Hey y'all!
Yesterday was the last day of my internship. Where has the time gone? All ten weeks have absolutely flown by! Well... almost all ten. Some were easy and others were really hard.
When I started the internship, I had to create 3 ministry goals for the summer and 3 personal goals. I'm happy to announce that I accomplished all of them, this blog being one of them!
This summer has been a major summer of growth for me. I've learned so much more about myself and working with a staff. I've learned more about ministry. I've learned about my strengths and weaknesses. I've completed multiple large projects. Overall it's been a wonderful summer! But...
I've decided to keep my blog going. My major is Middle School Education for Math and Science and I'm starting my student teaching this fall. That means that I'll be in a classroom twice a week all day with middle school students. And I fully intend on continuing my ministry as a teacher. So the blog will be changing some. I won't be involved with a structured church ministry, but I will be ministering in a middle school, specifically with 6th grade science students.
So you can be praying for me! I'll update y'all as I begin and know more. I'm sure I'll have some funny stories to share and plenty of prayer requests for patience!
Friday, July 26, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Speaking on Trust Apparently Requires Trust
Hey y'all!
I've talked before about the events that we have for middle schoolers on Wednesday nights called Summer Nights. Each of the staff members were asked to speak at one of those events this summer and last night was my night to speak.
Let me preface this with the fact that I love being on stage. I've done everything from ballet to violin to acting to oratorical recitals to even speaking at the Bricks my senior year of high school. Earlier this summer I emceed for Summer Nights and had a blast doing it! This was different.
We were asked to give our testimonies but also relate it to the theme of Despicable Me, Glorious God. I've also given my testimony more times than I can remember. For some reason this was hard. I decided to take the clip from Despicable Me where the girls have to jump from Vector's hovercraft/plane-type-thing to Gru's. They have to trust that he's going to catch them and that related pretty well to my life for the past few years. There have been so many times in the past year where I had to jump and just trust that the Lord was going to catch me.
I wrote my talk and went over it with my boss. Then yesterday, as I was going over the talk I became extremely anxious. My stomach felt like it was in knots and I felt sick. I was absolutely positive that I was going to get on stage and forget the entire thing and look like an idiot. Sometime later in the day (still before the talk) I realized, well of course when I'm talking about trusting in the Lord, God's going to make me act on it. Even my speech needed to be an example in and of itself of trusting God in everything and trusting that He's going to catch me every time.
Thank the Lord that He does catch us every time! The talk went very well, just in case you were worried, but it was nice to know that it wasn't because of anything that I did right. It was all because God is trustworthy and sufficient!
*If you happen to want to see the whole talk, I can send you the document.
I've talked before about the events that we have for middle schoolers on Wednesday nights called Summer Nights. Each of the staff members were asked to speak at one of those events this summer and last night was my night to speak.
Let me preface this with the fact that I love being on stage. I've done everything from ballet to violin to acting to oratorical recitals to even speaking at the Bricks my senior year of high school. Earlier this summer I emceed for Summer Nights and had a blast doing it! This was different.
We were asked to give our testimonies but also relate it to the theme of Despicable Me, Glorious God. I've also given my testimony more times than I can remember. For some reason this was hard. I decided to take the clip from Despicable Me where the girls have to jump from Vector's hovercraft/plane-type-thing to Gru's. They have to trust that he's going to catch them and that related pretty well to my life for the past few years. There have been so many times in the past year where I had to jump and just trust that the Lord was going to catch me.
I wrote my talk and went over it with my boss. Then yesterday, as I was going over the talk I became extremely anxious. My stomach felt like it was in knots and I felt sick. I was absolutely positive that I was going to get on stage and forget the entire thing and look like an idiot. Sometime later in the day (still before the talk) I realized, well of course when I'm talking about trusting in the Lord, God's going to make me act on it. Even my speech needed to be an example in and of itself of trusting God in everything and trusting that He's going to catch me every time.
Thank the Lord that He does catch us every time! The talk went very well, just in case you were worried, but it was nice to know that it wasn't because of anything that I did right. It was all because God is trustworthy and sufficient!
*If you happen to want to see the whole talk, I can send you the document.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Book Review: Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot
After I finished reading and blogging on Quest for Love by Elisabeth Elliot, I decided to read the book that precedes it. It's called Passion and Purity. When I finished, I wasn't quite sure whether or not I should write a book review on it. There's something about the book that's very personal. Elliot shares the story of how her and Jim met and then continued in their relationship. He basically told her that he was head-over-heals in love with her but that he couldn't date her because he was being called to be single.
Jim believed that at that point he was called to be single so that he could do missionary work that married men couldn't necessarily do. This is all great, but I would have been extremely frustrated if I was Elisabeth. He went on in that way for about 9 years. They had contact at some points more than at others. Ultimately they were both called to Ecuador individually to work with the Quichua Indians. 3 years later, Jim Elliot died.
Elisabeth Elliot's story was heart wrenching. I cannot imagine having something dangled in front of me that I've desired for so long, waiting for another long period of time to get it, and then have it ripped away from me.
I've said before that I sometimes wished that I could be a great spiritual leader/mentor, but then I see all of the trials that they go through. Though I know that there will be hard things that happen in this life, and I know that the Lord will be with me through them all, I hope that he never makes me go through something as difficult as what Elisabeth Elliot went through.
It was so refreshing to hear about her views on love though. Elliot is intent upon men being the ones to pursue women. When we're constantly bombarded in our culture about how women need to step up and take the initiative, it's nice to hear godly wisdom from ones who have gone before me. Women are supposed to be feminine and wait for men to pursue them like Christ pursues the church. I love that picture. Maybe because I'm a sappy, sentimental girl who has been planning my wedding since my oldest sisters were planning their weddings. (I was nine years old.) But the idea of a marriage being an earthly picture of the relationship that we have with the Father is so incredibly beautiful to me.
Jim believed that at that point he was called to be single so that he could do missionary work that married men couldn't necessarily do. This is all great, but I would have been extremely frustrated if I was Elisabeth. He went on in that way for about 9 years. They had contact at some points more than at others. Ultimately they were both called to Ecuador individually to work with the Quichua Indians. 3 years later, Jim Elliot died.
Elisabeth Elliot's story was heart wrenching. I cannot imagine having something dangled in front of me that I've desired for so long, waiting for another long period of time to get it, and then have it ripped away from me.
I've said before that I sometimes wished that I could be a great spiritual leader/mentor, but then I see all of the trials that they go through. Though I know that there will be hard things that happen in this life, and I know that the Lord will be with me through them all, I hope that he never makes me go through something as difficult as what Elisabeth Elliot went through.
It was so refreshing to hear about her views on love though. Elliot is intent upon men being the ones to pursue women. When we're constantly bombarded in our culture about how women need to step up and take the initiative, it's nice to hear godly wisdom from ones who have gone before me. Women are supposed to be feminine and wait for men to pursue them like Christ pursues the church. I love that picture. Maybe because I'm a sappy, sentimental girl who has been planning my wedding since my oldest sisters were planning their weddings. (I was nine years old.) But the idea of a marriage being an earthly picture of the relationship that we have with the Father is so incredibly beautiful to me.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Grace-Midtown Blessing
Hey y'all! Last Sunday I was invited by some friends to join them for a service at Grace-Midtown church in Atlanta. I went once before, a couple of summers ago, but now they're in a new and bigger building. I love visiting other churches and experiencing their worship and sermons. I'm also very picky about sermons. I've grown up at Perimeter with incredible in-depth sermons studying the Word so I've been spoiled. Something I usually use to decide whether I like the sermon or not is if it's Gospel centered. If the pastor is opening his Bible and pointing us to the Word, it usually means that the sermon is going in a good direction. This service was great though! I loved every part of it.
The worship was very different than Perimeter. A lot of the songs that they played were very repetitive which allowed for us to really think about what we were singing and focus on worshiping instead of on the screens and reading the words. (It was so good that I ended up buying two of their CDs! They're on iTunes if you want to check them out. They're called Rising and Sounds Like Sunset.)
The sermon was also great. They're doing a series right now about what it means to be a disciple. The week I went, they were focusing on being a disciple by being a discipler and using Colossians 3. The pastor, Chris Moerman, started with a quote from The Great Omission by Dallas Willard. "Jesus told us, as Disciples, to make disciples. Not converts to Christianity, nor to some particular faith and practice." He also talked about the death that we all die to ourselves so that we can live for Christ. I've heard this many times before, but he reminded us that we can't resurrect ourselves. We have to simply die and trust that the Lord will resurrect us and make us new.
Paul also talks in Colossians about how he imitates Jesus, and we are supposed to imitate Paul. This points to passing that on through discipleship. He also lists 5 P words. (Pastors love alliteration.)
1. Presence - With a discipler, it's a spiritual impartation of wisdom instead of knowledge. We need someone who's real with us and knows our "junk". Jesus doesn't just say "listen to me", He says "follow me". In the great commission, it says "AS you go, make disciples." You're already going somewhere or going after something, so rub shoulders with the people on the same path as you.
2. Purpose - All of us are invited into the mission and called into it.
3. Power - The role of the disciples was never to just follow Jesus and applaud. It was to watch and imitate.
4. Process - God in His infinite wisdom and grace gives us time to grow in character and capacity instead of giving us everything at once. For example, the prodigal son was crushed by an inheritance that he wasn't ready to carry.
5. Pursuit - God loves all of His children but there's a special closeness in relationship for those that pursue Him. God hides things for us, not from us. He wants us to search them out.
And one last quote: "To whom did we allow sufficient access to our lives that they were able to 'imitate our lives as we imitated Christ?'" -Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture
I hope this was as encouraging to you as it was to me!
The worship was very different than Perimeter. A lot of the songs that they played were very repetitive which allowed for us to really think about what we were singing and focus on worshiping instead of on the screens and reading the words. (It was so good that I ended up buying two of their CDs! They're on iTunes if you want to check them out. They're called Rising and Sounds Like Sunset.)
The sermon was also great. They're doing a series right now about what it means to be a disciple. The week I went, they were focusing on being a disciple by being a discipler and using Colossians 3. The pastor, Chris Moerman, started with a quote from The Great Omission by Dallas Willard. "Jesus told us, as Disciples, to make disciples. Not converts to Christianity, nor to some particular faith and practice." He also talked about the death that we all die to ourselves so that we can live for Christ. I've heard this many times before, but he reminded us that we can't resurrect ourselves. We have to simply die and trust that the Lord will resurrect us and make us new.
Paul also talks in Colossians about how he imitates Jesus, and we are supposed to imitate Paul. This points to passing that on through discipleship. He also lists 5 P words. (Pastors love alliteration.)
1. Presence - With a discipler, it's a spiritual impartation of wisdom instead of knowledge. We need someone who's real with us and knows our "junk". Jesus doesn't just say "listen to me", He says "follow me". In the great commission, it says "AS you go, make disciples." You're already going somewhere or going after something, so rub shoulders with the people on the same path as you.
2. Purpose - All of us are invited into the mission and called into it.
3. Power - The role of the disciples was never to just follow Jesus and applaud. It was to watch and imitate.
4. Process - God in His infinite wisdom and grace gives us time to grow in character and capacity instead of giving us everything at once. For example, the prodigal son was crushed by an inheritance that he wasn't ready to carry.
5. Pursuit - God loves all of His children but there's a special closeness in relationship for those that pursue Him. God hides things for us, not from us. He wants us to search them out.
And one last quote: "To whom did we allow sufficient access to our lives that they were able to 'imitate our lives as we imitated Christ?'" -Mike Breen, Building a Discipling Culture
I hope this was as encouraging to you as it was to me!
Friday, July 19, 2013
Book Review: Dangerous Calling by Paul David Tripp
Unlike the other books that I've blogged about so far, this one was a semi-difficult read. It was packed full of information and conviction.
As I began the book, I found myself thinking that it wouldn't apply to me. Tripp often addresses his reader as "pastor" which made me believe that I, as a lowly middle school ministry summer intern, was not who he was talking to. After all, I'm not even a full time staff member! I'm only here for the summer, and I have one of the lowest jobs on the totem pole. When it comes to pride in a certain status in a job, I have no right to have any at all! Well, I was completely wrong. Tripp is addressing every member of the church from the head pastor to the Sunday morning volunteer.
Tripp talks about the pride involved in being involved in a church ministry. He talks about a disconnect in the public and private lives of people in the church. He gives story after story of other people in the church who he's had council who have gone through these situations. These stories make it real. This book also helped me to realize that my pastors aren't perfect. Yes, that's cliche, but it's true! I have put David McNeely, Randy Pope, Steve Brown, and more on a pedestal for so long that I forgot that they're real people. They have families, and they sin. They go through hardships, maybe even more than normal people do. (Side note: I've always said that I could see myself marrying a pastor, but after reading some of the stories, that thought was terrifying to me! Not super relevant, but hey, that was my thought.)
As always with books, the author can say things better than I can, so here are some of my favorite quotes.
Tripp talks about the pride involved in being involved in a church ministry. He talks about a disconnect in the public and private lives of people in the church. He gives story after story of other people in the church who he's had council who have gone through these situations. These stories make it real. This book also helped me to realize that my pastors aren't perfect. Yes, that's cliche, but it's true! I have put David McNeely, Randy Pope, Steve Brown, and more on a pedestal for so long that I forgot that they're real people. They have families, and they sin. They go through hardships, maybe even more than normal people do. (Side note: I've always said that I could see myself marrying a pastor, but after reading some of the stories, that thought was terrifying to me! Not super relevant, but hey, that was my thought.)
As always with books, the author can say things better than I can, so here are some of my favorite quotes.
“If you aren’t daily admitting t yourself that you are a mess and in daily and rather desperate need for forgiving and transforming grace and if the evidence around has not caused you to abandon your confidence in your own righteousness, then you are going to give yourself to the work of convincing yourself that you are okay.”
“No one is more influential in your life than you are, because no one talks to you more than you do.”
"One of the things that makes a sermon compelling is that the preacher is worshiping his way through his own sermon.”
“If you are not feeding your soul on the realities of the presence, promises, and provisions of Christ, you will ask the people, situations, and things around you to be the messiah they can never be.”
“He had his identity too attached to his opinions and ideas and felt that rejection of them was rejection of him.”
“Autonomous Christianity never works, because our spiritual life was designed by God to be a community project.”
Are you convicted yet? I encourage you to read this book. You know that verse that talks about how The Word never comes away void? Well, I know it's talking about the Bible, but I think that it can apply to many books too, and this is one of them. I don't think you can read this book and come away the same. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not comparing this to the Bible! The Bible is the infallible word of God and this is a book written by a flawed person.)
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Book Review: A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller
Hey y'all!
As my internship is coming to an end, I'm tying up some loose ends and finishing things up. Part of my job this summer was to read 3 books and then write something reflecting on my thoughts on the book and my take-aways.
This was the book that I got to choose, and I'm so glad that I did! I have gotten countless recommendations to read this book and so I finally did it. It always feels good when you can cross one of those off your list. One of the main reasons I chose the book though was because prayer is a hard topic to grasp and though I've been a Christian for a while now, I wanted to understand prayer more.
I'm a very structured person in that I like check lists (and checking things off that list), schedules, and clear steps. Prayer is none of this! It's more abstract, and I've had to learn that that's okay!
I'm sure that as I read I used up at least one pen underlining points that hit me hardest or that I wanted to remember the most. I can't say it any better than Miller did so I'll just give y'all some quotes:
"Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer."
"Learning to pray doesn't offer you a less busy life; it offers you a less busy heart."
"Nothing exposes our selfishness and spiritual powerlessness like prayer."
"The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy."
And those are just from the first 30 pages! Miller exposes stories from his life and his family's life that are so raw and honest. It was a blessing to get a glimpse into the power of prayer and not only how prayers are answered through prayer but also how we are changed by the simple act of communicating with our Father. I often find myself wishing that I could be a great spiritual leader like Beth Moore or Paul Miller, but when I hear stories of the trials in their lives to make them better able to help others, I quickly back up and beg the Lord to keep me small. One of my favorite quotes about prayer says that when we pray for patience, God doesn't just give us patience. He gives us opportunities to be patient. It definitely makes me think twice before I pray for patience, self-control, or any other fruits of the spirit. But then I do it anyway.
Also, praying that God would reveal my sin. That's another scary prayer. What makes is okay is that I know that anything God puts in my life is for my good. Isn't it comforting to know that my Father is all knowing and never makes a mistake?!
I recently had a conversation with my boss about how he likes to poke holes in a mutual friend of ours and gently point out that that person isn't perfect. As I've been praying that God would reveal my sins to me, He's done just that. So I replied to my boss saying, "Please don't pour water in me because I know I have so many holes." But God is working in me. He's pointing out my holes and then slowly patching them as only He can. I'm being completely real with y'all and inviting you to know my heart so that maybe it will be an encouragement to you as well.
This book has changed my prayer life. It's freed me to pray with the randomness and boldness of a child. It's helping me to look for the greater picture that God is weaving in my life. I'm so thankful that life is a process and our eyes aren't opened all at once. The process creates a dependent relationship on the One who satisfies the longing of our souls.
As my internship is coming to an end, I'm tying up some loose ends and finishing things up. Part of my job this summer was to read 3 books and then write something reflecting on my thoughts on the book and my take-aways.
This was the book that I got to choose, and I'm so glad that I did! I have gotten countless recommendations to read this book and so I finally did it. It always feels good when you can cross one of those off your list. One of the main reasons I chose the book though was because prayer is a hard topic to grasp and though I've been a Christian for a while now, I wanted to understand prayer more.
I'm a very structured person in that I like check lists (and checking things off that list), schedules, and clear steps. Prayer is none of this! It's more abstract, and I've had to learn that that's okay!
I'm sure that as I read I used up at least one pen underlining points that hit me hardest or that I wanted to remember the most. I can't say it any better than Miller did so I'll just give y'all some quotes:
"Dependency is the heartbeat of prayer."
"Learning to pray doesn't offer you a less busy life; it offers you a less busy heart."
"Nothing exposes our selfishness and spiritual powerlessness like prayer."
"The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy."
And those are just from the first 30 pages! Miller exposes stories from his life and his family's life that are so raw and honest. It was a blessing to get a glimpse into the power of prayer and not only how prayers are answered through prayer but also how we are changed by the simple act of communicating with our Father. I often find myself wishing that I could be a great spiritual leader like Beth Moore or Paul Miller, but when I hear stories of the trials in their lives to make them better able to help others, I quickly back up and beg the Lord to keep me small. One of my favorite quotes about prayer says that when we pray for patience, God doesn't just give us patience. He gives us opportunities to be patient. It definitely makes me think twice before I pray for patience, self-control, or any other fruits of the spirit. But then I do it anyway.
Also, praying that God would reveal my sin. That's another scary prayer. What makes is okay is that I know that anything God puts in my life is for my good. Isn't it comforting to know that my Father is all knowing and never makes a mistake?!
I recently had a conversation with my boss about how he likes to poke holes in a mutual friend of ours and gently point out that that person isn't perfect. As I've been praying that God would reveal my sins to me, He's done just that. So I replied to my boss saying, "Please don't pour water in me because I know I have so many holes." But God is working in me. He's pointing out my holes and then slowly patching them as only He can. I'm being completely real with y'all and inviting you to know my heart so that maybe it will be an encouragement to you as well.
This book has changed my prayer life. It's freed me to pray with the randomness and boldness of a child. It's helping me to look for the greater picture that God is weaving in my life. I'm so thankful that life is a process and our eyes aren't opened all at once. The process creates a dependent relationship on the One who satisfies the longing of our souls.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Goldrush 2013
Hey y'all!
**Note: I'm including some pictures from Goldrush, but they're not mine. I've gotten them from different students during the week, so enjoy!**
This past week I was blessed to be a part of Goldrush, but not in the way that I'm accustomed to. I have been a part of Goldrush for 7 years in the past as a student on the servant team. I feel like I've seen Goldrush from every angle now as I have been on design team (decorating everything), music team (leading worship every morning and night), drama team (doing a skit every night), cafe team (working the cafe), and now hospitality team (making small groups, rooming assignments, name tags, etc.). I've also now seen it from the perspective of a participating student as well as a staff member. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
Goldrush is a student lead conference that Perimeter church has hosted for about 20 years. Middle school and high school aged students at Perimeter have the choice of being on servant team and then choosing which team they are on based on their individual talents: design, music, drama, speaking, tech, dance, set-up, hospitality, cafe, missions, prayer, emcee, and Goldrush News. All of these students have meetings once a month starting toward the beginning of the year and then as Goldrush gets closer, they have them once a week. Most teams meet more than that to accomplish everything they need to. Each student on servant team also gets to lead a small group at Goldrush along with one or two other leaders.
Does this sound crazy yet? Then Goldrush gets here and it's crazy! Outside churches sign up and bring their students as well and we usually have about 1,000 students in all! The students attend worship sessions with music, a speaker, a drama, and a dance every night. They also have devotions and worship every morning and then attend two sessions with speakers each day. After that, depending on the day, students will either have a free day (at Dave and Buster's or SkyZone) or go do missions (at different places like apartment complexes or food banks).
Goldrush is a week of serving and learning more about God's love for us and how we should then live in response to that incredible love. At the end of the week we had many students come to know the Lord and even more who rededicated their lives to Him during our concert of prayer! Something I love about the concert of prayer is that as the students walk in, all of the staff from each church (that are attending Goldrush) line the doors that the students walk through and pray over them and read scripture over them. It was one of my favorite moments of all of Goldrush!
The last thing we have at Goldrush with all of the churches is a celebration where we simply worship our glorious God for who He is and what He's done for us. Then Perimeter decides to do something which is... trying? Testing of my patience?
We have a lock-in for all Perimeter students at the church. At this massive church. You know how some people describe themselves as morning people or night people? I'm neither. I'm a sleep person. This might have been the time that I was leaning the most on the Lord during the week. I knew that there was absolutely no way that I could stay up for over 24 hours (from 5 AM Thursday to 7 AM Friday) without Him. The Lord provides though! I was placed at a certain point in the church to make sure that students weren't sneaking away to purple. For all you non-student-ministry people: girls are red+boys are blue=purple=bad.
Too long to read the entire post? God is good. Always!
And to those of you who I know were praying for me the whole week? Thank you! The Lord listened to your prayers and used you!
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Change Of Scenery
Hey y'all!
I don't know if I've explained this yet, but my internship is specifically set to be for ten weeks. Meaning, I'm paid for ten weeks. Well I couldn't wait to start my new "big girl job" at the beginning of the summer so I started as soon as I got home from school. That left me with a few weeks that I would be able to take off to do family vacation and anything else I wanted! Maybe visit friends in cool places with their internships? Or just take a break from my job?
Well all of the sudden, my boss realized that I had worked 7 weeks and had to work 3 specific weeks later on in the summer. 7+3=10 so no problem, right? Wrong. I had a week in between all of those weeks so the decision was whether to work for free or stay home bored all week (neither of which helped me to make money to save up for school). So... I decided to work at Camp All American (the camp that Perimeter hosts every summer).
Now, I've worked at that camp for the past two summers and thankfully they allowed me to come in for just a week this summer.
It was so much fun to see all of my old counselor friends and campers! They also placed me in Ozone which is the middle school part of camp. It was great since I've been used to hanging out with middle school aged students all summer! A very natural transition.
Since it's a Christian camp, we have a Bible time scheduled into every day. For some reason, this always makes me nervous, and I was especially nervous the first day. I didn't get the material early enough to be able to prepare and since we all know that I'm a planner, that threw me off. I found myself completely having to lean on the Lord for every word that came out of my mouth which was both scary and comforting at the same time. I found myself saying things that I never would have thought of to say on my own, and every day the girls were becoming more engaged and asking more questions.
I was also very thankful though that it was the week of the 4th of July and I got a day off. Camp is completely exhausting and drains every ounce of energy from you. I found myself going to sleep around 7 each night when I got home!
The 4th was a great break to spend with family! And I'll leave you with a shot of the king of selfies, my nephew, Christopher.
How cute is this kid?!
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Crazy, Busy, Beautiful Life
Hey y'all! I realize that it's been almost a month since I posted last, but that's because life has been insanely busy (and when I fall behind on things it's a little overwhelming to think about catching up). So much has happened since I last blogged so I think I'll split it up into smaller segments so as not to overwhelm y'all (read: myself).
So remember when I made that massive Despicable Me themed background thing? Well, it was for an event that Jhi has six times during the summer called Summer Nights. It's held on Wednesday nights and we have a speaker, emcee, games, music, free ice cream from an ice cream truck, and lots of fun hang out time. For the last one that we had, I was able to be the emcee!
I came up with a few different games to play and had to do certain things like facilitate those games, introduce the speaker and band, and just be entertaining in general. As the students came in we played a game where I would call kids up, have them put their hand in a bag, pick out a jar, and whatever they picked, they had to eat. The best part was that it was all jars of baby food. This was not even the normal baby food like bananas or peas. It was things like ham and ham gravy or macaroni and beef in a jar. GROSS. Anyway, it was a HUGE success. The kids had a great time and of course so did I.
Then I had announcements and played two more games. Everything went so well and I loved getting to interact with the students in a different way!
Then we had ice cream and played a hilarious game outside where the kids ended up covered in flour. Yes, I said flour. Oh the joys of working with a middle school ministry!
So remember when I made that massive Despicable Me themed background thing? Well, it was for an event that Jhi has six times during the summer called Summer Nights. It's held on Wednesday nights and we have a speaker, emcee, games, music, free ice cream from an ice cream truck, and lots of fun hang out time. For the last one that we had, I was able to be the emcee!
I came up with a few different games to play and had to do certain things like facilitate those games, introduce the speaker and band, and just be entertaining in general. As the students came in we played a game where I would call kids up, have them put their hand in a bag, pick out a jar, and whatever they picked, they had to eat. The best part was that it was all jars of baby food. This was not even the normal baby food like bananas or peas. It was things like ham and ham gravy or macaroni and beef in a jar. GROSS. Anyway, it was a HUGE success. The kids had a great time and of course so did I.
Then I had announcements and played two more games. Everything went so well and I loved getting to interact with the students in a different way!
Then we had ice cream and played a hilarious game outside where the kids ended up covered in flour. Yes, I said flour. Oh the joys of working with a middle school ministry!
So far we've had three of these events and then took a break for Goldrush (which you'll hear lots about later). We have three more, but sadly I'll only be there for one more :( At that last one though, I'll be speaking! Prayers would be greatly appreciated!
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