THE SERIES THAT SHALT NOT BE NAMED

We're doing something a little different. It's not hyper creative or revolutionary just more different... yeah... that's it. Well, anyway we are doing a four week series on the cross. We didn't give it a series title and they don't even know how long the series is. We just started talking about Jesus. Each week a different student has been given the topic a week ahead of time and was then asked to convey that topic on canvas. The art was used in the midst of the talk. Here are the first two weeks. We have two more to go. Oh and this is for the high school programming. The canvas is 3' X 5'. Click to enlarge.

CHICKEN HIGHLIGHT

In the video above at minute mark 1:25 volunteers from the crowd have to giftwrap a chicken. It was a fun gag for the summer crowd.

CLIFF NOTES WEEK 2

We're presenting this after the talk style discussion to our students at uprisingnews.com. Thought you might like to check it out. The 300 clip was used last night to talk about overcoming temptation. I'm closing comments. If you're a student you can comment on the youth site.

FILM SCHOOL WEEK 1

We talked about Temptation last night to our high school students and dove into the how and why of the moment. Later on that night we posted this video on our student site to further discussion.

Our verses were John 10:10 and John 8:44. During the talk we showed the piece at the end of this post from the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone.

FILM SCHOOL

This is our newest series.

Film School – Some of our favorite movies have that one incredible scene that we will never get out of our head. In this series we take you to school on some of the classics and let them speak truth to us about our choices and our failures.

Week 1 - Common Temptations

Week 2 - Way out of Temptation

Week 3 - The Importance of Friends

BRICK BY BORING BRICK COVER

It takes a lot of guts to put yourself out there to sing a Paramore song. Yeah Ashlyn.

MASQUERADE BALL

Our high school ministry had a Masquerade Ball last night. We have had some great activities this year. I love this photo.

Jamey Dickens Breakout Session

COMMUNICATING TO STUDENTS

Jamey Dickens 04/28/10 9:45AM

Passing in the words of God to the next generation is what we live for.

Paul said to Timothy to, "fan the flame of the gift that has been given to you."

GOAL: Is not to become great communicator for our own gain but so that we can proclaim Jesus to everyone.

FOUR THINGS TO TRANSFORM YOUR COMMUNICATION

1. Build a relationship.

Illustration… bandana. You can use it to pop some one. You get the end of it wet to really inflict pain and draw blood. Water to the bandana is the same as relationships to communication. 

- Give ministry away.

- Get out of the building.

2. Funnel your program.

Illustration… running out of gas. He did not have a funnel.

Do the same with your communication. Is your environment and program creative in such a way to capture area students? Would your students be willing to invite their friends? Who is with you by the time you get to your point?

- Think steps. Parking lot to the end of your program.

- Take courage. You will be challenged on the process.

3. Focus your content. Ingredients to a successful talk.

- Head nods. When you create a felt need in the audience. What is at stake?

Go from me to we. Create buy in.

Front load a verse. Transition the talk energy to give authority to the verse.

Talk to students and leaders.

Facebook updates.

Apply one point.

Break the pattern of talking.

4. Work on your system.

- Teach Series 

- Don't write all your curriculum

- Share the stage.

- Discover your model for content.

Middle School Band Rolls Out!

Today was the day. We put up the full middle school band. It was awesome. I was so proud of the crew, leaders, mentor students... epic day. We talked about Jesus, of course, and we gave students and opportunity to make what Christ did on the cross count for them. We don't push students or do anything invasive. No pressure. If they're ready and we trust God is calling them to him then it's gonna happen. We had about 27 students trust Christ across our three services. 

SEE YOU AGAIN, cover

This past wednesday our band covered covered "See you Again." It was fun and thought I'd share it. I moded my flip with a 35mm lense.. there is some junk on it so it's not long before I unscrew the lense and remove it. Note the difference.

Video is above.. feed readers may need to click title to view video.

MIDDLE SCHOOL BAND

Check it out! We are overcoming high school musicians with three middle school students in the band today. The middle school students who are coming to play are growing in experience and rocking it out! Easter weekend the band will be full middle school! This has taken a full two years to get here. 

When we started two years ago there were two adults leading worship for all services. They did a great job but I wanted us to go to a direction of starting to use the students and getting more involved. We have high school musicians and now more middle school musicians. My two volunteers who run this are fantastic incredible servants who have put in a lot of time and pushed these kids toward this direction. It's been awesome.

OUR MARCH MADNESS SERIES

We rolled out this new series in all of our middle school services last night.

March Madness is taking over. Everywhere you look you see the tourney brackets, hype, and college fans cheering on their team. Some of those things that make us love this season are some of the same things that show up in the Bible.

3/14 Week 1 “Win or Go Home” The champion mentality of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

3/21 Week 2 “Cinderella Story” Against all odds our girl Esther owned her moment.

3/28 Week 3 “The Underdog” Every tournament has one and our’s is David vs. Goliath.

MARCH MADNESS SERIES

I wanted to share with you our series in March. We are going to create some energy and capitalize on some tournament themes you might see with the NCAA tournament.

Week 1 - Win or Go Home - Every year teams know that their next game could be their last and they got to go all out. We take a look at the story of Shadrach, Meschach, and Abendego.

Week 2 - The Cinderella Story - Every year some team you that has no business being on the court makes it to the tourney and then up the rounds. Their rise is a total surprise and that's why we love it. We look at the life of Esther.

Week 3 - The Underdog - Inprobable odds never matter to the team that has no hope or chance of slaying the #1 seed but every year somebody takes them down. You guessed it... Daivd and Goliath.

Note: We don't have a graphic yet so the pic above just made sense for the post. Enjoy.

O.o

We're doing a series on the person of Christ and looking at the awkward or double take things about Jesus that makes him set apart from ourselves and everyone else for that matter.

Week 1 - Jesus had compassion on the crowd.

Week 2 - Jesus ignored social barriers.

Week 3 - Jesus told the truth.

"GAME ON" MIDDLE SCHOOL SERIES

CURRENT SERIES IN MIDDLE SCHOOL...

“GAME ON” is our three week series in middle school at all of the services on Sunday.

1/31 Wee k 1 – The Gane Zelda. Zelda is a game about solving problems, gathering knowledge, and making alliances along the way. Your journey with Christ is a lot like that with the exception that it’s not a game. Come find out some sweet things about the game and about Christ.

2/ 14 Week 2 – The Game Mario Brothers is all about the next level. Things usually get tougher as you go. In life issues and drama never go away but what does change is how we handle them with Christ.

2/ 21 Week 3 – The Game Rock Band is a blast as you live the life of a rocker in front of virtual concerts. With our life the concert is our friendships, school, neighbors, and the rest of our life. How will you live it and what kind of message will you send?

OUR MIDDLE SCHOOL DRUMMER

WHEN YOU'RE DONE WITH THIS.... check out his youtube page. TOASTYMEDIA

DODGEBALL VIDEO

Video highlights of our dodgeball tournament below.

MIXER SLIDE

We put this slide together to show during program for the moment we have a mixer. Enjoy.

A mixer is a program element where students are grouped together with 2-3 other students and are given a set of questions to ask each other so that they can get to know more abnout each other or meet new people.

Example: One at a time introduce yourself to the group and share either the movie you are most looking forward to seeing this year or what artist is most featured on your ipod.

THE KILLERS "ALL THAT I'VE DONE"

FEED READERS MAY NEED TO CLICK THE LINK. Video of the middle school 11am service cover song. Topic: Negativity

WHAT IT DO.

We have the best dancers. Every Wednesday when high school ends we let kids plug in their ipods and dance. Everything from hip hop to techno gets played. These kids were not prompted. This is what they do. Video below.