Praise and Prayer

The praise is actually a prayer request as well, but I like alliterations for titles, so...

Praise: We had a great student leadership training/recruitment/dealio this past weekend.  About 16-17 students came, which is a praise in itself (we've had a smaller leadership this past year).  Lots of learning, vision angling (casting, pun), theology and some fun and games.  We spend almost the entire morning on Saturday going over some important theological distinctives that we have a a ministry and as a church.  We also talk about evangelism, discipleship  It was great, and had some substantial discussion.  So, praise God for that! Please pray for wisdom for students as to whether they should officially apply for leadership, and then for us to figure out if they ought to be approved.  The majority of them present are also consistent attendees (as consistent as college students are, anyway) at church on Sunday mornings, and so that was greatly encouraging and makes the decision process a fair bit easier in some ways.

Prayer: I'm headed to "Byron Bible Camp" this weekend (late Saturday night) to do three teaching/preaching things.  I'm talking about "Joy in Christ", and haven't really had much time to work on it given the rest of...life.  SOO, please pray that God would grant great productivity in the next 24 hours, and that he would move in power, saving kids and greatly awakening their hearts and minds.  

"The greatest regret of my entire college career is that I didn't find Equip sooner"

"The greatest regret of my entire college career is that I didn't find Equip sooner".  End quote, after our reading group yesterday.
I asked Kay if I could quote her on that, telling her that that's the sort of thing I love to stick on newsletters. :)
And it is, of course, the kind of thing that I like to stick on newsletter (and blog posts), because it is quite helpful for me to hear such a thing, and I hope it's helpful for you to hear it as well.  I'm blessed and certainly don't deserve this kind of sentiment that God saw fit to let me hear.  "He who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth".
I'm thankful to God that we can plant and water, and pray and plead that we give him all the credit and glory for the opportunity to be used by him.  Please pray for Kay, that her enjoyment and love of "Equip" would be (and continue to be) because of the experience she has of Jesus: knowing him more, seeing him more in each other, and in every other way that she would be sanctified by her time in this ministry God.  

Wednesday Worship

A view of every Wednesday night worship practice from 6:00-7:00.  Pray for the preaching/teaching of God's word tonight from 1 Peter 1:4-5. 

I'm so thankful for the life God has given me and for the calling, responsibility and priveledge of ministry here. Please pray for minds and hearts to be stirred and convicted tonight. 

First Wednesday large group of 2016

The first Wednesday night large group of 2016 has come and gone.  It was a good night, something like 40-50 students came and heard the first message from 1 Peter which was "Elect Exiles", taken from verses 1:1-2.
It was a good night and a good start of the semester.  My small group had some really good questions like "If we aren't to treat this world as our home, how are we still supposed to enjoy it? Or should we?"  Both Logan and Michael asked that question, and we discussed it for several minutes.

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... :)