Progressive Dinner

On Sunday, the 6th, our student ministry embarked on our first progressive dinner. We had 22 students and 7 leaders packed on one of Ben Lippen’s mini buses. On the bus we practiced singing "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" for our arrival at each residence. With our first destination in our sights and our stomachs hungry we arrived for our first course at our Pastor’s house. There we were able to indulge ourselves in the appetizers prepared by the Di Toma family. Only 6 minutes on our way to our next destination and a disaster happened... The bus broke down… With two more houses to visit and 22 students packed on a bus our leadership team shined through with their quick thinking. We were able to, with the help of John Pascutti, our second destination host, shuttle students to the Pascutti residence and in the meantime coordinate the delivery of our desserts from our last destination, thus saving us another shuttling run. The leadership team stepped up and kept the fun alive with a scavenger hunt and board games while the students ate and waited for their desserts to arrive. It was funny to hear the several rounds of "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" upon the arrival of each shuttle. Coordinating the event was stressful, but looking back, these are the kinds of things that great ministry stories are built on. If the description of these events seems a little confusing you can see it visually via the diagram I provided below. I just want to say a big THANK YOU to all my student ministry staff and our host families for being flexible in the face of mechanical failure. YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!!!!!

Thanksgiving Video

The Student Ministry had an opportunity to share with our church body what they're thankful for. Here's the video:

David Crowder Concert

Hey everybody!! For those of you who missed the David Crowder Concert here's a couple of photos so you can see what you missed. We had a good time at the concert and then went and got some shakes afterward.

See You At The Pole

Today was national See You At The Pole day. This is where students meet at their school's flag pole to pray. I had the opportunity to be at one of Northeast Columbia's premier high schools, Blythewood High School. There are about 1236 students at Blythewood and around 20 were at the pole this morning to pray. It was cool to see these students step out in front of the drop off zone (pictured above) where hundreds of students filed by while we prayed. May God use these students as a living testimony of His grace, forgiveness and love this school year!

Engage Student Ministry Retreat Review

Hey Everybody,
I just wanted to thank all of you who were praying for our first student ministry retreat, titled "Engage". Engage went really well. We only took four (4) students to White Oak Conference Center in Winnsboro, SC, but I believe that God wanted to do a work in those four students. The theme of Engage was relationships; as in, engaging in relationships. The first night I spoke on our relationship with God, it's importance and the different ways we hear the voice of God. The second day I spoke two (2) times. In the morning we discussed our relationships with those in our immediate sphere of influence (i.e. immediate family, friends and acquaintances) focusing on selflessness and humility. In the evening of the second day I spoke on engaging in relationships with people outside our immediate sphere of influence. As Christians, our testimony to others is not always how we talk; it is often how we live and engage with others in relationships. The way we live demonstrates the reality of Christ in our lives.
Our students enjoyed the trip a lot. We played a lot of brain teasers and did some good old team building exercises to emphasize the need we have for one another (a big thank you to Simpson University Spiritual Formation Dept. for all the great experience in debriefing. It paid great dividends on our retreat). We, as staff, also learned a lot about our students and I'd like to think they learned a lot from us, but you'd have to ask them. Our desire was to build stronger relationships with our students and I think we did just that.
To those four students, thanks for coming, I had a lot of fun with you and am looking forward to doing more of the same in the near future!!

Engage Retreat Packing List

Right Click and download!!!

Engage Student Ministry Retreat

Deadline for Registration Sept. 6th 2009
email me with questions alex.krum@yahoo.com

Palmetto Falls Water Park CANCELED

Well, the water park event got rained out, but that didn't ruin our day. Instead everyone came over to Kat and My new apartment to play bored games and hang out. We made some cookies and had some soda. We played the game of Life, a little Battleship, and some Risk. The nice thing was that it was all free. Thanks anyway Palmetto Falls, we had free fun and that's the best kind of fun you can get!!

Water Fight Night (Aug 2nd)

So, we We had Water Fight Night on August 2nd and it was pretty fun. We did a water relay which turned out to be a lot more disgusting than I thought it would be, a 'see who can get the most points by throwing water balloons at targets with different point values' game, and a human and water balloon version of Battleship. I found that my preconceptions of how these games were going to work were shattered. I thought that all the games had relatively simple rules, but I found that teens and preteens are masters of loopholes. Anyway, we had tons of fun and you can obviously see in the pictures that I got more than a little wet. One of the great parts of this evening though was the testimony given by a parent of a couple of our students, John Pascutti. He talked about the importance of having a relationship with Christ vs. just abiding by the do's and don'ts of scripture because we're 'suppose to'. Christ calls us into something deeper than the cycle of guilt, shame and repentance that the later perpetuates. Christ calls us to himself. That is where we find the grace and love that we hear about. That is where we find peace.

Upcoming Events!!!

Alright everybody, here's the latest event updates!

August 2nd - Water Fight Night

Be sure to wear something you can get wet in.

Also, you might want a towel.

August 12th - Palmetto Falls Water Park (Fort Jackson)

The cost is 9.50/person (unless you already have passes)

We'll be there from 1-4PM

Directions at http://www.fortjacksonmwr.com/waterpark/

Please be sure to wear a modest swimsuit

Bring sunscreen, a towel, snacks (optional)

Invite your friends, the more people the cheaper it is!!

August 16th - Back Skool BBQ/Cookout

We'll be having a BBQ (hamburgers and hotdogs) @ the church campus

You bring the sides and we'll have the main course

We'll need drinks, chips, potato salad and any other BBQ musts

August 30th - Outreach Event

This is still in the works, but expect a lot of fun, music and some food.

This is an event you'll want to invite everyone you know to. Let's get our name out there!

September 11-13th - Fall Retreat

Mark you calendars. We're going on a retreat.

More details to come. You'll definitely want to be there!

Pictures from the Sandlapper Service Project

This was the Service Project Team (minus myself and Kat)

Emptying a pool and rinsing it out

More rinsing... They were pretty dirty.

Lunch afterwards... Sandwiches

Sandlapper Elementary School Summer Stars Service Project

Today (July 14th, 2009) was our service project with Sandlapper Elementary School. They were kind enough to allow us to help out with their Summer Stars Daycare. For the service project half of us helped watch the students during their "Water Day" which included filling and emptying their kiddie pools. This may seem like a menial task, but the daycare workers regularly work 10 hour days and taking down those pools ended up being harder work than we anticipated. The other half of us were indoors helping with arts and crafts. At the end of "Water Day" we were fortunate enough to stay a little longer and read stories to the Kindergartners and 1st Graders giving the staff even more rest. At first our efforts didn't seem too much, but the staff at Sandlapper was extremely appreciative thanking us many times for our help. We were glad to offer a hand to our neighbors!

Pool Party

Volleyball, watermelon, strawberries, chips, salsa, sunscreen and water made our pool party a day of summer fun. Today was the Student Ministries Pool Party. The Wallaces we kind enough to host our afternoon in the pool. We had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I think I got a slight sunburn.

Hope you guys can make it to the Sandlapper Elementary School Service Project. We'll be helping out at the school summer daycare program running some water games and assisting with crafts. Afterwords, we'll enjoy lunch at the church. We're excited to see you there!!

Welcome!!

Hey Everybody,

Welcome to the official Columbia Crossroads NE Student Ministries (CCNE SM) blog site. The idea is that when you want to know what's going on with CCNE SM you'll click your web browser right on over to www.ccnesm.blogspot.com and check it out. I'll do my best to keep up to date info on all the action at CCNE SM. Some things to look out for this summer:

Jun. 27th - Pool Party @ the Wallaces

Jul. 5th - Student Ministry Night Cancelled (Holiday)

Jul. 14th - Sandlapper Elementary School Service Project

Jul. 19th - Student Ministry Night (woot woot)

Aug. 2nd - Water Fight Night (a Student Ministry Night)

Aug. 16th - Back 2 Skool BBQ/Cookout (a Student Ministry Night)

I hope that this blog is helpful and inspirational for you as we kick off our Student Ministries at Columbia Crossroads NE!!