to for that day. I felt it might not as spirit-led. What I didn't realize was that as Christian that professes to believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and absolutely true, I am responsible to know everything that is in the book. I believed the whole book...but hadn't even read the whole book. And the reason I hadn't read the whole Bible was because I was a shotgun Bible reader.

The other thing I learned as I grew up in Christ was this -

Hebrews 4:12 - "The Word of God is living and active"

God's Word is alive. Every word of it. I used to think I needed to read a specific part of the scripture in order to hear what God wanted to speak to me. I now understand that God can use literally any part of the Bible to speak to me and adjust my thinking and my life. He is able to breathe on any scripture and bring revelation that is unexpected and exciting. This makes reading the Bible an adventure worth taking every single day - in a systematic way.

Bible reading plans have been around for 100's of years - they're nothing new or notable. But what keeps changing with technology is how easy it is to follow them. I'm not sure how you feel about digital Bible reading, but I'm down with it. Some people really like to turn their gold leaf pages and all, but I believe it's the words that are powerful, not the leather or the special feeling pages. I do still read my bible out of a leather bound book a lot of the time. But I'm also a fan of reading it on my laptop and most recently on my cell phone from a mobile website.

I found a tool this morning that I thought would be worth sharing with you. It's a pretty awesome list of Bible reading plans from the English Standard Version of the Bible. But the coolest part is that it gives them to you in several different formats - Web, RSS, Email, iCal, Mobile and Print. Meaning you can get your bible reading plan in whatever format your most likely to use it - on a website, in your RSS reading (I highly recommend google reader by the way), in your email, on your calendar, on your cell phone or even on good old fashioned paper. It even offers an audio version for you to listen to that you can podcast to your itunes and ipod. There's something for everybody.

Check it out here.

Why don't you make a resolution to read more of God's Word this year? It's easier than ever.

Happy New Year!!

The Giant of Idolatry

Last night we went after the giant of idolatry in are youth church. God did some awesome things in our hearts as we smashed idols through true worship in the presence of Jesus. I thought I'd share with you all some of the questions we asked to investigate whether we're really worshiping Jesus or another false god.

Questions to Investigate the Worship in your Lifestyle

1. How do you make your decisions?
1. The basis for your decisions points directly to the god you worship.
2. How do you spend your time?
1. Look at the things that take up most of your free time. There’s a good chance you’re worshipping there.
3. What are the meditations of your heart?
1. What are you thinking about? Writing about? Reading about? What consumes your thought life? It will be the thing you’re worshipping
4. What do you dream about?
1. In your sleep and during the day…
5. How do you spend your money?
1. Jesus said, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Remember whatever really has your heart is your god.
6. How do you choose your friends?
1. The friends you picked probably give a good indicator to what god you’re worshipping.
7. What clothes do you choose to wear?
1. Your dress communicates what you value. Often times it’s an obvious indicator of what you worship.
8. What music do you listen to?
1. Music was created to carry the spirit of worship. All music is worshipping something. Something is being exalted through the message in the song. Usually you can find an idol in the midst of someone’s music collection.
9. What stirs the most passion in you?
1. What is it that you burn for? What is the thing that just set’s you on fire? Your affections will flow toward the god that you worship.

These are some questions that are worth asking ourselves due to the deceptive nature of idolatry.

What would you say the biggest idol in youth culture is?

Stir Up the Gifts - Part 2

2 Timothy 1:6-7 - Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

We quote verse 7 all the time in the church. We did a whole series on this verse last year at Family Life Church. We preached against fear. We unpacked power, love and a sound mind. It was an awesome series with some incredible revelation. But for some reason the two verses never really tied together in my mind.

The fact that God hasn't given us a spirit of fear is in the context of the gifts He's given us.

Realizing this I've come to a conclusion: The number 1 reason that people choose not to stir up the gift of God in their life is fear. Fear is what binds people up in routine and religion. It's fear of the unknown. Fear of what people will think. Fear of being wrong. Fear of failure. All kinds of fear. And all of that fear is not from God.

God instead gave you the Holy Spirit. The giver of the gifts. He has given you the ability to stir up and employ your gifts in incredible ways. They are meant to be powerful and miraculous. They are meant to be used in love to build people and bring comfort. They are meant to be used strategically and in a way that makes sense.

Next time you are headed to church make this commitment to the Lord. "I will stir up the gift of God that I've been given. I will not let fear stop me from functioning. Somebody needs my gift."

Tomorrow I will step on stage for another 2 services of leading worship. I have the choice of staying in the box and singing through a list of songs or really letting the Spirit of God lead the church freely in fresh worship. You know what tries to keep me in the confines of my list? Fear. Every time. I get afraid that it will be awkward. I fear that the band won't follow me. I fear that Pastor Steve will be unhappy. I fear that it just won't work and I'll fall on my face in front of everyone.

But no more. Tomorrow I will choose not to receive a spirit of fear from the enemy and instead stir up the gift of God that has been given to me. I'll operate in power, love and a sound mind. I'm believing God for an incredible day in His house. And as for me, my gift will be in operation.

The revelation for me in these verses is so simple yet radically life changing. We don't have to wait for the right moment, atmosphere, or worship song to move in our gift. We actually just reject fear and choose to stir up the gift - then go minister it. It's really that simple. God never takes the gifts away. There are always accessible for use to build the kingdom of God. Why don't you decide not to go another week without stirring up your gift? The world needs it!

Any stories of the gifts in operation? Feel free to drop a comment...

Current Prayer Requests

For anyone following our lives and ministry that prays, I thought I would offer up some current prayer requests that we need to focus on in prayer during this season. Feel free to pass these on to friends or family members and lift these areas before the Lord.

• Pray for continued healing in young people's bodies, souls and spirits. We've had some major healing take place lately on many levels. Pray that God would continue to pour out His healing power and touch hearts and lives.
  
• Pray for more leaders to step into leadership. We're in a season as a youth ministry where more leaders are required in order to go to the next place that God has called us to. Pray for young men and women who are faithful.
• Pray for the grace of God in the area of organization and administration. We're doing more work at a higher quality than we ever have before and need help from the Lord to administrate it all. Pray for help with accomplishing our tasks in a timely and organized manner and for excellent communication within the team.
• Pray for grace to start new ministries in 2009. We're going to be taking major steps forward in several of our ministries and starting a couple brand new ones. Especially target campus ministries. But there will be major upgrades in the areas of worship, small groups, prayer, pastoral care, video, events, and discipleship. We're really excited about our plans in these areas but need grace to stay tuned in to the will of God in every area. Pray for right timing, right leadership, and excellent implementation as the ministry moves forward.
  
• Pray for supernatural provision for Family Life Church as a corporate body as well as for the individual members. God is our source and provider and we're full of faith that as we ask Him to meet our needs that He will. When God brings a vision, He will also bring the provision.
• Pray for the activation of the gifts of God in the life of the youth church. Many young people are coming to our gatherings on Wednesday nights, in small groups, and other times. We need young people to stir up the gift of God that was given to them (part two of that post is coming soon), and activate their gift to build the local church and reach a lost and dying generation. Pray for the ability to identify their gifts, be equipped and trained in their gifts and to activate their gifts.
• Pray that young people would have the faith and determination to slay personal giants in their lives. We're in a preaching series right now called "Giants in the Land". We're attacking the giants of rebellion, idolatry, apathy, sensuality, immorality, pride, and insecurity. I'm believing God to empower young people to slay these giants in their own lives and then go after them in our youth culture at large. We need a revolution!
• Pray for our Christmas Party this Friday night (12-12-08). It's going to be awesome. Our preparations are in order. We need students to desire to come and bring many friends. Also pray for deep relationships to be established and souls to be saved.
  

Thanks so much for praying for us. We can feel the prayer support in our lives.
How about printing out this blog and praying through these things right now? It's as good of a time as any. Bless you!

Mark Thornton at Living Waters

So I'm trying to get into the video blogging trend. My new flip video camera is making that easier.



Check out these videos from Pastor Mark Thornton's concert at Living Waters Coffee Shop in Nampa. We had a good time and it was great to see people from all over the Valley show up to worship and support Mark and Capital worship team.




Mark Doesn't Apologize from Danny Schulz on Vimeo.


Kim - Holy, Holy, Holy from Danny Schulz on Vimeo.


I Will Bow Down On My Knees from Danny Schulz on Vimeo.

Yeah. Pretty sweet. I'll be trying to capture more video of what's going on here in Nampa with the youth minsitry, the whole church and of course the wonders of raising two boys. Look forward to more!!

Stir Up the Gifts - Part 1

2 Timothy 1:6 - Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

I’m convinced that if each disciple of Christ kept their gift stirred up we would see the supernatural power of God flowing in and out of the church all of the time. Imagine your church operating like this. Every time you get together you could regularly expect prophecy, words of knowledge and wisdom, discerning of spirits, tongues and interpretation, miracles, etc. Family Life Church is growing in this, but we have a ways to go.

I think we would all enjoy our gatherings more if they were filled with Holy Spirit activity. Why doesn’t this happen more? Either God meant for the gifts of the Holy Spirit to be active today or He didn’t. I think we are often waiting on God to move when He is waiting on us to stir up our gift. It’s an interesting thought – that the gifts of God become active when we choose to stir them up. Or conversely, the gifts lie dormant because we choose not to stir them up.

As a worship leader, I think sometimes I can hide behind the “flow of the Spirit” card. You know – “The worship goes with the flow of the Spirit. Sometimes He moves, sometimes not”. Truth be told, our most prophetic and anointed worship times occur when we as a worship leaders and team members choose to stir up our gift. We don’t like to admit it because it brings accountability. But I’d say it’s true. Sometimes God surprises us and moves in spite of us, but I think most often He’s waiting for us to use the gifts that He gave us.

I’m all for waiting on the Lord – but I think that it’s the difference between actively waiting on Him and passively waiting on Him. When we “wait” biblically, we actively listen and expect Him to give instruction for how to function in our gifts. I’ve found that God is leading and speaking all the time in the context of my gift – He’s just waiting for me to stir it up and exercise it.

When is the last time you stirred up the gift of God and functioned during a gathering? When’s the last time you stirred up the gift of prophecy? Faith? Discerning of Spirits? Miracles? Sundays, Wednesdays, small groups, outreach, at work, at school, etc? I think we could make life a lot more interesting if we’d keep the gifts stirred up. I also believe that many more people would come to Christ and get planted in our local churches.

Stay tuned for part two…

Book Review : The Remnant

I just finished reading a great book by Larry Stockstill called The Remnant.

It's a wonderful book. Pastor Larry gave the book out to all of the pastors that attended this year's international MFI conference in Portland. I believe that this book is a simple prophetic word from an apostolic father to the American church. I would highly recommend this book to any pastor, leader or anyone aspiring to lead in the kingdom of God.

In the first part of the book, Stockstill brings a great perspective on the necessity of the five fold ministry in the church and its reflection in society. We're indesperate need of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. A challenging thought that Pastor Larry brings is that we should, as leaders, strive to function in every one of these roles to some extent. We can function apostolically through encouragement, affirmation and fathering. We can prophetically correct those under our sphere of authority. We can reach and disciple people and bear fruit in the kingdom. We can heal and pastor whether we have a title or not. We can know and teach the word of God from scripture. I need to grow in all 5 areas of leadership.

The last 10 chapters of the book are Larry's "10 Commandments of Ministry". If the spiritual leaders of America would take heed to Larry's commandments, we would have a future that God can bless. Here are the subjects Stockstill touches breifly on in each chapter -

1. Prayer
2. Bible Study
3. Integrity
4. Purity
5. Example
6. Relationships
7. Philosophy
8. Faith
9. Spiritual Warfare
10. Wisdom

Each chapter could be used as a guage for the health of your own personal leadership life. Like a gas gauge on a car or something. If we lived out biblical excellence in each of these areas we would be far ahead in our impact on society. Pastor Larry says that he personally disciples his leaders in each of these areas for a month at a time. I can see how affective that would be. The list is not exhaustive, but it's a wonderful start toward the core values that leaders must embrace in order to affect society and build the kingdom of God.

In a world where ministers are continually finding themselves doing foolish and embarassing things, Larry Stockstill brings a powerful and prophetic challenge. I'm recommending this book to every ministry leader I know.

Apostles and Prophets - Dedication Weekend

Family Life Church had its dedication services for our new church building this weekend. We had an amazing time – incredible worship, powerful messages, prophetic words, great celebration, laughter and fellowship. It was a weekend to remember. We had the honor of having Pastor Jack Louman and Pastor Frank Damazio both speak to our church on Sunday (one in the morning and one at night). I’ve been meditating on this verse of scripture in light of their visit.

Ephesians 2:19-22 - Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Doctrinally, I believe this scripture means that the church is built upon the writings of the apostles and prophets – meaning the Old Testament Prophets and New Testament Apostles (i.e. the scriptures). In addition, Pastor Steve consistently applies this scripture to how we are building Family Life Church upon the ministries of modern apostles and prophets that God has given to our church body. It’s been so enlightening for me. I’ve been absolutely amazed at how healthy it is for our church to consistently receive from true prophetic and apostolic ministry.

Pastor Frank Damazio functions in the ministry of an apostle over Family Life Church. He brings a fathers heart, encouragement, correction, vision and impartation through the Word of God into our church. The things he has spoken into the heart of FLC have changed the whole church, because we receive him as an apostle and a father. Our church received an impartation to be a “yes church” that goes strongly after the youth culture including our college campus – Boise State University.

Pastor Jack functions in the ministry of the prophet. He’s definitely one of the most prophetic people I’ve ever been around. He can see where God is taking our church and comes with the Word of the Lord to challenge us to rise to the next place that God has for us. Our church is literally in a different place after this weekend. Jack’s prophetic words to the whole church and over the worship department have shifted the attention and focus of our church body.

Literally, my job is going to be different in the next 6 months because of this weekend. Jack brought a word about the sphere of our ministry expanding and growing. He said God was calling for an increase in responsibility and that God was bringing an ability to match the responsibility. Today I met with Pastor Steve about how to practically apply the word. My schedule is going to change, my focus is changing and expanding. Most of all my capacity must increase to take on all that God is calling me to do. I need more grace for the coming season. Also, I need the leaders I am training up to take the upgrade as well and step into pulling more weight in the youth ministry.

The thing that comforts me most about the ministry that took place this weekend is that it’s in the flow of what God has already been speaking. God has been speaking to leaders and they have been stepping up. God has been stirring our heart to really press forward in the worship ministry. God has been stirring up a passion to go after youth on the school campuses in the Treasure Valley. The prophetic direction wasn’t completely new – it came to confirm what God has been speaking to our senior pastor and his leadership team.

I feel refreshed and invigorated. I’m seeing the building plan for the next 12-24 months in great clarity. This morning I realized there are some things that God has been asking me to do for 5 years, but I haven’t really responded to Him. I wasn’t in rebellion and resisting the Holy Spirit. I just didn’t fully believe that it was Him. Maybe my circumstances quenched my faith. Maybe my passion to do other things kept me distracted. Whatever the case, something in the prophetic ministry that took place this weekend brought a clarity about the will of God that I hadn’t seen yet. My life is changed.

And I can’t help but have the thought – How many churches are wandering without the ministry of apostles and prophets? How foolish it is to embrace a doctrine that doesn’t believe in these biblical ministries. Pastors don’t understand how bad they are ripping off their churches. How horrible it is to succumb to the fear of false ministries and decide to stick with merely relating to pastors and teachers. The ministry of the apostle and the prophet are so critical to healthy growth and forward movement, I now can’t imagine leading or growing a church without their ministry. Yet most churches in America are struggling by on their own. My understanding of a New Testament church continues to be refined and clarified. The Bible does have a plan for us to build by.

Lord, help us to raise up the next generation of leaders that will function as 5 fold ministers. Help us grow young men and women who will function as apostles and prophets in your last days church. They are needed in these important times.

Let’s open up some discussion on this one -

What is your experience with prophetic and apostolic ministry?

Who are you voting for?

I've been asked a few times who I'm voting for tomorrow on election day. I guess it's important for a youth pastor to weigh in on the politics of his nation. Honestly, I don't believe that politics is the answer for America. I truly believe that the local church is God's plan for building the kingdom of God - not Obama or McCain. I believe that Jesus is the only savior, not a presidential candidate.

I do believe politics is important though. I do believe that we need to line up the values of those running for office with the scripture and cast our vote accordingly. And when it comes down to it, I am a voter that chooses his candidate on the basis of how they value the life of the unborn.

The decision has been pretty simple for me this year...

A vote for Obama means a vote for the most pro-abortion candidate America has ever seen. There's just no room, with a clear conscience before God, to vote in a president who will legislate the murder of countless souls. That's simply all there is to it for me. It doesn't matter how the other issues factor in - I'll never vote for a pro-choice candidate unless I backslide. And then, my friends, you have my permission to punch me in the face, drag me to the altar, and pray for my heart felt repentance. I'm not going to freak out if Obama becomes president. I do not think he's the Antichrist. I think America is going to move forward regardless of who wins tomorrow. But, without a doubt, if Obama is elected president, he will let some things into our nation that we, as the church, will have to go to WAR against. Be ready for the battle.

This post isn't really all that articulate or convincing. Truth be told, I'm not really the most educated on the political campaigns of each candidate. I have read some great posts over the last few months. Please read a couple of these. Please pray for each candidate as our nation is in a very critical spot right now. Please go to the polls tomorrow and vote.

Blog posts I have enjoyed in the last few weeks -

Jamie Schulz (first of course) - http://jamieschulz.blogspot.com/2008/11/choosing-life.html

Bo Stern - http://bostern.wordpress.com/2008/11/03/america/

Brent Earwicker - http://thefieldexperience.blogspot.com/2008/11/speechless.html

Eric Parnell - http://ericandlindsayparnell.blogspot.com/2008/10/lets-talk-politics.html

Brett McCracken - http://stillsearching.wordpress.com/2008/10/23/why-i-cannot-vote-for-obama/

Want the cheapest gas in town?

I found this website that will tell you the cheapest gas station in your area. Every little bit helps in these crazy times. As for Nampa - Costco is rocking everyone else around. Better bust out my amex.

Check it out here

Family Night Idea

The apple taste test.

Do you really know the difference between a gala, honeycrisp, and a janagold? They look the same...but how do they taste? Is the honeycrisp apple really worth the extra money?

The winner is for me............

The JONAGOLD!!!!!!

Pic of the day

Lay off me I'm starving.

Hudson is chillin

Hudson is just chillin tonight in his own little chair. He's such a relaxed baby.

Why Twitter – A Pastors Perspective

I recently signed up for an account on Twitter – yet another social networking tool. I’ve known about twitter for about 10 months but resisted signing up until now. It took me a long time to understand why I’d ever want to use it. But this thing is really growing on me and I thought I’d share a few thoughts with you in case you’re thinking about opening an account.

What is Twitter?

Quote from the twitter website – “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

When my brother-in-law Joe first told me about twitter, I couldn’t even imagine why anyone would use it. It seemed like another online time waster (who needs anything else to update?). I wasn’t interested at all. Honestly, I thought, who wants to know what I’m doing throughout the day? Who cares about that?

What eventually turned me on to twitter was opening up a facebook account this year and seeing all the “status reports” updates. This has been a really fun part of the culture in our youth ministry. Most of the young people we pastor use facebook in addition to or instead of myspace. And after every youth service or event, one of my favorite things to do is check out facebook to see the response from all the students in their status reports.

“God really moved tonight”

“I’m believing in faith and crossing into my promised land”

“My body hurts, but I had the time of my life at the mudfest”

It’s great to be able to see the influence of your life on so many people…instantly and personally. But that’s facebook and this blog is about twitter.

So twitter is like just doing the status update part of facebook with one key difference – it’s made to operate and interact with your phone through text messages instead of just the internet. That is the powerful difference of twitter. While many people use the internet every day, many do not. And many are only on at certain times. Cell phones, on the other hand, are so wide spread that virtually everybody I know has one and uses texting. People keep their phone on them all the time. It’s immediate connectivity.

But the question remains – “Who cares what I’m doing all day?”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this question as a pastor. I think many people use social networking tools to say a virtual “look at me! Pay attention to me! Like me!”. If this was the purpose of using twitter I wouldn’t be writing this blog post about it. But I’ve come up with a few reasons why I think every leader should open up a free twitter account and get people to follow them on twitter. Here they are…

1. Twitter can be used as an influencing tool.

I made a decision years ago that I want to be an influencer. I don’t want to just let life happen to me, but I want to use my life to influence people all the time with the message of the gospel. Part of what I use twitter for is sending out influential reminders to all of my “tweeps” (twitter’s word for friends). I think it’s a very powerful tool to have the ability to influence dozens (someday hundreds and thousands) of other people’s thoughts with one text message.

I got a twitter message from a tweep last week that said this –

Peter makes in plain in Acts 15:11- "We believe that we are all saved the same way, by the undeserved grace of Jesus"

Sending out a unique “God thought” on a regular basis is a simple and quick way to influence many lives.

2. Twitter lets people get to know me.

This is the amazing part of the whole social networking trend. You read someone’s thoughts online and you feel like you know them. Even though you haven’t spent one minute of actual time with them, you have a window into their mind and heart through what they write.

As a pastor of a rapidly growing youth ministry, I simply do not have enough time to invest into intimate relationships with all of those who attend our youth church. I’d love to go out to coffee with all of the 150 students in the youth church every week. There’s just not enough hours in the week and the church keeps growing.

It is important though, that the young people I pastor get to know me. When a young person feels like they know me, they are far more likely to receive from my preaching, teaching and pastoral ministry. They are far more likely to trust what is coming their way from the pulpit.

It’s amazing to me – but twitter and facebook help accomplish this task without really spending time with people individually. I’m not saying that social networking should take the place of real relationships – but I am saying it does help move the process along when there’s simply not enough time for everyone.

3. Twitter helps my friends and leaders know how to pray.

Pastor Jack Louman recently spoke at a men’s ministry meeting at our church and gave us a challenge to take a step up in the area of personal intercessors. He told me that God is going to bring people to specifically intercede for me, my family and my ministry.

As he was speaking I had the thought, “Twitter is perfect for that”.

The Apostle Paul encourages us to “pray without ceasing”. Having a tool that can simultaneously text message everyone who is committed to pray for me is a wonderful thing. It’s instant prayer covering when you need it. Oh the wonders of technology.

My good friend Brent is a missionary in Africa and is on twitter. I love getting his tweets (messages) because I know immediately how to pray for him. Phone calls and individual texts cost money…but twitter is free!

Twitter has many other uses. People are using it for all kinds of things in the marketplace. These are just the benefits I’m noticing in my first month. I want to encourage you to set up an account, follow me on your phone (you have control of which people twitter texts you about) or online, and start tweeting away. God is raising up a tight knit network of believers to change the world. I believe technology has got to be a part of that.

Ready to check it out? -- www.twitter.com

My twitter name is daschulz.

What a Youth Pastor Will Do

We'll do just about anything to get young people to come to Christ. Yes - even dress up like a butt rocker. Did any young people get saved as a result of this costume...probably not. Did they have fun at Retro Night at Camp? Absolutely.

What will you do to reach a generation?

Hijacking

I'm taking over this blogging machine as my wife has decided to start her own new blog. Turns out that if you google "NXT Nampa" this blog comes up at the top of the list. Better keep it up with some fresh content for all of the millions of students that are searching for us through the internet.

Camp planning is coming together and God is on the move. Look for pics and updates from us soon!!

To Be Continued...

Summer Camp is officially upon us. For all the amazing details, visit us at the NXT booth on Wednesdays or Sundays. Don't miss it! We will be a different church when we get back!

Besides, Hudson thinks you should go. If you don't talk baby, I will translate for you... "you should go to camp. It will change your life!"

Jamie's Blog

I have a new blog. Ok, so I have had it for a while... I just gave it a facelift and started posting on it again. I know, I know, we have way too many blogs for one family. Oh well! Turns out they are free. Anyhow, you can check it out if you want to. If not, that's ok too. Turns out it is also a free country.
www.jamieschulz.blogspot.com

Life at the Schulz home

What we have been up to...Summer camp planning is in full force. The above picture is from the camp brochure that is currently being printed. Trevin did an amazing job putting it together and was even extremely patient with us during the photo shoot. A side note on camp planning... there are very few, if any, great youth games out there. Someone should invent more! If you have a thought on one, you should comment on this post.
The NXT is growing and moving towards 200 young people. We are excited to be able to look around and see testimony after testimony of how God is transforming lives in Canyon County! Our leadership team is also growing in more ways than one. I think we can all testify that God has been stretching our capacity as leaders. Thank God for grace!!!

Our boys still captivate our hearts and attention. How could they not! We are enjoying lots of time outside as a family these days as David has developed a new passion for sports. Among his favorites is disc golf and basketball. Oh yes, and track (although it is called chasing around our house.) David spends a good part of his day running from one fence to the other in the back yard. Do they have marathons for 2 year olds?
Hudson mostly sleeps and eats still, but he has made himself known as a prominent member of the family by insisting that we hold him around the clock so that he can cat nap.

Easter Sunday

Saturday David and I went to the City of Caldwell's Easter Egg hunt where David chased down eggs. Danny has convinced him that Easter egg hunting is all about how fast you can run so David passes us all kinds of eggs to sprint to the ones that are farthest away. The end result was that he didn't have a whole lot of eggs, but he was certainly happy to have spent the morning running. The above picture is Trina dressed in a bunny costume hugging David.

Easter morning at Family Life Church

Josiah and David looked pretty snazzy!

Cute little africans!

Snow Day

A combination of a lot of snow and a head cold make this the perfect day to update the blog. I have been avoiding the task list all morning and it has been going so well, that I am planning on continuing to avoid through out the afternoon. Although I would prefer not to be trapped in my house and sick, I like my plan for coping with the situation so far! =)
I know that you are all wondering about what we are naming the baby and I still don't have any news for you. Sorry! David was so much easier to decide upon since Danny had a dream that we named him that and then we both liked the name. Maybe we should start praying for another dream since Beast is starting to sound better with every passing day!
This year has started off with a bang for us... we spent New Years with the youth church at an all nighter planned and executed by Lorelei. She is developing all kinds of hidden talents these days, including event planning. Then we decided to go on a 21 day Daniel fast including media. Don't worry, I didn't make the baby fast! I fasted from caffiene, sugar and media. That was for sure difficult enough being pregnant!! I am happily eating chocolate again while drinking my coffee. We invited the youth church to join us on the fast for whoever wanted to and I honestly was surprised at how many young people fasted during the 21 days. What was even more amazing was hearing their testimonies of what God was doing in them as they gave up the tv to spend time with Him.
This last weekend we traveled over to Portland for Generation Unleashed. It was a great time of bonding with each other, stretching ourselves in our relationship with God and setting the vision for where we are going in 2008. The trip back almost turned treacherous as we diverted course to go through Bend since I-84 was closed due to freezing rain. The bus finally arrived in Nampa at 2am. It was an exciting time!
Since being back, we have been astounded at how God is moving inside of the young people. We have received numerous phone calls just in the past couple days from young people who are telling us that they are ready to stop messing around with the world and get serious about their relationship with God. The funny thing is that none of these young people even went on the trip to GU.
So, we are looking forward to a great February. We have two guest speakers at Family Life Church this month: Dennis Lyndsay from Christ for the Nations and Ken and Glenda Malmin from City Bible Church. Plus, Brent and Virginia will be back from Africa!
Oh, I almost forgot, Family Life Church now has a home! God has opened up some amazing doors for us to move into a building just off of the freeway. We are starting the building project next month and are estimating around 6 months to complete it. Exciting times!!!

It's a boy!

That's right. #2 is on the way (due April 3rd) and he is a boy. David is very excited at the prospect of having a little brother to play in the dirt with. Now comes the exciting part...

What should we name him?

I decided to have an open vote on the blog and let the online world weigh in on our child's name. We'll give the voting public a 30% share in the decision, with 30% for Jamie, 30% for me and 10% for David.

David has already cast his vote. He thinks we should name the child "the beast" after his current favorite Disney cartoon Beauty and the Beast.

So here's your chance to shape the future. Cast your votes now!!

Receptivity

So I’ve been noticing a lack of comments on this blog lately. That means one of two things –

1. Nobody really reads these anymore – the blog reading days have passed. Or…
2. Our content is not interesting enough and unworthy of comment.

I can understand this…I have read many blogs and thought, “I really have nothing to say to that”. To see what the problem is, I thought I would throw out an issue that’s worthy of discussion and ask for your thoughts, O faithful blog readers. What do you think about this…

“These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11

I think it’s a proven biblical fact that there are some cultures in the world that are more receptive to the gospel than others. The Bereans were obviously more receptive to the gospel than the Thessalonicans. I don’t think it was just that Paul ran into some people in Berea who happened to be open. I think that the culture in Berea was more receptive to the truth of the gospel and lined up Paul’s teachings against the Old Testament to see if his teachings were true.

Now that my best friend is giving his life in the service of poor and dying people in Uganda and having incredible success, I’ve often had this thought…

Is our time as evangelists (Christians who are obeying the great commission) best spent in the regions of the world that are most receptive to the gospel?

Should receptivity be a factor in choosing where we take our missions trips and plant our churches?

I’ll never forget a conversation that I had with missionary Richard Michalski on a mission trip to the Ukraine. He was pouring out his convictions on this subject in between spoonfuls of pasta. He told me that if you added up all the dollars spent on evangelism in a certain nation and divided that by the number of souls that were coming to Christ you would have a “cost per soul” ratio.

He told me that the cost per soul in the USA was around $10,000. So for every 10,000 dollars that we spend on evangelism in our country, 1 person comes to Christ. The shocking part was still to come. He said that in the Ukraine, the cost per soul was around $1. In Africa? A mere 10 cents. So if we sent our 10,000 dollars to Africa instead of reaping 1 soul in America, we would see 100,000 people come to Christ. He talked about how there are regions of the world that are under a “grace for harvest”.

Now I’m not sure where he got those figures and if they’re exactly accurate. But he does bring up an interesting point. Should we be focusing our money and man power endeavoring to reach a culture that is mostly closed to the gospel (like much of the western world) when there are millions of people in other parts of the world who have never heard the gospel and are very receptive to the message?

Or to make it even more personal – Why am I living in an area that is statistically unreceptive to the gospel when I could be living in a region and helping reap a massive harvest?

Should receptivity be a factor? Or should we be specifically commanded by the Spirit of God in every mission trip, church plant and choice of residence? Obviously he wants a witness in the hard mission fields of France, Germany, Spain, Japan and the like. Did Paul have the direct command of Christ to go to each city? Or did he just preach wherever he went? Sometimes that seems clear…sometimes not.

It’s clear that God’s plan is to redeem every tribe, tongue and nation. But does it make more sense to start with the receptive regions of the earth so they can be part of the army of missionaries that flood the unreceptive areas?

I know that I’m living in direct response to the call of God to live in Nampa, ID. But as FLC continues to grow in number and influence, I’m realizing that God is calling our church to have global impact. The question is…where do we begin?

I’d love your thoughts on this one...

2 Books

Due to the lack of posting on our book review blog, I'm going to continue reviewing books on our blog...did you ever realize you have too many blogs and need to downsize? Ha ha. Anyway, my two latest reads were:

The Local Church Today - Bill Scheidler

and

Communicating for a Change - Andy Stanley

Local Church was really great. The importance of the local church is one of my life messages that's been passed down from spiritual fathers in my life. People ask me all the time why I'm so passionate about it and how I see it so clearly in scripture. This book by Bill Scheidler really sums it up well. The 1st half is a study of the church in scripture and the 2nd half is a biblical analysis of elders, deacons, and the 5 fold ministry. It's all straight bible.

If you wonder about MFI and what we believe about the local church, church government, and church offices - pick up this book.

Stanley's book was a fun read for a preacher. He's pretty confrontational and challenging in his assault on boring preaching. I liked it. I think he comes across a little bit strong in some areas. You get the feeling that you should abandon your preaching style and use his models or be doomed to poor preaching. I'm going to take some and leave some.

His main controversial point is that all messages should only have one point. I'm not buying that part completely. I believe that we should preach the way that God leads us to preach - and that may change from week to week. I believe that the Holy Spirit not only can give us content but He can give us communication technique. But if you applied Stanley's system as a basic foundation and let the Holy Spirit breath on it from week to week, you would have some good things going.

I especially enjoyed his comments to preachers who hide bad preaching behind the guise of "that's just my style" or "I need to be myself". He has some pretty great stuff to say about the necessity of engaging your audience and not being boring. I'm stirred to preach more focused messages that have a clear take away - yet I'm going to continue to allow God to groom my preaching style and seek Him for direction, content and style.

Jamie's late night thoughts

I am not sure whether it is Danny's recent blog kick or the Autumn leaves and crisp breeze that have inspired me to write lately, perhaps both. Today, though, I have been writing all day long. Being a mother of a two year old, it has all been in my head of course. But now that David has drifted off to sleep and my house lies quiet, all that has been written during the day finds it way out of my mind and into my studies and now, this blog. I think blogs must have been invented for men who like to chronicle their daily revelations out of Scripture and women who need more avenues to use up all their words. (Or at least that is what this blog has been utilized for.) So, for whoever reads this, bear with me as I use up some extra words from today.
As the heat of the summer finally submits to the Harvest season, I find myself spending more and more time with a cup of coffee, my Bible and a contemplative spirit. Not that I don't contemplate in the other seasons, but in this particular season I seem to contemplate more that usual. I contemplate the Word of God, my life, how my life measures up to the Word, the church, parenting, and on and on. I am a firm believer in contemplation, especially with the Holy Spirit, as I believe it leads to accurate self evaluation and practical goals for the future. Anyways, today I was once again contemplating on the consistent war between faith and worry. For those of you that know me, you know that this has been a large battle in my personal life that started on the day that I realized that these two were opposed to each other. Ruth Bell Graham says it this way, " Worship and worry cannot live in the same heart; they are mutually exclusive." Today though as I was evaluating my faith level, the Holy Spirit led me to the revelation that just as faith and worry cannot co-habitate neither can disappointment and a thankful heart.
I have never really thought of myself as disappointed in anything in my life. I have an amazing husband, a healthy child whom I have the privilege of staying home with, I love my ministry, etc, etc. God has truly blessed us! As the Holy Spirit began to reveal to me the power of thanksgiving and the barrier that disappointment poses to it, I began to see with Him even the slightest areas of disappointment in my life. Areas that are not bad, but are not exactly the vision I had of them either. As one area popped up, others began to surface and before long I realized that in order to go where the Holy Spirit is wanting to lead me in my relationship with Him disappointment can have no place in my life, not even the smallest part.
Tonight marks a significant day for me just as the one did years ago when I decided to engage in the battle against worry and fear. Tonight I decided to engage the giant of disappointment in battle no matter how small the ground is that he would try to take in my life. I wonder at people who do not seem to live this Christian life with excitement and passion. I find it absolutely invigorating to realize the plans of the enemy and then partner with Christ in destroying them!!!

From them will proceed thanksgiving and the voice of those who celebrate; And I will multiply them and they will not be diminished; I will also honor them and they will not be insignificant. Jeremiah 30:19

That is all for tonight. Word ratio is now satisfied. To the unknown blog reader or readers out there: Be blessed in your conquests this week!

The Fear of the Lord and Healing

"But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings..."
Mal 4:2

"Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed."
Acts 5:16

I'm praying for a culture in our church that fears the name of the Lord. It's incredible to see the power that comes upon a people who cultivate the fear of God and choose to live without double standards. The fear of the Lord came upon the church of Jerusalem after the Ananias and Sapphira incident. And the result? Great healing and deliverance.

People from all over the region heard about the power in the church. I can imagine them packing up their sick and demon possessed relatives and making the trip to Jerusalem full of faith and convinced that God was moving and was able to heal their loved ones. People will move miles away to experience a genuine move of God. It seems like everyone has a story about Toronto in the 90's. People are so hungry for an authentic and genuine move of God that is evidenced by his power. They will give up jobs and relationships and move to churches where God is moving in power. If it happened in the book of Acts, than it will happen today. I'm amazed at the stories people tell me about how they came to FLC.

I believe now more than ever that the power of God will draw people to hear the message of the cross. I believe the multitudes are coming. But I believe that power in the church is dependent upon a great commitment to a culture where we fear the name of the Lord.

Speed of My Heart

"O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!" Luke 24:25

How quickly does your heart believe? Do you have a heart that takes a lot of stirring to believe for the promises of God in your life?

I think God is ready to absolutely blow our minds with blessing if we would simply cultivate a heart that quickly believes him at His word. I honestly don't believe that God is wanting to wait forever to do unbelievable things through us to reach our cities. We're in days of massive harvest and increase. God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth and I believe that He wants to do this through us in a rapid manner.

I wonder how often God is limited by the faith that is in our hearts. Hearts that are slow to believe and our filled with hesitation limit the rapid miraculous movement of the Holy Spirit in our cities. God is speaking some pretty unbelievable things to our church right now - I'm praying for faith in the hearts of our people to believe God at His word and step out in bold obedience.

The Burden

God has really been speaking to our church about reaching our city. It's like He just stopped us in the middle of our plans and said, "Its time to care for the lost". I'm really feeling pressed by the Spirit to be more bold than ever before in sharing the message with a generation that so badly needs it.

One thing that Larry Stockstill said in the previously mentioned message is that at the core of Christianity there needs to be a strong burden for the lost. He put it this way (speaking to pastors)...

"Don't spend time discipling a leader unless they bleed for your city."

His point was that the burden is the thing that drives us to prayer, fasting, action, and results.

I found this scripture really hit home this morning...

"So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven." Nehemiah 1:4

For a long time I've thought that a burden for the lost must be a sovereign move of God on your heart. But if it was up to God to move on us we'd see a whole lot more burdened Christians around. I believe there is a responsibility on our part to cultivate our hearts to receive God's burden for His lost sheep.

Nehemiah had a heart that was ready to receive the burden from the Lord. The broken down wall in Jerusalem wasn't new news...it had been that way for 180 years!! I believe he already knew that facts about his homeland but that he had not yet received the burden God had for him...until that day in chapter 1. And the burden led to prayer and fasting. The prayer and fasting led to favor and action. Before you know it a whole culture was being transformed by a man with a burden and a vision.

So what can we do to cultivate a heart that is ready to receive a burden from the Lord?

• Pray for the lost
• Spend more time with lost people
• Ask the Lord for compassion and mercy
• Ask the Lord to make our heart like His heart - "God, I want to feel the way you feel..."
  
• Remember the kind of life that God saved you out of
• ???

Renewed Blogging Efforts

So it's been one year since we moved from Bend to Nampa. I felt stirred to renew my blogging efforts. My new strategy is to post more often with shorter thoughts and updates. The blogging public demands something fresh and it is high time I give it to them. So this is a new day for our blog and it comes with a fresh look. What do you think?

I'll be doing my best to continue to keep you updated on how ministry is going as well as our life apart from ministry. Jamie tends to feel a little guilty when the content gets stale, so she posts more often. But I'm working on the discipline of writing and will strive to be a good contributer.

Last week I attended the international MFI pastors conference along with Pastors Steve and Taunia and my good friend Troy. We had a fabulous time. There was great teaching all around but the top three messages, in my opinion, go to Bob MacGregor, Frank Damazio and Larry Stockstill.




I've never had an opportunity to hear from Pastor Larry. His slant on the 5 fold ministry and the importance of discipleship was absolutely inspiring. His church in Baton Rouge is exploding. The youth ministry led by his son Joel Stockstill is the largest in the US with over 5500 students in cell groups. I highly recommend listening to his podcast. Spending time listening to great leaders in the church is always good to stir my vision and passion. I'm excited for another year in youth ministry.

We've come a long way this year - there's a over 100 students coming to the NXT now every week and we keep taking strides forward. I'm proud of our leaders and all that they sacrifice for these people. Keep praying for us as we move forward into the God's plan for Southern Idaho.

Miraculous Provision

For those of you that have not heard yet, this past week Pastor Steve was in a serious accident. He was thrown from his horse while on a camping trip high up in the mountains. From the time that he was injured to the point when medical help arrived he had been up on the mountain for almost 5 hours. They life flighted him in to town and discovered that he had 3 broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a shattered spleen, a lacerated pancreas and liver and bruised kidneys.
The amazing thing has been how the grace of God has preserved his life clear back from time of injury continuing even now. On the mountain his vitals remained strong despite internal bleeding for that length of time, he never lost consciousness, once he reached the hospital his shattered spleen miraculously began clotting and surgery was no longer necessary.
Even as I am writing this he is recovering in his own home when the doctors told him that he would be in the hospital for at least 10 days. When the doctors marveled at the healing taking place in Steve's body, he was able to tell them about the power of prayer and the faithful hand of God.
So, in short, this has been a testing week for us here at Family Life Church. It has been a tough test but a good one. Last week in youth church we called the young people to fast and pray on Thursday for Pastor Steve's healing. Over 75 of them responded and we are still hearing reports from them about what God did inside of them this last week as they stepped out in faith to believe for healing. Praise God that He is continually moving the church forward into the picture of what He has called us to be!

Camp

I realize that you have been waiting for the camp recap blog, but this has been a tough project to try and somehow explain camp in words. Being our first youth camp, this year's camp will obviously always hold a special place in Danny and I's hearts. I think that we can easily say that all of our greatest expectations for camp were blown out of the water and we found ourselves consistently overwhelmed by the grace of God. Pastor Jonathon Owens was our speaker this year and brought such a great impartation to our youth ministry in the area of evangelism. Our theme was "Shout It Out!" and we saw God release a boldness into our young people as fear and timidity were broke off of their lives. One of the words that Pastor Jonathon most impacted us with was the ABC's of our faith: C- Confess, B- Believe, A- Action. I am still hearing testimonies from young people telling me about how they are putting action to their faith and refusing to live in fear. Pastor Jonathon also introduced our youth ministry to a whole new level of praise that pushed us past all limitations to worship God completely unashamed. It was fun to watch!
We also played some crazy games and had an overall really fun time! The first day of games though nearly killed all of us and our nurse was ready to pack up and head home. Probably our biggest lesson that Danny and I learned is how big the role of the nurse is during your week at camp. Down below you can see the picture of the final round of the Sock Game, which turned out to be more brutal than we anticipated. We had ten teams competing during the week and the goal of the sock game is to be the last team with your socks still on at the end. So obviously the goal for everyone else is to get your socks off. All of your Bendonites will appreciate this following story that occurred during the sock games: Trina was cornered and tackled by an entire team in pursuit of her socks. During the wrestling match that followed, Trina located a random calf that happened to be close to her teeth and chomped on it! When the dust settled, one of our young men was standing there with a look of bewilderment on his face as he examined the intense bite mark on his leg. Imagine the surprise of the nurse when we called her in to treat a counselor inflicted wound! Don't worry though, we instructed this young man to keep his calves clear of Trina's teeth in the future and he eagerly agreed to our counsel.

On the other side of camp, we have testimonies of 10 new commitments to Christ, over 20 people baptized in the Holy Spirit for the first time and countless young people walking past fear into faith and boldness to preach the Gospel to their generation. The impact that camp has made on our youth ministry is still untold as we are watching the seeds take deep root and bear awesome fruit.
Next week, we head up to McCall for our youth leadership retreat. It should be a great time of vision casting for the new school year that lies ahead of us. We will be keeping you posted on the NXT youth church as we continue to press in to the amazing things God has in store for Canyon County!

Shout it Out

We are right in the middle of a series on Battlefields right now at the NXT. Last night we preached on the struggle for power and the plan of the enemy to get our generation addicted to substitute powers rather than the power of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the message, the Holy Spirit added a demonstration to further drive home His agenda. A young man happened to be in church for the first time in his life last night. He has been addicted to drugs from a young age, he is part of a gang and as of last night he didn't believe there was a God because of all the bad things that happened to him during his childhood. We still don't know how he ended up in youth church or why he stayed since he spent most of the night mocking us. The day prior he had messed up his knee pretty bad playing football. The knee was swollen, black and blue and he obviously was in pain when he walked on it. So, Danny calls him up to the front and has our student leaders gather around him and pray for him. The guy thinks we are totally nuts and continues to mock us as we are praying for his healing. The snickering soon turned to astonishment though as he begins to freely bend his knee. Completely bewildered he tears off the bandages to examine his knee, now totally healed! Danny has to literally chase him out the door to catch him because the guy is so freaked out that he is booking it out of there. He ends up surrendering his life to God and is starting to meet with one of our leaders for discipleship today! It is nights like last night that make youth ministry all worth while. =)
By the way our summer camp is coming up next month and we are pumped. The theme is Shout it Out! Below is our postcard for Summer camp. I included it because mostly I think blog entries are more interesting if they have a picture. Deep, I know.

Back from Vacation

Again, it is I writing the blog update. Funny how it was Danny who started this blog and me who feels the guilt to actually keep it updated. Full time ministry has made me realize how much either Danny or I start something that the other one has to actually take over and finish. For some people they finish each other's sentences, for Danny and I; we finish each other's projects. Go figure!

Anyhow, getting to the real point of this blog entry and the part that you actually care about if you are reading this right now…life and ministry. Let's start with the life part:

Being fairly busy with ministry, our family time has become a lot more intentional and thought out. We are getting better at planning out time together to do fun things. We are not necessarily so good at creative ideas though, so if any of you have any great ideas of what to do as a family you should let us know. Right now, we mostly spend time in parks or on long walks. Sometimes we throw in a day at the zoo or a trip to the mall. See, not very creative!

Last week we were in sunny California for Keri's graduation from Biola. We went down a week early and spent some time in San Diego. We love that city by the way! We had dinner with Jonathon and Sandy in Balboa Park (Sandy and I finally had to drag our husbands away for the sake of her getting up for work in the morning and David needing his beauty rest, otherwise they may have talked all night long!) We also toured Seaport Village and Legoland. Pictures of the trip are on David's blog if you are interested. At the end of the week, we headed over to LA to celebrate with the graduate. Danny, Keri and I went to Medieval Times on Graduation Eve. It was a fun experience eating a feast with our hands and watching a magnificent horse show all while sandwiched in between drunken people on every side.

On to the ministry side of life…summer seems to be a major time of transition as graduating seniors head off to college, youth staff leave us to marry their beloved in lands far away, foreign exchange students head back to their home country, and students leave for the summer. Amidst the transitions we are gearing up for a summer of preparation in order to be ready for what God wants to do this fall. We have a structure for pastoral care for the youth that we are praying that we will be able to launch by Fall. We also have the School of Excellence starting this September. We are laying the foundation to be able to begin evangelizing the 12,000 young people that we have estimated live in this area.

Our youth camp is going to be in July this year and we will be traveling to Salem, OR for it. The weekend following camp, Dick and Edie Iverson will be here at the church ministering. We are looking at a power packed week for the youth that week!

Right now Family Life church is finishing up a series on Thresholds. Pastor Steve has laid out seven convictions that every believer must have for their prophetic fulfillment:

1. You must know what God is saying to you, and then say yes and amen to your promise.
2. The promise that God has for you must be incorporated into the overall destiny, for you and others.
3. We must be in the process of receiving prophetic revelation.
4. We must learn to do warfare with our prophecies.
5. We must have our authority and accountability structure in place for prophetic fulfillment.
6. We must have a persevering spirit and break through.
7. Prophetic fulfillment requires humility.

That is all for now. We would love to hear about what God is doing in your lives. Call us, send us an email or come to visit. =)

Update

It is hard to know just what to write about in these blog posts. So much seems to be happening and yet it seems so difficult to put into words. We are in our third month of the youth church and God is definitely "in a hurry" as Jack Louman is constantly reminding us about our work over here.

We were privileged to be invited to Winter Camp with Westside Church this month and the fruit from just that one weekend was amazing. The Decker's workshop on the spiritual world seemed to be especially impacting for our young people. The testimonies that took place through exposing the schemes of the enemy has been in turn bringing about freedom in other's lives that weren't able to be at camp. It has been really encouraging to see God doing such a quick work amongst our young youth church.

For all the challenges that come with having church in a Movie Theater, we have been seeing incredible opportunities to minister to the community every Wednesday night. We have had our youth staff pray with people as they are heading into a movie and stop to see what we are doing. We have had people actually buy a ticket to a movie and then come to check out church instead. This week we had a man from Puerto Rico who happened to stop in and check out worship before his movie and rededicated his life to the Lord! He is coming to main church this weekend. It has been a lot of fun to see all the opportunities that God has been putting in our laps.

We just finished our first series on "Identity" and are headed into a new series called, "Walk it Out." Keri is in town visiting us and she led worship for us this week. That was a lot of fun! We also just won first place in a poster contest for the Treasure Valley. The contest was to create a poster for the campaign against Meth use in the area. They were giving out a $1,000 to the youth organization who won first place. Great publicity plus great financial blessing!

So that is the short jest of what has been happening over here. God is definitely up to some crazy things! I just wanted to leave you with a thought from my personal time with the Father today:

The believers believe, that is what makes them who they are. They believe that God is who He says that He is, that He will do what He says He will do, that His body will function the way He has called it to function. They just believe! Whether it is concerning the big building blocks of the faith or the small details in their personal relationship with God; their function in life is to believe. Again, that is what makes them who they are; the believers! It seems so simple and yet the revelation of it hits my spirit with profound weight.

Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called "Today," so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end, while it is said, "TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS, AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME." For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. Hebrews 3:12-19 NAS

Unbelief leads to sin in our lives. When we drop the shield of faith we leave ourselves vulnerable to falling prey to the fiery darts of the evil one. We consistently quote, “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb 11:6) and yet how many times do we examine our faith to be sure that it is indeed pleasing to God? Today, I am struck by the revelation that there are those who will not enter into the abundance of God not because they do not desire it but because they have not been diligent to guard their own faith. What a terrible day to discover that the condition of your heart led you not into the Promised Land but rather back into the desert to continue to wander. May we be consistently cautious to guard our faith in every area that we may walk with confidence into the perfect will of God!

Sunny Days

The High today is 59 degrees! I think that the weather is confused and doesn't realize that it is supposed to still be winter time. I am not going to complain about it though! And neither is David, he loves being outside with Danny. This morning they played and played until David was too exhausted to go on anymore. It was a great break from all the ministry activities lately.

So, we are heading into our fourth week of weekly meetings with the NXT. We are learning a lot, not just about relating and pastoring students, but also about lighting and sound effects inside of movie theaters! Jack and Libby Louman are coming over this week from City Bible in Portland to minister. They are planning a separate time to minister specifically to our youth team which has us really excited.

My major revelation this week has been about how vital your team is to your leadership capabilities. In prayer, I have been feeling the added pressure of stepping up to the next level as a youth ministry. Until now, we have been doing a lot of organization and preparation. We have been laying out curriculum and teaching major principles to our team. We have laid out the framework and now it's time to stand up the walls and start attaching some wood to this structure. We are seriously beginning to pastor students! At this point, we have to step back and depend upon the Holy Spirit to give life to this skeleton we have so prayerfully planned.

The other major dependence though is resting upon our youth leadership team. We have to trust that they are going to step up and be the leaders God has called them to be and carry this ministry. Danny and I cannot pastor all of these students on our own! It is really going to stretch this group of leaders as they set the pace for what God is doing in Canyon County. I believe in them to be responsive to the grace of God and be the amazing team that I already know they are but I still feel the huge weight of it all every time I enter into my prayer time with the Father. It has made me think about the other youth ministries that I know and recognize that there is no such thing as an amazing youth pastor, only amazing youth teams. Not that youth pastors aren't amazing, you know what I mean!

Ok, so here is a question of the week since Danny hasn't been on to post one for awhile:
What warm weather activity are you anxiously awaiting come Spring?

Launching

After building up to this point for the past few months, it is relieving to be on the opposite side of the long anticipated launch. Somehow though it has been difficult to relay in words what happened on Wednesday night. Perhaps because while it was a major climatic event for us, it was also just the beginning of long term relationship with the youth of Canyon County. It felt like the race that you train and train for and then once you finally get to the starting line you still have 30 miles to run. It was amazing to get here to this point of starting to run though. As I sat in the theatre and looked around at the youth around us, I found myself thinking about how grateful I was to be in that very position on Wednesday night. It wasn't the most perfect service ever, but I wouldn't have traded what we had in that moment for the most polished, trained team in the world. We have lots of places to grow and I found myself loving the symbolism between our young team and our relationships with the Lord; while it wasn't perfect, it was authentic and absolutely genuine!
Logistically we had 85 people show up for our launch. About 10 of those were parents who showed up to show their support, the rest were Jr High through Young Adults.
Trevin led our worship team, who were amazing for their first time leading a corporate service. Danny preached on becoming part of the NXT. He challenged our young people that they will be the next something, but it is their choice on what that next something is. Either they will be the next leaders of their generation in serving God or they will be the next drop outs or alcoholics or whatever. The young people responded amazingly. I really got a kick out of a few of them that went home and changed their My Space names to various forms of "Be the NXT". We also had a lot of opportunity to talk to people at the theatre who were just curious as to why all of us were there. We passed out a lot of touch cards for the church and youth ministry.
So here we go, we are setting in for the long haul. I can't explain how excited I am for this point. Thank you all who have been praying and supporting us from afar. Thanks especially to those who called or emailed us to encourage us this week. It has been so great to hear from all of you! We will continue to keep you updated and if you want to come and visit in person, we would love to have you!

Restoration

One of the major doctrines that churches in our stream carry is the doctrine of restoration. We believe that God is in the process of restoring to the church all the she had in the book of Acts and all that Jesus said she could have.

Our Pastor preached a great word this weekend on some specific things that God is restoring in light of this belief. I spent much of my prayer time this morning praying through this list and asking God to bring these things to our youth church as we launch tomorrow. I thought I'd share them with you all - pray through these and ask God to restore them to your local church as they were in the book of Acts.

1. Great unity

2. Prayer

3. Word foundation

4. Lordship

5. Relationship

6. Power of the Spirit

7. Judgment

8. Servants

9. Authority over evil

10. Spirit controlled government

11. Strong churches

12. Evangelists

13. Prophets

14. Teachers

15. Pastors

16. Elders

17. City wide revivals

18. Apostles

We're all ready for the launch of The NXT: tomorrow. We'll post in the next couple days to keep you all updated. God is moving!!

All Nighters and Reel Theatres

Happy Shake in the making: a happy meal blended to milkshake like texture.

Happy Shake being consumed while the rest of us tried not to vomit

2007 started with a youth all nighter for us. It was definitely an experience to remember! After 12 hours of lock in, it felt like we had been at camp all week with these young people. It is amazing what a little quality time does for relationship building. We had numerous testimonies of God opportunities that our youth staff had with students to talk with them, pray with them or just understand them better.
We were expecting a smaller night than our Christmas party because of New Year's options and the fact that we were locking them in a gym for 12 hours, however we had 19 new young people that we didn't have on the data base show up to hang out with us. They seem to be coming for all over the valley to find out what God is doing in this youth ministry that hasn't even really begun yet!
On that note, we heard from the Reel Theatre today that we are cleared to start renting a theatre from them starting on the 17th of this month! We are extremely excited! We are just waiting to hear about the rent prices before we confirm everything. So, we are two weeks out from the launch and have tons of stuff to wrap up before then. You can be praying for our sanity in these next few weeks and for supernatural wisdom in decision making.
In personal news, we had a great Christmas season with both sides of our family. And as some of you have already heard, we are expecting a sibling for David sometime around August of next year. We are pretty excited about that too! God has been so good to us throughout this whole move and transition in our lives that we are feeling overwhelmingly blessed right about now.

The Body of Christ

Romans 12:4-5 - For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.

1 Corinthians 12:18 - But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased.

One of the tough things I’m learning about in full time ministry is the complete lack of unity that exists between churches in the body of Christ. Let me explain.

Family Church is just over 1 year old now. We are meeting in a middle school on Sunday mornings and are planning on launching our youth church January 17^th. One problem that we’re running into is finding a facility to meet in. We’ve asked all around and there seems to be nothing but closed doors.

The biggest disappointment in all this is the response that I get from other local churches here in town. I probably asked 12 larger churches in town if we could rent out their facility at any time during the week for our youth services. Not a single church was open to helping us get our youth ministry started. Most churches took a message and never called back. Others said they were just too bust to deal with anything like that. A couple highlights included the Lutheran pastor telling me they only help other Lutherans and another pastor telling me they would never have drums and guitars for worship in their building.

Here’s some good questions for us all – Who’s kingdom are we building anyway? Is the ministry all about us and the way we do things? Do we believe that we’re the only church that God wants to use to touch our city? Can we honestly care for every soul in our city or could we use some help from other churches?

Imagine if your left hand got caught under a heavy object but your right hand refused to lift the object off. Or if you were about to get a haircut (which was going to make your head look a whole lot better) but your legs refused (our of jealousy) to cooperate and did everything they could to resist getting in that chair.

These images well describe the condition of the Body of Christ. I’m asking God to brand into my heart and spirit Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17:11. Don’t forget that we need every bible believing, Jesus preaching church in the city to reach all the unsaved. There has never been a shortage of souls to win. I can understand having differences in doctrines and philosophies – but I’m determined at every chance I get to

consider one another in order to stir up love and good works

We have a responsibility to help each other and encourage one another in our pursuit of the call of God. The Body of Christ is not to be in competition with one another – but rather partnership. May God continue to conform His bride in the spotless one He’s returning for.

So here’s the big prayer request in light of our need for a building to meet in. We’re in communication with a movie theatre here in town that shows movies for $2. They supposed to be coming up with a proposal to rent out one of their theatres one night a week for our youth service. This would be a fantastic location – it’s right off the freeway, everyone knows where it is, and it’s a great place to invite youth to come to. We know there are students that won’t step foot in a church but might come check out what’s going on in a movie theatre.

Here’s some pictures of the place.

Pray with us that God would grant us favor with the corporation and that we would be able to work out an agreement with them to rent their facility. Our kickoff is coming up soon!!!

Question of the Week:

What was the last good partnership experience you had with someone from another church or stream of churches than your own?

Christmas Youth Party

Apparently my role on this blog is to post all the pictures and let you all know what is happening in our lives since Danny took the role of doctrine debater and asker of many questions. =)
Last night we had our youth Christmas party which was a murder mystery party where we had to discover who had killed Santa. Everyone got a character to play, except Danny, he was the host. We never got a final count but there was somewhere between 60-70 people crammed in our house. It was a blast! I, of course, was Mrs. Claus. Here are a few others that some of you may recognize:

Kailee, as the softball player with a few youth.

Trina, the motorcycle salesman. Lorelei, the businesswoman/mother. A couple youth girls.

Trent, the DJ and aspiring rap artist. Trevin, his agent. (At least I think that is what they were supposed to be!)

Trey, the ladies' man and a few of our youth.

Trent, Trevin, and Travis, the businessman. You guessed it, another youth.

Anyhow, the latest news is that we may possibly have an open door for a place to meet with the youth ministry. We are waiting to hear back from a Movie theatre that may rent us one of their theatres on Wednesday nights. Both Danny and I feel really good about this location in prayer so we are praying for a postive report come next week when the manager calls us back. Right now we are working on all the finishing details before we launch weekly meetings next month.
Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving for God's Favor

Time for a nice Thanksgiving blog. We had a great time on our trip to Bend for Thanksgiving.

When I take time to reflect on all the things I’m thankful for each year I can’t help but be amazed at the favor of God on our lives.

For You, O Lord, will bless the righteous;

With favor You will surround him as with a shield. Psalm 5:12

I’ve been thinking a lot about God’s favor lately. It’s amazing to me that just being in righteous relationship with the Lord brings his favor to your life. Just doing the basics of Christianity, (repenting of sin, keeping a pure heart, meditating in God’s Word, seeking to live a good life, etc) causes God to be so delighted in us that he pours out favor and blessing all over His children. Such simple responses on our part bring such incredible blessing from our Heavenly Father. It’s just amazing to think that anyone would ever want to live life any other way.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;

Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! Psalm 34:8

What does this favor look like in our life?

Like family. We are surrounded by such a great family. Spending time with them, like we did this last week, has got to be our favorite thing to do. You know, we really did a whole lot of nothing. We just hung out for days. And reflecting on this week, that’s exactly how we love to spend every holiday time – just being together.

Like church. Not just Family Life Church but all of the body of Christ here in the Treasure Valley, back in Bend, Portland, Orange County, San Diego, Uganda, all over the world. Most people are thankful for their friends. But who knew relationships could be so meaningful and rich. When your relationships are a result of God’s favor, they surpass anything you can experience otherwise. I absolutely love being a contributing part of my local church. It’s the only place I can grow into the man God has called me to be and feel the deep sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing God is using me to further His eternal purpose.

Like surprises. You ever get that feeling that His favor is just chasing you. As if life is so good and you don’t need anything more but God still just loves to surprise you with blessing? This week while in Bend someone gave me a Taylor guitar!! I couldn’t even believe it. I was pretty sure I’d never own one – my guitar worked just fine. I was amazed by how many people commented this morning after worship on how much better this new guitar sounded. And on top of that – Roger from My Chai in Bend gave me a jug of his chai concentrate for free! Like icing on the cake. Come on over if you want to try some of the best chai tea in the world.

(Not a real picture of the new guitar)

We have so much to be thankful for. Sometimes I feel like I must have more than everyone else, but then it hits me – God has no favorites. His favor is available to all who live this life. It pleases God when we take time to reflect on all that He has blessed us with.

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thess 5:18

Question of the Week:

What does God’s favor currently look like in your life?

What does a youth pastor do all week?

That's a great question. I always wondered how my friends who worked at the church actually spent their time. When I was a banker - I did banking, helping customers 40 hours a week. When I managed the Coldstone - I made and served ice cream full time. But what do the hours during the week look like for a youth pastor, other than holding a youth service? I'll break it down for you...

1) Meeting with staff.

Right now that involves primarily Pastor Steve. But we have other all staff meetings and leaders meetings to get on the same page and head in the same direction. I'm loving these times so much. Sometimes we go over how best to help a certain family in our church, sometimes it's what computer we should buy next, sometimes it's what we really believe about prophecy. You never know what you're going to learn. I'm so blessed to be able to learn so much from our pastor every day I go to work.

2) Doing the little things

Someone has to figure out what prizes we want to give away at our youth events. Or do the research on exactly what video camera we should purchase. Deciding on graphics and event titles, sending lots of emails, getting your announcements in for the bulletin on time, etc. This is the stuff that seems to grab at your time and fill up your week. And it's all so random week to week. It's the stuff that causes you to look back on your week and ask yourself, "What did I get done this week?"



3) Hearing from the Lord

My favorite part of ministry is the hearing from God part. I try to give my mornings to hearing from God and taking down what I'm learning. Lots of that involves preparing messages to speak - I spoke to our youth, our youth pastoral staff and our worship team this week. When I was an intern I was so jealous that there were people who were paid to study the Bible...God has fulfilled the desire of my heart!! This part also involves big vision stuff - we just finished putting together a document that lays out our vision and values for our youth and worship ministries. Now we just need to put that plan into action.

4) Relationships with people

This is what pastoring is all about, eh? We spend time with our leaders, we spend time with students, we spend time with parents, etc. At this stage in the game this involves meeting new people every week and trying to build trust and respect with people that really don't know us. We're feeling out these people and being evaluated by them. It's really an intimidating process and not for the insecure. Thank goodness for the love of God and the call of God. It pushes us past awkwardness and fear and leads us to the most rewarding part of ministry - people's lives being touched and changed by God!

This leads us to our question of the week (we're diving deeper). I had a great little conversation with Corey this week about this and thought I'd throw it out to everyone...

In your opinion, what is the best thing a leader can do to gain trust and respect from the people he/she is leading?

Youth Game Night

We had our Giving game night with the youth this past Friday. We them all bring canned food for the local shelter, hence the name Giving game night. We played some crazy games, shared a little on priorities in life and got to know a lot of young people. The major lesson learned from the night was that we should use prebaked pumpkin pies for our pie eating contest. Otherwise, you have to bake them on site and have scalding hot pies for your contest. Oops!
We chose a name for our upcoming youth ministry this week... The Next. The concept is that these young people will be the next Godly leaders or if they so chose the next dropouts or failures. The choice lies with them on who they will be.

Anyways, it has been crazy working on all of this youth stuff. There are so many elements that go into the foundation of what we are building that it is somewhat overwhelming at times. It is funny that Danny and I have meetings with each other where we take notes, cast vision and discuss strategies. We are learning to lead together at a whole new level!
We have an amazing youth leadership team already that has been willing to give us a night every week to instill in them the qualities we believe are essential to pastoring and leading. Plus we have a group of student leaders who are not only doing videos and graphics for us, but are also really stepping up to the plate to be leaders to their peers. It has really just been amazing to watch the goodness of God being poured out on this venture. Thanks for all of your prayers! I still miss Bend a lot, mostly the people. =) I am excited to visit this week. Hopefully we will get to see a lot of you.

Another New Blog

Let the bloggin' community bear fruit and multiply!! You all know you need another blog to check up on. Here's the deal on this one - life in the ministry is crazier than we thought possible. There's just so many thoughts swirling around in my little mind that I need a way to process and log my thoughts. Blogging is a great way to do that you know. It creates an archive of where God has taken you and should show us, as we look back on it, how much we're growing in Him.

Plus it really is a great way for everyone that loves us or cares about anything we say to keep up with what's going on. My friend Jonathan has a theory that any true life long friends you're going to have will be the ones that keep up with your blog. (No Pressure) This will be a place to really get a look into what we're doing in ministry, what God is teaching us and should also be a place for some interesting discussion.

Here's my plan...
Update the blog regularly and ask a question of the week. Then you all comment and we interact. Some will be harder than others of course...we'll see how it goes. What do you think? The answers will tell us who actually reads these!! Oh yeah, and throw in some crazy pictures to make things interesting. Like this...



Wanted to let everyone in Bend know that we miss you guys like crazy. If anyone has a burning passion for Nampa, ID the market is flashing a strong buy signal. There's a house right across the street from us for sale if you want to be our neighbors!! Love you guys.


Question of the Week:

We'll start light...

Where did your last cup of coffee (or coffee alternative) come from and who did you share it with?