Look Mom, I wrote in a book.

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Sam

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The Complete NEW TESTAMENT resource for YOUTH WORKERS.

Jack Crabtree and some of his youth ministry friends (like Me, Kevin and EmLam and Jimmy)  wrote a bunch of youth group lessons complete with games application, etc – and finally the first volume is published. It’s a pretty huge publisher (that’s right dad, you will probably be able to pick this book up at Ollies soon LOL) So, I’m praying that this is a help to especially the volunteer youth group teachers who can use some guidance in knowing how to teach students.  Volume two is on its way :-)

Publisher Blurb:

The Complete New Testament Resource for Youth Workers, Volume 1 by Livingstone Corporation, General Coming Soon!

Never before has there been a resource this comprehensive, this practical, and this relevant for teaching the New Testament to your students. With the topic overview, ideas for games, outlines for messages, study questions, and ideas to incorporate media or real-life experience into the teaching, and a searchable CD-ROM, you now have everything you need to lead students through more than 100 New Testament lessons.

Walking students through the New Testament can feel like a daunting task?especially if you’re trying to create studies that are relevant and engaging to your students. But fear not! You now have a diverse team of nearly thirty youth ministry practitioners working for you and they’ve put together more than 100 studies that will make your job easier while helping your students dig into the Bible! Never before has there been a resource this comprehensive, this practical, and this relevant for teaching the New Testament to your students. With the topic overview, ideas for games, outlines for messages, study questions, and ideas to incorporate media or real-life experience into the teaching, the Complete New Testament Resource for Youth Workers, Volume 1 has everything you need to lead students through these New Testament books:

  • Matthew
  • John
  • Romans
  • Galatians
  • Ephesians
  • Philippians
  • Colossians
  • 1 Timothy
  • 2 Timothy
  • Titus
  • Philemon
  • 1 John
  • 2 John
  • 3 John
  • Jude

Whether you lead them yourself or hand the lessons over to your volunteers, each lesson is easy to implement and can be used alone or combined with lessons that have already been planned. You?ll also find a searchable CD-ROM, making it even easier to find exactly what you need to help lead your students deeper into some of these life-changing books from the New Testament.

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Jesus <3 Muslims – Fall Sunday School Class

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Sam

So Pastor Steve has asked me to teach an adult (yeah, I know – scary) Sunday School class this fall on Islam (also scary?) Here’s kinda what I’m looking at putting together – it still has a ways to go – I’m still working on syllabus – My only real experience with teaching adults is directing the Keswick Bible Institute – where people were scared of my class because I assigned like 900 pages of reading. I may have to tone it down from that… but still should be sweet – any ideas?? Do you know any Muslims who’d like to talk to me for a while… I have a lot to learn.

Islam---Promo2

Jesus Loves Muslims, and so should you! Loving your Muslim neighbor as Jesus would.

“And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29) – In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus teaches us to love even those who we are inclined to hate. There is a good analogy to make between Christians/Muslims and Israelites/Samaritans. Both groups claim the same heritage and have awful histories of hatred that separates them. This quarter-long class on Christianity and Islam has some pretty simple, Jesus-commanded goals.  1) Understand your Muslim Neighbors. 2) Figure out how to show them love.  We’ll be studying Christianity to know how and why our theology differs. We’ll study the history and theology of Islam and the differing beliefs of different forms of Islam.  This will be an intense course with assignments; students will learn both sides of the conversation well – come for the challenge.  Lord-willing we will be able to have some real conversations with Muslims from our area.

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Things I’ve Learned This Summer

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Sam

Wow, it’s been forever since I (we) blogged – it’s a shame too because we’ve done a lot of cool stuff this summer. I did want to post some sermons that have been posted online. I’ve had the opportunity to preach 4 times at two churches. Here are some of the things I’ve spoke on. Summer is always a busy time, but it’s great to be able to learn and share.

image Psalm 73 Is a favorite because it is is full of hard observations about life. It is a heart wrenching autobiographical discussion about falling from faith because of injustice.
God-Is-Refuge Psalm 46 – (Link is to Grace Gospel Church, where I guest spoke) Psalm 46 is about the trials of life and how they drive us to a refuge. (a god?) And how the Cross changes everything.
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Psalm 2/St Paul – The Psalmist asks a provocative question that echoes above the battles of history – “Why do the Nations rage?” International wars, national conflict and personal struggle stand in stark contrast to the promises of peace and blessing that God has promised His people. Is God really in charge? We’ll explore the tension of the Psalms and explore a sermon on Psalm 2 of St. Paul and see how God challenges us to respond to the plots of His enemies.
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Youth Group Summer 09!

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Sam

Well, since the DHEFC website is acting up, I’ve posted our summer youth group schedule here – we have some really exciting things planned! You don’t want to miss it!
summer

Check out The Summer Schedule for Youth Group 09 !

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Congrads Youth Group Seniors – 2009

Posted on May 31, 2009 by Sam

seniors

At the start of our very busy  weekend, we celebrated our graduating class from Youth Group. I always love our senior banquets because they are reminders of how our students develop and grow in their lives and in their faith. Perhaps more importantly senior banquets are a reminder of how much our church cares for Jesus’ sheep and how our diverse body can come together to celebrate the accomplishments of our students. I’m really thankful for our church and for how much they care for the mission of Jesus to support students. I’m really proud of our students and how God is and will use them – and I’m looking forward to hearing and seeing them grow and going on to do great things!

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King of the Jungle Kids Program

Posted on May 8, 2009 by Sam

Last weekend was pretty busy – on Friday we did a youth rally with some of my friends from Bethel Lutheran and Huntington Baptist Church – along with John Bernor and his youth group. On Sunday night – we had a really great kids program – check out some pictures in the video above.

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Prayer Week

Posted on May 7, 2009 by Sam

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With National Day of Prayer being celebrated today, and talking about prayer for youth group this Friday and “Does God Answer prayer as the topic for this week’s Sunday “You Pick” sermon – I’m posting some of my favorite verses from Hab 3 – we talked about this in prayer meeting last night – the whole chapter is worth reading – check it out.

Lord, I have heard of your fame;

I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.

Renew them in our day,

in our time make them known;

in wrath remember mercy.

 

Though the fig tree does not bud

and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

[1]

b A word of uncertain meaning; possibly a musical term; also in verses 9 and 13

[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Hab 3:2-19). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

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Singing the Psalms – Psa 46

Posted on April 30, 2009 by Sam

So, for our Sunday Night The Way Worship – we’ve been looking at some of the Psalms in detail and thinking about how the Psalmist worships God. We’ve been challenging each other to write music from these Psalms and sing them together – The recording (above) is our first take on some good words – maybe when we finish writing more, we’ll try and do a better recording of it – but it gives some idea of what we’re doing.

Refuge And Strength

Be Still and Know I am God (3x)

(Instrumental Chorus)
V1 -
A river flows whose living streams
blesses the city of our God
The place where heaven’s glory dwells

(Prechorus)
So Fear Not, Don’t lose heart
remember,  God’s with us

Chorus
God is our refuge and our strength
In our distress a present aid
Our God will set the world to rest
Be still and know that He Is God!

v2
The nations rage,  the whole world shakes
His voice goes forth – the conflict breaks
From earth the scourge of war he takes

v3
God is with us, We will not move
In all the earth his pow’r is known
And in my heart his glory shown.

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Youth Group Update – May 09

Posted on April 29, 2009 by Sam

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the past couple weeks reading and thinking about the Psalms. I love how firmly the Psalmists speaks about the power and strength of God despite his own doubt and struggle.— I love watching the this light come on for students and adults who are looking for some sense of purpose or desperately looking for a place to go to find refuge or escape from and are able to look to Jesus for both. The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.image For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths. (NLT) Psalm 24:1-2

We have a lot going on in the Month of May and a ton going on during this summer. God has been doing some incredible things with our students group—pray for them as they grow and are stretched to serve God in exciting ways.

May Events

Fridays, May, 1, 8, 15, 22, 29 All Junior and Senior High Students are invited to join us for a night of Games, Worship and Teaching. We work hard to making this a place where it’s easy for students to have fun and make good friends, by playing interactive games, and thinking about how great our God is.

Friday, May 1st 7pm—Youth Group Rally —We’ve invited two other youth groups to join us a Friday Night meeting with a guest band, drama, and Christian power-lifter John Bernor this will be a great night to invite friends to.

May 9th—Run For Youth Fundraiser —Signup ASAP—raise sponsor s and go on an early beach run to raise money for trips and missions.

May 29th Senior Banquet (7PM)— We’ll be honoring our 09 Graduating class. —Alexa, Amanda, Mary, Larry, Tori & Yassmina.

Summer Events

Start marking your Summer Calendars ASAP— We want to challenge students to invest their summers in the Kingdom of Heaven – In addition to the things to the right, during free weeks we’ll be taking one day as a beach day and encourage students to invite non-Christian friends to join our community, also we’ll take one day during free weeks to do mini-missions trips to help out with local missions. (not to mention the famous Friday Night pool parties!) -image

Sunday, June 14th —Jones Beach Evangelistic Crusade with Greg Laurie, Delirious, Jars of Clay

Saturday, June 27 — Morning trip to help at Helping Hand Rescue Mission

Tuesday, July 7th —Trip to Great Adventure

July 13-17—Dix Hills VBS

July 20-26— Urban Missions Trip to Philadelphia

July 31-Aug 1— Rock the Sound —NYC (Newsboys, Casting Crowns, Jeremy Camp, Pillar, Superchick, Shane & Shane, Phil Wickham, and more)

Aug 3-6 —Putting on VBS at Roosevelt Bible Church

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Book Review: The Noticer by Andy Andrews

Posted on April 27, 2009 by Sam

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There are a thousand way of painting a picture of selflessness. The Noticer is the story of Jones told from Andy’s point of view – one a ragged voice of older wisdom who can mysteriously can read people and speak wisdom into their lives. The other, a misdirected homeless kid. The story uses the best of well-established brushes and colors, such as the all-knowing sage and the classic “keep the fork because the best is yet to come”, to paint a portrait of one man who the lives of others by taking life slowly enough to notice the lives of others and the tact to speak wisely into their lives.  The book manages to blend the genre of fiction and non-fiction by teaching good principles of relationship through an interesting narrative. By the end of the book Jones has touched dozens of lives saving people from divorce, bankruptcy, suicide, etc.

I love the idea of looking outside of ourselves and to encourage people. – Andy has even taken it a step further with the Noticer Project (http://www.thenoticerproject.com/ ) – He is encouraging people to notice people who have influenced their lives and thank them publically. I love the idea of empowering people to “counsel” others. The book serves the church well to encourage people to passively notice or actively hearing problems and then thinking creatively about helping them. People can help people – and few problems are so big or complex that a concerned person cannot help.  Frankly, it’s not the kind of book that speaks to my learning style per se – and the information isn’t especially helpful to someone whose mission it to notice and help people. But I can’t be encouraged enough to notice and help people – so the book is a worthwhile, and enjoyable short read for me.

(I am a member of Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program . )

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