AHYEAH Youth Ministry

June 2011

2011-07-01T15:44:00.002-05:00

Restore Hope Outreach - 11th

We met up at the church at 8:30 to head out to Restore Hope and help out with taking care of the community. Once we arrived we took a tour of the facilities and learned about the things that they do there to help people, afterwards we set up an assembly line to carry canned goods, beef, soups, and many different kinds of foods. When we got done with the foods we began to unload all the school supplies, we catalogued, sorted, and counted everything that was there, so that they knew how much they needed to buy for the next school season. We counted over 7000 pencils making it possible for 700 kids that needed writing utensils to have as many as they needed during the school year. After we finished up counting the school supplies we were hungry, so we headed out to Chic-Fil-A to get ourselves a well deserved meal and continue on home.

Big Splash - 15th

Today we went to big splash to have some fun swimming. We met up at the church and headed out on our way, when we reached Big Splash we realized that we had arrived an hour early, so we hung out for a little bit and had some fun until the park opened. Once it opened we headed in to get into the water and have even more fun, we jumped into the water for a while since it was so hot outside, and Dom offered everybody sunscreen, which of course some of our stubborn teenage youth refused (nice one you guys) and after our fun water adventures we decided to go play some volleyball on their amazingly hot sandy volleyball court, which of course, since apparently they mixed burning hot lava into their sand, caught our feet on fire as we hit the volleyball around. Once we decided we were tired of playing volleyball we went back to swim and have fun on the slides, we ran around the park for hours having fun, laughing, and swimming our lives away. After we got out of the water for a little bit we noticed that Austin, Hunter, and Demi had been sunburned pretty badly, I wonder why? So as our watery adventures drew to a close we packed our things up into the bus and headed back home.

May 2011

2011-07-01T14:35:00.002-05:00

Colton & Zara - 1st

Colton & Zara performed a live concert at the church. We love colton and Zara! And they're music and energy had us dancing, jumping, and throwing eachother up into the air in praise and worship. This had to be their best performance yet!!! After their amazing performance the band hung out for a while and talked to us, signed an assortment of random objects, t-shirts, cd's and anything else the youth could find for them to sign. Then we helped them pack up their things so that they could head out to spread the word and their music to more and more people. It was an amazing night, and it's always a treat to have them come and perform for us!

Chic-Fil-A Fundraiser - 11th

The Water 4 life funraiser is a fundraiser made to raise money to give a village in africa a well for clean drinking water, and the Chic-Fil-A fundraiser was one of the many events held to help raise money for the cause. 20% of the profits from meals at Chic-Fil-A that day went to helping out, and we had many church members, youth, leaders, and even pastor chris helping out around the Chic-Fil-A during the fundraiser. Dom had stationed 4 extremely helpful youth out on the corner to hold signs for promotion, and Pastor Chris was inside making milkshakes, who doesn't love a good milkshake? During the fundraiser Dom got to run around the property in the Chic-Fil-A cow costume, to entertain people and promote the fundraiser, there was much fun to be had watching Dom entertain everybody in a cow outfit, including many youngsters and of course all the folks attending. We had a fantastic turn out, and the church was more than supportive of what we were doing to help raise money. We made over $300 towards the well in Africa, which was a great step towards our goal, and after 4 months of multiple fundraisers we've raised over $900 dollars. So, only 3,900 to go. :)

Putt Putt Golf - 18th

Tonight we headed out to the Putt Putt course to have some good ol' fashioned putt putt fun. We had such a big group of people we had to take a few extra cars, because everybody knows that putt putt is such an extreme sport nobody can stay away. Once we arrived we began our extreme game of putt putt golfing, we golfed away, and I displayed my putt putt golfing skills by missing numerous times, but everybody knew I was really taking it easy. As we continued on we had many flying golf balls, and of course we goofed off, what would a youth outing be without goofing off? Once we finished our amazing game of putt putt we headed back to the bus to head home and call it a night.

Note from Dom: I am really anxious to give credit where it is due. All of the blog updates that have been dated since September of 2010 have been written by Jon Lutherbeck with his wonderful ability to narrate and incorporate humor. I cannot take credit for his talent and dedication to keeping you up to date and catching it up for us. If you see him, give him a pat on the back.

April 2011

2011-06-29T14:37:00.002-05:00

Lazer Tag - 6th

Tonight we enjoyed some extremely energetic lazer tag games at Lazer Quest. Once we arrived, we knew we were in for a really fun night, once we got all our activators and came up with the most extremely awesome names we could come up with, we headed in the destroy eachother with lazers. As the games began, we quickly headed to the numerous towers and hiding spots throughout the arena, where we engaged in heated battles with our fellow youth and all the other people that were there, including all the little kids running around in packs with guns (Not something you want to run into during a game of lazer tag) after our game we headed out into the main room to get our scorecards and see how many people we managed to blast down in our game. Once we got our battle scars fixed up and the sweat wiped from our faces we departed back to the church with another great night to remember.

Flour Wars - 13th

For our flour wars park night we went out to Hakey Creek to beat each ther into submission with panty hose filled with flour. Everyone was required to bring a cardboard shield which they could customize to their heart's content, it started out with two teams, opposing each other in huge lines, and after we built up our warfaces we charged each other like maniacs and began swinging away at each other. On each team there was a medic that once you were hit with another fighter's floury panty hose flail, would come out to pick you up and bring you back to the line, where you could then regain your strength and charge back into battle. After our battle was finished, we gathered in a circle and initiated a warrior's challenge, where all the JH youth were pitted against each other to see who could come out top dog in an all out fight to the white powdery death. Once all the JH youth were finished we pitted the HS youth against eachother, and afterwards we had a gigantic war, in which every youth was on their own beating their way through the crowd of people with shields and flour flails. Finally nearing the end of our destructive war we piled back into the bus and headed to the church to let our flour wounds heal and get some much deserved rest.

Paintball - 16th

Another extremely fun paintball adventure took place tonight, we bulleted eachother until we could take no more, and ran around the paintball arena like we were on fire. Dom was shot and scarred, who doesn't like being pelted by a paintball moving 100 psi over regulation (and still carries the scar to this day)? After our intense paintball gaming experience, and after many of us were shot repeatedly until we ached with bulletwounds, we headed out, and returned back to the church to call it a night and head home.

Movie Night - 20th

Tonight we went out to see Soul Surfer, we got our snack and drinks and headed into the theatre to enjoy the movie, the movie was about a girl that has a dream of being a professional surfer, but tragically lost her arm after being attacked by a shark. In the movie she struggles to pursue her dream of being a surfer with her handicap, and is taken through a long and hard journey, with her youth pastor at her side guiding her through and helping her keep faith though she was in a life-changing accident. This movie was a great and inspirational movie based on a true story, and the strong message sank into the hearts of many of the youth attending.

Bowling Night - 27th

Tonight we headed to the Bowling Alley, on our way Dom and Carlos put together a challenge for the youth, and the challenge was, to split up into groups and come up with a riveting story about one of the characters going on a scavenger in which they had to find 5 items, one of these items being a princess, and battle all the other characters to reach their final objective of rescuing the princess. The characters that the extremely creative minds of Dom and Carlos came up with were: Fransisco the Pixie, an Ice breathing Ice dragon with an Afro, Betty the Cyclops, Thor Thumb the thumb viking, and Timmy the everyday normal 5th grade boy. Upon arriving at the bowling alley we settled in and enjoyed friendly bowling competition, laughs, and snacks. The night was filled with our extreme bowling pro youth showing off their awesome bowling skills, of course Dave and Adam with their fancy bowling balls had to face off in an epic bowling ball battle to the death. The games were intense as we destroyed the lanes and congratulated eachother for a great game. On the way back to the church we shared some extremely funny and amazing scavenger hunt adventure stories, which had us rolling over laughing, and riveted by the creativity of the youth. (insert by Dom - the most note-worthy stories were by Jon Lutherbeck and also Jordyn Winett who had brilliance all over their stories.) Once we were finished with our stories we flooded out of the bus and returned home to call it a night.

March 2011

2011-06-22T14:28:00.002-05:00

Bowling Night - 9th

Tonight we met up at the church to go on another bowling trip, after we got our huge group together we took the bus and an extra 2 cars, as we entered the bowling alley we jumped onto the lanes and started the intense games of bowling. Of course Dave and Adam being the bowling pros that they are dominated the rest of us, with their spiffy custom bowling balls, the afternoon was full of fun and excitement as we played and laughed with enjoyment. At one point Austin decided to be the group clown, like always, and sat in Dom's lap insisting that Dom come up with a story to tell him. Dom's quick thinking and story skills came up with an amazing story that lit up Austin's face like a young child on christmas morning. After our night of bowling fun we headed back to the church to return home and rest for the night.

Spring Break Camping Trip - 12th-18th

We started our journey to Arkansas early in the morning, though everybody was tired we were full of excitement about the days and nights to come. As we packed into the bus and attempted to make the roadtrip as fast as possible we chattered and snacked on chips, cookies, and whatever else we could find. Upon our arrival at subway we ordered all our weird and fascinating sandwiches, enjoying our meals we had a multitude of laughs, and unfortunate soda spills. Back to the bus we headed to continue on our trip, over the numerous rocky roads and dirt hills we climbed inching closer and closer to our destination. Once we finally arrived at Buffalo River State Park we put on our packs and hiked our way through the mountains to our camping spot. As soon as we had camp all set up we enjoyed some delicious dinner prepared by our amazing cooks, and built a fire which we danced and talked around for hours and hours until everybody was ready to head to sleep and start hiking again the next day. When we woke up the next morning we packed up our camp and headed out for out next hike, THE DEATHMARCH which was feared by many of the youth attending, we hiked on through and encouraged eachother every step of the way, finally reaching the top we hiked the rest of the way, reaching many youth group landmarks, and at one point me and Dom were conversating when all of a sudden my bootlaces decided to conveniently hook onto my other hiking boot thus throwing me onto my face on the dirt trail, fun fun fun. After I regained my composure we continued to the bus and came up with a new landmark named "BootLace Trip" where I had been struck down by the mighty force of my hiking boots. As we reached the bus after enduring a long and exhausting hike up the mountains and trails we packed back into the bus to drive to the Horseshoe Canyon Ranch where we were anxious to set up camp and enjoy the many activities they have there (including working bathrooms) after camp set up was complete we ate another delicious meal and met up with Harvey, our rock climbing instructor who matched us up with our climbing gear and lead us to the beautiful rock walls we were going to spend the rest of the day climbing. Most of us were hesitant at first to start ascending the walls, but after encouragement from the leaders we finally picked up and everybody joined the climbing bonanza. Once we hit the top Dom had each of us kiss the rock wall and turn around and look down at the ground (SCARY) to have a picture taken, though some people, not going to mention any names... *cough* Jon *cough* decided that the rock wall needed a little more lovin' than necessary and gave it a more passionate kiss than expected, it was a fun experience for all of us and we continued back to camp to get the fire going so we could relax and eat dinner. Once the men in our group gathered the wood the ladies started another amazing meal which everyone enjoyed to the fullest extent because we have such greatly talented cooks, after our meal we enjoyed our warm fire and talked in fellowship for a while before heading off to bed. The next morning after a good night's sleep we continued on to our caving expedition where we hiked and explored numerous caves and waterfalls that were brilliantly beautiful. Squeezing through cracks and bumping heads on the way we crawled our way in and out of the amazing caves. Once we reached the outside world once more we hiked back to the bus and started our trip back home, our heads filled with memories and laughs, powerful worship experiences, and the fellowship we have with our family, we knew that the time we spent together would be something we could look back on and enjoy for years and years to come.
- Jon Lutherbeck

February 2011

2011-06-22T13:47:00.002-05:00

JH Boy's Retreat - 18th

We headed to Keystone State Park to enjoy some quality timen with the JH Boys. We rented a cabin and started our out on a wood collection adventure, of course the hard-working boys of the group got to work on it and brought in a massive pile of wood for the fire. We enjoyed our massive wood pile by burning it into a gigantic fire and stuffing our faces with whatever we could find, after dancing and playing around the fire for a while we decided to head into the cabin and eat some dinner. Lasagna was prepared by our amazing cabin cooks and we delighted in stuffing our faces even more. Afterr our meal Nat put together some activities for us, including Transporter, which had the boys doing everything they could to fit everybody in their group on a single block, including stacking themselves on top of eachother, and standing on the backs of other JH Boys. Next up was a great trust activity called wind in the willow, where the boys gathered in a circle and somebody in the middle of the circle crossed their arms and legs, being passed around the circle by their brothers, after some hesitant attempts to fall into their comrades Nat gave the boys some encouraging words and really drove the guys to trust themselves and eachother, they gave everything they had to keep their brothers out of harm's way and even supported Dom and Nat as they took turns falling around the circle. After a good cabin rest we decided to try and defeat the helium stick, which of course was a very impossible task seeing that the helium stick was being a cheater rather than being put into submission by our big group of men. Before the trip home we conducted a trust fall experiment and had each of the guys in the group do a trust fall off of a bench and into their fellow men, displaying such intense care and trust for one another they supported every single man that fell off of that bench and let them down safely to their feet. Nearing the end of a great trip with the JH Men we arrived back at the church safely and so much more bonded than ever before.

Winter Jam - 19th

This amazing experience started off by enjoying some delicious pizza, stuffing our faces with saucy goodness is always a favorite. Afterwards we headed out to the Winter Jam, where we danced around like crazy people and sang along to amazing music. They had performances by numerous extremely awesome bands like Newsboys, one of my personal favorites The David Crowder Band, Kutless, Red, Francesca Battistelli, Newsong, KJ-52, Tony Nolan, Sidewalk Prophets, Christ August, and Chris Sligh. The high energy music encouraged us to worship like never before as we jumped around in fellowship. After our amazing experience at The Winter Jam we departed to the church with open eyes and open hearts as our thirst for god was quenched.

January 2011

2011-06-22T13:16:00.002-05:00

Revolve Tour - 22nd

The Revolve Tour was a special tour designed for the youth girls, with a multitude of amazing speakers and rockin' bands performing. There were 13 girls attending and of course a few youth leaders (where would we be without our beloved youth leaders??) Once we arrived in Garland, TX we went in to enjoy powerful words of encouragement and speeches by Britt Nicole, Chad Eastham and Jenna Bishop. Following were performances by the awesome music groups Group 1 Crew and Hawk Nelson, who of course had the girls dancing and singing along to no end to some good worship music. After our heart opening experience at Revolve Tour, we headed back to the bus and set-up a surprise birthday bus bash for Victoria, complete with streamers and balloons, as Victoria boarded the Joan Of AH, e and Dave blew whistles to alert the girls that the party had begun. For the ride home we enjoyed red velvet cupcakes and more great music in celebration of the birthday girl's big day, and after our extreme time at the Revolve Tour we returned to the church to go home and get some well deserved rest

December 2010

2011-06-10T15:26:00.002-05:00

Bowling Night - 8th

We went to the bowling alley, to enjoy a riveting game of bowling. As soon as we got our shoes ready we headed down to the lanes to pulverize some pins, of course me being a pretty good bowler I decided to go easy on the people in my group, and get a couple gutterballs, completely on purpose. But eventually after putting on my game face I was whooped down upon by Dave, who has apparently been playing bowling since birth. After we faced off and knocked down all the pins we could handle we headed back to the bus and were transported safely back to the church by Dom, who is an amazing driver.

Scarfapalooza/X-Mas Party - 18th

We began the night by writing a poem to our beloved scarves who we had recently been having relationship problems with, begging them to come back, because we can't live without the tender love and care of our scarves. After we finished writing our poems we displayed our theatrical skills by performing skits in which our scarves were the main characters, after seeing the laughter and tears that come from the emotional life of a scarf. We decided that we were going to build a runway and strut our scarves for a panel of judges which consisted of Dave, Jacqui, and Sunny. As each team did their little turn on the catwalk our youth leaders impersonated the very well known American Idol judges, or at least tried to. Afterwards we performed our heartfelt and emotional poems to our scarves, urging them to come back because we just miss them so very much, and of course we rejoiced with our scarves, what can't love fix?

New Year's Eve Lock-In - 31st

The New Year's Eve Lock-In is probably one of the most hyped events of the year, this year we enjoyed alot of high-energy games, starting off with a scavenger hunt around the entire church, including a picture of the members of your group doing a pyramid, AHYEAH! and even random foliage in the hallway. After our svanger hunt we enjoyed many games, including dodgeball, and limping zombies. Then we gathered in the sanctuary to have a rockin' worship service! Once we finished with our worship time we decided it'd be fun to make ginger bread houses, and pit our best team players against eachother in a contest to see who could find the white eminem in a cream pie the fastest. Once we got all the cream cleaned up from the faces of the youth and the floor and tables of the cafe, we headed back into the sanctuary and performed skits for the youth leaders. Once we got done showing our inner shakespeare we played some more running tag games and finally sat back and watched The Chronicles of Narnia until the sun came up. Mission Accomplished.

Part 2: "The Event"

The Event was a very special and awesome presentation put on by Dom and the church, as a big curtain in the sanctuary uncovered Jesus, our lord and savior hanging from the cross on which he was crucified. A video and presentation was shown about what happened on that day so very long ago, and the everlasting love that our lord showed that day when he died on the cross for the sins of humanity.

November 2010

2011-06-10T14:44:00.002-05:00

Jordan's Night - 4th

Went to Jordan's hockey game and watched Jordan have an astonishing battle on the ice, afterwards Dom bought us all hot chocolate and Austin joined him in searching for somebody to help start up the bus. After being turned down numerous times the bus finally regained it's power level of over 9000, so we quickly drove back to the church and rejoiced in talking about the game that night, congratulating Jordan on his perseverance and determination in the hockey game.

Little Black Book Series - October, November, December.

With this series, we learned the basics of dating from a christian point of view. Alot of extremely valuable lessons were learned through the videos and ministries given by Dom on the subject, like trying not to jump into a committment on a first date, patience is a virtue, especially in relationships. It also taught us that being a slob isn't exactly the most attractive thing to do on a date, especially when you're trying to impress somebody. Nacho cheese sauce and meaty chips don't exactly make you look that attractive when they're smeared all over your face.

Putt Putt Night - 10th

Tonight we went to the putt putt course to enjoy some extreme putt putt golfing. The night started off with a few shots into the water, not exactly the best place to hit the golf ball. After running back to the building to get a new golf ball we dominated the next few holes and Austin came up with the grand idea of bouncing my new golf ball off of the green. Of course, it landed in the water, great idea Austin. So i proceeded to run back to the building again to get one more golf ball, which after a few more holes, suffered the same fate as the previous two. Eventually we decided it'd be easier to share golf balls, and to keep Austin and his smart ideas away from anything golf ball related. Once we finished our intense game of precision putt putting we all jumped into the bus and continued back to the church.

Paintball - 13

We love paintball. And everybody knows the only thing better than deer hunting is youth hunting.

October 2010

2011-05-05T14:09:00.004-05:00

Austin's night / homecoming afterparty - 1st

Went to see Austin play in his band for Broken Arrow Intermediate, at one of their football way-games. Their team didn't win so much, but austin was a total stud in the band. Wanted to go give him a hug but he was stuck WAAAAAAAAY in the top of the bleachers and we couldn't get to him. So i climbed the back of the bleachers, and he got his hug (remember kids, don't try this at home)

State fair night - 6th

Went to the fair to enjoy some fun and games! The evening began with a crazy bus ride to the Tulsa state fair. Upon arriving at the fair we stumbled upon the fabled Doughnut Burger (which i tried by the way and it was quite delicious) which began making many of the youth attending foam at the mouth. As we continued our adventure into the fair we decided it'd be fun to kick off our shoes and go riding on a glider ride, as the end of our mid-air extravaganza drew closer, we decided to go play paint ball and pelt eachother for a little bit. The high energetic game of paintball had us all jumping behind numerous barriers, and attempting to cause as much damage to the opposite teams players as we possibly could. After our game of paintball, me and Dom had to utilize our ninja skills to make our way back to the Target parking lot to retrieve Joan of AH (our extremely awesome and trustworthy church bus) and after getting the bus started up and ready to go, Dom's advanced driving techniques got us back to the church right on time.

-Jon Lutherbeck

ORU Can Drive - 31st

On this night we met up at the church to collect canned goods, once Dom whirred the bus around the neighborhood nearby to find a good parking spot we split up into two groups (boys and girls) and ventured around said neighborhood to collect canned goods. It began with a friendly contest, as the two groups began battling to see who could collect the most cans, we swiftly moved from house to house kindly greeting local families and helping them with prayers and wishing them the best for their kindness and giving. After running free under the brilliant night sky for a while we gathered up all our cans and ran back to the bus. Upon arriving safely back at the church we met up with the other group and headed on to the ORU campus, once there we ran, hopped, skipped, and jumped our way to the door. Unfortunately, we had many brown paper bags lost on the way.. We honor our brave and committed paper bags for the work that they did, and they will always be remembered. Once we entered the can temple (ORU Chapel) we walked through the crowds and piled up all of our cans amongst the other mounds of cans. Then we proceeded back to the church and congratulated ourselves for a job well done.

September 2010

2010-09-24T11:14:00.004-05:00

Fantasic Friday on Wed.

Fantastic Friday on Wed.s are AHYEAH's entry level service. They have a very low flinch-factor for visitors. We have light worship, relevant discussion (which is more conversational), and then lots of game time. It has been a goal of mine to pass the leadership of this service to the youth for it to be a youth led service. The responsibility of planning and giving the discussion has recently been passed to the A-Team to alternate leading it. This is serving two purposes. 1) It is excercising them in leadership and 2) the topics are chosen by youth and are therefore more relevant. God is awesome huh? Since the end of October, FFonW has been led by Josh Hiatt, Hunter Boatright, and Bobby Stillman, and it has been done wonderfully.

September 5th - AHYEAH

This service was the last of a three part series on the purposes of AHYEAH (worship, fellowship, ministry, evangelism, and discipleship). It was led by our very awesome Nat Yocum. This is a topic that is very close to his heart. His awesome wife also came and helped out and they had alot of fun.

September 12th - AHYEAH

A-Team: The video testimony on Facebook was definitely the most interesting challenge. I was very proud of those youth who did it and got outside of their comfort zone. We'll probably do something similar to that in the future. The new challenge for our dedicated team was to pull together gift items to create a care package for our former youth Mikey who recently moved to MO to live with his dad. We brainstormed gift ideas and each person volunteered for one or two. Love ya A-Team.

AHYEAH - Little Black Book: Tonight marks the kick-off of our newest series "The Little Black Book." It will be a series on dating. It will neither bash nor encourage dating, but in a world where they are surrounded by it, this series will give them tools. We as christians are very good at giving dating rules to avoid negitave relationship choices and often overlook giving tools for healthy relationship choices. Tonights topic is "Men are like waffles; women are like spaghetti." We discussed how God made us different to catalyze relationship and how we should celebrate each others differnces. We had so much fun. We laughed and learned and had a blast. God annointed it.

Leaders - 5, Youth - 28, Guests - 2

September 15th - Colton And Zara Concert

Instead of our regular FFonW service, we had a sweet concert. Talking to their manager the origional plan was for them to come and do an acoustic set. However, they surprised us and brought the full band and equiptment. We set them up out on the amphetheater with some flood lights for when it got dark. We set up all our tables and asked the guys to bring snacks and girls to bring drinks. The concert kicked off and it was all hype from there. It was such a high energy show, we danced, and moshed, and crowd surfed and ate, and danced again. The band gave all the honor and glory to God and we had a party.

September 18th - Bryce's Day

We are entering the season where we round up as many youth as possible and go support each other at extracurricular activities. Last year we attended many dramas, games, and band activites. This year we got to kick it off with attending Bryce Hulse's football game at the Union 6th and 7th grade center. Well, we had a total of 2 youth show up, but we went and had fun. Bryce's team dominated alot to nothin', then we took him out to a victorious lunch at Braums. :)

Septmeber 19th - See You At The Pole Sunday

See you at the pole is an event that happens toward the beginning of every school year where christians at each school gather at their flag pole to pray for their school, country, friends, and each other. So, to drive awarness and attendance we have a service ahead of time promoting it and encouraging them to live life open about their faith and go out to it. Nat led the service and discussed the point that if we will live with Christ in our lives, that we won't be caught by the fires of the world (gossip, peer pressure, etc.) Then following the service we gave everyone t-shirts, cans of spray paint, and SYATP stencils. Everyone had so much fun painting up a creative storm on their own canvas t-shirt.

Leaders - 3, Youth - 34, Guests - 1

September 22nd - See You At The Pole

Early Wednesday morning, Austin Thompson and I showed up at their school's flag pole with about 25-30 others to stand for Christ. It was very cool. The FCA leaders spoke on standing out and finding peace in Christ in the middle of trials. Prayer was cool, then we broke up into small groups and prayed for each other. God was present.

August 2010

2010-09-02T13:20:00.005-05:00

August 6th - Pink Flamingoing

Because of the number of awesome people that gave so that youth could go to camp we began Flamingoing every Friday at 8:30. Before we flamingoed every other, but then again we also had enough birds to do four houses. Because of theft of our birds, we're down to doing two. Anyway, we're still having a blast. Thank you so much Abiding Harvest for supporting us to go to camp. Because of you serving Christ we raised $900 dollars to send our youth to camp! AMEN!!!! God is awesome.

August 15 - AHYEAH

A-Team: The A-Team meeting was excellent. It was one of our best turn-outs in a while. I must say that we have a very faithful group of youth that want to serve Christ in their daily lives. This meeting was not only to provide the next challenge but also to let them know that the A-Team will be expanding it's influence. I asked that from now on the A-Team would lead Wednesday night discussions. Each member would take turns bringing a relevant topic that is important to them and provide some discussion questions and bible verses on the subject. This will not only make Wed nights relevant to their lives but also give the members an opportunity to grow as leaders. Intense I know.

The challenge: To organize how you would share your testimony with a non-believer. Then, record yourself giving it and post it on Facebook tagging all of your friends. Also intense.

AHYEAH: The topic of AHYEAH tonight was an interesting one. "The Purpose Driven Youth Ministry" defines students in one of five categories. The community (those within driving distance but do not attend a ministry), the crowd (the bulk of student in a youth ministry), the congregation (those who are semi-committed enough to regularly attend), the committed (those who are commiting themselves to spiritual disciplines), and the core (those who are not only taking on spiritual disciplines but also are looking to pour out.) The service wasn't attempting to classify anyone and made it clear than no place is better than another. We are all under construction by God, but it was to challenge our youth to perhaps step to the next level. I passed out slips of paper plus duplicates asking them where they would place themselves and what would it take to step up. They were to keep one and turn one in. The message itself was dry, but the written responses were powerful. Many of them were eagerly desiring to grow and some of them simply felt lost and felt they were missing God. They have become a source of prayer for our youth.

August 21st - Back to School Bash

This event was another one that took last minute pulling together. (I'd swear I plan for these things.) The event was mostly planned out and was set up to be a river float trip. We had a few complications with the idea and had to start over again. An idea that Jacqui had was to have a party over at Camp Loughridge. So I called and found out that their pool was $300 per hour. Ouch! Having very little money left in the youth budget after camp that was way over what we could afford. The kids that came were going to have to pay for it. Then the camp informed us that the pool was already taken for that day. grunt. BUT, they had another pool, a salt water pool, that they would be happy to give us a discount for. Plus, if we had our own life guard they'd discount us even more. I love Jesus. So, we took the offer and called it set. Then two three youth moms (two of which are leaders in our tween ministry called Grapplers) pulled together behind the event and made it happen. They bought food, cooked, and took care of everything. Thank you Nancy, Tammy, and Kristi. Ya'll rock!

The event went very well. Salt water pools are way nicer than chlorine. Plus, we had a huge deck to have our mini service and program on. The service went well. I gave a quick push to the seniors to hang on to what they've learned and an exhortation to the 6th graders coming into youth to grow all that they can while they are here. We then initiated in the fourth graders into Grapple and the 6th graders into AHYEAH with an initiation chant and body signings. After which Justin, one of our graduates, gave a quick speech about pressing on through touch decisions. Finally, it all closed with our seniors Justin and Kameron passing candles to our initiates. We initiated 5 new youth into AHYEAH that evening, and all of them have been coming regularly. It was/is so cool.

August 22nd - AHYEAH

Tonight was the kick off of a three week series discussing who we are as a youth group and where we are going. Our purpose for being can't simply be to show up and have fun. Our drive must be towards 5 basic biblical goals. We discussed the first two, Fellowship and Worship.

To illustrate fellowship we had small groups first where each youth would fill out a list of their likes and dislikes and people would try to guess who they were. It was a fun mixer.

Then for worship we had a longer time of worship where the Spirit of the Lord poured out. His presence was so rich that I couldn't disrupt it, so I signaled Jacqui to continue right to the end of service. It was sooooo cool. God was annointing what we were doing. Amen.

Leaders - 5
Youth - 35
Visitors - 1

August 29th - AHYEAH

News: Beginning today we kicked off morphed versions of our typical AHYEAH programming. After anaylizing each of our running programs through the eyes of the 5 'C's, we redefined each of the services to be geared for specific groups of youth. Fantastic Friday on Wed. would be set up to be a low flinch-factor for new people. If there was a service to bring an unchurched person to this would be it: light worship, relevant discussions, extra game time, geared for the Community, Crowd, and Congregation. The AHYEAH sunday night service would be more serious (not unhappy serious, just indepth and genuine) about worship, the message would be more scripturally intensive, and the small groups would flesh out the questions and build fellowship. It is designed for the Crowd, Congregation and the Committed. Finally, our "9" has been redesigned to focus deeper on scripture and leadership developement. It, being married to the A-Team, which is 'action' focused, is perfect for our committed and core who want to grow in spiritual disciplines, leadership, and taking action outside of church.

The "9": Today we began a series based on the book "The 21 Irrifutable Laws of Leadership" by John Maxwell. The book is being taught in conjection with scripture (since the book is biblically based already, this is a rather fluid task) to be a Godly based leadership class. The class began with 10-15 minutes of worship music being played for each youth to spend some time in prayer and worship. Then Dave brought the topic, "the law of navigation" and fused it with scripture and some illustrating stories. The law of navigation deals with the principle that a leader needs to know where he/she is going in order to lead. It was well done and kicked off a series that I think will be very maturing for ALL of us (especially me). Where we have, on average, 6-8 youth come for the "9" we had a whopping 14! God is doing great things.

AHYEAH: Sunday night service also went very well and God's annointing was all over it. We discussed the next to directions that AHYEAH should be driving toward. Last week they were fellowship and worship. This week they were ministry and evangelism. I recieved this cool illustration from our awesome administrator/secritary Mrs. Dayna - thanks Mrs. Dayna. Immediately after worship I took three volunteers who took off to hide and we sent everyone into the back room where they were instructed to count to 100 and go looking for them. While counting, I pushed play on a movie and pulled out some snacks and cool-aid and put them up for grabs. It was perfect, after counting all the way through only half of the youth left to go find their friends, but the other half stayed and munched with me. After hauling everyone back into the sanctuary it made a perfect illistration of what ministry was. Some of us are distant from Christ and need encouragment, correction, friendship, exhortation; some are seeking them out and ministring to them; and some are just disctracted by school, relationships, drama, sports, etc. Cool, huh? Then to illustrate evangelism I sent everyone back onto the back room and taught two kids how to tie a certain knot, then gave them two pieces of rope each and sent them to teach two others and so on. It worked out OK. It was a rather complicated knot, but I think that it got the idea across. Anyway, it was a cool service and God did what He does best, being awesome.
Leaders - 5
Youth - 28
Guests - 1

July 2010

2010-08-27T16:24:00.023-05:00

July 2nd - Shopping with Dom

Similar to last year, this event was for two purposes, to challenge the girls to bring friends and to clearly demonstrate to the ladies that they are special and should be treated like princesses. This turned out to be a very solid event. We kicked off the day with a road trip to Quail Springs Mall in OKC. Yes, this mall has three levels and 160 stores! If you, the reader, are female you may have just fainted. I'll pause for you to come back to conciousness. *pause* Oh boy, did the girls shop. They all had from 25-45 dollars on a mall-wide gift card. They would earn credit by bringing friends to the preceeding Sunday and Wednesday services and also the trip itself.

We ate in the Drive-In themed food court and then hit the stores. They tried on jewelry, clothes, took pictures, momentarily got in touble with a security guard for dropping leaves on the concessioners on the level beneath us. It was so much fun. The most laughs came from the candy store I must say. I believe that by the time we left the mall the girls had a higher sugar level in their blood than most mice in an easter basket.

But, my favorite part of the shopping experience was not pouring out my vast knowledge of contemporary fashion (whatever), but the last store we visited. It was a gown store; and almost every girl participated in dressing up and complementing each other in their adornment. It was so cool to see them feel beautiful and valuable and priceless. They were all ready to go to Cinderellas Ball. This was what the trip was all about.

The ride back was, of course, high pitched and high energied. The second half of the day is orchestrated by our AHYEAH guys. Their job is to put on a fine dinner and to wait on the ladies and their every whims. But, that's all the instruction that they have. The rest is for them to create to make the girls feel special. And did they do a GREAT job!

As we arrived at the church, there was a trail of Tiki torches leading up to the side door. We stepped in and were quickly asked to wait in the youth room. Soon, the guys asked me to escort each of the girls to a sign up table in the atrium. As the girls came out they were met with quite the tropical atmosphere. The sign up table was covered in fish nets, lays for each of the girls, island music, and all of the guys were wearing hawaiian shirts. The table was decorated with coconut cups, with palm trees and hints of the tropics everywhere. Fruit punch was brought to the table and delicately served followed by a fresh salad. The main course was italian chicken over angel hair pasta (cooked by the youth guys) and the climax of the meal was a fine desert. In the midst of the feasting the guys came out and sang to them an AHYEAH ladies chant and "Mighty Jungle."

During desert, I gave a devotional reminding them of their worth and discounting the idea they they need to impress people. What really matters when we stand before God. "Hey God, with the life you gave me I stayed tan and skinny the whole time." How silly does that sound; it's because it's not what really matters. We don't have to strive to please God, He is already overjoyed with us and is so in love with us. Each of the girls recieved a mini card of verses reminding them of who they are in Christ. It was a stellar event - thank you AHYEAH guys.

July 4th - Rockets over Rhema

Because Liberty opted not to have fireworks this year we changed our plans and attended Rhema's event. It was actually really well done. They had a concert, car show (yea) and a really sweet firework show. We found ourselves a nice little perch of grass with a front row seat to the sparklies and waited for them to start. Meanwhile, we got hungry so we pulled our money for pizza. Becaues pizza hut would not deliver, and we didn't want to lose our parking spot, Mitch and I hiked to get it. That was an adventure. We started out walking the right way, but after taking directions from some individual (who I have nothing good to say about) we ended up making a huge circle and being farther away than when we started. Long story short we returned after several hours with pizza just in time for a great fireworks show.

July 11th - All Church Event at Camp Loughridge

Abiding Harvest put on an all church picnic up at Camp Loughridge down 71st. It would be a pool party, picnic, and worship service. During the festivities AHYEAH experimented with a new game - Flour Wars. Basically you fill up a stocking sock with flour, make your own cardboard shield, split into teams and pound each other white. It was a great success. Then, tired and only needing egg to become big human cakes, we attended the worship service which was excellent.

July 14th - Kilt Making

Before our typical Fantastic Friday on Weds, we had an hour and a half of kilt making for the soon to be Vikings of AHYEAH. This was quickly followed by helmet decorating. Each guy recieved an army helmet liner to spraypaint and decorate to their liking. That's right, Viking night is around the corner.

July 17th - Viking Night

This story before the event. The entire trip was planned out a month in advance. It would be a day of canoing, an evening of Viking games and eating hog, followed by a morning of caving and then head home. It all seemed so . . . not like it was going to blow up in my face. Two weeks before, one of my leaders (Mark Smith), who has experience and was going to lead the caving part informed me that all of the non-privately owned caves in AR and TN and many other states were being shut down indefinitely. The bats that were living in the caves were getting diseases from us. Seriously? So, after a year of promising and planning that door slammed in my face. And I guarentee that I did everything possible to make this happen. All that were left, you could only enter with a paid guide costing 40-70 dollars an hour per person. SERIOUSLY!? So, that part of the trip became a morning of paintball (not as good, but not bad either). THEN (oh, yes it gets better), at 10 o'clock THE NIGHT BEFORE, a parent calls me telling me that the river has been shut down because of the water level being too high. This report was quickly followed by me calling our river guide and asking why he hadn't called. Sure enough, 32 rescues took place the day before and the river was officially closed. Did I mention that this was 10 o'clock the night before? I prayed. So, within a half hour the trip transformed from a canoing trip to an indoor rock climbing trip, plus extra viking games, and paintball.

We met for rock climbing already attired in our kilts and helmets. After blowing our arms out on the rock walls we hit the road heading for Talequah. We stayed at the nature park of the place that would have taken us canoing. Our spot was perfect. It was away from everything else, had its own pond, port-o-potty, perfect spot for a camp fire and decent tent spots. After encircling the camp with tiki torches (it looked really cool) we got the hog on the grill and slathered it with Head Country BBQ sauce (amen). The guys split into two viking clans and competed against each other the rest of the trip. Our first game was jousting. The jousting sticks were broom handles covered and reinforced with pool noodles. Next was an archery contest where almost all of them were able to experience archery for the first time. Then finally, the hog of exeptionally tender, Head Countried, 44lbs of meat was done. We hauled it out of the grill and slammed it on the table. We poured half a jar of BBQ sause directly on the table and dug in. It was amazing and soooooo . . . Viking-ish. Yum. After filling our bellies with hog and grape juice it was time to go to war. Each man was given a shield to duct tape to their arm (made of a pizza pan wrapped in pool noodle). They they had their choice of either a Roman Sabre (2 and 1/2 foot sword made of pvc pipe and noodle) or a William Wallace (5ft sword made of pvc pipe and obvously very handy pool noodle). Using the dirt road as a battlefield the clans battled over and over again until dark. It was fun. The night closed with one more game that lasted till past one in the morning, 'Plunder.' Basically, each team member would try to carry a gold token from the camp to a set up spot about a quarter mile away. They would have to carry it in stealth because the leader were wandering the woods and road with flashlights and if you were flashed with light you had to go back to the beginning. The next morning it was several hours of beastly paintball and these Vikings were ready for a shower and . . . another shower. :)

July 26th - 30th - EXTREME CAMP

Wow. Where to begin? This year we left the church with the largest group yet. We took 26 youth, 2 youth leaders, and 3 adult leaders = 31 God-hungry people headed for Teen Mania's Extreme Camp in Darlington TX. Whew, what a crew. We rented two 15 passenger vans and took our own church bus which was preloaded with refridgerant so we had air conditioning. Amen. God was about to do great things and we could feel it.

However our first and now imfamous story did not feel, nor does it feel, like a God-moment. Several hours into our trip we decided to stop for lunch and found a Dairy Queen available for our service. Recognizing that there was no parking adequate for our church bus, I aimed to seek parking on the otherside of the building. The only route available was to drive around the outside of the drive-thru which was surrounded by a tall security fence. All was fine, plus there were no cars in the drive-thru to worry about . . . so peachy. As I approaced the bend to the left I saw that it was going to be a tight corner, so I clicked into gear and calculated all my angles. As I entered the turn I heard from behind me, "Dom, your not going to make it!" I'm thinking, "Of course I'm going to make it, you dufus neighsayer." Then suddenly - CRUNCH - they were right. No, I did not hit the fence, nor the wall, nor any other vehicle. There was a 6' wide overhang on the building that I was not aware of . . . until now. I was so focused on the turn that I missed . . . ya.

I backed out and getting on Justin's shoulders I saw that the very corner tile of the roof was imbedded into our bus roof. So, after ripping the tile out I took it and handed it to the DQ manager. :( Grunt.

On to the good stuff. We arrived where I went to get us checked in. The first thing that happened was that half of the paperwork that I sent in did not make it to the desk of the person checking us in. Ah ha, amazing Mrs. Terri predicted this and recommended that I make copies of everything; so, Amen, I handed him all of the missing paperwork - Yea God! Secondly, of the paperwork, about a quarter of our youth did not have the necissary insurance and half did not fill out their immunization charts. I knew that the insurance was a problem, but I assumed that immunization charts were optional for kids who needed special treatment. These were apparently large problems. So the day hadn't already been eventful enough. Then, as if prompted by God, our check-in guy looked up and said something to the effect of, "It's most important that your here, I'll clear all of this paperwork for ya." WHOA!!!! THANK YOU JESUS. God is AWESOME! So, I promised that none of our youth would allow themselves to die and we shook hands and went to claim our dorms and bunks. (Yes, I will definitely remember for next year.)

Services: We had two sessions (services) each day. One after lunch and one after dinner. They were excellent. The very first service brought in the presence of God and His Holy Spirit. The worship was even better than last year with deeper songs and more genuine musicians. Our first speaker was Matt Pitt who was very challenging. That night we had multiple rededications and two salvations. Amen! In my experience, the powerful night is usually the last but not for Extreme Camp. It was definitely quite a kick off. Another session was our AHYEAH favorite Aaron Davis who spoke on passion in every apect of our lives. Next was Ron Luce (founder of Teen Mania) who conveyed to the youth the meaning of being cleaned up by God and used the refurbishing of an old mustang as the example. During an afternoon, they split up the guys and the girls for a purity (sex) talk. For our guys, I don't think the speaker was as relevant as needed. The agreeing opinion among our guys was that the speaker layed out more of a list of rules and not so much tools. However, our girls recieved one of the top-rated women's speakers in the country (whose name I can't remember) and had a blast. They came back all stoked about their session. Finally, our last speaker was Randy Olsson, a former military guy who held all the records on the Extreme Camp high ropes course. He conveyed that when we get back to the world of school, friends, and pressures we'll either stand strong or compromise. He illistrated his point as a wrestling match where it either ends with a tap-out or passing out. To show this he called up all the biggest guys in the audience and demonstrated the sleeper hold (rear naked choke), and completely accidentally and without any physical pressure or intent knocked the guy unconcious. It was hilarious. He didn't realize that he did it and accidentally dropped him. After some slapping and laughs the hoss-of-a-teenager came to and gladly returned to his seat. LOL.

Concerts: Our concerts featured Mike's Chair, Leeland, and the David Crowder Band. Mike's chair was a ton of fun; David Croweder is always amazing and showed off their robotic drum set named Steve-3-P-O; and Leeland really showed off their heart for Christ by having a worship service in the middle of their concert.

Sports: In all of the events, each youth group had their own country name and competed against the other groups. We were Sri Lanka (sp?). Oh, and we dominated with points in everything we did.

Many of our youth were afraid of heights, however all of them did some element of high ropes. I was so proud. The star element was a swing where they haul some individual on a swing 30' into the air and release them. This is often followed by screams and giggles. Many of them also did the Leap of Faith. This is a 30' pole that you climb up with a partner and turn and face a trapeze that is grinning at you from 6' away suspended in mid air. Then, you and your partner jump simultaneously and grab the trapeze together. This is truly the test of nerves and encouragement of one's partner. I had the pleasure of doing this with Cody Brown. We both made it to the trapeze and walked on clouds the rest of the day. Several of our youth also did the Jacob's ladder and many other elements.

Paintball was alot of fun, we suffered only minor bruising and of course had fun. Our first competetory sport was dodge ball where be battled well and came out on top with both games, despite questionable ethics from the other team. Human foose ball was also alot of laughs. We won one and lost one game, but had fun getting to know another team. Also, we played ultimate frisbee where we competed against the same team as dodge ball with similar ethical challenges. First of all, their youth leader was a football coach who was great in stature. In one instance the frisbee was caught by our very sweet Anna who doesn't weigh 80lbs. This guy hover's over her, basically blocking any sunlight from her world and eventually rips the frisbee out of her hands (which is against the rules as it is). I was near losing my cool, but a comment loudly enunciated by our Daniel Dickie made everything OK. As this guy went all brutal on our little sister and took off with her frisbee, Daniel yells, "Hey, why don't you steal Christmas too!" HaHaHa - Much love to ya Dan. This game was followed by extreme soccer which was amazing and so much fun. We really pushed and fought, and guys at AHYEAH who are not really athletic came out strong and went all out. On Thursday we went to a water park. The camp rented the entire thing for us. We had so much fun and because it was overcast we didn't get too cooked. It was awesome.

Funny Storys: One of our youth, who will remain nameless, was in the act of super-gluing pennies to the underside of someone's bed as a practical joke. The super-glue backfired and went into his eyes, glueing his eyes completely shut. Him and the guys rubbed everything under the sun on his eyes until finally ending up with his head in the shower pealing his eyes open. After confessing to Dave and I, we prayed over him (giggling) and got him some more eye drops. His vision was normal and unaffected, just his eye-lids recieved the glue (amen). The next morning he stood for several mintues pealing super-glue out of his eyelashes.

Another story. The dorms are set up as looooong tents basically which can house maybe 80 kids. With the bus incident still fresh on my mind, I was walking to the opposite end of where we were staying to plug in my phone. Suddenly, I heard me a huge crash behind me. I turned around to see a crowd around a bunk bed which had obviously caved in. It was surrounded by youth of the other youth groups and our guys were innocently far at the opposite end. Thinking of all the consequenses of trashing a bunk bed and the liability involved I whispered under my breath, "I'm glad I'm not that kid's youth pastor." Then out of the middle of the bunk and crowd popped a familiar face. From within the caved bunk came Mikey with his hands triumphantly in the air in pride of his latest conquest. I WAS this kid's youth pastor. (exhale) "Your funny, God."

On the way back, it of course was not uneventful. After leaving late we were on a tight schedule to get back. We "quickly" stopped for a potty break where I strictly told them to get back by a certain time. After many decided to buy drinks and snacks we ran over that time so I told everyone it was time to go and we were leaving. Waddling back out came one of our youth. One of the leaders asked him what was wrong and he admitted that he had diahrea (sp), but was going to hold it. The leader released him and said that we'd wait and he sprinted back to the bathrooms. I'm not sure of the whole story, but this led to a clogged toilet that none of the youth could unclog, but didn't want to leave it. This escalated to a, not kidding, broken plunger. How do you snap a plunger? But it happened. We left the money for a new one with the owner and got on the road.

I'm now going to close these stories with an appropriate bible verse. John 21:25 (Extreme Camp paraphrase) - And there are also many other things that happened, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written."

June 2010

2010-06-09T10:31:00.012-05:00

June 6th - AHYEAH

Topic: "Love Inaction" We discussed that love requires us to act. I made the argument that similar to "faith without works is dead," love without works isn't much better. God loved us so He gave and took action. We need to take action to show love with the people around us (family, friends, those who we aren't really that close to.)

Youth: 19 (what's up, we were adveraging 35 in the spring); Visitors: 2; Leaders: 4

June 9th - F.F. on W.

Instead of typical Fantastic Friday on Wednesday service we met at Haikey Creek for some worship and a huge game of capture the flag. Our field was 2000 feel long. Whew.

June 11th - Pink Flamingoing

Flamninjas - 20 (will remain anonymous for their protection.)

Targets: Lydia Brand, Rolsch Cooper, and Julie and Tim Pickens

June 12th - The Out of School Bash

This was an event to go down in history. We had a 70' slip-n-slide, ultimate frisbee, extreme soccer, extreme volleyball, FREE paintball with Tippman 98 Pros and our own supersweet paintball course that felt like Vietnam in the movies (Rambo or Chuck Norris?). We had airbrush tatoos (which were a huge hit), cotton candy, tons of food and drinks, and so many raffle prizes that everyone recieved 1-2 gifts. After 4 hours of strait games, tatoos, and food we had a worship service and devotional where 3 young people gave their hearts to the Lord. God did great things at the Bash.

Story: The worship set was planned to be 3 songs followed by the devotional. Towards the end of the first song the power for the mics went out and needed 15 minutes to kick in again. I had left to get my bible and when I returned the worship team was jamming but voiceless. Jacqui just smiled and pointed to the mic. Anyway, we did the devotional while the mics were rebounding and it all worked out great.

Funny story: Our event was to feature extreme soccer and volleyball. The word extreme was derived from the notion that we were going to play with a 40" rubber ball, just a smigin smaller than the one used at camp. I had spend the week trying track one down and get it here in time. Our soccer goals were fence posts with foam wrapped around the top for safety and asthetic value. We got everyone on the field, were designating teams and with the arrival of one additional player (Adam Dugdale), he impulsed to give the ball a good kick. The ball with grace and flair responded to his kick and soared into the air ricocheting off of the top of the fence post and in mid air transformed from a sphere into a disc. It flopped to the ground with a Texas size hole in the side and resolved that its calling was not to be used for our games. It was hilarious. This left our soccer playing to find its "extremeness" in our enjoyment and not necissarily in our 40" ball.

June 13th - AHYEAH

A-Team

The previous challenge was to promote the Out of School Bash and boy did they. Many of the youth posted fliers at their jobs and public places, several made facebook events, and almost all of them handed out mini fliers. One youth in particular walked his neighborhood going door to door and covered 4 streets completely on his own initiative. The new challenge was one to motivate them to crack open their bibles and also to show their faith to friends. The new one was to post a different scripture verse in their facebook status everyday 5 days a week. The one girl that didn't have a facebook chose to put a different scripture verse on her crutches each day (You rock Jordyn!).

AHYEAH
Many of the youth are scrambling to get their paperwork in from camp and the curve ball for many of them is to have a notary sign it. Knowing that we had a notary in the church I told them that they could just get their paperwork to me and they could come back on a certain Sunday with their parents and we'd have him there for that. This was that Sunday. Great idea, stinky results. Of the 20+ youth that were looking forward to this, maybe 8 remembered to bring parents and take advantage. :(

Anyway, the service on the other hand was touch by God. We started out with typical worship which seemed a little dry. The youth seemed bored and distracted. I felt impressed to lay out a challenge for them, and exhorted them to get into gear to give back to our Lord for all that He's done. That God is searching for people that will give their all to Him and be unashamed. We continued worship a little longer and the whole atmosphere changed. Youth started to praise and worship and pour their hearts out. As we were about to wrap it up, Nat came and requested that we pray over Dave and Erica for their trip to Belize which was the following day. ALL of the youth gathered around them and prayed for them, then we felt led to pray over their feet. The word of God says, "Beautiful are the feet of those who carry the gospel." Two or three at a time until every youth at AHYEAH had come and prayed over their feet. It was super powerful and God did amazing things not only in the hearts of our youth but in Dave and Erica, our missionaries who would be in a different country in the next 12 hours.

Youth: 31; Visitors: 1; Leaders: 5

June 16th - Big Splash Day

To get the group discount we needed to bring 25 people. We showed up with 9. We didn't get the discount. But that is the only negitave of the day.

We had so much fun. We were there for about 10 minutes (time enough to go down one slide), and the storm came in. Whistles went off everywhere and everyone was escorted out of the pools and slides. After talking to a lifeguard, I learned that we weren't being kicked out but asked simply to find shelter under a cabanna (sp). So having forgotton that their purpose for going to the park was to get wet, crowds of people left the park in a hurry. We waited for about 30 minutes and watched the cats and dogs fall. Finally, after chin-up competitions, making faces at the security cameras, and losing (and reposessing) our frisbee from over a security fence, we emerged out under the exhausted sky. We virtually had the park to ourselves. There were no lines at the slides, it was not overly crowded in the wave pool, we were free. We played, and slid, and splashed, and sunned all day until 6 when they actually closed and kicked us out. Twas a good day.

Testamony (6.18.10)

I just couldn't wait till the next blog entry to give God praise. Several things that most people aren't aware of about camp are the extra expenses that I'm trying to cover with the youth budget to make going to camp affordable for the youth. Camp is actually $280 per person; I'm giving the youth the price of $199 so they can go. Flamingoing is helping a with this (thank you Abiding Harvest church family!), but there are still extra expenses such as tons of water and gatorades to keep them hydrated in the triple digit heat, snacks to give them energy, dinner on the way home, and renting a 15 passenger van for 5 days. I actually just rented the van yesterday, a real chunk of money (can someone say "ouch").

Another topic, same story: The Out of School Bash was an expensive event to make it the quality that it was. The biggest draw of the event (our 'prize pearl' so to speak) was our FREE Paintball. For this we hired Eagle Creek Paintball to come down and set up right here on campus. (I've got to give them props. The typical paintball company rents out standard Tippman 98 Custom paintball guns (decent), but Eagle Creek brought Tippman 98 Pros (high end!); the same typical paintball companies give you masks that give you about 120 degrees of sight and fogs the first time you breath heavy, but Eagle Creek gave us non-fogging 170 degree sight masks. They also cleaned up our course for us and screened off the whole thing so that everyone around the course was safe. High quality people.) They quoted us a price, and although it was 75% of the budget we set for the event, we accepted because of the draw that it would have.

Alright, putting the two together. I just recieved the invoice for their services and they cut us a huge deal, only 2/3rds of our agreed upon price! In fact, the money their saving us is 30 dollars more than the price of the van that I rented yesterday!!! When i called to thank them, they THANKED ME for the publicity! God just paid for our rental van to camp!!! We serve an awesome God! Glorrrrrrry!!!

June 30th - Putt Putt Night

It was a fantastic event. We had 23 come out and All Star Sports gave us a pretty nice group discount. After a swell game of miniature golf we all went out to eat at Coney Island where we had some great fellowship and lots of laughs.

May 2010

2010-05-27T16:06:00.028-05:00

May 16th - Honor our Grads Sunday

Abiding Harvest in the Spring of 2010 had 13 youth that dominated high school and were stepping out to conquer the world. They worked hard, overcame more than we'll know and are very deserving of honors. I'd like to post their names and info here to remind us to keep them in prayer as they will be makeing some of the greatest decisions of their life beginning this summer and in the next few years.

OUR GRADUATING SENIORS

Aaron Jacobson
Graduating from Town and Country School with honors and is a member of the National Honor Society. While in high school he earned being an Eagle Scout and 6 palms. His plans are to attend the American Broadcast School.

Brittany Kunick
She has graduated in the top 10% of her class at Union High School. There she was very active in Volley-ball and also the drama department. She is planning on attending OSU and majoring in Elementary Education.

CJ Rojers
CJ has graduated Union High School where he was active in wrestling. He will be attending the Honor Academy at Teen Mania Ministries in Texas where he’ll be studying youth and pastoral ministry.

Creston Stophel
He is graduating from Augustine Christian Academy. This year he was chaplain of his School House Falcons and took on leading roles in all the musical productions. He will be attending ORU in the fall with a partial Whole Man Scholarship and will be majoring in Sports journalism and business.

Daniel Griffith
Has graduated from Union High School where he qualified for Regional Speech Competition 4 years and for State 3 years where he placed in the 4th in the State during his senior year. His college plans are undecided, but OSU and TCC are possibilities.

Holly Shirk
She graduated from Home School last December and is already a sophomore at Oral Roberts University. While at ORU she is majoring in journalism.

Jay Anderson
He is graduating Bixby High School where he is Valedictorian of his class. He is the recipient of the very prestigious Four Year Air Force ROTC Commanders Leadership Scholarchip for Detachment 670. He also excelled in soccer and this past fall in football. He will be attending the OSU College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology where he was honored with the Dean’s Academic Excellence Scholarship.

Justin Hiatt
He graduated Union High School where he was involved in wrestling and very involved in the worship team at AHYEAH. He will attend TCC for two years and transfer to ORU, where he plans on majoring in Worship.

Kameron Smith
He graduated from Union High School where he was very involved in the Drama/Music Department. He also participated in Jazz Choir and Advanced Theater and Repatory Theater. This summer he will be saving lives as a lifeguard and in the fall attending TCC.

Katherine Clain
She is graduating from Memorial High School where he was active in her swim team and won 2nd place in the 200 meter free style at the All Tulsa Schools Meet. She has also poured herself out in working with the Special Educations Disabilities students. She is planning on attending TCC and taking training classes at St. Frances.

Rachel McCulley
She is a graduate of Union High School. She is a member of the school's select Repertory Theater Group and its select Jazz Choir - The Union Avenue Singers. Rachel has earned a theater scholarship to Oklahoma State University.

Steven Grimm
Has graduated from Union High School where he was a member of Union Scottish Skins and played intramural sports. He will be attending OU and majoring in Aerospace Engineering.

Taylor Schuyler
He is graduating from Bixby High School. He will be attending the University of Central Arkansas in Conway on an Athletic Scholarship for football. H will be leaving in July to start summer classes and join the Bears for summer workouts.

May 16th - A-TEAM

Again, the youth prove themselves as a powerful force. Literally dozens of spiritual conversations were born of our youth engaging with their peers. One particular youth started a conversation with his whole lunch table about the orgin of man. Another initiated 6 different discussions all with different people. Wow!

New Challenge - Have at least 3 God-times a week on your own. (ex. worship, bible study, time of prayer, taking a walk and praying, etc)

May 19th - Bowling with Colton and Zara

This was a night for remembrance. It was suppose to be Putt Putt with Colton and Zara. How small are our plans compared to God's (rhetorical question)? So, early that Wed the weather decided to be onry, so the overcomer overcame and was able to bargain us a deal at Broken Arrow Lanes to go bowling. Stormy weather + indoor activity = uneventful night . . . right? - No.

So, Colton and Zara and their band/family all arrive safely and we load up in the bus and chaperones vehicles and head over to the bowling alley.

While at the bowling alley, one of the youth gave me the weather report that there were tornado watches for our area. That's exciting, but what am I suppose to do? . . . play on! Then my phone started blowing up with phone calls from rather concerned parents letting us know that the "watch" has now turned into a "warning," followed quickly by tornado alarms sounding outside of the building. The announcer came on, (muffled voice) "Would everyone please moving behind the railing until the siren has ended." So, we obeyed and minutes later the alarm ended. Multiple parents understandably wanted to pick up there youth pronto and were going to meet me at the church. Our game time was up and we quickly loaded everyone up into the bus for the 2.5 mile drive. By this time, I'm ready to load up Toto into the basket on my bicycle and ride home to Aunt Em. Without rain or wind, we hurried back to the church just in time for several of the parents.

Since Colton and Zara were 3.5 hours from home and they had come to play I asked what they wanted to do. "Let's play," was the answer (I like them.) So we had the concert and slowly our group of 30 dwindled down until by 8:30 everyone had recieved fresh music and brownies and were on their way home. A wonderful ending to a great evening. Colton and Zara, their family and band, and Jacqui and I had the privaledge of watching the storm from the cafe' windows and then invited them over for bacon cheeseburgers. I love God's ever-exciting plans.

May 22nd - First Pink Flamingoing of the Summer

We loaded up 75 birds and 15 youth and headed out for an evening of pink sneakiness. We flamingoed two and a half yards and had alot of laughs (the blessing was bestowed on the Grays and the Juettes). I say two and a half because one house wasn't there. We drove 30 minutes to an address that didn't exist out in Coweta (which is somewhere next to Timbucktoo I'm sure.) LOL.

May 29th - Pink Flamingoing starring the Flam-ninjas

This evening worked out rather interesting. Our first 25 birds were actually borrowed from us from someone who will remain anonymous (sp) and placed in the yard of a Mrs. Ruth Cooper for her surprise birthday of 91 years (congratulations). Then under the cover of darkness 19 youth set out from Braums to reek pink on several unsuspecting victums. We love you guys Dayna and Paul Griffith and John and Dana Kunick.

Funny story: It was a first for us. Our first assignment was a home behind the impenetrable barrier of a gated community. Ah yes, between the target and the Flam-ninjas stood an iron gate and daunting brick wall. After much consideration, tactical brainstorming, and watching for a break in traffic, a commando team slipped under the ominous iron blockade and flamingoed Jericho.

May 30th - AHYEAH

Sunday morning:

On sunday morning 6 youth wore pink. Five of them ran around the building handing pink flamingoing slips to everyone they saw. Also, two or three stood at the Flamingoing booth, one playing bongos. These coupled with an announcment that morning raised awareness within our awesome church family. The congregation responded, and in that single morning we raised 240 dollars to send youth to camp!!!

The A-TEAM:

The previous challenge truly proved challenging. Some had alot of trouble dealing with busy-ness, procrastination, or just plain forgetting. Others really took it to heart and had way more than the 3-per-week requirement. This was even a challenge for me personally and definitely made me reevaluate my priorities and time management.

New Challenge - Promote the Out of School Bash. (ex. hand out fliers, hang up fliers in public places, create an event on Facebook.)

AHYEAH:

Message topic - Nat led the message and discussed portions. David repeatedly worships the Lord saying that He is his portion. This theme is found throughout the bible. Then Nat showed where God calls us His portion. It would seem that with us inheriting GOD and He gets us, that He is getting the weak end of the deal. But, God in Ephesians calls us His glorious inheritance! God sees us as worth it and loves us unconditionally.

Youth - 25

Visitiors - 2

Leaders - 5

News - We have a new leader (glory to God)! Sunny Sheppard is 20 years old and has a history in youth leadership and a certification with DHS. She has an incredible heart for the youth and will be taking over our junior high girls small group.

Funny one-liner - "In worship we should give God a spiritual back massage." - anonymous high school girl

April 2010

2010-05-25T18:33:00.009-05:00

April 3rd - Paintball

Yes! We love paintball. We played most of the day using up all our cash on paint then took full advantage of CiCi's all you can eat buffet. Yum.

April 9th - Red Durango Worship

I want to take advantage of this blog to brag on a few of our youth. Fired up, wanting to serve Christ and make an impact at school, Rachel, Justin, and CJ began meeting every Friday during their lunch break to have a worship session in the parking lot of their High School. They brainstormed and soon making it quite an ordeal. They handed out fliers, set up a tent, brought chairs and drinks, and played a guitar and bongos. They did this every Friday almost up to graduation. I'm very proud of them.

April 11th - The A-Team kickoff

Something huge that AHYEAH kicked off this month is the A-Team. This is a team of youth within AHYEAH who have committed themselves to taking action throughout the week outside of AHYEAH events (in schools, clubs, social hangouts, etc.). Every other week we have a meething where we give them a challenge for the following two weeks to be evangelistic, promote AHYEAH, or edify our spiritual lives. Should a youth miss two challenges they are off the team for two weeks and then can jump back in again. It's meant to be a challenging thing to be apart of it. Our heart is not for our youth group to become a social club, we as Christians are creating a movement!

Challenge - Bring a friend to church.

April 23rd - Brittany's Night

Brittany Kunick, one of our seniors, is one of the most competitave young ladies I've ever met and this trait makes her very successful at every sport she goes out for. Anyway, on this Friday her team had a tournament and although they started kinda rough, they finished like champions!

April 24th - Outreach Project

This was an opportunity for us to get our minds off of ourselves and focus on our community and beyond. We met at the church and did some work projects around the church till 2 or 3 o'clock. We dug rubber mulch out of the playground so it could be sprayed with a preservative, vacuumed the children's area and youth room, washed all the windows in the childrens area, cleaned both of the bathrooms and did general cleaning back there. We also rearranged the youth room (better than ever) and disposed of one extremely smelly diaper (please dispose of the trash when your done using the nursery!!!. Then we followed up all of this the next day (Sunday) with bringing any extra lightly worn shoes that we had and donating them to Soles for Souls who would in turn ship them to Haiti. Also, on top of that we went shoeless all day that Sunday to empathize with and remember those in Haiti who we were praying for.

It went really well. Of everyone, I was one of the people who forgot and wore shoes to service. Then, right in the middle of the "9", someone said, "Hey, aren't we suppose to be shoeless?" It was hilarious, suddenly everyone was pulling and kicking their shoes off and the smell was . . .

We truly have a youth group that cares for people.

By the way, we raised 109lbs of shoes to send to Haiti!!!

April 25th - A-Team

Wow, from that last challenge of bringing a friend to AHYEAH, we had 15 visitors in only two weeks!!! That is a huge testamony to our youth.

It was alot of fun debriefing about what it was like to invite people. Some found it very challening and awkward, but said that it got easier the more they did it. Others really had no problem. The other half of the challenge was as a youth group to make the visitors feel welcome, and boy did they. Every new youth was welcomed and instantly excepted. We have awesome youth!

New Challenge - Start a spiritual conversation. (ex. What do you think about atheism? Why do bad things happen to good people? Do you believe in evolution? Do you think there is a higher power?)

April 28th - Laser Tag

This was truly an experience. So, laser tag was a huge hit. On Wednesday nights we ususally have 20-25 youth attend, but tonight we had 41! Everyone brought friends and we packed out the bus and every vehicle we access to. We arrived at Lazer Quest 10 minutes late and they dropped our reservation. So, we had to play our game 45 minutes later than expected, cutting our time from 2 games to 1 game. Then, they informed us that they can only serve 38 kids at a time. Awesome (sarcasm). So, all the leaders and the older youth sat out and let everyone else get signed in. The 38 youth went in and had a blast! They loved it!

Side story: So, Lazer Quest made me the deal to give each youth two games for $14 dollars, that's an entire dollar off for each kid, wow (more sarcasm). So, youth showed up with 10's, 5's, and 20's to pay me. Luckly, enough youth paid me with 1's that I only owed a couple that I needed to make change for. SO NOW, because we were 10 minutes late we lost the opportunity to play one of the games . . . now I owe everyone $7 (that's a 5 and two 1's, and all I have in my pocket are 20's, 10's, and no 1's, and I've never even met 8 of these youth before). So, problem solver that I am, I set out on a mission to make change before the kids are done with their game. Jacqui points and says, "Hey, there's a bill changer that accepts 20's!" It wasn't till after my 20 was slipping from my fingers that I realized . . . YES! I now have 20 dollars worth of quarters! So, now on to plan B, I am running, on foot, across the strip mall from store to store to gas station asking clerks to break 20's and 10's into 5's and 1's, meanwhile I am jingling with 5lbs of quarters weighing down my pants and causing attention. Well, this story concludes with a happy ending. I didn't get jumped, or accused of robbing a convenient store and by the time I made it back to the bus they were coming out of the building. I payed everyone back (though some left with 7 dollars of quarters, sorry), and all ended smoothly. :)

March 2010

2010-05-21T16:51:00.009-05:00

March 5th - Fire and a Movie

Basically we drag a big screen outside, place a firepit a safe distance from the screen, surround that will chairs, offer s'mores and call it an event.

It was awesome. We had over 30 youth show up and watched "Holes" and played capture the flag. We had fun. :)

March 12th - Basic Wilderness Skills Clinic

For any youth that had not been camping, climbing, caving, or hiking before we offered a basic skills class. This covered how to set up a tent, tie knots, dig a cat hole and various other tricks of the trade.

March 15th - 17th - Spring Break Camping

This was a fabulous trip. Half of the youth attending had been the year before and loved reexploring the sights and reminiscing. They were able to help the other half who were new to the experience to have fun. On arrival to the first trail head, our trusty bus (Joan of AH) unexpectadly died. Since we had arrived, I sent off the gang, and kept Mitch with me to deal with whatever problems we might have to deal with with the bus. I learned that the trick was to keep power on the engine at all times. When the RPMs drop, the engine would die. Needless to say, Mitch and I drove the bus around to the other trail head and hiked in . . . and had a blast.

We were a little concerned about it raining on us, but by the middle of the first night the stars became very radiant. However it got cold. Luckly a wise parent advised us to bring hand warmers to throw into our sleeping bags. They worked for the most part, however most of the guys and all the girls found themselves cramming their sleeping bags around the fire. Side note: I am very proud of our guys. To be gentlemen they took turns staying up and stoking the fire to keep the AHYEAH ladies warm. Good job men.

On the second day, hiking out was challenging but fun. We got to the bus and headed to HCR (Horseshoe Canyon Ranch). After meeting our rock instructor, Harvey, we spent the rest of the evening rock climbing.

The second night was honestly not as bad, but still rather chilly. Early the next morning we got up, ate, and wrapped up camp. As the year before, we hiked into Eden Falls Cave and explored everything.

The drive home was a challenge with the quirky bus, but after refueling at Buffalo Wild Wings we pressed on and all arrived safely back at the church.

March 19th - 21sth - Spring Break Camping 2

So many youth signed up for camping that we had to take 2 trips! Where last year we had to scratch to get 10 to go, this year 20 jumped on board.

We headed out with a newly fixed bus (glory to God) with our new crew and fresh leaders. We arrived effortlessly and dropped off the crew at the first trailhead. The hiking was a little newer for them, but they emerged champions. Jacqui and I were able to teach them from scratch the way we had done last march with the first trip. Chopping wood, pumping water, digging catholes, staying dry, and stoking fires were all very new. We had fun.

Somewhere in the middle of the hike out of the next day, my cell phone caught reception and it blew up with text messages, missed calls, and incoming calls. We were fast alerted that we might get some rather tough weather (snow, ice, wind, not fun camping or driving weather). When we arrived at HCR, our climbing instructor had left to get out ahead of the storm. He had left a voicemail with me which I didn't recieve till 20 hours after the fact.

So a decision had to be made. Skip to exploring the caves and grab a hotel for the night and return tomorrow, or return right away and take them indoor rock climbing tommorow in Tulsa. I left the decision up to them and they voted to get home. It would be an understatement to say that driving home was a challenge. We had sleet and snow and rain and snow on top of rain and wind and whatever else you could throw in there. Once again, we stopped for dinner to go at Buffalo Wild Wings and made it home safe. It was a trip none of us will forget.

The following day we took almost everyone to New Heights Rock Gym in Tulsa and got our rock climbing fix. :)

March 22nd - Wayne Kerr Concert

Wayne Kerr (Terri's brother) is a stinking talented musician who was passing through on a unique tour. We was recording his doing worship from dozens of churches of different nationalities, cities, and denominations and was then going to overlay them together as 'One Voice' worshiping God. He did an excellent job and the Holy Spirit came and was powerful.

February 2010

2010-05-21T15:47:00.006-05:00

February 4th - Beauty and the Beast Play

Many of our youth starred in this. Bijan danced and twirled a girl, Brittany had a double role as a wolf and town's woman, Kameron also was able to sing and dance, and Rachel was one of Geston's three admiring ladies. We brough a bus load of youth there and many of them had not seen the cartoon so it was a first time for them.

February 5th - Sonic and Braums (3rd Place - Jesus Freaks)

What is there really to say? We can make anything a blast. We love Sonic, and we love Braums!

February 6th - Indoor Rock Climbing (4th Place - Awesomenaphobia)

This was a great experience. This team was an all girls team and they had a blast rock climbing. Here's a video for ya!

February 10th - To Save A Life Movie Night

Jacqui and I heard many great things about this movie, and also had been dealing with multiple cases of suicide attempts and deep considerations. God put it on our hearts to take the message series a new direction and to kick it off with this movie. Beginning on Sunday, Feb 14 we began "Reasons to Live" where we discussed suicide and God's purpose for our lives.

The movie was EXCELLENT!!! Several of the youth responded creating very powerful conversations. All of the youth loved it and wanted to see it again! So, before we left that night I challenged everyone to think of one person that they feel should see the movie and bring them the following Wed. to go and see it again.

February 12th - Erica's Night ("Tell Me You Love Me Junie Moon")

This was a great play. It didn't have as much comedy as her prevous play, but it was gripping emotionally. As always, she did a great job and it was a smashing hit.

February 17th - To Save A Life Movie Night 2

Many of the youth took last week's challenge very serously and brought friends. The movie was just as good the second time as it was the first and still very powerful. If you havn't seen it, I strongly recommend it.

February 24th - Colton and Zara

As always they did fantastic. They brought several new songs and more than 30 youth showed up. Everyone danced and sang and got autographs. :)

January 2010

2010-05-12T15:08:00.013-05:00

December 31st - January 1st - New Years Eve Party

Ah, what a wonderful memory for us at AHYEAH. Our schedule began at 9:30PM Dec. 31st and we had continuous games and activities right to 8AM Jan. 1st. We had 31 youth attend! The evening began with pizza and we had a snack bar so people could munch anytime they wanted all night. We broke into 5 teams which competed against each other for the duration of the evening (Hillsong Baptist Priests, Boomer Bandits, Jesus Freaks, Awesomenaphobia, and Pink Power). With each activity and game they would earn hundreds or thousands of points. Instead of the prizes being something immediate and shallow (gift cards, mountain bike, or whatever. Not that there's anything wrong with these kinds of gifts), they were future events just for their team. We had a list of event prizes (Hibachi Grill Dinner, Dinner and a Movie, Sonic and Braums, Indoor Rock Climbing, and an Incredible Pizza Party) and the 1st prize winnner would be able to pick first and 2nd place second and so on. This gave the new comers a reason to come back and also placed Jacqui and I in a more personal small group setting with our youth and their newly brought friends.

At 11Pm we had a worship service and devotional which kicked off a new message series based on Michael Jackson's song . . . "Man In The Mirror." The previous series (The Sequal) was very evangelistic and outward. Man in the Mirrow would deal with personal house cleaning, working on ourselves and our spiritual disciplines. The devo concluded with each of the youth writing a letter to themselves discussing where they want to be by 2011. They turned them in and I'll be sending them back to them at the beginning of school this August as a "hey-how-are-you-doing-with-that" reminder. We then ushered in the new year with lots and lots of noise. (Note to self: will not hand out noise makers next time.)

The entire night was back to back, no breathing room games and activities. We went from a Scavenger Hunt to a Hot Dog Eating contest (Adam ate 8 to win!), to The Maze, and Big Ball, Limping Zombies, Dodge Ball (normal and 4-way), Find the Skittle in the Pie, Face Creation, a Skit Competition, and Human Farkle. It was a barage of games.

Then we wound down, and as delerium set in we turned on a funny movie. Good ol' Paul Blart Mall Cop. Needless to say, half of the youth were asleep by the time 8 rolled around.

It was a total success and opened doors to 5 more events but with groups of 4-6 and much more personal.

January 9th - Prize: Hibachi Grill Dinner (1st prize - Hillsong Baptist Priests)

First place at the New Years Eve party chose the Hibachi Grill Dinner. Several of the new youth came with us and we all had a blast at Tokyo Garden where they cook the food in front of you and light things on fire and throw things at your face; it's just a good time. We didn't know any Japanese so we just yelled Um' Pa! whenever our cook would do a trick. I think it caught on. :)

January 15th - Prize: Incredible Pizza Party (5th place - Pink Power)

For this prize we hauled over to Incredible Pizza and gave each youth $10 of game money. We chowed hearty on their endless buffet and played tons of video games. One youth won more than 1100 ticktes! It was alot of fun and we all walked away with trinkets.

January 23rd - Prize: Dinner and a Movie (2nd place - Boomer Bandits)

These fine youth held a crushing, far advanced first place through all of the new year's eve party until the very end. It was a moment when they were surpassed by the Hillsong Baptist Priests. Anyway, we also had a blast at their prize party. We went and ate at Chili's, grabbed ice-cream at Chic-fil-a and went to see "The Tooth Fairy" with The Rock. It was a great evening.

January 30th - Dinner with the Worship Team

This was a really fun evening. Jacqui had been wanting to do something special with/for the worship team for months so we finally took them all out to the Hibachi Grill and fed them like kings. Big Fire = Awesome

December 2009

2010-05-12T14:20:00.012-05:00

December 11th - 12th - Revolve Tour

This year we drove to Norman, OK for the Revolve (for ladies only). It was awesome being able to use the bus this year and a ton of fun. We had 50% more girls go than last year and they ALL had fun. This year they had awesome bands like Stellar Kart and Group 1 Crew and super-sweet speakers like Chad Eastham and Jenna Lucado, and of course jam packed with dramas and concerts. And of course we had IHOP the first night out of tradition. :)

December 19th - Scarfapolooza

O yes. Scarfapolooza is back. This year we again had the scarf competition accompanied by a catwalk and poem. The poem, contrary to last year (a poem written to one's scarf), was a poem written by your scarf to YOU!

We had a game of Dirty Santa where we lucked out with gifts like Duct Tape, perfume, ornaments, and single sticks of gum. yea! We then hopped on the bus and headed over to Oilers Skate Rink and skated for a couple hours ending with delicious hot chocolate. double yum!

November 2009

2010-05-12T11:30:00.007-05:00

November 4th - Colton and Zara Concert

Through divine ordinance, God had a sweet couple playing live music at a restaraunt where Jacqui were having a date night. There music was super catchy, fun, of quality, and all around awesome. We had the pleasure of meeting and having dinner with them. Deciding to keep in touch, we had them come and play a song of there's (Sleepy Head City) for AHYEAH and lead a devotional on it. The youth fell in love with them immediately.

After the great response by the youth for only one song, we had them come and hold a mini-concert for us. For this Wed. night we ordered a 12' Subway, set them up in the cafe', made a horseshoe out of the tables and had a blast. They performed amazingly, the youth ate, danced, and sang, and we all had fun.

During intermission (where Colton and Zara can socialize and get some food), we had the apple eating race joke. We two contestants (Adam and CJ) who were both hard-nosed to win the apple eating contest. We blindfolded them both and yelled "Go!". After both begin chowing down, we unblindfolded Adam and slipped all of his apple slices into CJ's plate, mean while everyone continues to root for both of them. Everyone watched and laughed as CJ packed his face as he was competing against . . . no one. Eventually, we pulled his blindfold off and he was a great sport about it. Love ya CJ, you rock!

Novemeber 6th - Tailgating at Broken Arrow High School

Continuing out tailgating events to bring awareness about AHYEAH, led us to BA this week. We got an awesome spot. We perched our set up on a grassy corner that was half way to the stadium and could be seen from everywhere in the parking lot. Plus, we had a field to play in behind us. Also there was another fundraiser there which attracted people, but to get to us, they had to walk past us. God is cool.

We had a greater number of raffle tickets filled out with every tailgating party. More and more youth were coming out and we were getting more and more attention. God did good. (The spray painted AHYEAH shirts are still being seen as of 5/12/10 at multiple schools and at the mall to this day.)

November 13th - Tailgating at Jenks High School

It was amazing. We had to strategically choose games so that we could fit in the four major schools in four weeks, and it worked. Not only did it work, but we made it to one of each school's most crucial games. For Jenks, this was their most anticipated play-off game. And again, God parks us in the best spot. We had to park across the street from the game in a post office parking lot, BUT again everyone going to the game had to pass us! Again, we racked up even more raffle tickets than at any other school, and we even handed out stuff and collected raffle tickets from the opposing school! Two for one!

People would pass by see that we were giving away Monsters and shirts and run and bring back a whole group of friends. God did awesome as always.

November 14th - Paintball

This was a paintball experience to remember. On the third game of the day, Dave (who is one of the best in AHYEAH) tripped on a root and fell into a tree breaking two ribs. The first to the scene were Carlos, Josh and a referee. Josh immediately started praying for him right infront of the soon growing crowed of refs and players.

Dave was carted off the field and taken care of by Nat, but the testimony left behind in the ref's heart's of the support of prayer and real "Christians" will be unparralleled. Amen

November 21st - Service Project at Exodus House

Exodus house is one one of the ministries that Abiding Harvest supports. They are a place for people who have been incarcerated and would probably be stuck in half-way houses. This ministry opens the door for them to stay in an apartment type facility and have their families move in with them so they can be together. It is a powerful and effective ministry.

While Dave went to help build some fencing, we helped through cleaning there busses and vans. They treated us to doughnuts and after doing a great job we took the youth to Coney Islander. yum.

We are blessed to have youth that love to serve!

October 2009

2010-05-07T11:09:00.009-05:00

Wanna put stress on your marriage? Put 9 events in one month.

October 2nd - Homecoming Afterparty

This provided a hang-out for youth after the Homecoming Game as a substitute for afterparties. We had a campfire with S'mores, capture the flag, and other games. We actually had a pretty sweet turn-out, many of the youth came!

October 7th - Fair Night

As a change of pace from the typical Fantastic Friday on Wednesday, we hopped in the bus and headed to the Tulsa State Fair. We covered quite a bit of ground and ate quite a bit of food. Then when the youth returned to the bus, they each found themselves with a bag of cotten candy. It was a really fun evening.

October 8th - Erica's Night

We attended her play "It Happens Every Summer" at B.A. and she did a fabulous job. Honestly, she may have had the funniest line in the whole drama, "Anyone want some cookies?." (You had to be there.)

October 10th - Jake's Night

We went to Jake's football game, then treated him out to the quickly becoming traditional Buffalo Wild Wings.

October 23rd - Tailgating at Bixby High School

So, the AMAZING Events team and I got together to brainstorm a major event for the fall which would produce alot of momentum and interest in AHYEAH in one of the schools. Because the majority of our youth are in Union we had the huge/exhausting/expensive event at the IHigh last year. Along with being limited to one school, it was also extremely difficult to promote.

In the midst of our brainstorming, Sarah Thompson (you rock) had the idea of hitting all the major schools by having the youth group tailgate at one of their major football games. What an idea! This would widen our horizon, take alot less grunt work, and be where the students already are!!! Sarah, Barry, and myself got on set-up, Deb jumped on food, and Brian took on fliers, banners, and give-aways. It all fell together beautifully, and the youth loved the idea and came out to support it!

Our first one was at Bixby. Brian cranked out sweet cinch backpacks with our logo on them along with a big banner, for several days some of the youth and I had been hand spray painting 60-70 t-shirts with the AHYEAH stencils and graffiti, and Deb popped in with hot dogs and snacks. We parked the bus (an advertisement all by itself) in a rather strategic place and gave away the backpacks (pink or black with an AHYEAH flier inside), spray painted t-shirts, had a raffle sign up for 1 of 3 ITunes cards (this is how we gathered info to call them and promote AHYEAH), and food throughout a couple of hours before the game and all the way to half time. We blasted music and tried to start mini football games in the parking lot with passing youth. For our first attempt, it went rather well.

Afterward, we took a minute to think it through how it could be better. I remembered that several weeks back a couple of youth estatically told me about how a Red Bull car had met them in the parking lot outside a football game and gave them free Red Bull. I threw out the suggestion that we give away free Monster Energy Drinks to the people who would fill out the raffle ticket. Plus, we decided to set up a large tent or two and stretch our banner across the outside. Both good ideas.

October 24th - Amy's Night
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Amy was in a marching band. I had never been to a marching band competition before and expected very little. Heck, we were going to support her. Boy, was I wrong! It was a blast. All the bands were so creative and in sinc, it was totally entertaining. Plus, her band won!

October 26th - Coleman's Night

We headed over to Jenks and despite many of the youth being Union fans, we rooted him on with enthusiasm. :)

October 30th - Tailgating at Union

Well, we tweaked the event a little bit. Be brought a huge tent, and tons of Monsters, and whew what a draw. Plus we got a sweet spot where most everyone had to walk past us to go to the game, especially the band, cheerleaders, and ROTC. When you yell at a group of students that your giving away free Monsters, it definitely catches attention. People were grabbing a Monster, filling out a raffle and running and grabbing/telling their friends to get one. It was awesome. 100+ Monsters were gone by the end of the night and we had stacks of kid's info in raffle tickets, youth were leaving the game to come and get free stuff. We gave away all of the AHYEAH spraypainted t's and definitely caught attention.

Some of the youth have actually seen the T's being worn at school for now 7 months after we were there. God is cool!

October 31st - Wacky Watermelon Night

This was an improved version of 2008's Wacky Watermelon Night. We kept events like the watermelon pinata, and improved others such as: stacking watermelons with duct tape instead of chewed gum (gross), and launching water balloons at the carved watermelons (with candles inside) with waterballoon launchers instead of just throwing them.

We also had an awesome band (Acts 29, the new name of the former Blood Drive from Meta 3:14) come and jam out while we carved the melons. Live music + carving melons instead of pumpkins + bashing a watermelon with baseball bat + hanging out with friends = FUN!

September 2009

2010-05-06T17:09:00.006-05:00

September 20th - See You at the Pole Sunday

This event was to vamp up attendance for See You at the Pole on the following Wed. We discussed prayer, played some games, then graffitied our own SYATP shirts with multiple stencils. To this day, some of the youth still wear their's.

September 23rd - See You at the Pole

Around the nation, schools unite for an hour to meet at their flag poles for a time of prayer for our nation, our leadership, and our schools.

This year, all most all of AHYEAH was at their flag poles at 7am that morning. Some stood alone as the only ones at their schools. May God see our obedience and passion for Him.

September 25th - Adam's Night

Beginning in September AHYEAH started a new style of events. Instead of 1-2 big expensive events, along with 1-2 smaller events a month we decided to be more relevant and personal to the youth. We pulled together their schedules from sports, dramas, and band competitions and worked out the calendar to participate in at least one event for every youth that was involved in something extracurricular. We'd give a time and date and any youth that could come would meet at the church and we load up on the bus to go support our bro/sis.

Tonight was Adam's night. We brought a white board with markers and yelled our guts out. "ADAM SAID 'NO!'" Then, in celebration of his coolness we treated him out to Buffalo Wild Wings. :)

September 26th - Paintball

We like paintball, OK?

September 30th - Rachel, Bijan, and Kameron's Night

They all acted in the play "The Cripple of Innishmen," and did a fabulous job. Ya'll rock! Plus, we had a pretty good turn out of youth to support them.

August 2009

2010-05-06T16:29:00.006-05:00

The Sequel

With the start of a new school, we began a new theme, "The Sequel." It is based on the idea that the book of Acts is the sequel of the 4 gospels. Therefore, we to whom the church has been passed down to are the Sequel to the book of Acts. During the next few months we studied the book of Acts with the understanding that neither God nor His promises have changed; that we are to be living in the power of His Holy Spirit and seeing our schools, activity centers, etc as our mission field. To be honest, despite the first two themes being a ton of fun, this one was the most powerful. It was very cool.

August 16th - Back To School Battlecry

The Back To School Battlecry is an event which is fun but also challenging. It calls the youth to step up to a new level of living for Christ outwardly and staying focused despite the infinite distractions that the school year will bring.

We began it by an introduction to the theme "The Sequel," which was very well recieved. We then initiated the kids that were graduating from the children's ministry and into the youth ministry. Each one recieved a Teen Study Bible and a pocket size Christian fish. They were very well recieved and it was a great kick off for them.

We then hauled everyone out to Pump It Up, which is basically an inflatable playground. Huge inflatables like slides, obstacle courses, and games. We ate pizza and then headed for Braums for dessert. All in all it was a success.

July 2009

2010-05-06T14:58:00.012-05:00

July 10th, 17th, and 31sth - Pink Flamingoing

Still raising money for camp!
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July 11th - Shopping with Dom

Where Viking night is exclusive for dudes, Shopping with Dom if just for the AHYEAH ladies (and they had to put up with me. hehe) This was an event which was purposeful in treating the girls like princesses. :) For weeks the AHYEAH ladies had been bringing friends to church and events to rack up cash for an Oklahoma City shopping spree. Basically, each girl starts with a $15 credit, and for every friend they bring they get $ added to that credit. Can life get better? It will!

So we met that morning and loaded up in a mini-van and the CRV and headed to OKC. We arrived and picked up their shopping cards with worked at every mall store and went to town. The girls shopped till we were all about to drop.

Then we loaded ourselves and our bags up and headed back to church fora catered dinner (thank you Randy Schuyler). What the girls didn't know is that we commissioned the AHYEAH men to serve the girls. What I didn't know was how awesome, caring, and thoughtful our men are.

When we arrived at church, we were ushered into the youth room and not allowed to come out! Finally, all of the girls, and several mothers that came to join us, were allowed out and led in a straight line to a sign-in table where stood an AHYEAH gentleman dressed to the hilt, hair slicked back, and a speaking in a swave French accent. As each girl was signed in, a different gentleman escorted them arm-in-arm past a partition to an exquisite table, decorated with flowers, wine glasses, candles, chocolates, fine china, and folded napkins. Froo froo was hanging from the ceiling and decorated everything. And meanwhile a youth serinated them with live music from a keyboard.

Serving by serving (appitizer, salad, entree, and sides), the AHYEAH gentlemen, sharp in black dress clothes (one youth even ran to Goodwill and spent his own money that day so he could be dressed nice) and speaking in French accents served the ladies and waited on them hand and foot. And to drink they had classy Martinelli's sparkling cider, red or white (non-alcoholic of course), which they served wrapped in a towel.

Throughout the meal, live music was played. Then, during the entree one of our gentlemen got up and sang a couple songs to flow with the music and the setting.

Finally dessert came out. And as the dessert plates hit the table each girl noticed that their names were written on the plate in chocolate. These girls felt special!

Amidst the dessert, I gave a 15 minute devotional about their worth and who their first love is and should be, and their status before God as priceless gems and princesses. With the closing of the event, the AHYEAH gentlemen took the sign-in list from the beginning of the meal into the sanctuary and prayed for each girl by name, for blessings for her and thanked God for her value.

Every one of those girls were touched and felt special, and at some point in the evening every one of them teared up at one thing or another. And I must say, I have never been so proud of our AHYEAH men. Men, may you always see the value in the women around you and treat them as the priceless treasures that they are. Ladies, may you have confidence in your worth, demand nothing short of God's best, and carry yourself as the princess that you are.

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July 20th-24th - Extreme Camp

Camp was awesome! It was the first voyage of the Abiding Harvest Bus (Joan of A.H.). The theme was exhange. Based on the idea that we can't just give up something, but we exchange that for Christ and who He is. The sessions were awesome and convicting ("Just a lil' bit of poop!" - ya, ask an AHYEAH camper). We also were teamed up with another group basically to compete against. That relationship started out a little rocky, but by the end of camp we were family.

On top of the extreme sports (extreme ultimate frisbee, extreme soccer, paintball, the blob, human foozeball, and extreme volley ball) which were all AWESOME, the camp rented out an entire waterpark for us where we spend half a day with the place to ourselves. It was sweeeeeeet.

Then on the last night, the session discussed laying down who we are and send the entire group of camp outside. Outside we found dozens of crosses set up with little fires underneath them. After going outside we continued in prayer and worship and really had an encounter with God. Each youth was given a peace of old cloth which they would lay down at the cross, and each counselor was given a small cross to give them in return. Then all of the youth gathered around Jacqui and I and prayed for us some really powerful stuff. God did awesome things that night!

Returning home was/is always kinda sad, but we were comforted by stopping at our traditional Don's Restaurant for some good, non-camp, Texas food. Yum.

June 2009

2010-05-05T15:08:00.006-05:00

June 19th - Pink Flamingoing

Many of the members of Abiding Harvest were seeing pink the next moring!

June 24th - Kilt making night

For all of those attending Viking Night who couldn't buy a kilt, we got together and created our Viking costumes.

June 27th - Viking Night

An event solely geared for testosterone! The event had two requirements. You must be male, and you MUST wear a kilt. Yours truly was clad in fur, leather, a kilt, and a helmet (O yes, ruggedly handsome).
The vikings met at 8am fully dressed to raid and each chose a weapon and shield. Then set out on a short road trip to the Illinois river. Two sights are funny: 1) A group of youth dressed as vikings running around in a gas station convenience store. 2) When the caravaan gets split up and 4 youth dressed as vikings go and dance at an intersection so the vehicle looking for us can find where we turned.
We arrived at the Illinois river and mounted our canoes; and the vikings were off on their 9.5 mile canoe trip. I must say that we rented the most pathetic canoes of all time. It was as if someone welded together crushed coke cans and slapped U.S.S. on the side of it. All you had to do was sneeze and you'd roll over. Needless to say, before everyone even got in there canoes two different boats tipped. Thanks to someone intellegent, all our food was in sealed containers, no thanks to someone else all of our paintball guns were not (I didn't mention that we were planning on having a paintball war on the water during the trip . . . "planned" being the key word).

During the extremely eventful water trip (canoes flipping every couple of minutes, canoes getting wedged under and between trees, drunk people yelling at me in fur, and attacks by horseflies on steroydes) we found a certain rock/cliff/thing that was perfect for a sweet cliff jump (about 10'). The jump was a blast and then we noticed a tree growing off of the rock/cliff/thing. Yes, we also climbed and jumped from the tree (20'+). Testosterone is a beautiful thing. :)

Finally, after we were all blown out from canoeing we arrived at our destination. Our dinner was grape juice, pork beans, and a hog . . . no really, a whole hog (precooked for safety - don't tell anyone). A nice family at the canoe place loaned us their smoker and BBQ sauce. Mark and CJ cooked while we went to the campsite and set up camp and built the camp fire. At dark the hog was done and we chowed. With no utensels in sight, we bare-handed the pork and beans. Because of the Vikings that we were, it became a competition as to who ate the hog eyes and three of us split the brain. Then we passed the head around and each had to take a bite of the nose (yum). And somewhere in there a grape juice chugging contest broke out.

We gathered around the fire for some worship (led by Bobby Baker) and a message on our spiritual enemy, whom we fight as warriors with the armor of God. After an awesome devo and worship, we then settled down . . . not! We had beastly jousting competitions and Viking games!

Testosterone at its best.

May 2009

2010-05-05T14:21:00.014-05:00

May 16th - Paintball

As always, paintball was awesome. AHYEAH youth are simply beasts at paintball!

May 22nd - Pink Flamingoing

Similar to last summer, AHYEAH was vehicle for practical joking within the church. As a fundraiser for camp, we (the youth) are hired to fill other people's yards up with pink flamingoes. For the summer of 09' we kicked it off on May 22nd and went out under the cover of darkness every other Friday to do the churches' pink dirty work. :)

May 30th - Out of School Bash

The Out of School Bash was huge! All of the AHYEAH youth were given fliers to hand out at school, they were rewarded when they brought friends, we had 25-28 volunteers, and over 80 youth attend. The event featured:
*a mud volley ball pit (60'x 80'),
*a water war zone - inflatable bunkers, hight powered water guns, and water baloon launchers,
*kick ball field,
*air brush tatoos,
*football,
*TONS of food and drink,
*a band and worhip band,
*a 80' slip n slide,
*and so many door prizes that everyone recieved one or two prizes (such at $50 sunglasses, IPod Shuffel, AHYEAH T-Shirts, ITunes cards, etc).
After the games, came the food, then we had a time of worship and a devotional.
Finally, after all of this, the Broken Arrow Fire Dept came and hosed all of the muddy youth down. It was a blast!

April 2009

2010-05-05T13:56:00.004-05:00

April 5th - Raid the Closet Sunday

In preparation for the coming 30 Hour Help Drive we held Raid the Closet Sunday. All of the youth were challenged to look through their closets and drawers and pull out clothes that they havn't worn in 18+ months to donate to Restore Hope here in Tulsa. Restore Hope is a place that helps families get back on their feet in tough times through food, clothes, and financial help. It went awesome, we filled up the stairs to the stage with bags of clothes. Our group may not be the largest, but the heart here is HUGE!

April 25th-26th - 30 Hour Help Drive

This was a cool event. Each youth found 1-3 people/families to sponsor them for $30 to fast for 30 hours (11am Sat. - 5pm Sun). Then to end the fast, we threw the youth a pot luck.
During that 30 hours the youth went door-to-door in the surrounding neighborhoods and dropped off paper bags (curtosy (sp) of Reasors) with fliers attached at each house. We would knock on doors, introduce our cause, and ask to pray with people. If no one was home we'd leave a flier and paper back on the door knob. The fliers said that we'd return the following day and collect the bags. This gave people an overnight to get/buy stuff to donate. Then to top it all off, we had the President of Restore Hope, John Dillingham, come and speak on the history and impact of their ministry.
We raised over $400 dollars and more than 720 lbs of canned goods. AHYEAH!!! O' and we had a ton of fun too!

March 2009

2010-04-29T13:12:00.007-05:00

March 16th - 18th - Spring Break Camping Trip (Rappel by Vocation)

Continuing the theme of being rebels against conformity, we took a physically challenging trip to give a physical example of a spiritual lesson. That we must persever expecially when things get tough.
This was a Camping/Hiking/Climbing/Caving trip that would push AHYEAH to the limits. We started out hiking 3.2 miles into the Ozark Mountains and camping on a river bend. The next day we hike a different trail out (4mi.) to the van, then drove the van to Horseshoe Canyon Ranch where we met with our rock climbing instructor (Harvey). We rock climbed the rest of the day and crashed around the camp fire that night. The next morning we were up at 5, and hiked 2 miles into beautiful waterfalls at Eden Falls and also explored Eden Falls cave. It is beautiful; after wiggling our way into the cave it opens into a large room where there is a magnificent waterfall in the room. It was gorgeous.
On the way home we blew out two different tires on our trailor at two different times. It was exciting and we made it home only an hour and a half late.
This camping experience was a crux for AHYEAH. Friendships, and camper/leader bonds were created on this trip that are lasting to this day. It created a family within the youth group through the challenges and successes. God used this trip for so much glory.

March 27-28 - Acquire the Fire

Because of the snow and excallated(sp) prices, we only had 5-6 youth come and attend. Despite the low number of attendance, Jacqui and I had a fabulous opportunity to build relationship with three new girls (the Johnsons). It was actually rather impactful and the message on sex was well thought through.

February 2009

2010-04-29T12:57:00.004-05:00

February 1st - Superbowl Party

We had a huge turn out. We all crammed into the Dugdale's game room to play pool and watch the game. We pulled our money for pizza and had wrestling matches during half time. Also, Jacqui's and my former youth group from First Baptist Korean Church came and visited and we all had sooooo much fun.

February 6th - Les Miserables

A handful of the youth (Rachel, Bijan, Kameron, Brittany, Orlando) attending Union scored roles in the imfamous Les Miserables. It was done exceptionally.

February 27th - Scavenger Hunt

We set out on a photo scavenger hunt. We would have to document things such at acting out a skit in the mall, convincing people that it was National Backwards Day, leaving a gold fish in a toilet, cramming in a port-o-potty, or kidnapping a friend. Sadly, only 4 youth and 2 parents came, but we had a blast!

January 2009

2010-04-29T10:52:00.011-05:00

At AHYEAH we kicked off the new year with a new theme. The earlier one was "Living Life Stoked!" where we looked at people in the bible who were zealous for God and tried to apply their attributes to our lives. Beginning in 2009 we kicked off "Rebel by Vocation." This was a theme where we looked at Christ and how He was a rebel against cultural misconceptions of His time. We then looked at todays challenges and media messages (such at pride, fear, predjudice, conformity, and sexual freedom) and brought to light how we can rebel against them.

January 7th - Feburary 18th - The Shack

On Wed. nights (Fantastic Friday on Wed) we listened to the audio of the shack. We would get together, have worship to candlelight, listen to The Shack, and play games. Although a few of the youth had trouble paying attention to the audio, most enjoyed it, and some I was worried about really liked it!

January 10th - Meeting with parents

Pastor and I met with parents for the purpose of presenting the new theme which I assumed would be edgey and also to recruit leadership. We discussed how we were not encouraging rebellion against authority, but ungodly culture. Then we passed out cards for parents to fill out what roles they would be interested in to help participate with AHYEAH. Some of those roles were Boosters (call-on people for materials, food, etc), Events Team, Disciplers, and FX group (adding pizazz to youth messages). Many of the parents came and participated and the Boosters list and Events group that we have today is thanks to those who got involved beginning at that meeting.

January 24th - Men's Day (dudes only)

This was a day of testosterone. We met early at the church for paintball, then watched a guy movie (Enemy at the Gates) and ate too much pizza. It was sweet, and we had a great turn-out.

January 30th - Revolve Tours (girls only)

Revolve is a girls only event similar to Teen Manias Aquire the Fire. It is a conferance where girls come from all over the country to hear awesome speakers (Natalie Grant, Chad Eastham, Jenna Lucado), sweet bands (Hawk Nelson, Group 1 Crew), see convicting dramas, and bond together.

A great church in OKC, Sunnylane Family Church, put up the girls for the night and me at the youth pastor's house. The girls loved it and it is becoming a tradition.

December 2008

2010-04-29T10:29:00.004-05:00

December 6th - Angel Tree Wrapping

The youth pitched in and helped wrap gift to be given at the Angel Tree party.

December 13th - Angel Tree Party/Winter Wonder Slam

Many of the youth went to the Angel Tree Party where gifts are given to children in the name of their incarcerated(sp) parents. It was a touching service that several of the youth really moved by.
That evening we went to Winter Wonder Slam. A concert involving Toby Mac, Relient K, and Family Force 5. All are awesome musicians and huge in the Christian and even non-Christian communities.

December 20th - Scarfapolooza!

This was our version of a Christmas party. The only entry fee was that everyone had to wear a scarf to get in. Some forgot and created scarves out of toilet paper or other things. We decorated a Christmas tree with scarves, then set up the sanctuary platform with tables making a runway with a strobe. The first contest was for the most unique scarf, where the contestants would strut out on the runway showing off their scarf doing a turn on the catwalk. (It was a huge hit!) Then each youth had to write a poem to their scarf and read them for extra points, and create a skit where the scarf was the main character (funny).
Daniel Henry was our guest speaker who brought our spiritual devotional for the evening, and wrapped up the evening with a gingerbread house building contest.

December 31st - January 1st - New Years Eve Party

So, Jacqui and I decided to have this event at our apartment (not the brightest idea). We packed out our apartment with over 20 of the youth! We kicked off the night with food and snacks. Then we spend from 9pm - 8am having an Extended Edition "Lord of the Rings" marathon (11 hours of video!). However we did pause at 11:45 and brought in the New Year with worship (very cool). Needless to say, it was more chaos, and 2 verbal complaints and one filed complaint later we closed the event at 8am. It was fun.

November 2008

2010-04-29T10:01:00.004-05:00

Novemeber 8th - School Scene of Whispers in the Dark Video

Victory Bible Institute let us use their hallways to shoot footage for the school scene in the video.

Novemeber 15th - Paintball

This was my first time playing paintball with AHYEAH (camp doesn't count becasue I was put out of the game before I pulled the trigger). We had tons of fun, and I discovered that paintball is more fun in the cold (and that Dave is a beast).

November 19th - Fantastic Friday @ the Intermediate High School

Whew, where do I start. This was the most insane, exhausting, want to curl up in a corner and cry thing that I have ever done and will ever do (hopefully). For six weeks, my entire world surrounded this event. The last week before, I couldn't sleep at night because of my mind whirling with things to do. (I thank God soooooo much for a faithful, hardworking, pull-together mentality Events Team that we have today).
This event featured two bands, one dance team, radio commercials, football games, human foose ball, food, drinks, a velcro wall, an inflatable obstical course, fliers, t-shirt give aways, raffles, popcorn, sign up table and more. And all of this was on an empty field without lighting, therefore we needed monster generators and industrial flood lights trucked in (thank you Bob Stillman), along with platforms for the bands (which I planned on getting there but not getting back).
The sum of the event was 2 full youth groups (AHYEAH and META3:14 from Four Square) plus a scattered few that popped in from the radio announcments and fliers. The youth had fun, but the greatest gain was the connections made with the schools, radio, rental companies, bands, gaming companies, and members of our church.

November 20th - Creation Fest

A sweeeeeet music concert featuring Kutless, TFK, Pillar, KJ-52, Fireflight, Worth Dying For, Run Kid Run, Capital Lights, and Esterlyn. It may have been one of the greatest collections of Christian rock bands to date (in my opinion), but sadly only a couple of the youth went.

October 2008

2010-04-29T09:42:00.004-05:00

October 18th - Whispers In The Dark Video

Beginning in October and stretching through January of 09' we made a noteable effort to try and create a music video based on the Skillet song "Whispers in the Dark". The video captured a youth's dark night of the soul and showed the spiritual battle that was going on around him.
For this video, we had auditions, pulled together camera men, special effects artists, and a director all out of the youth ministry. Scheduling conflicts and putting off the actual shooting eventually got the best of us. :(

October 4th and 25th - West Tulsa UMC

Jacqui, Jesse, several of the core youth and myself went and played football with some of the remaining urban youth of the West Tulsa UMC minstry.

October 31st - Wacky Watermelon Night

Instead of carving pumpkins, we carved watermelons. :) We had multiple games surrounding watermelons such as water melon stacking (where youth stack watermelons with bubble gum - gross), watermelon pinata (way fun!), rubbing them in lard and having relay races with them, carving, and throwing waterballoons at them trying to put out candles that were inside.
In the midst of the chaos, Tyler decided to make armor out of the broken pieces (see pic above). Basically the event was alot of mess, not many youth, and hours of clean up, but still fun, and nice to remember.

September 2008

2010-04-28T15:27:00.003-05:00

September 5th - Guest speak at 4 Square church.

A fellow youth pastor friend of mine was holding a conference at his youth ministry and invited our youth group. He also asked me to give a salvation message. Jacqui and I along with 10 of our youth went over and supported them. Honestly, the my message didn't go very well, but we had fun playing games and building a connection with their youth group. Very cool people.

September 6th - Ministry at West Tulsa UMC

We had a Saturday event there where we took the youth of their ministry to a youth center and hung out with them. We also played a little football.

September 10th - Remedy Drive Concert

A church near us was hosting the fast growing in popularity band Remedy Drive. We went and watched them jam out and had a bunch of fun, including meeting the lead singer who gave us a card, in case we ever have 3 grand to pay them to come play for us.

September 17th - 1st Fantastic Friday on Wed.

After the closing opportinity of continued ministry at West Tulsa UMC, we created a service in the middle of the week that would be a refresher from school. Hopefully a couple of hours of the refreshing feeling of a Friday. It would be an hour and a half of a brief worship, light discussion, and alot of game time.

We also began having our worship time to candlelight which the youth really enjoy, along with fun games such as "murder in the dark," "coffee pot," "sardines," etc. FFonWed has been such a success and created such a fun service for entry level youth that we've continued it every Wed to this day (with very little exception).

September 21st - See You At The Pole BlowOut

To ramp up for See You At The Pole on the coming Wed, we had an event to spark excitement and hopefully some zeal to stand out to go and pray at the flag poles of their schools. We had a guest speaker (Jose) come and minister to us on the power of prayer and handed out a ton of fliers, bracelets, and other stuff. Also, we got together a ton of spray paint and gave each youth a white t-shirt and stencils to create their own SYATP t-shirt. Some of them came out really cool.

September 24th - See You At The Pole

At 8am we went to the IHigh to hang out with the youth that were willing to be open about their faith. Although we started late, quite a few students showed up and a good chunk of them were ours. We actually had prayer around the pole twice. Once with the early group, then as other people got there we did it again. Pretty cool.

August 2008

2010-04-28T15:00:00.005-05:00

Presently we were in the middle of a series entitles "Living Life Stoked" where we were studying the Holy Spirit and how He fires us up for powerful personal lives, and annointed evangelism.

Flamingoing
Pink Flamingoing continued all the way through August, on every Friday evening.

Living Life Stoked T-Shirts
Several weeks after camp, Brian Dugdale was able to take the design of our Living Life Stoked T-Shirts and turn them into print. We began selling them on Sunday Aug. 3rd and they went like crazy. We sold them in grey, white, and blue. Pastor wore one on a Sunday morning to help advertise and soon youth and adults were all wearing the AHYEAH t-shirt.

August 10 - 11 - Back To School BattleCry

This was the event to continue building on the foundation that Extreme Camp had laid. It was a launching pad for the youth to take on the school year. It was a 24 hour fast where the purpose was to immerse ourselves spiritually into Christ. It consisted of 3 teaching, 3 worships, 3 quiet times, 3 fellowships, and 3 hours of scripture reading. Terri set up the entire childrens area as multiple prayer stations, the library was a reading room, we had a teacher from ORU come and teach, the youth played tons of team building games.
The last service was taught by Mrs. Terri where she challenged the youth to take the school year for Christ. Then, all the youth paired up with someone that they had agreed to be an accountability partner with: to keep in touch throughout the week and encourage to stand strong in the exhausting atmosphere of school. Each pair of youth were given a piece of thick climbing string to make a bracelet or ankelet with (burn-ons). Basically you melt the ends so that the only way it comes off is to cut it off. Some of the youth wore there accountabiblity burn-ons for long over a year.
Finally, the parents of the involved youth got together and made a pot luck for them to break their fast with. We ate a ton of food, and the youth really grew from the experience.

August 16th - Church Work Day

I expected more youth to show up than did, but we really worked hard and I developed quite a respect for the ones that did. We filled and stacked sand bags.
Later that night, we met for a pool party and had a blast playing pool volleyball.

Ministry at West Tulsa UMC

Through August, Jesse, Jacqui, and I continued to work at West Tulsa UMC with the youth there every Wednesday evening.

July 2008

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Jacqui and I had just begun working at Abiding Harvest and at this point hadn't even met all of the youth yet. We were still working on names and getting to know the culture and atmosphere of AHYEAH.

May - Pink Flamingoing

When Jacqui and I came to AHYEAH, they were already involved in Flamingoing to raise money for Extreme Camp. We would go every Friday all the way through July to plant 20-30 pink birds in people lawns. Someone in the church would hire the youth group to do this. Ya it was a blast.

July 2nd - Ministry @ West Tulsa UMC

Within the first few weeks of working, I was introduced to a fabulous pastor in West Tulsa, Pastor Bill Welch. He had been working with 10-20 urban youth from the neighborhood around their church. Pastor Chris and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to expand the horizons of AHYEAH and slowly work together with Pastor Welch, perhaps mix services sometime in the future.
We felt the first step was for the leaders to begin working with Pastor Welch and build relationships with his youth. Beginning on July 2,2008 Jesse (a youth leader at AHYEAH) and myself began working together with Ashley, an ORU student who was volunteering her time to the ministry in West Tulsa. We would go hang out with them doing projects, bible studies, and playing football with them every Wed.
Our plan was for the leaders to build relationship with the youth, then start bringing some of the AHYEAH youth to hang out with them. Then after the AHYEAH core had built friendships with them, bring the urban youth to hang out at AHYEAH. This way they would already know the leaders and core youth and feel semi-comfortable.
Several months of volunteering on Wed.s and we were bringing more and more AHYEAH youth, but when school and sports kicked in, many of the West Tulsa youth stopped coming. Then track and school got hecktic with the Ashley the leader everything dispersed. Grunt.

July 4th - 4th of July Fireworks

Our 1st Independance Day with AHYEAH was tons of fun. We went to Liberty Church for there fireworks show, which was awesome. We met some more of the kids, and had an opportunity to goof off with them. At some point we wrapped Spencer in caution tape and put a chair over him. hehe. Then afterwards we went to Steak n' Shake for some milk shakes and watched Rhema's fireworks in the distance. Pretty sweet.

July 10th - Camp T-Shirts

With Extreme Camp right around the corner, Jesse and I brainstormed the idea of all of AHYEAH that was going having identical shirts. Hand painted identical shirts with the theme that Terri and I heard from God about "Living Life Stoked!" Jesse and I agreed on a sillohuate (sp) of a guy with flames behind him. Separately, we drew out what we saw in our heads. When we compared pics, it was the same thing (God is too cool)!!!
We spent all night till 7am cutting stencils, spray painting, running to the store to buy more paint, drying, and having a blast. We cranked out 15+ shirts. They were SWEET!!!
July 11th
More youth brought us more shirts and we painted more!

July 14th-18th - Extreme Camp 08'

Camp was awesome. We rented two vans and drove to Texas, of course stopping at the Texas statue which I learned was an AHYEAH tradition. Everyday we had excellent speakers, great bands, powerful altercalls, and ended the evenings with concerts. After everyone had gone to bed, Jesse and I would stay up and talk about each youth and their spiritual growth brainstorming how we could continue to partner with them through this week.
We saw bands like Skillet, Kutless, and Sanctus Real. We played extreme sports including paintball, which was my first time ever. I did terrible, but loved it!
We got home safe, and the t-shirts were a hit. We had some growing opportunities, and I felt that the youth took them in stride.

July 23rd - Extreme Bash

Immediately after camp, we wanted to prolong the camp high as long as possible. So we had an event remembering camp memories. We invited everyone (not just camp attendants) and split into teams. They would run around the church from station to station completing challenges. The challenges were teambuilding games, low ropes challenges, and it all ended with a service where the theme was Living Life Stoked. It was powerful!

First AHYEAH Blog

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Hello soon to be faithful readers,

Wow, there is so much that has happened already in the past year and 10 months that I only wish that I'd begun this back at the beginning. This blog has several purposes.
First, it will document the journey (successes and failures) of a growing youth ministry in the middle of Broken Arrow, OK toward Christ and His goals for us and those we come into contact with.
Secondly, may it continually act as a tangible testimony to/for our God about the many mighty works that He has done and shown Himself in/through.
Third, it is here to keep parents, leaders, youth, and all those praying for us informed of what is going on at AHYEAH and what God is doing in/through us.

May God recieve all glory and honor and praise. Amen