catch up on my life and ministry

been a while since I blogged, somehow fell out of my weekly schedule. Below you will find some updates, in development, and upcoming in my life and ministry

Looking back....

We had an amazing summer in ministry through missions and camps! Hundreds of students served all over including Dallas, Gulfcoast, and KC. We were forced to cancel the Honduras mission due to the unrest in the country. Hope to resume next summer.

I felt very excited and inspired by the start to fall with all of our gatherings; youth groups, confirmation, MAC track, Sunday School, small groups, rezlife 101, and more. We have so many new and enthusiastic volunteers.

I launched a 4-wk small group video study for our high school small groups on God's desire for our lives in regards to romantic relationships. Got lots of great feedback from students and groups. We filmed in the woods, a movie theatre, on top of the Western Auto building downtown, and finally in the Wesley Chapel here at the Central Campus.

Finally I'll share we had a great family vaca to St. Louis. We did six flags, the Zoo, City Museum, and the famous Arch. Scharme had never been and it was a great time with the girls. Hailey especially liked the ride up into the arch-FREAKY!!



In Development...

Kicked off rezlife 101 courses for the school year. The purpose is to engage our long term volunteer leaders in an annual DNA (design -n- align) gathering, as well as new volunteers and new families to the church. This class serves mostly as an orientation to rezlife ministry as a whole. We had over 15 in our first gathering and received great response. I am excited to see this come together as we have over 350 annual volunteer leaders!

First student/college life mission to Africa next summer partnering with our ministry connection their-SHADE

We have exhausted the numbers we can presently serve in our summer mission strategy. We are looking at a city strategy wherein rez staff leaders plant themselves in that city for local support. We then mobilize and empower many of our adult lay leaders in mission team leadership, up to one van of students, to lead in service throughout a week. We would support the many teams as staff in this area management model as they engage local churches and mission partnerships in that particular city area.

Just this week spent time with Missouri Conference Youth Pastors and Bishop Robert Schnaese in planning strategies and directions to reach the next generation for Jesus. Excited to see where this connection leads, including helping their conference develop a youth pastor training module.

Re-shaping and re-building my wife and I's own personal small group after suffering some struggles over the summer, including two of our own members engaging in an affair with each other. God's grace and renewing spirit are overcoming this tragedy!



Upcoming....

Holy Land trip over spring break week and already have many families interested. I hope this will become a great graduation trip for students and parents, but even beyond that! This trip is designed for, but not limited to, high school students.

Many speaking engagements upcoming including my weekly rezlife messages through youth group, confirmation, some guest speaking here in the church with "Building Better Moms" group (over 100 involved), keynote alongside Mike Slaughter at an event in South Dakota, our rezlife fall retreats (3 weekends), and our first young adult/college life retreat weekend.

Supporting my wife in the Sacred Steps race this weekend. Sign up now!

Finally, considering starting Hailey in gymnastics lessons, and I bought her a putter this past week so we can begin putting together at a course close to our house!

Blogging again soon...