Weekend Reflections

Well, it's been a while since my last post. We got back from our Summer Youth Retreat on Saturday. The rest of the day was spent getting everything ready for Sunday. And after church on Sunday I came home and crashed.

We had a great Youth Retreat in Atlanta! Our students are awesome. I would take them anywhere. I'm very excited about the future - the future of our Student Ministry and our church. The basic schedule of the week was head off to somewhere fun in the morning (Georgia Aquarium, Six Flags, Stone Mountain), be back at dinner time, eat, worship & devotions, hang out (play "Mafia"), and off to bed. We also have an awesome Youth Pastor. He did a great job of leading our students.

Sunday was great. The worship team is starting to get in a groove. You could really sense our people were engaged in worship. It's just a glimpse of things to come. We had several first time guests. My message was on managing your anger (a.k.a. "The Incredible Hulk"). I love reading our Connect Cards from week to week. It's our first connection with guests. It's the place people share their prayer requests, needs, and most importantly the steps they are taking toward God. This week several people, including students, responded that the message was what they needed and would be working on controlling their anger. However, I laughed out loud when I read this comment on a Connect Card, "The Incredible Hulk gets mad and then grows right out of his clothes! I grow out of my clothes and THEN I get angry!" Guess or beg, I will not reveal the source.

For several weeks in a row now, including Sunday, we've had around 20 students at WAVES (our Middle School & High School Ministry). I can't wait to see what happens between the start of school and the first of the year. I believe our Student Ministry is going to explode! Get your student and their friends here.

Some time soon we're going to begin transforming their room (the old "Fellowship Hall") into the "Beach House"! Why "Beach House" you ask? Well, for starters this is Charleston. It's also the room our 1st - 5th grade Coastal Kidz use on Sunday morning. And our Student Ministry is called, "WAVES." To me, it's a no-brainer. And we can really do some cool stuff with this theme and it won't go out of date anytime soon. So be on the lookout for plans, ways you can help, and changes. Why the old "Fellowship Hall"? Well, after much prayer and thought I believe that it's simply a matter of good stewardship of our building and our money. We've already out grown the room as a place for meals for the whole church. Kids & Students were eating in the classrooms. We were only doing that about once a year anyway, while our children and students use the room every week and then some. For mid size meals and larger we've been using the Welcome Room and Auditorium. And when the time comes (and it is coming) for us to build, we will spend our money to build an auditorium to seat 800 people and our entire current campus will be used for children and students. How awesome is that going to be?!

Well, that's about it. Don't forget about our "Movie on the Lawn" night this Saturday. At 7PM we're going to be serving hot dogs & drinks. We'll have live, rockin' music, games and fun for the whole family. And then around 8:30PM we'll show a PG family movie. Bring some chairs and a blanket, but most importantly, bring some friends.