rolled in town with time to spare to take in the first session for the National Youth Ministry Conference being held in Columbus. the seagway olympics was classic. the creative energy of josh and jake and the gain really makes the conference a lot of fun. i bumped into a few old friends. on tap tonite beyond doug field’s welcoming the gathering was the introduction of the harris twins…brett and alex. authors of do hard things: a teenage rebellion against low expectations and bloggers – they reminded all of us that 1) today’s 13-18 year olds understand the big things about God and 2) that God can use the youth we serve to do big things for him. one interesting fact came from the conferences that these young men have hosted around the country..the most popular book at their book table is wesley gruden’s systematic theology text. that’s not light weight stuff. and it does say something about this current generation and a hunger to impact the world differently. beyond the great worship we were introduced to the amazing heart and talent of three musicians who comprise the band braddigan. simply amazing. artists who are working to return the mystery to music for the sake of honoring the Creator. the band is dedicated to taking God’s music to those broken and disconnected….because if His music is there, nothing else can be. fun stuff. more tomorrow.
#nymc day 1
sweet soviet georgia?
a former seminary professor of mine, ben witherington found this amazing video featuring a finnish rock band and suggests that the 2nd coming may be close…”the Russian bear is lying down with the Finnish reindeer and not thinking of Christmas dinner!”…presenting the The Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Choir. amazing.
professor ben is a prolific writer on and lover of the Scriptures. his blog is a lot of fun too. one of my best profs.
pearl jam, carrasco and run it back.
a friend, rudy carrasco spent the weekend in grand rapids. while there he spent some time teaching at mars hill church…telling his story. rudy is on the front line of of doing ministry in a way “to see the resurrection happen all over again….see the scripture happen all over again.”
rudy makes mention of this youtube video…just for the fun of it. it is kinda of weird…but fun.
you can download his message here. (you’ll have to listen to figure out what “run it back” is all about).
we just finished a series at the.evolution on developing habits the will change your life. the last session was on studying scripture and i sent the students home with a bible study on the book of 1 john. rudy’s core text was based on 1 john1:1-10. some interesting things here.
rudy is a great servant leader and i’m glad a handful of our students had some time with him when we were out west two summers ago. 
we stopped by at harambee and did some work on their streetscape. it was a little job – we added a couple of containers to the curb for recycling. a modest effort, but something that gave us a small sense of being part of their larger mission of impacting the neighborhood for the Kingdom.
kaitlyn, emmah and mitch give it their best effort. that’s rudy and his boy sam walking in the background.
snowcamp09
had a great couple of days at snowcamp @ pleasant hill outdoor center. the weather was cold enough, and we did get a slight dusting at the camp. but we still had to draw on the creative talents of our program director ben to make the weekend memorable… and he did great.
the video above is a fun clip (a good idea from kevin) that gives props to our head cook, mrs. swindall and her able sidekick mrs.henderson. they both worked hard and blessed us with much great food to eat.
we ended up calling another “audible” of sorts by surprising the campers saturday morning with a trip to a local snow tubing park. we just told them to get dressed in the woolies and mittens and then we loaded up for the short drive. these events are so important to building a sense of community into the youth group.
you can check out some additional videos on the student ministry blog here.
driscoll on nightline- sex and Jesus
what can i say? mark is a great leader. i’m grateful to his leadership in the Kingdom. his outpost is doing some great stuff. check it out here.
check this out
