Annette's 3 Month Goal (July-Sept)

Goal:  BEGRUDGINGLY, I am going to attempt to complete the Ardent Youth Ministry manual.  I don't think I can finish it in 3 months, but I need to get the bulk of it together.

Action Steps:

1. Compile all the material that is currently "floating" around the church files.
2. Cut and paste the KEEP material into a new document.
3. Identify and write job descriptions for various youth ministry positions.
4. Do some online research to look at other A/G church youth ministry materials.
5. KEEP IT SIMPLE but be thorough at the same time.

Help me God!

Steve's Final Book Review

This is the final blog for Steve Roux. This book has opened my eyes up. It has given me some insight on how I should educate my children as well as the youth group. It looks like we have alot of catching up to do. Not to make it sound like our job is impossible, but I believe it will be hard road to regain what we once had. We are up against college professors that seem to have this respect simply because the are educated. So what if you are educated when you don't have the truth on your side. Or not willing to face the truth.

It will be tough. Maybe God wants it to be hard. If it was easy we would take it for granted. God wants to see what we are made of. Are we going to trust Him and stand up for our beliefs or sit back and let all the hippies from the 60's continue to distort the truth. We have to state what we believe with intelligence and love. We keep doing this until His return. I say all this to encourage us to do our studying to be ready. If we don't have the answer we will learn where to get it from. Let's stand up.

Annette's Final Review - Already Gone

I think one of the toughest things for me in reading this book is trying to figure out how to have balance!  It is obvious that apologetics must be taught in our churches, and that we must be an influence in our world!  But does anyone really believe that the Bible is going to be allowed back in our schools and courtrooms as a legitimate source?  I would LOVE to hope that could be possible...but is it the best use of resources to spend years fighting for that in court?  Is that going to change lives for eternity?

I think one of the most poignant questions Dr. Ham asked the 1,000 young adults was if church was essential.  53% said no.  That is disheartening.  But I think instead of making excuses or trying to "reason" why they would say that, I think we just need to seek wisdom from God.  Is that true in our community?  Do we care enough to seek God's heart about what to do to address it?  No matter what we try to do or say, the reason for this always comes back to hypocrisy.  That is a tough one to swallow.  And no amount of apologetics is going to solve that problem.  Christians must LIVE what they say they believe. 

The church is often falsely judged too.  Christians will never be perfect - we are people after all.  But if we learn to live the transparent life that Christ did, our witness will be more convincing.  We need to remember that our message should be about how Jesus Christ affects REAL LIFE.  The Bible is not some history book that doesn't apply today. 

I was excited about the things he shared about rediscovering church.  We've talked about this in life groups and worship rehearsals lately.  We're looking at the New Testament church and seeing that we have veered away from that in some ways.  It's not that we have to change everything we do.  It's that we're sensing a restlessness that is causing us to examine whether we're doing everything God has called us to.  The Gospel won't change, but perhaps our way of sharing it can. 

This book isn't just about answering the HOW TO's for changing these alarming statistics.  It's about challenging the church to examine the way they present Biblical truth, and the way we live it!  I'm okay with being challenged.  If we passionately seek God's direction, He will show us how to respond.

Kristie's April, May & June Reading

When I first started reading “Already Gone” it seemed as if there was a somewhat of an easy solution to this ‘epidemic’ - just start teaching apologetics. Now that I have spent the last six months reading and pondering this book and Mr. Ham’s ideas; I have come to the conclusion that I now have more questions than less.

I am not saying Mr. Ham is wrong, I think apologetics is good however I think there is more to it! What about the spiritual aspect - are we as a church teaching the deep spiritual things such as speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, etc. Is it evident in the lives of the adults; yet alone our students? Are we helping people to get this whole Christianity thing in their hearts. Are we just whitewashing this whole thing or are we really taking them as deep as we need to? I know the old saying ‘you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink‘. So how do we get our youth and ourselves to thirst for a deeper, closer walk with Christ? Because none of us are immune from this epidemic.

I don’t understand Mr. Ham’s statement “It seems to be more a matter of heart issues than head issues.”. To me apologetics is head knowledge? Maybe I am misunderstanding what he is trying to say. Don’t get me wrong I see the importance of apologetics - I am just trying to put on paper the thoughts and ideas going through my head.

Reading this book has been good - I feel it has pushed me to look at things from maybe a little different angle and given me some new insight. I don’t feel like the true ’vaccine’ is in this book. But it has shown us ideas to use to help avoid becoming one of the statistics.

And the pondering goes on.

Dear Lord help me to defend your Word and to live your Word!
Lead us Holy Spirit!!

Angela's April reading

I still don’t like the book. I just don’t get a whole lot of: what do we do about it. Makes me frustrated. I also beg to differ a bit on the part about making things appealing to the younger generation – I think that’s an ok way to catch them, or reel them in. But, then yes we do need to stand on the Word. I do believe that is the truth! I do defend the Word. And I do stand behind the Bible.

Kristie 2nd Goal

My goal this quarter will be to write a 'how to folder' for the STL concession stand in the event that I can not be there to oversee the concessions.

In the folder I will have:

• An advised amount of how much cash (and which size of bills) should be in the cash box for starting the event.
• A price list of concession items. So that whoever writes up the price board knows how much each item sells for.
• An updated list of items that are hot sellers, poor sellers and ideas of new items to try in the STL concession stand.
• A list of teens that have experience in the STL concession stand that will be reliable to help someone new when needed.

And I will also meet with Pastor Annette about who should purchase candy and food as it is needed.

Eric's April reading

What more can I say that is not in this reading. I see how important it is to start teaching biblical relevancy. With all that is being taught in our school systems and on the news with science and it conflicting with the God's word. I understand why confusion and questions can arise if there isn't a clear understanding of what to believe in if your not taught how to defend the christian faith.

Theresa's April Reading

Well I felt he was saying the same things that he said in the last chapter. Through the reading it does make me sad for this generation because it's like they are in two worlds, the world of science and the world of religion. We understand that these worlds are from one creator and they do exist together but do our students? We have to teach biblical relevancy, I'm ready, let's do it. I appreciate that in the back of the book, appendix 3, he listed some books for apologetics. I would like to try to read them all (which would probably take 5 years) but if anyone has a suggestion on which one may be better than the rest please let me know.

Annette's 3 Month Goal (Apr-May-June)

Goal:  Fine tune the plans for Summer Experiment as it relates to youth ministry, young adult outreach, and my part in Adopt-A-Block.

Action Steps:

1. Re-work AYM life groups (so every adult can attend an adult life group at least once a month) and meet with Life Group leaders to review the plans.
2. Select dates for the new "blended" service to take place (schedule them on WP).
3. Find a name for the "blended" service, and create promotional materials.
4. Sketch out plans for organizing Adopt-A-Block efforts on the 3 Saturdays that are selected.
5. Plan Ardent EP schedule, make a calendar, and publish it (web, email blast, Facebook).
6. Make sure the weeks I'm gone for camp are adequately covered in all areas.

Annette's April Book Review

Well, now we're getting to the "solutions" part of the book!  That's good.  So this chapter was basically some of the ways that we can reclaim Biblical relevancy.  I thought we had covered most of this information in some form in the last chapter.  ???  So I flew through it looking for the AHA.  It accurately addressed the need for defense of the Christian faith, but (since I peeked a little), we don't actually get to the juicy stuff till next chapter.  So on we go!