Hey REALife Parents.
I've had a few questions recently that has made me want to put out an explanation for all of you. The past two years I've had a Winter Retreat for REALife students where we've gone up to Boone and had a weekend of snowboarding, skiing, and fellowship. They have been great trips, but this year we will not be doing this trip for a few reasons. This trip is expensive, totaling in the mid $200's for one weekend because of lodging, transportation, lift tickets, etc. With the economy the way it is I want cancel this trip and encourage students to start saving for our summer camp, which is five days long for around the same cost. Second, because of the cost we rarely get the turnout that we like, so if we can have more than double the amount of students at our free REALife service on Sunday nights I would pick that over the retreat any day. I hope this explains things for you. Please let me know if you have any further questions.
FYI - S'CAMP (Summer Camp) is June 21-25. And it's gonna be awesome.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
SCAMP Dates are Set
Our Summer Camp dates have been set. We'll be heading back to Myrtle Beach June 21-25. More details will be coming soon, but I'm sure this information will be useful for those of you planning your summer vacations.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Ordering Your Private World
Hello REALife Parents.
I hope that you all were at Meck for the first installment of "Ordering Your Private World." Pastor Jim is presenting a topic that I believe is much needed in our lives. We are a culture of outward appearance. We want to look good to others and make everyone think we have it all together. Because of that we always focus our resolutions on outward aspects of our lives while neglecting the real base of our problems...our inner world. More often than not, our external problems are only symptoms of the real internal problems.
I believe that this topic is crucial for our teenagers today. Our teenagers are growing up in a very distracting world. I interact with our teens and talk to them about their lives. Very few of them take the time to stop for internal reflection to order there inner world. Many students cannot sit for any extended period of time without whipping out their cell phone for a text or game. Many students express to me that they can't pray for a couple minutes without getting bored or distracted by something else. I believe that our students need to take the time to stop and order their private world. The biggest need in this process is stopping to reflect on God and their relationship with Him.
We have a great opportunity during this series to bring up these issues to our teens. We need to encourage them to be at these services. Then, we need to be in dialogue with them about their thoughts on these issues. There are some great questions we can be asking to help our teens think through these issues in there lives. Here are some examples of some starter questions, and hopefully these will spark conversations that help our teens reflect on there inner world and their relationship with God:
-What is going right in your life?
-What is something you wish was different?
-How would you describe your prayer/devotional life?
-What are you most proud of in your life to this point?
-What do you think are your top goals are right now, and what are you doing to reach them?
Let me know how it goes. I love to hear how students are applying these principles in their lives.
I hope that you all were at Meck for the first installment of "Ordering Your Private World." Pastor Jim is presenting a topic that I believe is much needed in our lives. We are a culture of outward appearance. We want to look good to others and make everyone think we have it all together. Because of that we always focus our resolutions on outward aspects of our lives while neglecting the real base of our problems...our inner world. More often than not, our external problems are only symptoms of the real internal problems.
I believe that this topic is crucial for our teenagers today. Our teenagers are growing up in a very distracting world. I interact with our teens and talk to them about their lives. Very few of them take the time to stop for internal reflection to order there inner world. Many students cannot sit for any extended period of time without whipping out their cell phone for a text or game. Many students express to me that they can't pray for a couple minutes without getting bored or distracted by something else. I believe that our students need to take the time to stop and order their private world. The biggest need in this process is stopping to reflect on God and their relationship with Him.
We have a great opportunity during this series to bring up these issues to our teens. We need to encourage them to be at these services. Then, we need to be in dialogue with them about their thoughts on these issues. There are some great questions we can be asking to help our teens think through these issues in there lives. Here are some examples of some starter questions, and hopefully these will spark conversations that help our teens reflect on there inner world and their relationship with God:
-What is going right in your life?
-What is something you wish was different?
-How would you describe your prayer/devotional life?
-What are you most proud of in your life to this point?
-What do you think are your top goals are right now, and what are you doing to reach them?
Let me know how it goes. I love to hear how students are applying these principles in their lives.
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