Our Leaders Rock!

The picture is of 2 of our leaders cutting someones' hair in the salon, this was part of the scavenger hunt. (Richie on the left and Chris on the right).

Yesterday a bunch of us from the student ministry went on a scavenger hunt throughout the city. It was darn good fun. The event wasn't something students signed up for so we weren't sure how many students would come. So as student after student showed up almost every leader that showed up kept asking me, "Dustin, what are going to do if we have too many students?" Although a very logical and possible problem the thought really never entered my mind for one really awesome reason, we have amazing leaders. We had I believe 55 students come, which if you do the math is a lot of vehicles. However I was able rest in the fact that our leaders absolutely love our students, they really do. Although I hadn't asked one leader to come we had about 12 show up ready to love and serve teenagers. So when so many students were beginning to show up I was able to rest in the fact that our leadership team rocks. Huge student ministries don't have half as many good leaders as we have. I feel very blessed to be apart of this team and look forward to many more days of serving with each other in the future. Leaders thank you for your heart to love and serve teenagers, may God bless you as you are blessing others.

Ever since my daughter, Callie Joy, was born I called her my little princess. Little did I know this would come back to haunt me. Since I've always called her that she has associated that phrase with me, her daddy. Last week is when it all went haywire. Last week she was playing with some friends when she thought of me as I was at work. This prompted her to tell her friends where I was and I quote callie joy, "my little princess is at work." That's right she now calls me her little princess and won't stop calling me it. Goodnight my little princess. Bye my little princess. Those phrases are phrases I've had to hear from my daughter. As hilarious and cute as this is I hope it doesn't cause counseling for me later in life.

Slip N Slide Fun

Over the past year our God has blessed the student ministry with so much numerical growth that it has cuased us to lose the sense of community and friendship we once had. Thus over the summer we have put together several events like this one. Yesterday we put together a huge slip n slide with crazy amounts of dish soap and just watched as teenagers ate it up, they had a blast. Many spectators can easily judge this event as simply a 4 hour event where the church watched a bunch of kids. But lets take a closer look to what really took place, here is a top 10 things that took place during the slip n slide event.

1. Parents saw the church love their children.
2. Students were reminded that the church is here to serve them.
3. Leaders deepened their relationships with students.
4. Older students began to embrace younger students (discipleship).
5. Students were reminded that Christians don't have to be boring.
6. Different cliques laughed and played with other cliques, this is huge.
7. Students were shown I Thessalonians 2:8, that as leaders we are not only here to share with you the gospel but our lives as well.
8. A sense of inner community as we split off into teams and played crazy games students began encouraging eachother, helping eachother, serving eachother, etc.
9. The leaders showed the students what it means to serve.
10. God smiled. I'm convicnced that as God saw all those things going on via a slip n and slide it just had to bring a smile to His face.