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!