Quicky before I'm off to camp

I just want to start off today by saying how much I miss Michigan summer. I do miss the friendly mitten and it's wonderful summer climate. (and the pines, and of course all of you!) I once heard it described to Christians that, "For those that don't believe in Jesus Christ, this is the closest they will ever get to heaven, and conversely,as believers in Jesus Christ, this life on earth is the closest to hell we will ever get." Although that is a true statement, that person clearly never spent the summer in Texas where it's hot as hell every day! Sorry, that was a little crazy, but today the temp is over 100 degrees, again. I can't even remember a day that the high wasn't at least 95 degrees. And it seems like these degrees are in Celsius!

I have been keeping myself busy the past couple of weeks. I had a wonderful time on the fourth of july! I went to a coworkers house and had some fun there. I bought some fireworks to help me enjoy the occasion of our nation's birthday. I wanted to celebrate our country by blowing up a small part of it! Maybe I can help you understand the kind of fireworks that you can buy, by sharing a little bit about this wonderful state. Keep in mind that in Michigan, all you can buy is glorified sparklers. Texas is a wonderfully proud of it's military history, very red, gun toting-nra activists-armed forces supporting, bleed red white and blue, pro constitutional rights states ever! You can pretty much buy sticks of dynamite here! It's great! I bought some mortar style artillery shells that were a lot of fun to light off!

I also enjoyed some of my favorite things the past couple of days. I rode my bike today around town, lately I have been enjoying what I call "urban mountain biking". That is basically looking for fun obstacles to ride my bike over or through. For instance, I have enjoyed a cement drainage ditch that forms a nice little half pipe to ride in. Today for lunch I went to Taco Bueno, which is a Taco Bell spin off that started here in Abilene. And coincidental, the people around here are extremely proud of it. It's good, but it's fast food mexican, so it's not great and it's not better than my ex employer, Taco Bell. Anyways, they have on fountian pop IBC rootbeer. I love IBC rootbeer, reminds me of my childhood, when we said that it was the best rootbeer ever(it is really really good), but liked it more because it came in bottles that resembled beer bottles. Speaking of beer, I have taken a liking to Shiner beer. It's the Texas mainstream microbrew. It's no New Holland or Founder's, but pretty good. They don't really do dark beer. I think Texans are just scared of it. Let's see, what else? I went to one of my favorite establishments last night. B-dubs=awesome. Buffalo wild wings is so good. I had my standard boneless 8 piece spicy garlic with a tall blue moon. So good. Worth that punishment that follows the next day... I'm also enjoying a Driscoll sermon right now, love him!

Speaking of Driscoll, I'm working hard down here to model my ministry off of his. On sunday nights we have dinner together and play some games. Then right after that we have a youth service where we play contemporary worship songs and I attempt to preach a small sermon to the students. I'm still getting used to the the preaching, it's a whole different mind set from what I have typically done in the past. On wednesday nights, we have been meeting at various houses where we eat together and then have a bible study that rehashes what I talked about on sunday. The whole goal here is to encourage life application and to get the students to think for themselves instead of being spoon fed.

Right now we are in the middle of a series that I call, God's top ten. It's an in depth study of the ten commandments and how they actually apply to our lives. For instance, I don't have too many murders in my youth group(6th commandment), but I do have students that let anger rule their actions and "commit murder in their hearts". A cross reference from Jesus' sermon on the mount. I'm slowly seeing light bulbs go on in the students heads as some of them have aha moments. I have had some pretty interesting challenges, but lots of little victories too!

Also, I have been trying very had to engage the students outside of the learning environment in an effort to build relationships that will hopefully help me build my ministry more effectively. I have been organizing weekly open gyms and we also have another weekly event we call, Breakaway. Breakaway is where we breakaway from the church building and go do something fun just for the sake of doing it. We have played in parks, gone swimming, out to lunch, and most recently we went to a Craig's Cruisers type place where we scored a great deal. We went bowling, played mini golf, got lunch and played in the arcade. It was great. And that is where today's picture is coming from.

I am going to spend the next two weeks at camp. I am very excited for this and can't wait for it. After that, I am having a very special girl come and vist me! Then after that, I have a three day mystery trip that I'm leading. So the next month of my life is going to pretty busy to say the least. I love you all and miss you all so much and can't wait to see you sometime in the future!