OSM Christmas Party

We had a blast at the Oakbrook Student Ministries Christmas party.  Here are some shots from the night:

we had a great night of food, talent show, and games.  Merry Christmas.

All you need is love – pt. 2

if you’d like to hear what I believe God said about love vs. what the Beatles said about love… go here.

TXT – week two 2G2BT {transcript}

Here is the transcript for my week two talk.  The original talk, concept and idea was from a talk that I heard from Jared Herd @ Bigstuf camp.  I re-wrote the story for Oakbrook Community Church in Kokomo, In.

txt-week-two-2g2bt

TXT – week two 2G2BT

here is the link for the week two podcast of TXT.  enjoy.

TXT week two

TXT – week two 2GTBT

I have recently been rocked by a realization.  That the God of the universe has invited us to intimately experience Him through His word.  We can KNOW the creator.  But the deeper we get to know the heart of God and the more intimate we go with Him, the more we discover something… HE LOVES US.  And not the way that we church people have thrown that phrase around.  HE LOVES US.  meaning, when we were still in complete and utter rebellion against Him, He loved us and sent Jesus to prove it.  That the cruelest of all hate acts against Him, He used as an act of love back toward us.  HE LOVES US.  It’s “Too Good To Be True.” {2GTBT}

TXT – week one talk

here it is.

TXT- week one

TXT – a 2 wk advntr in God’s Word

For the next two weeks I’ll be teaching in Oakbrook Church’s main service a series called TXT.  The whole idea behind it is this: “If God sent you a text message, would you read it?”  We got the idea from Northpoint church in Alpharetta, Ga.  I’ll give you a sneak peak into week one:  Text messaging is taking over the communication world.  It is becoming a huge phenomenon in our culture.  In 2005 there were over 55 million cell phone users and over 37 Billion text messages sent and received.  You can just imagine what those statistics are today… 3 years later.  If you text, then you know one thing to be true: WE ALWAYS READ OUR TEXT MESSAGES… without excuse.  We even excuse ourselves from face to face conversations to read our text messages.  No one ever says “I got your text… but I’m just not a big reader… so I don’t know what it said.”  If this is true, then why do we make that excuse when it comes to reading God’s text message, the Bible?  This weekend I am going to explore 6 MAJOR LIFE-CHANGING EXPERIENCES that happen when you engage, interface, and interact with God’s Word.  RYB!

youth ministry minute – # i forget

It’s been a while since I’ve written one of these… so I forget which one I’m on.  Summer is a great time to pause, slow down, and reflect on what new changes and directions your youth ministry needs to take.  It’s also a great time to look back over the past year and celebrate wins.  That’s what I’ve been doing today.  I’ve really been feeling the need in our student ministry to create SPACE.  We (youth pastors) are great at creating content and context… but often not very good at creating space for students to reflect.  We’ve got songs to sing, sermons to preach, games to play… but how often do we create space for students to slow down and absorb?  I can’t remember the last time I pushed the pause button long enough for students to reflect on what’s going on in their life.  I guess I started to think about this today because we are in the process of decking out one of our break-out rooms and I started dreaming about what this space would be used for… small groups? check.  Pizza hang outs?  check.  massive video game parties?  check.  spiritual reflective space?  WHAT?!?  the more I thought about it though… the more I realized that is what students {and you and I} need.  We need all of the above.  Let’s get great at creating SPACE for reflection and absorption.

who is Jesus – week two

here is the transcript from week two:

who-is-jesus-week-two

Who is Jesus – post 2

so I’ve had a couple of requests to share what the “who is Jesus?” week one talk was all about.. so I went ahead and turned it into a .pdf file so that you could read my entire transcript.  ENJOY:

who-is-jesus-week-one