3 & 30

THREE

funny-wedding-photo-red copy

i posted a while back about the increasing wedding officiating i’ve been doing each year of tapestry and my thoughts concerning weddings possibly being a sign of health or not in a church. as of today, if all goes as planned, i will be officiating at least three weddings in 2012 (the schobert wedding has already been done and two more are scheduled). today jessiah and amanda asked me to officiate their wedding and, of course, i was honored to say yes to doing it. they might have to talk with pam concerning the date of their ceremony since they picked our wedding anniversary to get married on.

 

THIRTY

as a youth minister i regularly led students through world vision’s 30 hour famine. today, due to a couple of the ways i have been prepping for easter through lent, i have been constantly thinking about “the famines” i used to be a part and how i always thought they were something that everyone in the churches i was a part of would have benefited from rather than just something for students.  of course, you would have to do it different if “the famine” involved all the members of a church rather than only youth. in youth ministry you treat “the famine” as a lock-in (here’s a great youth lock in video) where all the students are gathered together and stay up way later than normal people should. couldn’t do that with the whole church, especially when tapestry would have to rent a building to do it. instead i think as a church we could achieve the goals and focus of “the famine” without going down the road of it being merely a youth event with adults.

here’s what i’m thinking of doing.

  • still do the 30 hours without eating as a reminder of JESUS’s command that we feed the hungry.
  • instead of doing a lock-in we spend a great deal of time together throughout friday evening and saturday by having lots of planned opportunities to …
  • worship together (a worship time friday night, saturday morning, and saturday afternoon)
  • serve together (planned service opportunities friday and saturday)
  • goof off together (planned opportunities friday and saturday)
  • ask every adult there to contribute the assumed cost of the 5 meals we would skip to world vision for the purpose of feeding the hungry. we could still raise money in addition to this but specifically ask the adult to give up the money we would have spent on our and our families’ meals.
  • the national dates for the 30 hour famine are february 24-25 and april 27-28. GOD speed and bless all the students and chaperones who are doing “the famine” tonight all around the world. i really think the threads would get into this so after i bounce it around some more you might be hearing more about this. it might be fun to still set up a lock-in for the teens that fit in with the whole church doing the famine.

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