76 posts tagged “youth group”
Tonight was a night full of fun and rejoicing. We started of with a super fun game of "Balloon Battle". Daniel and I blew up 120 balloons and broke the teens up into four groups. The teams need to protect their balloons while trying to pop the other teams balloons. Needless to say the kids had a blast and balloon shapnal was every where. After games and a AWESOME time of worship lead by Pastor Ben, we headed down to the church sanctuary to witness one of our youth group guys get baptized! He made a commitment before the Lord and all of Canvas to live his life for Christ. It was amazing to be there at that moment in his life. The teens cheered and clap has he was baptized. What a wonderful choice for a young man to take in his life. So proud!
Tonight was week two on the Battle Within. Here is what Pastor Dan taught on:
Bottom Line: Every time you’re tempted, your confidence in God is at stake, not just your self-control.
When facing temptation, it seems like it’s always about the choice, the decision, the temptation. But it’s always about more than that. It’s not just your reputation or your innocence that’s at stake—it’s your confidence in God. The lure of temptation makes us question whether we can really trust God to come through for us, to be there for us, to provide for us. We begin to think He’s not in our corner, that He’s not looking out for us. But what if we began to see Him there? What if we realized that whatever is luring us away really has nothing to do with what we think it’s about, and there’s a deeper issue, a trust issue, at work? It might completely weaken the pull of that temptation, and it might help us get to the heart of what is really going on.
Scripture References: Matthew 4:1-4; Deuteronomy 8:3, 11-14,17
When you stop trusting, you stop obeying. And when you stop obeying, eventually you stop believing.
Today i got to join our Youth Pastor and some other Canvas leaders in having lunch at Simi High School. Pastor Dan has started this awesome thing, every Wednesday he brings Taco's to a different high school in our area, and then just hangs out with the youth group kids and their friends. The teens love it and look forward to the week he shows up at their school. Well today i got to go, i can't always get a babysitter so i can't go every week. But i was so excited to go today. I had so much fun just spending time with them. I can't wait until i can do it again. Thanks Dan for putting it all together and just being awesome and loving teens!
Tonight was awesome, there was just something special happening tonight. I was standing in this room full of teenagers and we were singing songs of praise to God. When all of a sudden i stopped singing and just sat down and listened. I lost my breath, because as i just sat and listened I could hear ALL and i really mean all of the teens singing. It wasn't a group of teens mouthing the words, it was a group of believes pouring their hearts out to their Savior. I was in awe! Truly in awe of the Lord and what He was doing in this place. I have been in large groups of teens singing praises, but i had never seen so many hearts open to the Lord singing with every fiber of their being. It was truly an amazing moment. I only wish you could have been there to see and feel it. Almost indescribable.
After our Christ centered worship time we continued in our study on doubt. Here is what Dan taught on:
Bottom Line: Faith grows when you learn how to view doubt through both what you know and what you’ve been through.
So what do you do when a doubt is too big? How do you handle a doubt that you just can’t seem to move past? You look back. You draw on the things you do know, the things that God has shown you. The things you have learned about Him in the past, both through information and experience. And you hang on to those things you do know, even when you’re left with questions about the things you don’t. Once we are able to see what God has done and is doing through both our experience and our knowledge, we are better equipped to manage the doubt.
Scripture:
Psalms 13:1-2 & 5-6
Psalms 71:16-17
It was an amazing night and I had a great time with my small group we went about a half an hour of time while discussing this topic. It really hit home to my girls and they had a lot to say and ask. They are awesome. Each and every week I have just grown deeper and deeper in love with these teens and this awesome ministry!
This is 45 of our staff and teens, I took an additional 17 photo's tonight, that i will put up next week. The concept is for this wall to grow. That any teen that visits gets their photo added to the wall. Because once you've been to Canvas your part of our family.
So if you have a youth group or college group try this Photo Project, it's not expensive, just the cost of getting the pictures printed, and Costco has great prices. Plus you will make each teen feel special and excepted. Which is how we all want to feel right? So try it in your youth center and let me know how it works!
Raise your hand if you’ve ever doubted God. Everyone got their hands up? That’s because it’s human nature to doubt. It’s just in us to ask questions and to reevaluate. A lot of times doubt gets a bad wrap because of its ability to make us negative, and because we think once we start to entertain it our entire system of belief will collapse. But doubt, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. When used in the proper way, doubt helps us formulate an authentic and personal faith. That’s why it’s important to learn to express our doubts to others and to deal with them in the context of Christian community, so that God can work with our doubts to help strengthen our faith.
Tonight we started a new series on Doubt. Who among us don't have doubt? And i know that it's something most teenagers deal with. I am super excited to see what Pastor Dan will be teaching and how this will effect the teens. We started out the night with a fun game of "Human Knots" The kids loved it and all the teams except for one was able to undo their knot. In the end everyone had a great time, even if it was hard.
From the days of John the
Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing,
and forceful men lay hold of it.
Matthew 11:12
It’s easy for all of us to unconsciously slip into
the mentality that our words, thoughts and actions only affect us.
That it is only our
world and our kingdom
that is affected. But there is a much bigger picture! Whenever we
make decisions in our lives to live in the kingdom of God, we are
participating in God’s ultimate plan to bring the kingdom of God
permanently to this world. Every time we make “upside down”
decisions, we are demonstrating to a watching world what it will be
like one day when God makes everything right once again. Every
decision matters and affects a much larger picture.
That is what we talked about tonight at youth group. It was our last night in the "Upside Down" series. This series has been eye opening and challenging for the students as well as for myself. Truly making me think about how i live my life and what changes i need to make. We didn't have very much small group time tonight, but that was ok, because Pastor Dan had a great message and even an awesome video for us to watch. The night was powerful.
We started out with a giant game of "Guess Who?" and then had a special guest lead us in worship. Ben Kolarcik, our worship pastor lead us in worship tonight. It was awesome, I love to hear him on Sunday mornings, and it was a treat to have him at Canvas tonight. The kids really enjoyed it as well, it was most defiantly a blessing! Thanks Ben for taking time out to be at Canvas tonight!
Tonight was another powerful night at Discovery Church. It is amazing to see God moving in teenagers lives.
Meet my small group, photographed to the left. They are a mix of ages and personalities, however they all get a long and seem to really connect with each other. They go to differnt schools, have different hobbies and would other wise never really associate with each other. This is such a great way to broaden their friend base and learn that God created everyone to be different. I can't wait to get to know them more and build relationships with them.
Tonight I lead games again, i think i might be the official games person! Super excited about that! We played "Musical Chairs" my way! hehe! Which meant that each person wasn't trying to get a chair, but instead trying to get as many people in one chair as possible. This way they work together, instead of against each other. We started out with 30 chairs and 50 kids. We ended with six kids on just one chair. However I'm pretty sure if they did it again they could have gotten 10 kids on one chair. Most defiantly a game we need to play again!
Tonight was Discovery Church's High School Ministries (Canvas) Open House. We had youth group as usual, however the parents got to be included and see how we run our Wednesday Nights. It was beyond awesome to meet the parents and make connections. To both Daniel and I all these kids are new and so are their parents, so i loved the opportunity to meet their parents now and start building relationships not only with the teens but their parents as well. The best surprise of the night was Russell Wood a teen from our old youth group came with his mom and sister to check out our youth group. He wants and needs a place to fellowship with teens and learn more about Jesus. I was so excited to see him there and I am hoping that he will call Canvas home!
Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. Titus 2:3-5
I have so loved being a part of our new church, Discovery Church. and am so pleased to be used by God in their Student Ministries. Daniel and I have dived in and are really loving these kids and the ministry of this church. Well this group is much bigger then our old group. I was used to having about 10 to 15 kids to get to know, care about and disciple. Well now there are about 50. I am excited that we will be starting small groups this week and i will be getting my own little group of high school girls. Instead of trying to connect with each and every kid. So with such a large group and being a new leader it's been a little hard to get to know people. So i decided to invite a few girls to have ice cream and hang out. Well I had hoped and prayed that God would bring at least five girls to Cold Stones tonight. Well God being God he answered my prayer and took my small request and went above and beyond. To my shock and surprise 13 girls showed up just to hang out! I didn't even think that many girls even knew who i was.
Once at the sleep over we all made cookies and played games. It felt so good to be around a group of teenage girls again. I have so missed all my old youth group girls now that they are all away at college. And although i have sad good bye to 6 girls, God has blessed me with a new group of 15 girls! I can't wait for more fun nights like tonight and creating new memories with this new group of girls.
Thanks Laurie for having the sleep over at your house and for being such a blessing to the Canvas Ministry!
