One-on-one...to the death!

To the death of sin, hopefully.

Please keep us in your prayers, especially today as I meet with David one-on-one for discipleship/mentorship stuff. I'm reading 1 Peter this morning and reminded that "the passions of our flesh are waging war against our souls" (slight paraphrase of 1 Pet 2:11). He instructs us to "abstain from the passions of our flesh".  If all my discipleship with young men never produced this, never was used by God as a means toward this, it would seem vain and striving after wind. 

So, please pray for this. For today and always in my own sanctification and in the ministry calling that God has for us.

This is David.  He is cool.  He has been hungering after God, and it has been very encouraging! (I mentioned him in the newsletter recently)

ManZilla 2015

That's the slightly korny (or manly...?) name we gave to our yearly (young)-men's event.
This past Saturday was it, and although it wasn't as well attended as most year's (less than a dozen of us), it was still a good time.

We basically play for half the time, doing some fun 'manly' competitions (indian leg-wresting, pirate wrestling, hand-slappy game, some boxing lessons and sparring and more).  We spend a couple of hours in reading and discussing various aspects of what it means to be a 'man' at all, what masculinity is, etc.  This year we took a page out of the ladies' event (Feminomenon) and had a panel of men to share/discuss "Masculinity, Marriage and More".  I was very thankful that Rod and Kirk chose to give a couple of their Saturday hours sharing with us.  Rod is awesome and an elder at FBC, with two kids both out of the house.  That kind of perspective is something young-men (myself included) desperately need.  Kirk is my age with one kid, and most of the guys don't know Kirk.  Brandon also was on the 'panel' (it ended up being a circle), and so between the three it was helpful to have them share and give some wisdom on those topics.  The guys had several questions, and most of them joined the next morning for our new Sunday School at FBC "Biblical Manhood and Womanhood", which is quite timely.

We of course stuffed our faces at BWW's in the evening, which is a curse hidden in a blessing.

Yours truly showing these young punks how it's done in 4x4 'log' cutting context. :)

Dave was really good at Indian Leg-Wrestling

(thanks to Zach Schroeder for being my consistent camera man...he just brings his camera and makes it happen, so nice)

aannnnndd...continued

I said I'd 'continue' my post about Fall Retreat.  This is that post.

But, since this is supposed to be "mini-updates" on ministry, I'll keep it short and just give you a few good photos. :)

In a nutshell, the retreat was great.  26 people is a great number for a weekend trip like this.  We studied the Great Commandment, had 4 small groups/teams that discussed together after each main teaching, and also competed against one-another in "Minute-to-Win-It" games on Saturday (that was fun).

The group we had are all great kids, talkative and eager to get to know one another.  A few times now I've heard positive things from students about how good and challenging the weekend was.  So, I'm grateful God gave us what He did.

they jumped in the lake...in late October... :)