Valentines Banquet

Hey Everybody, just wanted to let you know about the Valentines Banquet we enjoyed with our students last night. We had a grand ol' time complete with games and a delicious spaghetti dinner prepared by the Di Stefano family. But more importantly we wanted the night to be focused on healthy relationships. So, we had guest speaker Abby Horn who works with the Palmetto Family Council and specializes in abstinence workshops for schools in the greater Columbia, SC region. She shared with our students the the difference between Lust and Love and illustrated it on a spectrum. Abby stated that at the beginning of most relationships there is a period of infatuation during which we make a emotional connection with a person of the opposite gender. From then on it is up to us whether we take that infatuation and move on the spectrum in the selfish direction of lust or the selfless direction of love. It turns out that as we move towards lustful selfishness we create issues in our relationships because we are using the person as a means to our own end. The catch is that as we move further and further towards lust it takes longer to get back to square one because we have to go back and work through each issue we've created and right the wrong. Our natural tendency is to seek selfish gain from everything, but love, on the other hand, love is based on selflessness. That's what makes love powerful. When we love someone we do things for their benefit. That is how we express love. I thought this was a powerful thought and wanted to share it all with you all. The following are scriptures about love that you can look up that tell us about God's love. I hope you take the time to dwell on each of these throughout the week.

Romans 5:8
Ephesians 2:4-5
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
John 15:12-13
John 3:16

Hot Chocolate Handout

A couple of weeks ago our student ministry did an outreach project where we handed out hot chocolate to passerbys. The outreach portion came into play when we handed them a card on which to simply write their names and a prayer request. Mostly due to our location we only had 6-7 people drop by for the event. That would seem a little disappointing, but God was at work. The prayer requests that we received were desperate needs for these people and it meant a lot for someone to be praying for them. Additionally, we had one man who was looking for a church and had driven by ours many times. He asked about our ministry, the church and a few other things and ended up coming to our Sunday service the following Sunday! Though we weren't able to attract more people, we were able to share our church family with people from our community and that is a WIN!

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!!