Middle School Moments

Hey to the ‘Prayer People’!

We need a constant flow of prayer for the Youth Ministry, our church, and me. Keep it coming folks!

GIVE THANKS!
I would like to offer of some things that I am thankful for in our ministry, and all the glory goes to God!
~ Great volunteer leaders and the close knit group that we are.
~ High School students that help out in the Middle School room on the weekends.
~ A couple of girls that will be using their talents to worship God on the weekend.
~ Kids that come each week, even when their parents don’t come to church.
~ The High School community group and the spiritually challenging stuff that they do.
~ Crazy Middle School boys that come to my house and grow in relationship with one another and me each week.
~ A mom giving her time to help out the weekend ministry.
~ Kids that help out each weekend to create a friendly environment in the rooms.
~ People that are regularly praying for our ministry.

The list can go on and on, but wanted to share more than just three or four things that I normally share.

GOD WE ASK…
These are a bunch of little specific things rather than a couple of big things this time around.
…for a couple of people to help out with some weekly admin work
…for an additional middle and high school community group during the week
…for enough weekend volunteers to start a 10:30am high school service
…for a friendly and spiritually challenging environment for students
…for help in prepping for the weekend talks during this OPEN series
…for some kids to accept Christ as their savior during this OPEN series
…for kids to get excited about sharing their story with others
…for additional help with the worship during our weekends
…for my hearing as I continue to ask and listen to God for the direction of this ministry
…that any negativity around the youth ministry be sucked out and be left with only a positive vibe to what we are doing

Again, the list can go on and on, but that could get crazy! :)

I give thanks to God for all your prayers.

Hey, Hey, Hey!

Prayer is important. Enough said.

GIVE THANKS!
~ I am definitely feeling the affect of your prayers with the relationship with the students. I think God is really blessing community group and small group times. I think the small group time on the weekends with the middle school boys has especially been good. It seems as though we have been able to stay a lot more focused during that time. Yeah God!

~ I think we have some really awesome volunteer leaders in the Youth Ministry program. We just had our monthly gathering at my house and they all had some really good ideas and feedback as we discussed the ministry. I couldn’t as for a better bunch of people to do ministry with.

~ For the fun! I have been having a lot of fun lately during the weekends. I wouldn’t say it is anything specific, so I will give the credit to God.


GOD WE ASK…
…Upcoming conferences. We have our yearly Oasis conference coming up March 24-26 in Columbus. It is gonna be awesome, but there are some details that need God involved in. We initially were just going to take Middle Schoolers, but now we might take High Schoolers as well. I won’t get into the specifics, but I would like wisdom in figuring this out. We also want to be praying specifically for kids to go. It is a great time for kids to be challenged and to connect with other teens.

…Some help with admin. I am going to be talking to a few individuals about volunteering to do a few hours of administrative stuff each week for the Youth Ministry. This will really free up some time for me to work on other stuff that is needed to grow the ministry. I need prayer for ironing out the little systems so someone can take this over and that we get some people that can deal with me. :)

…Summer Missions. We just had an information meeting regarding the summer missions opportunities we have going on for High School. The London trip has been awesome for the students that have gone. This year there is also the opportunity to go to Guatemala. The deposits are due at the beginning of March so we want to pray for students to get signed up. Let me also give a shout out to James and Heather or do a tremendously, awesome job with this. Seriously. The training and everything that they due with the students rules!


People. Your prayers matter. Thank you.

-smith

Hello all!

There are times when I feel like I need to make my intros a little more exciting, but then I think about the emails I get and decide that straight to the point is much better. So here we go!

Thanks for all your prayers in our ministry. I do really believe God has been blessing those prayers.

GIVE THANKS!
~ I asked you all to prayer for our volunteer overnight a few weeks back, and you know what? It was awesome! I could not have asked for a better time spent with my weekend volunteer leaders. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them and talking about Youth Ministry. I am so pumped for the next one. Not sure when that will be, but we will be getting it on the calendar soon. Thanks God!

~ This past Sunday was a 5th Sunday, so kids were in the service I got a chance to mingle in the lobby. God really blessed that time. I got a chance to pray for a couple of people as well as answer some questions concerning Youth Ministry. Some new additions to the email were added (you know who you are) and I got a couple of people interested in volunteering their time in our Youth Ministry. God is good!

~ The details that I asked you all to pray over are moving along pretty good. I got quite a bit knocked out since last I spoke about that stuff. I feel like I have a lot more things in order that allow for a lot more to happen in our ministry. Keep praying for this. I still have a lot I am catching up on.

GOD WE ASK…
…for relationships to deepen amongst students and adult leaders. This is an ongoing prayer. As new kids and adults come to our ministry, we want to get them all connected. We want them to know God’s love through relationships with one another.

…for additional weekend volunteers. While I think we have a rockin’ group of volunteer leaders, there is always opportunity to deepen the ranks. We really want to add a 10:30am high school service. This is going to take a few dedicated individuals to make this happen. I want to ask for God’s blessing on the conversations I have with people concerning Youth Ministry.

…for you blessing on the weekend Youth Ministry. I feel like most of my volunteers are all on the same page as far as expectations go since our leader overnight. I really see this bringing the quality of our weekend up a notch or two. I am really excited about it and just want God to bless what we have begun.

I give thanks to God for all your prayers.

Hey everyone that survived 2010!

Welcome to 2011! We want to continue this year with praying over our Youth Ministry. Please continue to lift our requests up to God. I know he will bless this.

GIVE THANKS!
~ We have been making strides with our welcoming atmosphere. Our coffee bar got started on Christmas weekend. Yeah! We now have coffee, tea, and hot chocolate for the teens on Sunday morning. Surprisingly, there are a lot of teens and volunteers that drink tea.

~ I have gotten to have quite a few conversations with people and students about volunteering in the middle school room. That is totally God and you folks lifting that up in your prayers. Now we just need to ask that these conversations move to people giving their time to service these students.

~ We just want to say thanks to God for a great year of ministry in 2010. There are so many blessings to be thankful for. This email that goes out definitely helps me recognize all the good things rather than always focusing on what’s next. Let’s ask God to do the same for 2011, but lets also get more people added to this ever growing list of individuals praying for the youth ministry of the vineyard.

GOD, WE ASK…
- We need God to deal with some negative attitudes that I have seen as of late in our high school and middle school room. I wouldn’t say it is anything destructive or really bad, but it is something that I have noticed over the past two months. Let’s ask God to work in the hearts of the teens. We want to pray that they recognize the need to love one another and that this weekend ministry is a great place to build closer relationships.

- We want to ask God to bless the youth community groups that are meeting during the week. High School did not take much of a break over the holidays, but the Middle School will be starting back up next week. We just ask that God continue to bring growth in those kids lives.

- Details, details, details. Now that the new year is upon us, we have a lot of things to get organized. Some of the big things are our yearly conference and summer trips. The sooner we get that information out to everyone, the better. We just ask God’s hand to be on that and help us get all that together quickly.

I give thanks to all of you for praying. Seriously! It makes a huge difference.

Hey, Hey!

The Christmas season is in full swing and I bet most of you are really enjoying the many opportunities to celebrate. I always feel like the Christmas season never really gets going until we wrap up my wife’s birthday (December 11). Now that birthday celebration is over I can work on being jolly. :)

On with the prayer!

WE GIVE THANKS TO GOD!
~For awesome individuals that give up their time weekly to spend with teenagers. I have gotten to hear quite a few stories of the interaction between volunteer leaders and kids.

~ For the kids that are getting involved in the different serving opportunities going on in the church. It’s great hearing that teenagers are living out God’s love for others.

~ For me getting a weekend off. That may sound silly, but it doesn’t happen very often. Pretty much God has to put a lot of things in order to make that happen. :) Plus some really awesome volunteers.

WE ASK GOD:
1 - For help in creating a more welcoming environment for kids on Sunday. I think we do an OK job at this, but we really want kids, and especially visitors, to feel welcomed and comfortable when they show up for our weekend program. We hope to put a few things in place this weekend and want God to bless those efforts.

2 - For additional middle school volunteers for the Noon service. I have two high quality individuals that help me during this service, but they can’t be there every week. We want to deepen our line up there. Let’s pray that God puts a few individuals in our path.

3 - For families that are having a difficult time during the holiday season. I asked for this last time, but please continue to pray. We get a ton of calls at the church for people that need help. We want to help as many people as we can. Ask God to multiply what we have so we can give so much more.


THANKS FOR PRAYING FOR OUR YOUTH MINISTRY!

We had a fun time at community group playing hang man. Everyone had to pick something that they were thankful for when they picked their phrase for the game.Everyone had great stuff that they were thankful for.

Mine (Smith) was books and Dunkin Donuts. How come I got complaints for not picking my wife or kids?

After that we talked about how to look for the good in the things that we are not thankful for. The students did an awesome job job being positive about the things that they weren’t thankful for.

HELLO ALL!

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday and are anxiously awaiting the Christmas Season.

THANKS GOD!
~ For awesome volunteers in the Youth Ministry. They really are wonderful and do an amazing job.

~ This may not seem all that important, but we have been able to update our youth ministry database over the last month. This is a stepping stone to building closer relationships with the teens. This is something I am personally really pumped about.

~ For the fun we get to have on the weekend. Over the past few weekends I have had some great moments of hanging out with kids and enjoying being at church.

~ For the regular flow of visitors that come to our ministry.

PRAY FOR:
1 - The student community groups that are meeting regularly. We want to ask God to bless the relationships between the leaders and kids, as well as, the relationships between the kids. We also want to ask that kids gain a deeper understanding of who God is through his word.

2 - We have a few minor technical issues going on in the youth rooms. We are making progress on them, but could use prayer.

3 - We have a connection/training weekend scheduled in January for the youth ministry volunteer leaders. We just want to ask that everything line up so we can get as many of the leaders there as possible. We also want to come away from that really excited about youth ministry and feeling very equipped to do the work God has given us to do in youth ministry.

4 - Please also be in prayer for families during this Christmas season. I know this sort of gets said every year, but it does affect our youth.

THANKS FOR PRAYING FOR OUR YOUTH MINISTRY!

—
peace!
-smith