Soul Quest Static

Hey everyone, please forgive me for how long it has taken for me to get back to you. Life has been incredibly busy, good but busy!

These are merely my own thoughts, not those of Pastor Dave or Connie... so please take what I write here with a grain of salt while I await the opportunity to present SQM youth for 2010 to Dave and Connie. Yet just to keep everyone in the loop...here is my outline for the future...

To represent a shift in our focus and while also moving towards growth... I want to call what we do on a weekly/bi-weekly basis Soul Quest Static. My explanation is lengthier than what I have time for right here and right now. The core principles of Static rolls out of relationship and operates/functions out of 3 pivot points.

Our goal is to....

TO CONNECT (TO LIVE)----
- to God
- to one another

-------TO GROW (TO DEVELOP)
mind/body/spirit
+mentally
+physically
+spiritually

-----TO GIVE (TO MOVE OUT and REFLECT)
- Disciples who disciple, and live out missional lives.


Imagine a tree. A tree connects to the water (God)- to the flow of life and grows strong, and healthy and whole. The growth presents fruit, produces shade and giving attributes to others and the surrounding community.

We connect to the word, to God and to one another. We grow in every area we can through connection and we then share this with our inner community, outer community and the world at large. We live out transformed, changed lives that reflect God on every corner at every turn.

How is this done?

Through connecting in both physical and cyber space. Through sermons (directed series of messages tackling tough, adrenaline filled areas of life)- utilizing topical preaching when needed, and yet also utilizing expository and textual preaching under the license of narrative relationship. Sermons are supplemented with the use of media such as film, music, etc... where it is seen as helping in the fleshing out of a message not as a replacement for the message. We operate through worship with the use of tech but hopefully with live music through the use of our youth leaders/members leading to inclusion into the community. We discuss and question and seek out God's face both alone and together. We pray and we play. We share and we give to others through planned acts of serving (Grace centers of hope, helping out those in our congregation) and unplanned God-led experiences. (treasure hunts, etc) We seek out opportunities to share the Gospel with contacts we make at the school administrative level.

This is for the time being my perceived goal and outline for the future... if our perception for the future is that we must learn to crawl before we can walk that's fine. We're not a church that is about applying a formula and becoming an organized machine that yields churched people with unchanged lives. In a similar way I have also held for some time that the problem with the church has much to do with the very fact that we're not training up others to be disciples. We have to have disciples training up disciples who continue the trend with unwavering zeal and love for God and for others. Without discipling, we only have religious people.


We're not doing religion. We're not doing "youth group" or even for the sake of argument we're not doing a program. We're living out Jesus-centric lives with love, honesty, relationship, power and authority in His name.
- Lance

Updates.

Hey Leaders...

I haven't wrote in a while but I have a few things that have been on my mind since last night.

It seems like we have been wrestling with whether or not to have a Christmas function for the youth group and at this present time it may not be the best idea. Obviously this is subject to change although we don't really have a lot of time to figure something out. If anyone has an idea for something small in December... then please make it known. I would suggest that we get together at least once in December as youth leaders and discuss the future. Perhaps we take December to really pull together our youth room and to get things prepped for January and beyond.

Now here is the heart of why I am writing this...

Last night after youth group I spent a few minutes putting together dates for next year. I'm planning for us to get together twice a month seeing that once a month has not been cutting it. Although subject to change I pulled 24 dates together for next year (which I will post here in the near future) If we're even contemplating going to Spring Hill the only weekend available that supports SH and JH is 2/12-2/14. (More on that later) Everyone is invited to go but the minimal that we need for youth leaders is 1 youth leader for every 5 kids.

With the new building we have new opportunity to really reach the youth. I'd be weary of utilizing this past 6 months as evidence for how things are going. I have been researching different issues that occur within youth groups and one of the main things that is proposed to youth leaders is to be patient. In almost everything I have read it is mentioned that youth ministry attendance typical goes up and down especially early on. Let's stay confident, and truly get behind the future of this! When it's mentioned that we'll try to do Spring Hill in the future, we need to all get behind it and get excited even if it's in front of just Corbin and Noah.

In reading about different youth groups and connecting with different youth leaders I have realized that many are seeing the death of the way youth group used to be done and how it will be done in the future. For the most part we still connect quite often with the way of the old and need to get organized and be encouraged about the future of our youth program! For the most part... the old is signified by odd little games that kids don't necessarily want to play, songs being played that they necessarily don't want to sing and awkward forced discussions that they don't want to converse about. Yet teens DO WANT authentic relationships, they want someone who will genuinely listen to them and they want the truth. These three things are most often overlooked, for years youth group has been watered down church where simple principles are taught that don't hold up under the heavy weight of the teenagers life. It's been proven that kids want to learn, and if there to encounter the world outside and grow up and be able to defend the truth... then they must be taught. Just look at the devoted nature of those who practice Judaism whereas kids who are younger than our teens have portions of the OT memorized!

I have no doubts behind the future of this program but we have to get behind it with drive and ambition. In the future I will try to connect with area bands and with our get togethers attempt to have live music, games, worship, teaching and discussion. I may only be speaking for myself here but I hope that this resonates with everyone (as your all youth leaders!) but I have a hunger for the truth, in my own personal faith journey I'm becoming increasingly sin sensitive and every time I meet with these kids I just want to tell them how much Jesus loves them and invite them to partake in what God has for them. Every time we get together I just want to preach the Gospel to our group... I truly hope this resonates with you. The window of opportunity is continuously shrinking day by day.

In the future are we looking to utilize the social networking device that Zac created? Facebook? or this blog? I believe this blog serves as private means of communication and that either we should use the facebook site or the social networking device. If we want to utilize both that's fine, I just figured that teens are more likely to visit a page that exists on a platform that they are already using. Although the social networking site looks to be useful as well. Let's just come to a conclusion here in the future.

Stay tuned... I'm going to put together some topics of conversation for the near future for everyone to review here.

Thanks!
- Lance

Late post...

Sorry I'm just now getting to this... it's been sort of a tense week.

Tonight we'll follow a similar structure to what we did last time. The scripture verse that we'll be focusing on is John 17:23... we'll do an activity or two and really just look to hang out with one another and have fellowship.

- See ya soon!
Lance

Update!

Hey Leaders!

I hope that everyone is having a good week! It of course would have been nice to get together to prep for this Saturday nights youth group but we've all been obviously busy. Thank you Keely for sending the invites/attendance RSVP's out through Facebook. I'll keep this short but I did want to mention whether or not it would be possible to utilize Wednesday nights from October and beyond for youth group. Now I know we originally talked about Saturday nights and even decided upon it but that was before some recent issues with my employment changed. I have a new boss that has told me that having Saturday nights off would be next to impossible for me going forward. Now this isn't to say that I will work every Saturday night but that I just have to leave the option open for them. I'm discouraged by this but hopefully Wednesday nights will end up working for everyone going forward. I'll see what I can do about attempting to keep Saturday nights if Wednesday nights are not available but there is a good chance that we will have to go the route of every other Wednesday night starting in October. Please comment and add what you want...

This Saturday we will talk about John 9: From Darkness into Light.

Lock-In information

Hey team! Sorry I'm getting on so late... this week has been crazy.

Real quick... and perhaps I'll add a thing or two in the morning:

If I can get some help in the following area's...

-Someone needs to get a rough estimate for how many vehicles that we're going to have for traveling to and from Paradise Park.
- Please bring board games, Wii games, movies, etc
- Funds will be limited so it would be best for us to just drop the little extra expenses like glow sticks, etc.
- Zac would it be possible for you to put together power point templates for the text messaging challenge? Just write-ups utilizing various materials... some lengthy, some not so lenghty. It can be a random sentence, scripture, movie quote... whatever.
-Team let's try to be at SQM by the latest 7:30

Please remind me if we're missing anything... it would also be good if we put in a order for the pizza mid-day tomorrow and let them know what time we'll be needing it for. How much pizza will we be needing?


Please add stuff to this and acknowledge what your able to do on this list... it's late and I'm not sure if I included all of what I intended to include.

Thanks again leaders!!
- Lance

Lock-In

Hey guys,

Just a quick question that will need to be discussed very soon if the answer is yes.

Are we having a lock-in? I know we said we needed to ask if it was alright with Dave and everything so..did we? If so we should probably plan another meeting all together during the week to discuss plan/events and what not to make sure we get ourselves and the parents ready for it. And also a date?

I just know Lance mentioned it on the FB page so just a thought.

Keely

Update

Hey everyone... sorry it's been a little while. Seems that everyone is pretty busy and it doesn't help that I've been sick the past couple days.

A couple things...

1. We are allowing the eighth graders to attend the youth group but we need to make sure that they know there allowed to come out. Do we have their phone numbers on hand?

2. This is a rough lay-out that I figured would work for the 1st gathering this saturday

7-9pm

- Introduction: we set the tone from here and we introduce ourselves.
- Activity (I have a list of activities to choose from or if anyone has an activity to share)
- Short video (Nooma- You) Now typically I'm not looking to utilize these videos very often but in searching for a short video to play- I felt that this particular video really does a sound job in introducing some of the conversation topics we'll be introducing over the course of the summer.
- Discussion afterwards- this is where we'll listen to the teens and start to poke and prod and ask questions "How is God working in your life currently?" - "What would you like to get out of this?" - "How would you describe your Faith life?" etc.
- Activity
- Hanging out- "Fellowship"- music playing, chatting, playing games, etc

Tina and I have thought about bringing our Wii to the youth gathering but we were not sure if we had the right cables/connections to utilize it for this saturday.
I also think that we should create a sheet that has all the necessary information (Facebook link, SQY gmail account, etc.)

- that's it for now... just laying low until I have to head off to work.
I hope everyone is having a great week!
- Lance

Quick update...

Quick update...

Tomorrow we're doing an announcement in front of the church regarding the youth ministry. It will be a simple presentation about what we're looking to do and Pastor Dave will lead us into it.

That's about it...

- Lance

Update!

Been going just about all day... figured I'd drop in and communicate a couple things.

Earlier today I met with Pastor Dave and we talked about the youth ministry and I just went over with him about how our meeting went and some of the things we discussed. He put in his planner that we're having our first event on the 27th of June and I told him a bit about what our plans were regarding the layout of that evening, etc. I didn't go into great detail about particular events, curriculum, (mainly because I'm still fleshing some stuff out)

As far as addressing the church on Sunday about an announcement- he's going to talk with the leaders this week about it. As far as future activities (games, etc.) if any one has any idea's... let's start brainstorming as time moves on I'll have more details regarding specific lessons I want to introduce and we can build games around those lessons. I was thinking of putting together a "show and tell" type activity each time we meet up. This would be a chance for the students (or even us) to share with the others how God is working in our lives and this can be signified by a keepsake that means something, a talent or gift that God is using (a song, a skit, a writing, drawing, a story, etc) this would help create community and would give allowance to each individual to worship how God desires them to.

I've been coming up with a philosophy regarding Christian world-view. For example...
1. Creation + Hope 2. Fall 3. Redemption... Vocation...etc
As far as the mission of the group... well to put it in plain sight
It has been said that roughly 88% of teens that graduate high school- leave the Church at the same time! We can put that on the world all we want and point at the "worldly" reasons for this... but the reality is that the Church has to own this. We have to own this. Why is there such a great divide? It could be that we have done youth group incorrectly for quite some time and it's going to take sound teaching, authentic living, incredible love and openness with one another to turn these numbers around. I'm telling you... we're going to change the world with this. I believe that this youth group is a hinge point for a lot of other groups in the future.

We'll wait and see... but I'm also questioning the combining of the middle and high schoolers. Yet lets just see how things pan out after our first get together on the 27th.

That's it for now... I could write for some time... but I have to get going.

- Lance

First Youth Meeting

Hey guys. 

Just a question. Are we still planning on doing the youth meeting on the 13th? If we aren't I feel like we should plan another day to get together. Haha I know Zac and Lance have been trying to get together for a while but the day is drawing closer.

Just throwing out a line.

Keely

Howdy

Hey everyone!

Sorry just now getting on here- life has been pretty busy as of late.

I believe that this platform could truly work as a solid communication tool. I can only speak for myself but with everyones busy work schedules, life schedules, etc... we just need to continue to work towards better communication as most of our success will be consistant with sound communication. There are a dozen different ways to communicate idea's, announcements, plans, etc... I would just hope that we could settle on one or two things in order to avoid frustration and so that we're all on the same page.

I'm really excited about the opportunity at hand, and hopefully my eagerness, or passion towards the material doesn't push anyone away. Because I believe that we all have amazing gifts to bring to the table, I'm just very passionate about the Gospel, about teaching God's word and about bringing up these teens with an understanding of God's love and purpose for them. So please bear with me if I come across aggressively about getting things underway, and about making sure that we're communicating on a regular basis. I have in the past been a part of different groups where we had an incredible range of talent sitting in the room but the lack of putting aside adequate time for planning and having sound communication divided the room and led to us failing.

So that's that... I'm looking forward to hearing from all of you!

- Lance

Response

Hey Guys!

Sorry it's taken us so long to get into the game...baby Reese and all!

We'd love to get together with everyone soon. We (okay mostly I since I didn't ask Zac yet) were thinking that if we wanted to meet somewhere we could either meet at the church or you all could come over to our place since we're probably the half-way point between your two places of residence. I know Sunday after church we have Keely's birthday dinner, but depending on everyone's plans after that maybe we could meet. I'll have Zac call the Pearce's then we'll call the Wallace's to see about getting up to announce things tomorrow at church.

As far as the Office thing...agreed...awesome idea to work toward...I'd hate to miss doing it!

Parents...I'd like to go to each one individually and let them know what's up and invite them to come to a pizza party one Sunday after church within hopefully the next month. I've already compiled a list of who all of our parents are so we can seek them out. All of the youth of our church minus one come from single mother homes. What a need for you guys to come in and love them and teach them...and us ladies for the girls to show them how to love our husbands and seek the Lord, etc.

Anything else...sorry I forgot already if there was anything. Zac gets off work at 6:15pm so I'll try to have him call after he gets home. We're excited for awesome things ahead! :)

Amy :)

Response

I wasn't sure if I should just comment on the post or just write another one. I decided this would probably be seen better than a comment so here is my response. 

1. I think your first point is a good idea. We obviously don't have a lot of time to put something like together and have it be well done. I think just laying out what we're planning is a good enough idea that will allow the parents to just kind of think about it and to also encourage their kids to come!

2. I just have a question about this remark. What do you mean by advertise? Like an announcement? Because really if you think about it this isn't a normal "announcement" like we have at church. If the six of us (or even just one couple) go up to the front and say that we're starting a youth group I think people will be so excited because we've never been close to having one.

3. We concur.

4. I think at least one meeting with the parents is also a great idea. And you are most likely right about not having to meet with them very often.

Just a side note on availability. This weekend we are available Friday afternoon/evening, Saturday morning/afternoon and then obviously Sunday is Sunday. I don't know if that's relevant but just wanted to throw that out there.

Keely  

Just an idea

Figured this might be a good way to communicate through out the day- we can list idea's, questions, concerns, etc here. Until Tina and I can get a microphone and skype up and running... we can utilize this as a means of comm. So here are a few things I've been thinking...

1. The "Office" idea is great for a future theme or something but perhaps due to time constraints, etc... we might want to opt for something a bit easier to run with? Just a thought...

2. We should advertise the event this Sunday- we can hold conversation about what we want to address through out the week on here... I've come up with a basic Who/What/Where/How/etc... type write-up... I'll attach the rough draft of it below for reading.

3. I'm very excited about everything that we're working on and I hope that we can all get together in the near future and talk about things further. Personally I'm ready to take this youth event to the max... Pastor Dave has told me in the past in weekly meetings that he wholy wants us to make it our own and that he would like to see our personalities in this project.

4. Last, perhaps it would be a good idea that we meet with the youth (even this weekend coming up) discuss with them what they might be interested in learning, etc... then create a write up concerning what they had to say and then we can meet with the parents. Either way I would hope (and I do believe) that we're only in need of meeting up with the parents one time, and after that I'm almost positive that we will have their consent to touch all area's of life concerning their children. With "heavy" issues I'm inclined to believe that we can do no worse that the public school system that's in place- quite honestly I'm positive that we will talk about "the big issues" in a way that is not only honest and real but also convincing- I'm just a big believer that if Pastor Dave has given us "the keys" to this activity then he must trust us to do well with it... which if he believes in what we're set to put together so should the parents that attend the church.


Youth Gathering

Topics Covered
-Who
-What
-Where/When
-Why
-How

-Who?
The Six of us.
- What?
Youth Group Bi-Weekly Service complete with an open forum for discussion, teaching, worship and (of course) Fun!
- Where/When?
SoulQuest Church (Saturday Evening)
-Why?
Because its imperative that our youth become equipped with a Faith they can be both lived out and that they can grow with. Because those that are in High School when they graduate from school they often also “graduate” from the Church. Because these are the formative years for Faith, Because Luke 18:16 has Jesus calling to the children, and stating that we’re “not to hinder them, for the Kingdom of God belongs to them.” Jesus had placed a high importance on the children and so should we.
-How?
We’ll learn through a variety of activities. Through a curriculum tailored made to help the youth learn to engage and support their Faith convictions. Students will learn to question, and yet question with integrity and honesty. By helping the youth develop a worldview- a system of belief. By not leaving any questions off the table. By having fun and enjoyment through worship, fellowship and community building exercises. By opening up our own lives to the youth, by being real, and honest and acting with Christ-like love.

If you want to keep posts in secret- save them as a draft and leave them unpublished.

Hopefully this helps with communication and go ahead and change the format, template, etc. I just set things up in a hurried fashion.

Peace be With you.