Retreat Review

             I have taken groups to FaHoLo camp for the past seven winters.  I have had more great conversations there with students than any other place besides Ward Church.  As a retreat center, it’s a place with above-average facilities, reasonable prices, a great staff, and an indoor pool and hot tub - all which make the place awesome.

            Two things really help to define how a retreat will go.  The first is facilities, and like I said, FaHoLo is great.  The next is the speaker.  This retreat, we hit it out of the park with the speaker.  We had Jason Raitz and he was amazing.  Jason had to speak 8 times; this is because we do both our middle school and our high school retreats on the same weekend, with the same speaker (just at different times).  Jason was able to communicate in such a way that all students, from high school seniors to sixth graders, were challenged to find their identity in Christ.   He was fun, biblical and someone that helped set our small groups up for success.

            One of the greatest things that can happen in student ministries is when the students get up and thank their leaders.  On Saturday night at winter retreat, we always have a time for our seniors to share advice.  The line that continued to be shared throughout the night was that our volunteers are amazing.  It has been a dream and a goal of mine that our students would see their small group leaders as the key people in the spiritual development at Ward.  It is impossible for me to have a close relationship with every student.  But with great leaders, it happens that the student has someone in their life that loves Jesus and loves them.  Saturday night was a testimony that that was happening, and I am so thankful for the leaders we have in Epic.

            Lastly, I love retreats for the conversations.  I had a number of great conversations with students this weekend.  Retreats are times where our students connect with God, whether it is through the music (3union did a great leading worship), the talks from Jason, or their small groups.  In those moments, their hearts are open and we can share with them at a time when they are open to God doing something in their lives.  I love those moments! 

House Church Week 4 - Hosting House Church

                Hospitality is not a spiritual gift of mine.  I prefer to teach, lead or do just about anything else, but when house church is at your house that week you have to learn some hospitality.  For us, hosting house church means preparing the meal, having a dessert and making sure that there is space for three separate groups to break out for prayer and accountability.

                Ideally, members of a house church live in close proximately with each other and frequently spend time with each other.  This proximity makes it much less an event when people come over because it would happen so naturally.  We are still in our training and so we live all over metro Detroit, from Dearborn to Livonia and Farmington to Ann Arbor.  For us, that means when someone host shouse church it is a little bit of a bigger deal than it should be. 

                With that in mind, Lara and I spent a lot of time thinking through how we were going to host.  We planned two different menus and finally choose spaghetti over breakfast for dinner.  We thought about the dessert and bounced from muffins to Rice Crispy treats to finally Root Beer and Vernor floats.  Lara and I also spent a lot of time cleaning the house and organizing things so people would have plenty of space.

                House church this week had one incredible moment and numerous good ones.  The good moments included small group prayer, discussing together Philippians 2, and just generally being with each other.  These moments tend to remind me that our lives, our relationships, our goals are all meant to be built upon the Love of Christ and our relationships with him.  We are not trying to judge how house church went according to how well we thought the lesson went.

                What was incredible though was a moment that we as a group got to share with one of the kids present.  See, in a traditional church it is possible for a family to have all of their spiritual moments apart from each other.  They each go to their own rooms and have their own lessons.  Not in all churches, but in many they don’t even have to spend any time together.  In house church, kids come in and out.  During prayer a diaper needs to be changed or two kids push each other.  Kids are there when we sing or at least some of them, or they are there when we talk about seeing God.  This week, one of our kids gave us the highlight when he shared some verses that he had memorized.  We as a group cheered for him and I hope he felt loved and encouraged.  It was a moment that a Sunday school teacher would get at an institutional church, but for us we all got to celebrate a fiee year old who is just really beginning to learn about Jesus.

Student's being a blessing

The past few weeks we have been challenging our students to be a blessing to the people in their lives.  This started when Reggie McNeal spoke at Ward a few weeks ago about being a people of blessing.  Below are a few of the stories I have received.  I have changed names and some other possible identifying features of the stories, but nothing that impacts the story itself.  Enjoy and be inspired…

I asked one of my teachers today… she was completely surprised. I asked if there was anything I could pray for her about specifically and she started tearing up. She said her brother just died from cancer a few weeks ago, and her sister just relapsed (breast cancer) and her other sister has just been diagnosed with lymphoma. She said she has been really struggling because she doesn't want to lose any more family to cancer. Then everyone sitting around me (even the people who don't necessarily like her) started comforting her. I told her I'd pray for her and her family, gave her a hug and all that. Just thought I’d let you know!

I told a teacher in Language Arts class about what our church is doing to bless people.  I asked if I could pray for something for her. She asked me to pray for a family whose father had died. When I was talking to her, I felt God was there. She was really positive after we talked. She seemed encouraged. She said their family was also on her prayer list.

Truth be told, not every story worked out so well.  But, it’s not so much the result that I care about, it’s the willingness of our students to take a step… Here is a story of a ninth grade girl being faithful.

I asked my 3rd hour teacher if I could pray for her, she made a startled sound, said "Oh. Yeah sure." gave a nervous laugh and walked away.

Yesterday the students did not have school in Livonia or Northville districts, so we had them at the church for pizza and dodgeball.  I asked one of our ninth grade boys what he had done this week to be a blessing and he told me that he shoveled his neighbor’s driveway and sidewalks.  He told me he did it on his own, and he didn’t tell his mom, he just did it. 

I could tell you stories of students praying for waitress esand co-workers and stories of students stepping out in faith.  In my six years and counting in Ward student ministries these two weeks of watching our students learn to become people of blessing have been the most inspiring that I have ever had.