Planning Pine Cove

The kind of magic captured in the above video doesn't just happen. It takes LOTS of careful planning and execution. Click HERE for an idea of what we've been thinking about and working on for our upcoming Junior High Pine Cove Retreat.

Wake Review for 10/5/08

Wake is our weekly meeting for Junior High students at Watermark. We meet on Sunday mornings at 11:00am on the 4th floor of the Watermark Tower. Here is my assessment of this week's Wake.

Program Outline
Attendance: Average
Fun Factor: Average
Leader Presence: Above Average
Music: Above Average
Message: Above Average

Random Thoughts:
What a fun week! Bode was back and we introduced two new "emcees" to the mix, Ali & Haley Gatewood. Their college freshmen at SMU and their twins. We had a lot of fun with the girls vs. guys theme and we'll continue to play on that throughout the semester. Our newly organized worship team of adults and students is really starting to take off. Mike Shelton, our High School Director, is doing a 3-part series for us called "Word Up" aiming to raise the value of the scriptures in the lives of our kids. If you're interested, you can click here to find a discussion guides that leaders use in their small groups throughout the week.

Review of Hideaway Weekend

This past weekend we took 3 bus loads of kids and leaders to Pine Cove Camps in Tyler, Texas. We took about 40 more students than we did last year, and seemed to have kids all across the spiritual spectrum. It was a great weekend for our students and leaders. Here's how I would rank the following areas...
Attendance: Above Average (even with tons of scheduling conflicts)
Leader Presence: Above Average: we have some amazing new leaders that are bringing some great new energy to our high school ministry.
Fun Factor: Above Average: David (from this blog) came along and did some really funny skits with Bode. They are hilarious together.
Music for the weekend: Above Average-Patrick Ryan Clark led worship with two students playing electric and bass, and a leader playing the drums. It was great!
Messages: our kids liked them a lot more than our leaders.
Organizational Piece: With a growing number of students going on these big events, I've got some ground to take organizationally for us to be able to look back and see no holes in the weekend as far as the administrative part. We've taken some steps to correct that next fall for our high school retreat.
I've posted a couple pictures here for you to see, but to see a full slideshow of the weekend click here.

Wake Review for 9/28/08

Wake is our weekly meeting for Junior High students at Watermark. We meet on Sunday mornings at 11:00am on the 4th floor of the Watermark Tower. Here is my assessment of this week's Wake.

Program Outline
Attendance: Below Average
Fun Factor: Below Average
Leader Presence: Average
Music: Average
Message: Average

Admittedly, we "phoned it in" this week. Will Washington and Bode were both out of town and I had returned after midnight the night before from helping out with the high school "Hideaway" retreat. Braun came and brought some laughs but, because I was dragging, everything felt a little slower than usual. If you're interested, you can click here to find a discussion guides that leaders use in their small groups throughout the week.

Wake Review for 9/21/08

Wake is our weekly meeting for Junior High students at Watermark. We meet on Sunday mornings at 11:00am on the 4th floor of the Watermark Tower. Here is my assessment of this week's Wake.

Program Outline
Attendance: Average
Fun Factor: Average
Leader Presence: Average
Music: Average
Message: Average

This week brought, in my opinion, the return to average. Everything felt like we were getting into a routine. There were some standout moments but overall, nothing too impressive.

The one thing of interest was the fact that we have consistently been welcoming 10+ first time guests each week. A fun thing we have for our guests is the "Guest Suite" (a couch and comfy chair set up with a coffee table and accessorized with Red Bulls, candy, and other freebies). We randomly select two guests each week to enjoy the suite and all it's amenities. This week, we decided to give guests the opportunity to "win" the guest suite and so we just said, "If you're a first time guest and you feel comfortable, come up on stage and whoever can impress us the most will win." It turned into 20 minutes of hilarity and ended with a kid doing non-stop backflips while another kid sang Silent Night with her eyes shut.

The crowd went wild and we spent so much time goofing off with the guests that we had to scrap our game.

Music was okay but we had some no-shows that put us in a pinch. My message had a great concept and challenge but lacked in solid content and effective delivery. If you're interested, you can click here to find a discussion guides that leaders use in their small groups throughout the week.



P.S. We showed the following video towards the top of our program just for laughs...

Today was sad.

Today was tough.  This morning someone came into my office and told me a student at one of our schools that we pull a lot of kids from committed suicide last night.  I was shocked, and soon after that got a call from this incredible mom who told me her son was pretty close with the boy who died.  Her son and I had been meeting for the last 4 weeks or so, and today just happened to be the day he was coming in.  She said he'd come see me at 4:00, and was pretty worried about her son and how he would react.  

Then I went to lunch with an old friend from college, who told me his pastor just resigned from his church because he was having an affair with someone outside the church.  Sad.  

During lunch I felt my phone vibrate, and checked my voicemail when I got back to my office.  A good friend of mine left me a 2 minute voicemail asking me to pray because he was going to tell his wife that afternoon that he'd been unfaithful to her.  So sad. This is a dear friend of mine. I had no idea it was going on, and was completely shocked. 

Then, my student comes by at 4:00, we talk for an hour, pray, and he feels completely numb. I'm praying for him like crazy. I ran home and grabbed a granola bar, and headed to a prayer meeting for the student that passed away.  There were about 400 high school students there.  2 of our student ministry volunteers pulled into the parking lot at the same time I did, hugged their small group guys, told them they were so sorry for losing their friend, and loved on them for about an hour and a half.  The highlight of my day was seeing 2 committed volunteers love students well.  These 2 guys have invested 5 years in the boys that are in their small group.  I thanked them for being so faithful, and headed home.     

Wake Reviews 8/31 - 9/14

Wake is our weekly meeting for Junior High students at Watermark. We meet on Sunday mornings at 11:00am on the 4th floor of the Watermark Tower. Here is my assessment of the past 3 weeks of Wake.

8/31 Program Outline
9/7 Program Outline
9/14 Program Outline
Attendance: Way Above Average
Fun Factor: Above Average
Leader Presence: Above Average
Music: Above Average
Message: Above Average

I have loved my job these past three weeks! We've had tons of kids, tons of leaders, tons of energy, and tons of fun. Bode and Will Washington (a High Schooler who is interning with us) have brought the funny each week and made everyone laugh. We continued the "This is Real" series about identity and I think it really hit home with several of the kids. If you're interested, you can click here to find a discussion guides that leaders use in their small groups throughout the week.

Also, this past week saw the introduction of Joey Quinones to our volunteer program team. Joey is an experienced worship leader and he has done a great job building a team of adults and students to lead music at Wake. I expect that we will take a lot of new ground in that area and I am excited for what our students will experience.

Stand Up For Your Legal Rights

I hope this blog doesn't turn into the bad Christian video blog, but if I keep getting stuff like this sent to me...



Thanks Julie!

He'll Zap You

Watch this video and you'll understand why I'm having such a hard time deciding which member of Sonseed is my favorite.



P.S. Thanks to Todd Wagner for forwarding me this video.

Rats in the Attic

We found a second one in a trap today. I think we've got all the potential entry points covered and we have 5 more traps set in the attic in case there are more. This has been a horrific experience. Hard to sleep knowing that you have these things in your ceiling.

Thanks to Russ, Bode, and Saleem for the having the courage to enter the rat-infested attic on their Labor Day weekend.

Rebellious

Our kids love Lecrae and so do I...Click Here to Pre-Order Lecrae's New Album "Rebel" for yourself and your group! Releases 9/30/08.

Pray for Vintage Church!

This past Sunday my wife and I visited Vintage Church while we were home in Lawrence, Kansas. Put simply, it's amazing.  Vintage is a church start in Lawrence, and they rent out the Lawrence Arts Center on Tuesday nights.  The theater there seats about 300 people, and it was almost completely full.  God is on the move at Vintage Church, and it was evidenced in a few different ways.  

The first thing that stuck out to me was a third of the people there were high school students. Growing up in Lawrence (a pretty cool, yet crazy college town), I've never seen 100 high school students gather to worship Jesus like I saw on Sunday.  I couldn't help but just keep looking at the students, who had a real hunger for God and you could totally see it in the way they worshipped during the music, and the way they listened during the message.  

Second, Vintage's leadership is legit.  John Flynn leads worship and is in charge of community groups.  He is amazing at the guitar, and used to play with Waterdeep.  His wife sings with him, and the rest of the band does a great job of reflecting the art and culture of Lawrence.  Since it was Labor Day weekend, I thought the Lead Pastor may be out of town, and he was.  So Brian Timmer spoke, he's a seminary student in Kansas City who helps out at Vintage and he knocked it out of the park.  Imagine a younger Rob Bell that likes to carry his notes around.  He was very cool to listen to, and did a great job of communicating God's truth.  

Lastly, as young as the church is, they already seem to be experiencing incredible, new testament church kind of community.  I hung around for a while afterwards just kind of watching, and people just kept lingering, talking, and then went to get coffee after hanging around for 30-40 minutes.  Pretty cool.  

Pray for Vintage Church.  Lawrence has needed a church like this for a long time.  

Ellie made the front page of the Newspaper!!!

This weekend we are back in my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. Yesterday we headed over to Baldwin, Kansas and took a family trip on a 1923 train. It was very cool. Half way through the trip I had noticed a man taking Ellie's picture. Now I know why, she was on the front page of the Lawrence Journal World this morning with her grandpa!!! You can view the picture and read a blurb about my dad here. It only took 3 years, and she's already making a name for herself in Jayhawk Country.

Breaking Free

This is my son. He turns 1 on August 30th and he just (sort of) began enjoying life on two feet. He's so proud and so are we!

Flip that Sac

I got a great deal yesterday on a LoveSac.  I got this HUGE LoveSac (it's actual title is "SuperSac") on Craigslist for $75.00.  Obviously it came without a sweet cover (that's why I got such a sweet deal) like the one's on the webiste.  If you ordered the one on the website with the cover that I got, it would be $649.00.  I found the same cover on Ebay brand new for $35.00.  We're going to put it back on Craigslist, and should sell it for around 300-400 dollars.  It's way too big for our room, but our kids are LOVING it in the house...

Downgrade to Double Threat

Mystery solved. The unidentified caller mentioned at the end of my last post has been revealed. After a call to the police and a cell phone trace, I discovered that it was indeed a prank call from a student. We had a good conversation about why threatening, violent phone calls weren't funny and he gave me the classic excuse of, "I guess I just wasn't thinking". If you've read The Primal Teen, that excuse actually makes a little sense.

How did an 8th grader make himself sound like an angry neighbor? He used this audio from Soundboards.com. Somebody needs to sue that website...

Triple Threat

I don't know what the deal is but violence has seemed to be following me over the past few weeks. I've had 3 out of the ordinary experiences that have kept me on high alert everywhere I go. Check it out:


August 10, New York City. In a Subway (restaurant) I witness a man verbally harassing two women at a table. One woman gets up from the table and begins to move away looking for help. When the man follows her and she begins to cry, I step in between. He starts come at me but I use words to calm him down and eventually escort the man from the restaurant. Luckily, I didn't have to hurt anyone.


August 20, Dallas. Leaving a Game Stop, I witness a man across the parking lot being jumped by 3 other men. I, along with several others, began moving in to help when the 3 guys got spooked by the shouting and hopped in a car and sped away. It turns out that they were trying to steal a woman's purse and a man had intervened to stop the crime. The woman's two tweenage sons had been punched (cut above eye and bloody lip respectively), her head had a knot and her shirt had been ripped, and the man who stepped in had a bloody nose, bruised temple (from a kick to the head) and a sore shoulder. I called 911, reported the descriptions of the men and their vehicle (we got the license plate) and stayed for the ambulance and police. It was crazy.


August 25, My Living Room. My cell phone rings and I answer. An angry, unidentified man on the other end begins ranting about me stealing his newspaper. He claims to be outside my house and shouts at me to get ready because he's coming in the front door. I immediately rush to the door to be sure it's locked. After a few more threats and an argument about whether or not he had the wrong number, he hangs up. Police say there's really nothing they can do. It took us a little bit longer than normal to go to sleep that night.

Outside the Camp Leaders Retreat

Our staff had an amazing time with our leaders this past weekend! We had a ton of fun playing together, talking about student ministry, and fueling up spiritually to get ready for a big year. Special thanks to Camp Shiloh for hosting us, and giving us some great memories with our leaders! I look weird in this picture because my good friend Russ is goosing me from behind, which you cannot see.

Wake Review for 8/24/08

Wake is our weekly meeting for Junior High students at Watermark. We meet on Sunday mornings at 11:00am on the 4th floor of the Watermark Tower. Here is my assessment of this week's Wake.

8/24 Program Outline
Attendance: Way Above Average
Fun Factor: Above Average
Leader Presence: Above Average
Music: Above Average
Message: Above Average

I had a blast at church this week. Our staff had just come off of a Leaders Team lake retreat and I was running on coffee, donuts, and very little sleep. The energy of the kids got me going and we had so much fun singing, playing games, and digging into God's word. We opened registration for our Pine Cove Retreat (see invite below) and started a new series called "This is Real" about identity. I think it really hit home with several of the kids. If you're interested, you can click here to find a discussion guide that leaders use in their small groups throughout the week.

Mike is Way Excited

This is the first of 5 "video invitations" we're putting together for this Friday's re-launch of watermarkstudents.com. We're making some minor adjustments hoping to increase the effectiveness of our website as a communication tool with students and parents. Props go to Bode for the top notch production of this video...I just can't stop watching it!

Kinda Like Guitar Hero

Each fall we order new t-shirts to celebrate the new ministry year. I love t-shirts! We like to offer kids two options and sell them for a little less than cost so they are affordable and so we don't take a huge hit. Click above to enlarge the picture and view our latest designs. The Guitar Hero one has a rectangle on the back below that neckline that looks like a bumper stick reading "Wake is fun (Kinda like Guitar Hero, but not really)"

How Did We Get Here?

The photo above, taken in our "dressing room", is one of many snapped on a recent trip to New York City. I'm not at liberty to share the details but I will tell you it all started with this video for Watermark Student Ministries. From entertaining the kids to (possibly) entertaining the masses.

Community Group Retreat @ Possum Kingdom Lake

Our Community Group took this weekend and went to Possum Kingdom Lake. With 10 adults and 9 kids there was never a dull moment. The weekend was filled with 4 wheeling (apparently people from Arizona call it "quading"), water skiing, wakeboarding, tubing, cliff jumping, napping, grilling on a big green egg, hanging out by the pool, and encouraging each other to grow closer as couples, and closer to the Lord. You may be thinking, how could you do that much with that many kids running around? We're just that awesome.

I was reminded this weekend of what the new testament church is really supposed to look like. We experienced community in a great way this weekend, and I'm now trying to convince everyone to sell their houses, and begin the search for a house that's big enough for all of us here in Dallas. It's taking some work to convince them...

Comfort and Hope Breaking Through

Steven Curtis Chapman has released a new version of his song "Yours" with a fourth verse chronicling the experience of grief that his family is currently navigating. You can download Yours (New Verse) NOW at Amazon.com (Proceeds go to Shaohanah's Hope). Check out Jim Houser's blog to find out more about the new verse's lyrics & details behind the song.


In addition to the powerful lyrics added to an already powerful song, the testimony of hope continues as Steven and family are slated to appear and share God's story on Good Morning America on Wednesday August 6th on ABC and then Live with Larry King on August 7th on CNN. If that weren't enough, Steven will be found on tour with Michael W. Smith for the first time ever this Fall.

Join me in praying for the Chapman family during this difficult time.

It's All Very Hush, Hush

In a previous teaser post, I indicated that I would answer the questions I posed. Turns out, I've got a gag order. I've probably already said too much! How's that for mystery? Here are some pictures that might give you some clues as to why we were in Hollywood last weekend and why we'll be traveling out-of-state again next weekend. Even though you probably don't care, I wish I could say more.

P.S. The picture above captures my joy in the moment when our driver picked us up at the airport. Yeah, we had a driver.