Youth Evagelism Conference

We hosted the Florida Youth Evangelism Conference this weekend. It was a fun weekend where an about 600 students attended the conference from all over Florida and even Georgia. David Nassar, one of the top youth communicators in America, spoke on the theme of Urgency. When it comes to communicating to students what it means to live out a life that is pleasing to Christ, there is none better. I was fortunate enough to be asked to lead a session titled "Cultural Youth Thoughts that Drive Actions and Attitudes of Youth Culture (Gothic, Hip Hop, etc)". Keith just called it "Facebook, Myspace and more", which was a little easier to swallow. But, it was basically a sprint through Youth Culture and the prevailing thought of today's teens and those we would consider "lost" or "un-churched". Keith taught a session on sharing your faith and Colby did the always great "Modest is Hottest" topic. All in all it was a fun weekend. Big Daddy Weave brought the worship and did a great job with that as well. Urgency was such a timely topic for what the students are facing now. The church, for reasons we won't go into, has a horrible name with the outside world, and the students need to bring the truth of God's word to them without compromising it, but couple that truth with love. It was a great weekend.

X-Games

I think I have gotten more into the Summer X-Games than the Olympics. This vid is of Kyle Loza who I found out later is a Christian. Pretty cool. There were a lot of great moments this weekend, and this is just one of them.

Blob

The video says it all.

Things You Learn at VANS Skate Park

-you don't heal as quickly as kids do. A couple kids were trying to get Jeremiah, one of our summer interns, to drop in on a 3/4 pipe. Their encouragement was as this,"You can do it! I've broken my arm, wrist, ankel and I'm allright!"

-The skate culture that kind of went away in the 90's is back.

-No matter how hard I try. I'll never be able to grind a rail. Won't happen.

-Kids are fearless. I love that about them.

Some Quik Thoughts on West Palm Mission Trip

-I believe and have for some time now that the best way to get a student involved in our youth group is to send them to our mission trips/mission projects. I've seen more students get engaged in our ministry through these trips. It just seems that walls come down when you're all working towards one common goal....and deep friendships usually spring forth from that.

-Even students that "don't like kids" can make an impact on kids.

-Getting out of your comfort zone always pushes you to re-evaluate areas in your life. And more often then not...change them.

-Most students that go on mission trips will have to answer this question at least once before they leave: "is He calling me to missions?"

-It doesn't surprise me when students do stupid stuff. But, unfortunately, it does surprise me when they do amazing things. I'm praying that the Lord changes that in me.

-Twitter is a wonderful way to keep parents in the loop on some little things that happen through out the week.

-Hearing testimonies of young men who grow up in the "hood" selling drugs, getting kicked out of the house; and then turning it around and using the story of their life for God's glory to impact those kids, always gets me choked up.

Noteworthy

-The iPhone 3G launched today.  I'm not sold on an upgrade at this point.  I love my iPhone, but I'm not sure faster internet and GPS will entice me enough to throw down $200 dollars.

-I did however update my "old" iPhone with the 2.0 firmware.  Now I can get all sorts of free applications.  It's been fun.  Can you say "free light saber app"?

-Saw Hellboy 2 last night at the 12:01 showing.  It was kind of a last second thing.  I kept hearing good things about the movie.  I enjoyed it more than the few that went with me.  Not as good as Iron Man, but I thought it was as good as the Hulk (which I thought was really good).  Definitely better than Hancock, though (but I know that's not saying much).  

-JP spoke to our students Wednesday Night.  Loved having him back for a night.  Such a great guy.  Still miss him like crazy, but I know God has him where He wants him.

-I am now up for twitter.  I think this will be a fun experiment.  Get yourself an account and start following some people.  That sounded very stalker-ish, I know.

-We load up the vans tomorrow at 12 noon to head down to West Palm Beach where we will work with Urban Youth Impact.  For a week we will run back yard Bible clubs, assist them with neighborhood clean-ups and set-up for a "back-to-school" bash.  It's going to be a lot of fun, and I know some students will come back changed.

-We took 25 students down to the Frontliner's ministry Wednesday afternoon.  This is a ministry that up until a couple weeks ago I didn't even know existed.  Our students were able to pour their lives into some 7-10 year old kids.  It was a blast.  Look forward to partnering with them in the future.

"Buzz Spotters": Tracking the Trends of Youth

I ran across this article on the Sydney Morning Herald. They're reporting on a group that does world wide research on what teens are after and what they think is "in". A couple of the statistics are:
57% of teens prefer facebook to myspace
71% of teens prefer text messaging to IM
65% would rather use a Mac than a PC
93% of teens prefer Internet to TV
Nothing I read that's really all that surprising. One thing they did mention that made me say hmmm, is that 1 in 10 teens are happy with their tech gadgets. With the rate at which new tech gadgets come out, and the millions in marketing that are pumped into those products (which make you unhappy with your tech) it's no wonder how anyone could ever be satisfied with what they have. There's always the next model or the next upgrade waiting to be released before you can figure out how to turn on your phone. Crazy.

Summer Movie Poll

Are You Serious?

OK. Not many things shock me anymore. It takes quite a bit for something to really get a "wow" out of me. Well, ladies and gentlemen I had a "wow" moment this morning while reading the news. I keep a pretty close eye on all things "youth culture" and the name Heidi Montag might not mean much to you, but she's definitely a part of that "youth culture". She's part of the popular MTV semi-reality series The Hills. Now, months back I read quote by Heidi in one the "entertainment" mags that was on the grocery store racks. She was asked what book she couldn't do without. Her response? "I can't go a day without reading the Bible." Seriously? The reason I question this because if you watch The Hills she's repeatedly bleeped out for the language she's using. Not only that, she's living with her boyfriend who recently became her fiance. And she has a horrible music video on youtube that has her splashing around in the ocean in a barely there bikini. Like I said, nothing really shocks me anymore. But then I read this article. Get this. This article tells of Heidi's intentions to record a "christian" album! You heard me right. What the devil? Seriously? It also informs the reader that she has, "been religious since she was 2 years old." She refers to herself as "non-denominational baptist." Suffice it to say, I was pretty shocked by the announcement. Here's why I think this is important. Let's say she does what she says she wants to do. She records an album. The album is sold in Christian book stores. Students pick this CD up because she has name recognition. Students will at that point be listening to "christian" music, which fits into most of our lists of "music that is OK to listen to." This is why I think labeling music "christian" or "secular" is dangerous. We can't be mindless. We can't set our thoughts aside just because it fits into a certain label. We need to be discerning. Not all "secular" music is bad. A LOT of it is! But, not all. We have to test it. Question it. View it through the goggles of our christian worldview. Let's not be mindless Christians. I'll jump off my soap box now. Here's the deal, she's not living what most Evangelical Christians would say is a life that lines up with Jesus' teaching. So is she someone you would really want to represent Christ? I leave you to answer that. And I'm aware that she could come out and say that she's been stupid and let Hollywood direct her instead of the moral compass that Christ has given her. I can understand the allure of Hollywood and it's seductive ways, and I could look past all that she has done. But, she hasn't yet. And with that I say, keep a look out for her album in the next year or so. The point of this post being, "don't be mindless in what you listen to."

Favorite Movie of the Year

Don't get me wrong, I loved Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, and I thought the first half of Indy was truly amazing, but.....Wall-E has my heart. I'm not sure another movie can touch what Wall-E did. If you love Pixar movies, you've probably seen it. If you're indifferent to animated movies you NEED to see this film. Have you ever left a film that just makes you happy? This one will. The thing that is great about Wall-E is that kids will enjoy the humor, but years from now they'll revisit this gem of a movie and love it for different reasons. Kurt Loder from MTV says this about Wall-E,

"The picture is truly brilliant on several levels. The first half is virtually
wordless, and it has the spare, kinetic beauty of silent movies, tapping into pre-verbal pleasure centers we've half-forgotten we have. The characters' anthropomorphic qualities never lapse into simple-minded cuteness, but remain rooted in their mechanical nature. To watch WALL-E rubbing his clamps together in clinking concern is to be charmed beyond all resistance; and his marveling response to the vast, junk-free reaches of outer space makes your heart swell in sympathetic wonder. Pixar has once again burst the boundaries of the animation ghetto, creating a world so intricately worked-out, so ravishing, that we don't feel we're just watching it — we're visiting. And at the end, in that rarest of responses, we don't want to leave."

So do yourself a favor and get to the theatre and see this film. Don't walk....run.

Lil' Wayne's Album Debuts at #1

So what you ask? Many parents have probably never heard of Lil' Wayne. Well, here's your education. Lil' Wayne isn't new, in fact he's been around the rap scene since '97 when he was part of the rap group "Hot Boyz". The reason this is blog worthy is because he just dropped his first album, and it blew everything else out of the water. Billboard reported in this article that his album "Tha Carter III" debuted at #1 selling 1 million albums in 1 weeks time. This is the first time in 3 years that this many albums were sold (the last album to do that was 50 cent's, "The Massacre"). If you were wondering what what genre of music is America's favorite, wonder no more. Rolling Stone posted their review of his album here. So, what do we do this info? We need to understand what Lil' Wayne is preaching....cause he is preaching. Walt Mueller did a review of his first single off "Tha Carter III", which was titled "Lollipop"(he calls them 3-D reviews). Mueller does a great job of giving you the information and then answering the question, "what do we do now?" You can also preview the songs on iTunes, which I did, and was easily able to tell what kind of lyrics filled his raps. I love music, but there is some stuff out there you just shouldn't listen too as a follower of Jesus. Bottom line: This is one of those albums.

Pray for Darfur

I just read a horrible news report at CNN.com. This article reports that rape in Darfur is becoming "a way of life" for girls as young as 4 years old! This was such a difficult article to read. I wanted to bring it to your attention so that you could be in prayer for these people as their government turns their heads and denies it all.

Read the article here.

Goodbye MySpace/Facebook, Hello Stickam!

I heard about Stickam about a year ago, and thought to myself....that could be the next big thing on the web. It looks as if its time has finally come. Stickam works essentially like a MySpace or Facebook, with profiles and friends lists, but Stickam takes the social networking to a whole new level. Stickam's major selling point is its web cam activity. Thousands of students are showing their faces to the world for all to see. Now, you can set your privacy preferences so that only your friends can see your live video feed, or you can let anyone check you out. This place could be a parents nightmare or if used with the right monitoring and rules, could be a really fun thing. Stickam is now the most visited website by teens according to this article. Check this article out and even the website. We can't be scared of this technology, because it's not going anywhere and it'll only get more prevalent. But, we must figure out how to monitor and teach students the dangers that are out there.

The Next Big Thing

I had my TV turned to the Fuse network, which is an actual "music video" network now that MTV is more "TV" than music. A song came on that caught my attention and not in the "hey this is a catchy song" way, though it was rather catchy. It caught my attention by what was being sung. The main line was, "I kissed a girl and I liked it". This was sung by Katy Perry. I didn't know anything about her background. I tossed it off as another example of Romans 1, until I read Walt Muller's blog. He did some research and found out a little bit about Katy Perry, and his findings were a little shocking. Read his blog post here.

CAMP O 2008

Camp is just days away! Pierce will be back leading us in worship and our very own Pastor David Uth and Jack Fiscus will be the camp speakers. Camp Orlando is literally bigger and better than last year. How is it bigger and better you ask? 1) The amount of people going has grown in number (and we took the most EVER last year), 2) We have a Rec Team to lead us in games this year, 3) Our Late Nights will be longer and loaded with MORE coolness, 4) The morning and evening services will have MORE video and MORE fun, And 5) We will have MORE Camp Speakers to speak truth to us! So, please take some time to pray for us before camp starts and while we are there, that God would show up in a mighty way!