Filed under: weekend in review
current series: Stories: A Glimpse of the Undeniable (Part 4)
sermon in a sentence: Dennis Perron shared his testimony of the three times in his life he called out to God: make me a better person, help me to change and make my life count!
games for the night: We played a rousing version of “Are You Smarter Than Your Youth Leader.” It was a brilliant game created by Cindy L. and Lindsay G.! Apparently, the youth leaders won this round!
Attendance: 58. The rain was atrocious! We had a great time thought!
element of fun/positive environment: Go to YouTube and look up the video “drummer can’t contain the rock”… oh boy!
music playlist: Tell the World, Blessed Be Your Name, God of Wonders, Cannons, Enough
favourite moment: Debuting a new song called “Forever Changed” right before we gave a call for the gospel. It worked so well!
up next week: BONFIRE AT LITTLE MOUNTAIN PARK!!!!! 
This Sunday is “Bring Your Parents to Church” Day
July 2 is drop-in from 7- 11
The next week we start Junior and Senior High Ministries (we will probably be having a contest to name our Jr High ministry… Seniors are already calling Wednesdays HSM!)
June 22, 2010
current series: Stories: A Glimpse of the Undeniable (Part 1)
sermon in a sentence: You can argue history, theology, philosophy, science and the Bible, but you cannot argue with my story- God moves in my life!
games for the night: Minute to Win It! It starting raining at about 4:00 which spoiled our plans for a good old fashioned game of ultimate football, so we put together some games for indoors. Foam fingers for all!
Attendance: 51 (hey, it’s the long weekend, and we haven’t met for a few weeks, what do you expect?)
element of fun/positive environment: It was awesome to see our old intern, Lindsay Giesbrecht back to hang with us again!
music playlist: Lord I Lift Your Name on High, Not Be Shaken, Lift It Up, More Than Life, Enough
favourite moment: Getting to tell my story of the Tennessee flood was so much fun for me. You CANNOT convince me otherwise that God moved in that situation to keep us safe! What a great testimony!
up next week: Week 2 of “Stories”
Coming soon!: June 4- Car Rally
June 25- Bonfire at Little Mountain Park!
June 27- Bring your parents to church day!
May 24, 2010
sermon in a sentence: we must surrender our future to God.
games for the night: We played some baseball on the diamonds behind the church! The weather was so beautiful! I must say, the junior high game was VERY exciting. Tied up in 3 innings (which was a miracle on its own, it was boys vs. girls!). The boy’s ringer (Brett) hit a grand slam as the last batter to clinch it for the boys! Way to go boys, we thought we had you beat!
Attendance: Our numbers say 72, but we couldn’t quite name all of our junior highers, so our numbers were probably closer to 78
element of fun/positive environment: The weather! Oh man, I can’t believe that on an April 23 evening there were short shorts and sunblock!
music playlist: Tell the World, Revolution, God of Wonders, Mighty to Save, the Stand
favourite moment: I gave a simple message that Jesus changes our lives when we meet him. He changes the way we think, our future and what we live for. NINE people raised their hands to receive Christ and let Him take over their future. That’s so amazing!
up next week: Movie Night! We are watching “The Blind Side” this Friday night at 7:30 pm!
April 27, 2010
sermon in a sentence: Our identity is not what the world says about us, it’s about who God says we are!
games for the night: Good ol’ game of “Rip off” on the back field, and some racing around the soccer field with the junior high students, high school students enjoyed some small groups time!
volunteer/student involvement: One of our Bass players, Jesse, has started running security for the evening! If you are interested in joining him, I’m sure he could use some help!
element of fun/positive environment: Band Hero was up and running! Unfortunately one of the guitars stopped working, so I am taking it back to Futureshop today 
music playlist: Revolution, Not Be Shaken, Hosanna, Consuming Fire (I think I missed one!)
favourite moment: During the service, we heard some kids outside playing with the cement block signs – If you’re unsure of what that is, let me explain. For our handicap stalls and visitor stalls in the parking lot, we have signs that are held up by gigantic cement blocks. The blocks are probably squared at 1.5 feet or so, the perfect size for small people to stand on. Often, we hear this thunderous booming inside the church and go outside to find two kids standing on the block and rocking back and forth like a swing of some sorts. It’s a VERY loud noise. I can hear it like a hundred meters away in my office during the week! So anyway, I just get settled into preaching (Which was DIFFICULT this week, our junior high kids were high energy), and we hear this thunderous booming. Immediately, I know what’s happening and ask some of the leaders to go outside and check it out. Here’s my favorite moment: about 6 of the guy leaders all stand in unison and storm out to the front. I’m guessing those two kids were scared out of their pants at the sight of 6 twenty-something guys coming out to give them what-for. Very entertaining!
up next week: Week 3 of Hand It Over: A Life Surrendered to God.
April 20, 2010
sermon in a sentence: Give the darkest place in your heart (sin, relationships, situations) to God, because He cares for you.
games for the night: JR high students went outside for an epic game of bucket ball while the HS students stayed inside and talked about the pressures of the world.
volunteer/student involvement: We need more students to get involved! Any students interested in learning how youth ministry runs?
element of fun/positive environment: With the weather being so gorgeous, what’s not to be excited about? A lot apparently! The mood for the evening was a little down, as to be anticipated after an epic spring break away from school. 3 more months to go, guys, chins up!
music playlist: Tell The World, Filled With Your Glory, Let God Arise, Mighty To Save, The Stand
favourite moment: Instead of a sermon this week, we decided it’d be a good time to open the front to allow our kids to experience personal ministry through prayer and worship. I am always amazed at the work God can do when a student steps out from their seat and receives prayer. I’m hoping that God is continuing to work in those students’ lives!
up next week: Week 2 of Hand It Over: A Life Surrendered to God.
April 13, 2010
Sorry this is so late! I have been neglecting my blog duties, but here is my chance for redemption! Friday, March 26, here we go!
sermon in a sentence: Philly 5 gave his testimony about how God has plans for all of us. Powerful to hear!
games for the night: SR highs had to sort and put together 5 puzzles that were all mixed together in a bag! JR highs (who were so numerous we couldn’t use the gym!) went outside to play some games on the field.
volunteer/student involvement: Hybrid Union did a great job, and were responsible for the awesome addition of Philly5 to the evening! I think a lot of kids will be talking about him for a while! We should have a concert or something with him in the near future!
element of fun/positive environment: Kids were electricly excited over the fact that Spring Break had started. That’s always awesome to see. I can’t wait until summer when we can hang out more often!
music playlist: Meant to Live, Lord I lift your name on high, From the Inside Out, The Stand
favourite moment: After the concert was over, Philly5 was selling albums and posters, as well as giving out autographs. Some kids were so excited that they had him sign their face! (???). I also enjoyed the fact that we again broke our attendance record with 87 people!!! Time to recruit more volunteers!!!!!!!
up next week: On Good Friday we had kids attend the regular service, and this week, we are back with neXus Youth again at 7:30 pm!!! see you there!
April 6, 2010
Sunday!
Breakfast!
Swim!
Last Session! It is my turn to preach! MWAHAHAHA. Just kidding. I actually began preparing a message weeks before, and ended up stumbling upon a great dvd by Andy Stanley, with him saying everything I wanted to say, but 100000 times better than I ever could (man, he’s a great communicator!).
The main points from that message:
1. SEX IS FOR MARRIED PEOPLE;
2. Sex is like a fire. God brought the matches, but when you take it out of the pit, you burn the entire forest down;
3. When you have sex with someone, you leave a piece of yourself behind and take a piece of them with you, and you can never, ever get it back;
4. God doesn’t want to make you suffer by asking you to wait until you’re married- he’s doing it because he knows that when sex happens outside of marriage YOU END UP HURTING YOURSELF.
What a great message. One of the best I’ve ever heard on the topic. We then did something we’ve never done at neXus before. We asked kids to make a decision right there whether they wanted to wait until they were married, and protect themselves from that pain. We had those people stand up, and recite a pledge to flee from sexual immorality and abstain from any sexual activity until marriage. We pledged to keep each other accountable, and not be concerned with what the world thinks, but with what God thinks. We then gave the kids keys with “TLW” on them. That stands for “True love waits.” We then closed the weekend in prayer, had lunch and went home. What an awesome time!
April 1, 2010
Saturday!
Breakfast!
The boys then headed off into the wilderness for an epic game of man hunt (I hear that no one was found!)
And the girls chill out in one of the chalets for an amazing spa day, planned by the very lovely Kalandra Dueck! There were facials, manicures, pedicures, hair AND makeup happening up in there! Then we also wrote encouragements to each other, made silly videos on my laptop, took pictures of the beautiful girls, read girly magazines, and just had a great time talking and hanging out. Probably one of my favorite moments of the weekend! Kalandra posted some pictures of the spa day (and will probably post some pics of the weekend) on her Facebook… if you have her as a friend, I definitely recommend checking it out!
Pool Time, Lunch Time!
The afternoon is pretty casual, we let the kids hang out until about 3:30 when we headed outside to do a trust fall, and we played the “get the kids through all the holes in the bungie thing” game which was fun! The weather was pretty chilly and the ground was wet, so we headed inside to play a couple of games. First up was “balloon stomp,” where the kids all tied a balloon to their ankle and ran around trying to stomp them out. It was boys vs. girls, and the boys won! We then played “toilet paper brides” and dressed up some boys and girls as brides to be in their beautiful toilet paper dresses. We had a runway show and asked the designers about their creations a la Project Runway. Some great pictures in that event, I tell you! We then had kids fill out question cards for the night’s Q&A session. Marc went to research some of the trickier ones (GASP! We didn’t know the answer at first to all of the questions!)
Supper!
Swim!
Snack and Q&A session
I won’t share all the details of the Q&A, but we did receive some very honest questions about sex, dating and relationships. I was very impressed with how maturely all the kids handled the evening (I’m sure it’s not easy to sit through that kind of stuff! It was hard for us too, but we knew it’d be worth it!). If any kids or leaders ever have questions, I hope you feel as open as you did that night to ask questions. We will never do anything to embarrass you or make you feel bad, but will do our best to help you and make sure that you know that we love you and want what’s best for you!
After the session was up (we were in there for a good 90 minutes!) we put on “The Princess Bride,” one of the best youth group movies available! I went to bed, already feeling sick and exhausted from all this good stuff happening!
March 31, 2010
Ha Ha. It’s been welllllll over a week since my last blog. Yikes. Even some of my youth were facebooking me, wondering what happened to AIYM.com!
The truth? I was incredibly ill last week. A lesson for you all: retreats are stressful. And you usually end up sick by the time they are over. First there is the crazy 2 weeks before. As you put in hours for a retreat, you also must put in hours around the office, doing all the crazy stuff that needs to get done there. Stress! Then you have the day of the retreat and you run around like a chicken with your head cut off to gather all your materials needed for the retreat. STRESS! Then the kids show up and you get out to camp, you settle into cabins, you have your first session, and then you stay up REALLY REALLY late with your girls (or boys if you’re a boy) talking about boys (or girls) and crushes and what you want to do in life. Then you have to get up really early the next day. Oy vey! But stressful as it all is, I would not change a thing… retreats are awesome!
Want to know how it went?
Friday
We all jumped into the 15 seat van and other vehicles and drove up to Camp Arnes. I was driving the van and there was definitely an energy going on in there of excitement and anticipation. I knew that this would probably be one of the most interesting topics we’ve ever spoken about at camp: SEX! The kids were definitely looking forward to hanging out in cabins (I could tell by how concerned they were about who they were staying with! Every year, it’s “Pastor Terrin, can you please, please, please make sure I’m in so-and-so’s cabin”… of course you are honey!!!!). Anyway, we arrived at camp around dusk (who else is loving these sunny evenings?). We started unpacking at the Chalets and then went to play some games in the Wigwam (which is a nice facility!).
First game- Camp Arnes ABC’s. The kids have to run back to their cabins (in the dark, mind you) and gather 26 items, each corresponding with a letter of the alphabet. It was also a race, which was super interesting. Poor Brett accidentally tripped over the firepit and almost broke his hand. He is pretty battered and bruised, but still ok. The senior girls cabin wins and will get to eat breakfast first tomorrow morning.
Snack arrives and we then sit down to discuss some pre-arranged questions. One of my favorite questions was “In the movie about your life, who would you like to play you?” I picked Kerri Russel (from Felicity). None of the kids knew who she was. I feel older by the day!
Pool Time! I swam for about 30 minutes and took off to meet up with Marc and Jenna about tonight’s session. Apparently a monster game of dodgeball breaks out in the pool. Fun times!
Session 1- I led us in a short time of worship, then we get to the teaching! Marc is preaching on the difference between what the world says about sex and what God says about sex. Interesting fact #1- Marc asked our audience who has actually had their parents sit them down and discuss the birds and the bees (do the kids know the meaning of that sentence anymore?) and only about 3 of the 30 people there raise their hand. I think I was one of the 3. Interesting. Interesting fact #2- Sex is not sinful. God created it to be fun, enjoyable and intimate. Interesting fact #3- You are not ready to have sex unless you are married. There is no such thing as being “ready” without a ring on your finger (Beyonce, anyone? ha ha!). Interesting fact #4- Marc only preached for about 20 minutes, but he easily could have gone for an hour. Who knew that the secret to keeping attention is to pick VERY VERY interesting topics. Great job, Marc!
Now we’re off to cabins. Jenna, Gizelle and I were with the junior girls and stayed up till 2:00 in the morning. We did our small group discussion about dating, which led to some interesting conversations about dates, boys the girls like, and what it’s like to be married, what sex is like, dispelling myths about boys, etc. We all decide to head to bed!
More to come, tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!
March 30, 2010
Since I was away for the weekend, I asked my good friend and registrar for Camp Arnes to write up this week’s activities! Great job, Jenna! You and Marc are welcome at neXus anytime!
weekend teaching series: GROW UP, week ¾ (guest speaker: Marc Moir)
sermon in a sentence: HALLELUJAH! WAHOOOOOOO! Marc shared with us about the different types of people who were in the crowed as Jesus was riding the donkey on the way to Jerusalem and how we can identify with them in our own lives. As well as what Hallelujah means and why we need to say it more often!
games for the night: JR Highs played Pizza (a game Gizelle LOVES) and some other relay games!
volunteer/student involvement: Ashley Lough did an amazing job at running around making sure everything was in place for the evening. (Terrin’s addition: thanks to Gizelle for running games, and to Scott for keeping the sanity in the sound booth!)
element of fun/positive environment: ILLUMINATE lead us in worship, which was an amazing time! Everyone seemed to really enjoy them and the new style of music that they brought. It was great to see many youth involved in the worship part of the evening.
music playlist: Let the Praises Ring, King of Majesty, Blessed Be Your Name, Grace Like Rain, Hosanna
favourite moment: I would have to say the singing. I could really feel God’s presence, as I am sure many people could. It was so amazing to see just how many youth and leaders made this part of the evening their own and just take the time to praise God! HALLELUJAH!
up next week: CAMP ARNES! This will be an amazing time to relax and grow more closely as youth community. Marc Moir and Terrin Ramsey are our weekend speakers, so you won’t want to miss it! Also, I have hooked us up with one of Camp’s best meals……PIZZA!
Thanks for letting me come and enjoy a night of madness with you all! I had such a great time!
Jenna Moir
–
Thanks Jenna, you did a great job!
March 17, 2010
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