Youth Ministry Lessons I Learned in 2010 Pt. 2

The 2nd lesson comes from the theme song of the show Cheers "people want to go where everybody knows their name."

Let me explain, in the fall of 2009 our youth ministry grew to 300 students, going into February of 2010 I was confident we would grow to 400 or more students. I was wrong! LOL. We stayed at 300 and even dropped in numbers. It was depressing & left me scratching my head. The big question is "what are we missing?"

I'm a processor & as I looked at my youth ministry I realized we had a lot of students coming but they were all strangers coming from all over OKC, each student only new a couple students. As I recognized this I realized we would not grow anymore unless our students were building meaningful relationships with each other & our leaders.

With that we didn't waste anytime & we launched community groups (small groups) in May of 2010.

With the groups our students began building relationships with each other & the leaders. I believe this played a huge part in our spiritual & numerical growth that we saw in the Fall of 2010.

Community Groups will always be a major focus for us. It takes a lot of work & leaders but is well worth it!

Later this week I'll share what I learned about community groups.

Youth Ministry Lessons I Learned in 2010 Pt. 1

My blog has been MIA lately but I wanted to take some time to write out some lessons I learned in youth ministry this year.

Having a big outreach month where you spread out your resources is way more effective then putting all of your resources into one big night.

The big night may be more glamorous but the big month is more effective.

In February we did one big night & doubled attendance that night but it only lasted that night, LOL. I can laugh now but I wasn't laughing then.

In September we did one big month & over a month we doubled our youth ministry & they didn't disappear the next month, thank you Jesus!

There is a much greater chance of retention getting a student to come 2-4 weeks in a row versus one night.

A blog by Kevin Moore of Oneighty, plus my February failure really opened my eyes to this strategy.

Lastly let me say this is by far not the one and only way to do outreaches but it was extremely effective for us.

Thoughts?

Wow!!!

This week we ministered to 587 students & tonight we had 15 salvations! Thank you Jesus!

I want to give a huge shoutout to the Epic Leadership Team! You guys are amazing & thank you for all you do!!!

Record Setting Week at Epic

Huge thanks to everyone who prays for Epic! This week at Epic we ministered to 485 students and had over 20 commitments to Christ! To God be all the glory! This week has been amazing and I'm humbled by what God is doing. I'm also humbled by the commitment and hard work of all of our volunteers on both Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.

With the growth we are also aggressively recruiting for more growth. I'm a firm believer we should be ready for the harvest not catching up. With that each week we are adding new leaders to help us reach more students! Our youth leaders are the backbone of our ministry!

God is doing a special work here and I'm honored to be apart of it.

Please continue to pray for the harvest and leaders!

Free Burgers & Halo Jump at Epic Tomorrow Night!

Tomorrow night at Battle of Community Groups we are gonna be grilling 400 burgers & have a Halo Jump inflatable. We'll also have free pop, chips & cookies so bring your appetite & friends.

Don't forget u get double points for buying an Epic t-shirt ($10) & by bringing a friend.

See you tomorrow night at Epic!

We are also having BBQ for adults & pizza for children so bring your whole family to People's Church!

All Students read these details about Battle Of Community Groups

We are continuing battle of community groups this Wed at Epic for high school & jr. high students. Groups get points by:

1. Having team spirit. Every group has a color, come decked out in your color & get big points!

2. Winning competitions. Every Wed night we have a crazy game. The group that wins get big points.

3. Buy an Epic T-Shirt. Students get huge points for their team by buying an Epic t-shirt. Buy a t-shirt this Wed & get double points!

4. Bring friends! A group gets double points for every guest they bring. Invite all your friends from school!

So why do these things to get points?

I'm glad you asked. Every student from the winning community group will win a prize at our Cram Night on Sept. 29th. Prizes that will be won are flat screen tv's, mall gift cards, toms gift card, food gift cards & more! Again every student on the winning group will win something!

We only have 3 weeks left so do whatever you have to do to get the most points!!!

If you have questions let me know!

Weekend Highlights

1. Friday night we had a great community group. We ate some amazing food, met some new people & had great conversations.

2. After community group I could not fall asleep for nothing. I had a weird sensation in my chest which kept me up til about 3 am. Probably from eating too much food :)

3. Saturday I watched a very satisfying Ohio State win & heartbreaking Notre Dame loss. In both cases I liked what I saw from both teams except OSU's special teams coverage.

4. Friday we took Jace to his first ever movie at a movie theater. We took him to see Toy Story 3. Thought it was a bit much for Jace but I personally loved it. Thought it was the best of all 3. However the $9 for popcorn & a drink is highway robbery!

5. Every night this weekend Jamie, Jace & I went for a walk in our neighborhood. These are one of my favorite moments with my family.

6. Epic Jr High had a great turnout for Big Day considering the rain. We had 133 students & 8 salvations! Thank you Jesus!

7. Bummed that the Colts lost today but it was weird, I wasn't surprised. I'm still confident we will make the playoffs.

8. So far I think I'm gonna win 4 put of my 5 fantasy games, pretty happy with that start.

9. My sinuses only bother me once or twice a year & this weekend is one of those times. I have itchy throat, stuffed nostril & a headache. Yuck!

10. This Wednesday is a big night for Epic! I'm pretty excited & praying for NO RAIN in JESUS NAME! That rhymed, I swear I got se rappin skillz :) Students don't miss out, parents make it a priority to bring your student! We are expecting more life change!

Epic Update

Here are a few things happening at Epic:

1. We are currently in a series called Glow. This series is about students being a light in their schools & communities. We talked about how light always shines in darkness, how God wants us to reach out to our neighbor, how the church exists to heal people & Christians exist to help bring people to Jesus. Check out the sermons on our Epic podcast on iTunes if you missed them.

2. We are currently selling epic t-shirts for our battle of community groups in September. Buy a shirt on Sunday or Wednesday to get big points for your group! T-shirts are $10.

3. Next Wed 8/25 & Sunday 8/29, I'm doing a message with a pretty sweet illustration & we are also having a special giveaway for every student that attends, bring some friends!!!

4. Next month we are doing a new series called Last Name: Ever, First Name: Greatest, where we look at who is the greatest ever of all time? Peyton Manning, Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Mohammed Ali? Who do think deserves the title greatest ever?

For more details you can email me at chris@peopleschurch.tv

Why We Delegate and Investigate at Epic - Pt. 3

"Delegation without investigation is an abomination." Ed Young

In order for us to delegate and investigate at Epic, here is the third factor:

3. Everyone must be willing to lead and be led. All of us are leading or being led in some capacity. For those of us with leaders underneath us we must lead without hesitation. We do that by training, caring, praying, correcting, delegating, communicating and loving those underneath our leadership.

Those of us being led must submit without hesitation. We do this by being humble, teachable, flexible, ready to serve, respectful, communicating, a team player and loving.

When leaders are leading and following we are operating like a well oiled machine and again it allows us to give our students our very best!

Why We Delegate and Investigate at Epic - Pt. 2

"Delegation without investigation is an abomination." Ed Young

In order for us to delegate and investigate at Epic, here is the second factor:

Communication is key, assuming is deadly. Haha that ryhmes, I promise if I wasn't a pastor I would be a rapper. JK, anyways. Everyone has to communicate with each other. The best way to make sure we are staying on point is by asking questions, dialoging and never assuming. When we assume we risk the chance something is not getting done or not being done correctly. Whenever we think about assuming we must go to the person that can give us the definitive answer to our assumption. Everyone must be on the same page and for this to happen we must communicate with each other. This also helps us give our students in OKC our very best!

Why We Delegate and Investigate at Epic - Pt. 1

I want to share with you a few quotes I have on my office wall over the next few blogs and why they are important to what we are doing at Epic.

First quote: "Delegation without investigation is an abomination." Ed Young

At Epic we investigate everything to make sure it is being done correctly and with excellence. My Youth Associate and myself are doing this, we expect all of our team leaders to do this and expect those being led to embrace the investigation process. We have a huge vision to reach and disciple every student in OKC and this vision will be accomplished with us paying attention/investigating every detail.

With our ministry growing tons of stuff is delegated which means we need to be on point with our delegation and what is being accomplished.

In order for us to do this effectively a few things must happen, here is the first:

1. Everyone must have thick skin and be flexible.

If we are correcting or changing something it's not because we are trying to be difficult or jerks. We believe our students deserve the very best, they deserve an experience done with excellence and if nothing else in their life is excellent, Epic will be. Every bit of critique, correction, follow up must be received with an attitude of making Epic better for our students. So with that yes we expect everything to be done with excellence, we expect everyone to be on time and on point and we will investigate every detail because our students deserve nothing less then the best!

Stay tuned for more.

iPhone Blogger

I have not done well blogging from a computer so here goes nothing trying from my iPhone.

Personally I use my iPhone for everything! Here a few things I use the most on my iPhone:

1. My calendar. I need to sync my phone more often because if I ever lost it I would be in trouble. When I set up a meeting or write down an important date the first place I put it is my iPhone.

2. Text messaging, thank the lord for whoever invented text messaging.

3. Social media. Most of my facebook & twitter stuff is done from my phone.

4. Weather App. I'm checking this all the time praying there will be food weather on Wed & Sun.

5. Maps. No more mapquest or paper directions for me. Now this has burned me a few times but I still use it all the time.

6. I'm hoping the blogger app. I guess we will see. :)

Believe it or not I don't use my email a lot because it would control my life. I limit emails to my work computer so I'm not emailing all time. I struggled with this when I first got my iPhone but now have it under control.

My wife is an amazing mother

Jace is truly blessed with an amazing mom. Jamie's care & love for Jace is out of this world. She is great at caring for his needs, playing with him & teaching him all kinds of stuff like ABC's, colors, names & more! He knows his mommy & loves her!

Thanks Babe for being such an amazing mom. I've enjoyed every minute of this parenting journey with you!

Thanks also for changing a lot of poopy diapers. I'm such a wimp!

My Mom

In honor of my mom I want to share some insights about the things I appreciate about my mom:

1. My mom is a servant. She excels at putting others ahead of herself. From visiting complete strangers at the nursing home on a regular basis, to driving cancer patients to their appointments, including widows on family gatherings so they aren't alone, to going above & beyond for her kids & grandkids, taking care of her mom who was having a tough battle with cancer, to picking up panera bread to take to a food shelter & giving bday & Xmas money to convoy of hope, Haiti & Katrina relief. I'm very inspired & challenged by her selfless acts. Just for these things my mom is a hero in my eyes.

2. My mom is healthy, I give her a hard time about this at times but she is always lookin out for our health & cares about us adding years to our life vs. taking years away. & although I do appreciate this I have to say I will never eat brussel sprouts :) Sorry mom.

3. My mom loves to travel with family. I have reaped many benefits from this & Lord knows my step dad & grandpa have played a huge role too but I'm thankful & feel pretty lucky for all the places I have been.

4. My mom has always taught us "blood is thicker then water". Family is a big deal to my mom & because of her it's a big deal to me too, I know all my grandparents, cousins, aunts & uncles & love it. We r a close family and I plan to do the same with Jace. Family always comes first!

5. Last but not least my mom is a huge believer in being debt free. We are on our way there & I apprecaite all my moms advice & her example when it comes to debt.

There is a lot more but as I was writing tonight this is what stuck out to me. As you can see my mom is a pretty amazing woman.

Love you Mom!

Week In Review

NBA Playoff predictions: Magic over the Hawks, Celtics over the Cavs, Lakers over the Jazz and Spurs over the Suns. I just wanted to put those out there now here are some highlights from my week:

1. Monday I arrived in Atlanta with the other directors from People's Church for the Drive Conference. Got a lot of great insight from the conference and had a blast with our staff.

2. Being at a church that has 1100 students in their youth ministry really challenged me and helped me see some steps we need to take to get to that level. It also helped me see we are on the right track of someday reaching and discipling over 1000 students!

3. Wednesday we flew back to OKC and got back to the church just in time for Epic! All of April we have been planning, strategizing and praying for a new community groups launch. We launched on Wed and are on the right track. The greatest part was seeing 100% of our students in community and excited about it. The future looks very bright!

4. Thursday I had a great day at work and got a lot done. I hardly had any catching up to do because Rachel, my assistant and Juan, my associate did a great job holding down the fort while I was gone. It's a blessing to leave for 3 days and know everything is being taken care of.

5. Thursday is also Survivor night and this may be my favorite season. I was pulling for Russell but now I want him to get the boot. I would love to see Rupert win it all!

6. Friday, slept in a little (I like to sleep), worked a little and now we are going on a family date featuring Chick Fil A and the mall!

7. Till next week have a great weekend and I want to wish a Happy Mother's Day to every Mom out there!

The Best Part about the Drive Conference

I'm currently in Atlanta for the Drive Conference with our staff from People's Church. At this conference I have gotten a lot of good nuggets and insight regarding leadership and ministry but my favorite part has been hanging out with my coworkers. We have laughed a ton and are developing memories and stories that will last a lifetime. The conference is great but the relational connection with my coworkers has been even better. I'm very blessed to work with such great men of God, who work hard, are humble, love ministry and love to have a good time.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and I can't wait to see my students at Epic and my family!

I'll also post some of my insights on here later this week.

Thunder Up!!!!

The Thunder struggled last night but I still think they can upset the Lakers. I know most people will think I'm crazy but I'm pretty sure they will win game 6 and then all they have to do is steal game 7. Easier said then done right? Well I'm gonna pull some inspiration from the movie Miracle. We may play 8 games in LA and get beat 7 out of 8 times but we only need one win in LA to win it all. Game 7 will be that one game!!! Go Thunder!!!

P90 Fail

Well I have been faithfully doing P90X for 4 weeks with only missing a workout here and there and haven't lost a pound! I could blame it on the workout but the reality is my eating habits have not been good. For some reason I thought because I was doing all these workouts that I could eat worse and it has busted me in the face. I forgot that when I lost over 40 pounds I did it with eating healthy and only working out once or twice a week.

The lesson learned that is applicable in many different areas in our life: one bad habit can ruin good intentions and bunch of good habits. It's gotta be all or nothing for true success!

Weekend Highlights

1. Thunder Up!!! Both Thunder games were awesome & I think they can win the series!

2. I watched the NFL draft & loved it! I can't wait for August!

3. Baseball is back & my Yankees are looking good. I'm looking forward to back to back championships!

4. Enough of sports, Sunday at People's Church was amazing as always . Many lives were changed! I love being at a church where every Sunday is an unforgettable experience!

5. After church Jamie, Jace & I went to the Arts festival and shared an Indian Taco! It was a cool experience & great food!

6. Sunday night something happened to me that hasn't happened since I was in Elementary school...I fell asleep before 9 pm. I'm still shocked! Must have been a tiring weekend.

7. P90x is still in effect but the weight is not coming off, I'll blog more about that tomorrow.

Hillsong United Concert

Last night I went to the Hillsong United concert, they are my favorite worship band. We had floor tickets and this was my first time seeing them live. At first I didn't like being on the floor because people kept squeezing in, bumping into me and I felt more like a spectator then a worshiper but then I moved to the back by myself and had an amazing time with God.

It was extremely refreshing and God was speaking to me in so many different ways. Sometimes on Wed and Sun it's hard to worship like I did yesterday because I'm thinking about details, students, my message and everything else that goes along with ministry. I still worship but it's not the same. As I was processing this God really spoke to my heart about having more personal times of worshiping! I read my bible, pray and listen to worship music but I'm going to start having more times of listening AND singing. Tonight I will be spending some time worshiping to the songs Tear Down the Walls and With Everything!

Lord of the Bling Highlights

Currently we are in a series called Lord of the Bling. Here are some highlights from this series:

1. The last two weeks we have talked about money and still have seen over 20 students commit their lives to Christ. Thank you Jesus!

2. The first week we talked about what it meant for Jesus to be Lord of our life, he must be Lord first before we are going to give him control of anything, especially our finances. If he's not Lord of all, He's not Lord at all!

3. It's been a huge blessing to see students returning the tithe to God since we started this series, Jr. High and High School students!!!

4. I was blessed by a student who shared with me his plan to tithe, put money away in savings and be wise with the rest. The best part was his enthusiasm, he was so pumped! Thank You Lord.

5. My high school students went crazy when I said they could buy a pair of Jordan's at Ross, they laughed at me like I was crazy. I didn't get it because you really can buy Jordan's at Ross!! They may be old but you can. :)

6. Tonight I shared with students the one way they could get more money. I told them to give it away, a number of students at the same time said "What?!" They thought I was crazy but then we dived into God's word and they were totally engaged with the message.

7. Next week we are talking about the Misconceptions of Money, this has a been a great series and I'm looking forward to closing it out with a bang!

If you missed any of the messages check out our podcast on iTunes. Search Epic Student Ministries.

Side Note: Thanks to Kevin Moore for his book on Teens questions about money and to Rusty Railey for the creative title Lord of the Bling!

Switching It Up and Going Lefty!

I'm not sure what happened but a couple months ago I hurt my right elbow which has prevented me from playing racquetball. Well two weeks ago I decided to try and play left handed and really enjoyed it. I hit the ball like a weakling but it wasn't too bad. Playing with my off hand forced me to run around more and get a better workout.

It made me realize I got so comfortable with my right that sometimes I slacked when it came to moving around the court because I knew my swing could bail me out.

This has caused me to look at my spiritual life and ministry. Have I gotten too comfortable with the motions and my strengths that I'm not doing things that will stretch me and force me to grow? Am I using my strengths to bail myself out, skimp on prep and conditioning? I encourage you to ask yourself these same questions. I know if I'm going to be a great leader I must always be growing and stretching.

Currently I'm being stretched by many things and I always want to keep it that way, which means from time to time I'm going to have to use my left hand to keep myself in check.

I'm also gonna become an ambidextrous racquetball player. :)

Sweating

I just finished the 1st workout of week 4 of the p90x workout. I tried to do this workout in the past but only lasted a few days. This time is different because I have two motivating factors:

1. Jamie, Jace and I are going on a cruise in a few weeks and I don't want anyone mistaking me for a whale that jumped on board, lol.

2. Jamie and I have been doing the workout together. This is more motivating then the other part and I'm very thankful that me and my wife can do things like this together.

I started this workout weighing 220 pounds and am very curious where I will be when I finish. My goal is the elusive 200. During the workout I'm going on a cruise, to the drive conference and a visit to Indy will make it tough but I know I can do it.

I will be sure to let you know the results! Peace out homies!

What I've Learned About Planning An Outreach Pt. 1

Over the next few days I'm gonna blog about youth outreaches that we have done and what I have learned from them.

The first outreach I did for Epic was in end of April of 2008. We did an 80's Hip Hop Cram Night. Kids dressed up in 80's, we played 80's hip hop music, had inflatables, free pizza, had giveaways (food gift cards), 3 on 3 bball, a break dancing contest and gave away 2 Ipod touches. One ipod touch was given to the student who brought the most friends that month and another was given away to a visitor. We promoted the Cram Night with a mailer and invitations.

At that time we had around 70-80 students attending Epic and at the Cram Night we had around 250 students show up! It was a record attending night! It was a huge win. The next Wednesday OKC was hit with a few tornadoes around 5-6 pm and we only had 20 students. It was another record attending night, haha. We went from a huge high to a huge low. The next week we were back to normal attendance of 70-80 students.

Here is what I learned:

1. Inflatables and free food have always been a win for us.

2. End of April is a bad time to do an outreach because we then hit May which features graduation, end of school and then the summer. Very bad timing because for us May has always been a slow month for our youth ministry. We now do outreaches in February and September.

3. Our follow calls were not very aggressive.

4. 80's is a weird decade to dress up for. We didn't have a lot of dress up participation this night.

We put on a great outreach but our timing and follow up was not very good.

My Week In Review

Here are some updates from my week:

1. This last Sunday we introduced Juan and Katelynn Martinez to our students. Juan is our new youth associate. We are very excited about them being on our team and know they are going to help us reach many more students in OKC.

2. Getting Juan situated plus our Cram Night has kept me very busy this week! At our Cram Night Juan spoke at our Jr. High portion and did a great job! Again I'm super pumped about him being on our staff!

3. Speaking of the Cram Night, it was amazing. We had 354 students in attendance and 40 salvation's. This week we ministered to 456 students! Thank You Jesus!!!

4. We did a a talent show and it went very well. I'm very proud of all of our students who participated. Our high school winner was CJ Walker and our jr. high winner was Lewis Perez.

5. Huge thanks to Heather Hurst who planned the talent show, did all the auditions, behind the scenes work and worked with all our students who participated.

6. Another big thanks to all of our leaders and volunteers, this night would not have been a success without you. Thanks so much for your love, commitment and service to our students!

7. Chick Fil A catered our Cram Night and did an outstanding job. They even brought the cow mascot! I highly recommend them!

8. Next Wed we are following up our Cram Night with the message "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Students make sure you don't miss this message and bring your friends!

9. I know most of my weekly updates were about Cram Night but that is what consumed my week and it was awesome! A very successful outreach for us!

10. Next week I'm going to attempt to blog about what I've learned about planning outreaches.

Weekend Update

1. This is the first weekend when there was no football, I miss it!!! I'm already counting down the two months to the NFL draft!

2. My good friend Jason Patterson came in town and stayed with us Saturday night. He is officially an OKC resident and it will be great to have him attending People's Church and helping with Epic when he can. Jason is one of the friends I still keep in regular contact with from college. He is also a great communicator if you are looking to book a speaker.

3. Saturday the weather was amazing, we took a walk with Jace and enjoyed the sunshine.

4. Sunday the weather was not amazing. The wind was blistering cold!

5. Pastor Herbert gave a great message on Lust this past Sunday. Go listen or watch it right now on www.peopleschurch.tv.

6. Just like Wed. with our High Schoolers I talked to our Jr. Highers about dating and gave them all a kiss...again it was a Hershey's kiss.

7. Jamie and I celebrated Valentine's Day with a shake at Steak n Shake. They have the best shakes and I have the best Valentine. I love you sooooooo much Jamie.

Epic Recap From Wed. Night

Wednesday Night we had an amazing night at Epic. I talked about how to tame the L Word Emotion. Here are the 5 points I shared (a few were from Kevin Moore's book, "Answering your toughest questions about sex, love & dating". It was a great resource!)

1. Wait to Date.

2. Set Boundaries.

3. Don't Mistake Lust For Love

4. Be Friends First (or as Pastor Herbert says "Go Slow and Get to Know")

5. Always Have A Third Wheel (The Holy Spirit)

I also told the students to disregard WWJD when it comes to dating because Jesus didn't date, instead they should use WWYDIJWRNTY (What would you do if Jesus was right next to you!)

If you want to check out the message you can download on itunes for free on the Epic Student Ministries Podcast.

We also had 6 salvation's and I gave every student a kiss so they wouldn't feel left out this Valentine's day. I know what you are thinking, it was a Hershey's kiss :)

Expecting a Great Spring

This past fall we had an amazing season of growth in our youth ministry. By God's blessing we grew to a weekly attendance of 300 students. After Thanksgiving things slowed down with holidays, Wednesday Connect taking a break and bad weather and our numbers dropped. Through that time I got a little nervous and prayed our numbers would jump back up and as of last week they did. Weather was better, Wednesday Connect started up and we are back to where we were in the fall and I'm very excited for the Spring. We are expecting big things at Epic and I'm just honored to be apart of what God is doing.

Reflections from the Super Bowl

1. I talked a ton of trash about the Colts winning the super bowl and ate every word Sunday night.

2. If we had to lose to a team I'm glad we lost to the Saints. I'm happy for that city and like Drew Brees and Sean Payton.

3. The Saints played to win the game and the Colts didn't. Except for Dwight Freeney, he is a beast and his play was very courageous. The only player with torn ligaments in his ankle got the only sack in the Super Bowl. Dwight you are the man.

4. Why are the Colts so susceptible to the trick play? This drives me crazy.

5. If the Colts make it to the Super Bowl next year I will do everything I can to get tickets since the game is in Dallas. It's on my bucket list to go to a Colt's Super Bowl game and next year may be my best chance.

6. Although we lost we made it to the Super Bowl without Anthony Gonzalez and Bob Sanders, the Colts have a lot of young talent and I'm excited for the next couple years.

7. Again Congratulations to the Saints they deserved it and in case you didn't know Drew Brees went to Purdue and Porter who had the pick six went to IU so it's still kind of a win for Indiana, lol.

Good night!

Busy and Productive Week

Here are some highlights of my week:

1. Everyday I enjoy the thought of the Colts winning the Super Bowl! Who Dat? It's the Colts baby!!!

2. 24 is back and I'm loving it, however, I did think this week's episode was a little weak.

3. We had a great night at Epic Wed. night. I preached about the affects of negative media and how we need to hate what is evil and cling to what is good. I also remade the song 3 and Bedrock. Listen to the podcast next week if you missed it. We also had 14 salvation's. Thank you Jesus!

4. I've been doing well with my eating but haven't got to play racquetball all week. Bummer.

5. This Sunday we have an Epic leaders potluck after church. I can't wait to hang out, eat and share some vision with my team! I serve with some amazing people.

6. Currently it is raining ice outside. Everyone be safe!

7. Jace and I went to a Santa Fe basketball game on Tuesday and had lots of fun. The girls game was pretty amazing with a game tying 3 to send the game into overtime, in overtime the girls won! The boys dominated their game.

8. Tonight is a movie night with Jamie and Jace.

Questions that are on my mind

1. How do we reach more students who are far from God?

2. How does Epic become more diverse?

3. How do we do better at plugging students into community groups?

4. How can we get more students serving in the church?

5. What kind of leaders do I need to be intentional about surrounding myself with? Specifically people who are strong in areas I am weak.

6. What can we modify in our Jr. High Experience to ensure it's something every Jr. Higher wants to come back to?

Some of these I feel I'm getting close to figuring out, as for the others the journey continues :)

Weekend Update! Better late then never!

1. Big win for the Colts on Saturday and San Diego sent us a late Christmas present by blowing the game against the Jets. Personally I'm punching our ticket to the Super Bowl, Miami here we come!!!

2. I think the Super Bowl will be Minnesota vs Indianapolis, the two greatest quarterbacks will go head to head and Peyton will come out on top.

3. Sunday was a great day at People's Church. We had awesome adult experiences, great Jr. High experiences and an amazing connect.me. I love my church!

4. This weekend I went to a youth leaders conference with 20 of my leaders. It was a great time to hang and learn with them. I love my leadership team!

5. One of my favorite parts of the conference was connecting with a fellow youth pastor and hanging out with my youth leaders.

6. Last week's fast was amazing for me spiritually. I'm really excited about what God is going to do in my life personally, in my family and in the ministry.

7. Jamie and I broke the fast with Domino's pizza. With their new campaign we are sold. There new pizza IS really good. I have never ordered Domino's in my life and in the last month we've ordered it twice! Check it out.

8. 24 has started. Jack is the man, nuff said!

Epic Update - The Chair

Last night at Epic I preached a message called What If We Reach One More Person? I'm sure you can guess but I challenged the students to...reach one more person. We still have empty chairs in Epic and we want to do everything we can to fill those chairs. There are hurting and lost students in OKC that need to sit in those chairs and I'm believing God to use our students to help us reach students all over OKC. We saw a great harvest last fall and are expecting greater things in 2010. To end my message I shared a video we used at People's Church called The Chair. If you haven't seen it here it is and I pray it challenges you to fill every chair at your church so then you can buy more chairs :)

Beatin up the Flesh

This is our week of prayer and fasting at People's Church and after only being in it 3 days it has been amazing! God has really been challenging me to have more personal growth, to be a stronger spiritual leader for my family and giving me tons of direction for Epic. After a busy season of ministry this is exactly what I needed! It's amazing what happens when we weaken of flesh and get closer to God. I also realize how much I love food, lol, denying my body food has messed me up but I'm so thankful for the spiritual benefits. If you haven't come to prayer at PC I encourage you to make it out Wed-Fri from 6-7:30 am or 12-1:30 pm! For those of you praying and fasting what has God been speaking to you?

Weekend Update

1. Yesterday we had 2 great Jr. High Experiences. 80 students in attendance and 4 students made commitments to Christ. My favorite part of the experience is being able to encourage, pray for and give a salvation packet to the students who made a decision for Christ.

2. Saturday night we had our community group. We had some good snacks and a good discussion about worship. I really appreciate our group and love doing life with them.

3. I got to see my Alma Mater CBC play basketball against Southwestern Christian University and they got smashed. SCU beat them by 39 points and it was cool to see my friend Derek Colvin on the court. He's a beast!

4. My playoff picks were way wrong but seeing the Patriots loss was amazing. Makes one less hurdle for my Colts.

5. Speaking of my Colts I'm not a fan of how they ended the season and I hope it doesn't hurt us next week.

6. I'm currently playing words with friends 12 people and scored two 100 pt words this weekend! If you want to play my username is chrismith.

7. This week is our week of prayer and fasting at People's Church. I'm really looking forward to what God is going to do in my life this week. Join us for prayer Tues-Friday from 6am-7:30am and 12pm-1:30pm in the PCA/Epic Auditorium.

8. Epic students and leaders don't forget we have prayer this Wed in the Jr. High Room from 6pm-6:20pm! Come join us expecting God to do great things!

The Past few months pt. 2

Here is some more stuff that happened over the last few months:

1. I turned 29 years old, man that sounds old. My birthday is Dec. 24th, yep I'm a Christmas Eve baby and no I don't think I got less presents because my bday is the day before Christmas.

2. Even though my parents are divorced my whole family went out to eat together for my bday, that is always the best birthday present. I love spending time with my family.

3. On our trip back to Ok from Indy I let Jamie drive 7 hours, since I'm kind of a control freak when it comes to driving this is a big deal. She did a great job!

4. Jace did great during our drives, bringing a dvd player was the best decision in the world. His favorites are Nemo, Shrek, Incredibles, Little Mermaid and Cars.

5. Over break Jamie and I went to the movies twice, which is a rare occasion for us. We saw Avatar and The Blind Side. We may have to go one more time to see Invictus.

6. I finished my one year bible reading plan. I haven't done this since college and really enjoyed it. I'm doing it again but this time I'm reading the Chronological one year reading plan with Jamie. I'm currently in Job.

I'm baaaaaaaaaack!

Wow, I haven't posted a blog since the beginning of October!!! With the new year I'm gonna try to get back into this blogging thing. Since I haven't blogged in 3 months here are a few updates of what has been going on:

1. In October our student ministry grew to over 300 students!!! Thank you Lord! This is one of the biggest reasons my blogging stopped, it was very busy but also one of the most amazing months in youth ministry.

2. Along with God's favor and blessing one of the biggest reasons for the explosion in attendance was a two week series my church did called Teenage Love (the videos are below), this gave us great exposure, was a huge blessing and it complimented everything we were doing on Wed and Sunday's. We also launched a second Jr. High Experience!

3. The holidays and weather have slowed us down a bit but we are excited for the next few months and 2010 at Epic.

4. Speaking of weather, Jamie and I totally missed the "Blizzard of 2009", we were in Indianapolis surprising our family for Christmas. Can't say I'm upset about missing the blizzard, lol.

5. We surprised our family with putting Jace in a giant stocking at their door, ringing their doorbell then hiding around the corner filming their reaction. It was priceless! Definitely a Christmas we and our parents will never forget.

I'll share more tomorrow. Thanks for checking back in!