I haven’t blogged in a long time, but just wanted to take a second and share with you.

I want to encourage you as you are in relationship with Christ.  Over the past few weeks, God has been at work in my heart and teaching me so much.  I have seen people experience new life in Christ, I have seen people at their hardest times, I have felt great frustration with my own walk, I have experienced great freedom, joy, and rest as well.  I could continue to name the range of emotions I have seen and felt over the past couple of weeks but I would be wasting my breath, because above all of those emotions I have realized one thing.  God is sufficient.  He is enough.  He is MORE than enough.  I used to think it was all about how much I could do to honor God, how hard I could work to please Him, and repay Him for what He has done.  But now I see it differently.  As our pastor, Doug says, “I can’t, He can, Here I am.”  The fullness of Christ IN me has become overwhelming.  The joy and the peace and the freedom I am beginning to experience are beyond words. 

I know I don’t get it all and I know I want always do it, but I do know this: I am finally alive.

So I have been sucked into the new phenomenon of Twitter.  I am still learning the ropes of the whole thing but have enjoyed it so far.

Last night Ashton Kutcher broke 1,000,000 followers mark.  That is pretty impressive considering I am at 12 total followers…

If you aren’t on Twitter you should sign up, its free.  My twitter account name is ypintheshop, follow me.

Let’s see how many people we can get on this thing and make it a little challenge.  The goal is to be at 100 followers by the end of April.  13 days and 88 to go.  We can do it!

On Friday April 24th @ 8:00 pm will be launching a new event!!  Over the years, events like Andrizo, Agape, Moe’s and a Movie, Beach Blitz have become common household phrases among the students in our youth group.  I hope you are ready to expand your vocabulary because the next big thing from CFC Sr. High is OMN!

OMN stands for “Outdoor Movie Night”.  On April 24th we will have our very first OMN, so here is the deal with this brand new event.  I’ll provide the movie and the popcorn, you bring the chair and the drink, and we all sit back and enjoy the show.

So mark your calendars now, you don’t want to be the one who misses out.

This week in “big church” Doug is kicking off a new series entitled “Christ in You”.  I can’t tell you enough about the importance of this truth; if we begin to live this out, everything changes.  Because I believe this is so important, we are kicking off a new program!  We are going to call it Sausage Biscuit Sunday’s!  If you attend the service and complete the message memo, you get a free biscuit and juice before Checkpoint.  (But don’t worry if you don’t go to church you can still take part in the breakfast, it just will cost you 2 precious bucks!)  I am looking forward to this series and what God will do in our hearts and in our stomachs!

Just wanted to let you know that we are putting together our Summer 2009 Calendar!  It is going to be an awesome couple of months; so clear your schedules now and get ready for the time of your life!

Here are a couple of dates to wet your whistle (not sure what that even means, so just go with it like it is a good thing):

• Friday June 5th: Duuuuuvallll County Last Day of School
• Sunday June 7th: One Year of Wedded Bliss for yours truly and my smokin’ hot wife Allison.
• Wednesday June 10th-Thursday June 11th: BEACH BLITZ 2009!!!!!!
• Tuesday June 23rd: Sr. High Hawaiian Cruise Vacation
• Sunday June 28th-Tuesday July 7th: Haiti Short Term Mission’s Trip
• Thursday July 16th: Sr. High Shave Your Head Day
• Sunday August 2nd-Friday August 7: Power Up Clubs 2009

Two of those I made up.  If you can’t guess which two let me know, I’ll be sure to give you a hint or two.  This list is just a small few of the many things we have going on this summer.  The finalized schedule will be available the first week of May.  I know you are waiting in eager anticipation but until then I hope this will be enough to (here we go again) wet your whistle.

Tonight we are kicking off a brand new IGNITE series!  We are calling it, “finally FREE”, where we will look at what it means to experience freedom in Christ based on Galatians 5:1, which speaks of an incredible truth: “For it was freedom that Christ set us free…”  We hope you will make an intentional effort to come out tonight at 7:00 pm in the Shop as we kick off this new series in style, with a Fire and Ice.  Looking forward to seeing you!

As many if you know I am on vacation with Allison and some of our friends in Washington DC. Today was our first day in the city and it was awesome! We toured the place where they make money and at one point I saw a stack of uncut “benjamins” that equalled 32 million (which is roughly an average youth pastor salary). We went to Arlington Cemetery; which was beyond my comprehension. The amount of people buried there blows my mind, most which were for our freedom. But the thing that hit me the hardest was the Holocaust Museum. To see the pain and torture God’s chosen people went through breaks my heart. It broke my heart even more when I read how Christian churches took part in it as well out of fear of the Nazi party. It made me stop and think, who do we persecute or neglect because we are scared what others will say or do? The poor? The socially awkward? The people who are different from us? As I walked the halls of that museum my heart broke for those who we outcast just because they are different. My prayer is that we, that I, will be different and love them like Jesus.

So there is a little summary of my vacation to this point. I hope to keep updating and sharing my thoughts from DC with you! Below is a picture of me outside the White House after dinner. I was hoping to see the President but he is out of the country, total bummer…

(picture coming soon, I can’t figure out how load from the phone yet.)

Today I got an email from one of our leaders, Naomi Gillis, and she shared with me something she had written to a group of students who are soon becoming adults.  I thought it was an incredibly wise word and asked her if I could share it with everyone here on the blog.  So here it is, hope you enjoy as much as I did:

You’re excited, you can’t wait to be treated like the adult you know you are. However, fyi, you haven’t received your diploma yet and your parents still pay for most everything. I’m excited for you to be adults! But, while being an adult means you have more freedom it also means you are expected to be more responsible. Most people want to take the freedom, run with it and leave responsibility behind. I’m sure you feel that way at least some of the time. Who wouldn’t? Unfortunely, it is not wise, not profitable, not uplifting, not helpful, not attractive and won’t last. Life as adult probably looks really good right now but over time you will realize that there is a price to the freedom and it can be hard to preserve even in the simple ‘expected’ things like going to class, work, ect but its even harder to preserve in doing the things that don’t always have immediate consequences (positive/negative). No one may know that you’ve stopped relying on God or praying. You may know enough about the Bible and most people won’t realize that you haven’t read it in a few days, weeks, months. It may not be a big deal that you don’t attend church as much, don’t give as much or do things just so that they’re ‘done’. The gradual fade may even be missed by you but please resist the temptation as you prepare to leave home and begin to become an adult. It is a process and doesn’t come with age! Don’t believe the excuses that ‘you’re just really busy right now’, ‘some other people/things just needed your attention’, ‘ this is just a season that you’re going through’. I don’t know what you may be thinking but I know and remember being there. I remember not wanting to ‘keep it up’. I remember not wanting to be as involved. I remember slipping little by little and I remember the consequences of each of those passive decisions. Please don’t fade! I’ve noticed that certain things don’t seem to be as important. I know the excitement of change. I know you will all excel. I know that there are great and amazing plans in store for you. Please be prepared for them, be ready, the enticements of the world are shiny and cheap but you won’t know unless you are familiar with what is lasting.  I love you guys and that’s something I wanted you to know…

Be a good steward of where God has you now, stay faithful, and pursue Christ.  Thanks for sharing your heart Naomi.