Suncreststudentlife’s Weblog

Welcome Mitch!!!

As of December 1st Mitch Wright will be joining the Suncrest staff as the Student Life Worship Intern. Mitch is a Junior at Chesterton High School and is heavily involved in the music department. Mitch has been playing in the Student Life Worship Band since he was in 6th grade. He started out playing bass guitar, then because of his passion for music, he started playing electric guitar when we were in a pinch. As if that wasn’t enough, he started playing acoustic guitar and in the spring of his 8th grade year he lead worship in Student Life Worship for the very first time! Ever since then he has been on our rotation of worship leaders. Mitch and I have had a number of conversations over the years about his desire to be a worship minister…or go into some form of ministry as a career. So, in an attempt to maximize his giftedness and to help Mitch see what a career in ministry really looks like, he has joined our staff. I believe this is going to be a tremendous experience for Mitch to grown and learn and bless Suncrest. When you get a chance, please encourage Mitch and welcome him to the staff.

If you haven’t been in a while, you need to stop by and check it out.  There was some great energy during worship; Robert introduced a new way to start “Song of Hope.”   Students really seemed to be engaged during the message…which is always encouraging.  Community groups  have made such progress recently. They have gotten to the point where the students are really going deeper and doing life together.  We had to break one group up at 8:50 to tell them to go home.

The Christmas Coffee House is December 15th at 7:00 PM.

This Sunday is a pretty big day for Student Life Ministries.  It’s Teen Sunday, and I know for a fact that Jared is a little stressed about it seeing as he has to preach.  Not only that, but I’m pretty sure he leaves in a few minutes for St. Louis, for a Cardinals game with his boy Gibson then some family time Saturday morning with his parents followed by a mad dash back to St. John for Chris Hall’s bachelor party only to land back home late and exhausted before catching a few hours sleep to wake up before the sunrise Sunday morning.  Not exactly the calm relaxing prep time one would dream of before the responsibility of engaging hundreds of people for a message on Christ.  Sometimes things are less than ideal.

I use that statement a lot.  The wording is always just a little bit different, but in the end the message is still the same.  For me it’s often an excuse to be less than perfect.  Let me indulge you with some past examples.  My lesson for Team56 didn’t go as well as I hoped… well that’s because the age and demographic of the students is not within my ideal skill set.  The mailer I sent out didn’t quite have that wow effect I desired… well that’s because I had to create it in Publisher which is not the ideal program.  “John Doe” asked me a question about something important… but I was tired and had other things on my mind and some of my relationships weren’t where I wanted them to be, and well… it just wasn’t the ideal time to talk about it.  So I didn’t.

I thought about this, maybe you have too.  It has led me to only one logical conclusion thus far.  The issue isn’t that things are less than ideal.  The issue is I am less than ideal.  It kinda has a distinct feeling of less than adequate doesn’t it?

We are all  creatures of habit and we get thrown for a loop when we change things up.  It is one of the reasons people have such an adverse reaction to change.  Even though it is hard on me, I absolutely love change.  There is an excitement in the air when new patterns are being developed. If the change is the right change, I know that something great will come out of it even if it is weird for me to change my Thursday morning sermon writing time at Starbucks to Monday, I know it is totally worth it!

Questions for thought…

How do you respond to change?

Do you lead with an open mind?

If you are a person that fears change and has a hard time with it, take an hour or two and read this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-My-Cheese-Amazing/dp/0091816971/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251132483&sr=8-1

This has been an exciting time of year in youth ministry; students are filled with nervous energy because school is starting.  At this point, most students are either back in school or will be soon.  It is also a season of transitions as some students go to middle school or high school for the first time.  We are also making some transitions in the Suncrest Student Ministries this fall. Our first change is the addition of some new programming.

A couple of years back we decided that we need to do something special for our 5^th and 6^th grade students. Our reasons for doing so are that most 5^th grade students are ready to be done with “children’s ministry” and tend to lose interest in our Team Go programming for that age group, and most 6^th grade students are overwhelmed by our Student Life Ministries programming. So, with that in mind, we created Team56, a special ministry just for 5^th and 6^th graders. Team 56 kicked off on Friday night with the amazingly fun Jell-o Olympics. We had a great turn out, and had tons of fun. Everyone ended up covered in Jell-o with big smiles. The Jell-o Olympics also built great momentum for the Team 56 Class that that met for the first time on Sunday morning with a crowd of very excited 5^th and 6^th grade students!

This fall we have a new line up in Student Life Ministries.  We have moved Student Life Worship to Tuesday nights. The new lineup is:

6:30        Doors Open

7:00        Worship Begins

7:45        Community Groups

8:30        Parents pick up students

We experimented with this format last spring and found that when students worship they are much more engaged during their community groups.  Tuesday night was great, and I have found that students love the idea of a worship service to give them a little boost during their crazy weeks.

Taking the place of Student Life Worship is Student Life Connect.  Student Life Connect takes place on Sunday mornings during the 9:30 and 11:00 services at West Campus and during the 9:30 service at East Campus.  Student Life Connect is designed to help students connect with each other and with Christ.  Sunday, I got to sit back and watch students sitting around tables talking with each other about the lesson, and working through their faith by talking about it with their friends.

This Friday we have an exciting night planned.  We are going to have a jell-o Olympics.  It is going to fun and crazy.  Make sure you wear cloths that can get messy.  We will provide trash bags for students to wear like a poncho so that they don’t make parents cars messy.  The Olympics last from 7 PM to 8:30 PM.

Deep River water park registration deadline is Sunday!

Attention all middle school students and parents of middle school students!!!!  We have a great trip planned and it is right around the corner.  On Tuesday August 11^th we are taking students to Deep River Water Park.  We will meet at the church at 9:15 AM and return by 5:00 PM.  The cost of the trip is $15, students will also need money for lunch.

The registration deadline is August 2^nd.

I started writing this blog post yesterday.  It began with one of those introspective analogies that bloggers use so often.  My plan was to mold it into a commentary on life and struggle, hope and passion, struggle and strife.  Yes I used struggle twice, and yes it made for an awkward sentence.  Bloggers are whinny and talk way more about struggle than anything else, get over it.  Anyway, I deleted it.  After the first paragraph was written Jared walked out, said I think I’m getting the flu and left me in the office for the next 6 hours to entertain myself.  My list included sending one text message to one person to delegate one task, writing a blog post, and reading.  Not what you call a full day.  I went home. I decided to come in Friday and bank on more tasks needing to be tackled then.  So here I sit Tuesday morning Jared is still under the weather and I am left with about the same workload.  The difference is that for my day off I made the best decision that could be made for a day off.  I ran home, took a quick shower (During this time Mrs. Stooksbury managed to pack me a lunch a family of four would struggle to finish.  It’s scary how much she reminds me of my mother at times.), and hoped in my car to travel three and a half hours for a surprise visit to the lady friend.

It made for a late night seeing as there was still a three and a half hour trip back to Suncrest, but it was well worth the effort.  Kels was down in Cincy for orientation at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music which meant that there was a lot of craziness going on when I arrived.  We both agreed that it wasn’t the most opportune time to visit but a welcomed one nonetheless.  One of the coolest parts of the whole trip was the free recital some of the 3^rd and 4^th year students put on.  Talented would be an understatement.  As usual the final performance of the night was the best. Two guys entered from stage left.  You just got this feeling that you were about to witness something beyond explanation.  Kels and I looked at each other pointed to the curly red head with sharp features and said, “He’s gonna be gooooood.”  I think Kelsey’s roommate fell in love by the second chord.

In all it was a good day off to be had.  The trip back, as long and late as it was, was good.  It was full of thoughts that needed thinking; so many thoughts that even though I didn’t get home until after two in the morning I had trouble falling asleep.  As much as I hate losing sleep, it was a welcomed process of thought provoking confusion and even a few moments of clarity.

In the past couple months I’ve begun fishing with Ashley’s youngest brother, Brandon. We have started making a habit of going out on Saturday mornings to a different location and spending a few hours talking, fishing, and just having a great time. From the early start, to the fight of bringing in a larger fish, to the conversations about life, to the entertainment of countless near falls out of the john-boat, these mornings away from the hustle and bustle of life have been especially rejuvenating for myself. I find that no matter what I’m doing, I have a difficult time getting up early in the morning. Or at least I had a hard time getting up in the morning. Since Brandon and I have started fishing I’ve had to get up about 5:30 to pick him up. Those Saturday mornings have been such a relaxing experience that I’ve walked away from them feeling refreshed and ready to get going with my next week.

The reason I share this story is because I feel like all too often I miss this aspect of my life… the aspect of rest. I have always heard the sermons on rest and God creating the universe in six days and resting the seventh and about how that rest doesn’t have to be doing nothing but rather doing something that energizes you, but I’ve never really fully understood that until I started purposely setting aside that day to go fishing. I also noticed that even though this isn’t something I’ve been doing for months or years, it really does bother me when I miss that day of relaxation in my week. It really does help shape my week and dictate whether or not I feel rested or just worn down.