This morning, DeZavala Middle School

What an interesting morning!  I was to talk about How to grow spiritually over the summer at a middle school (5th & 6th graders) club in Pasadena.

Before I go any further, I need to squash all your misconceptions about on campus Christian Clubs - that they are a "holy huddle", that it is all the Christian kids in one room and they all are solid church kids.  Bah humbug!  I find that the on campus Clubs attract any where from 30% to 90% non church kids.  The presentations need to be about 90% on accepting Christ, how to grow and understanding your faith and finding a church.

So, as of yesterday, I had a fairly traditional presentation about bible reading, attending church and prayer as traditional methods of spiritual growth.  I had a summer bible reading plan so that they could read thru the New Testament over the summer. 

It was safe.  It was easy.  Matter of fact.  God starts hitting me with questions:  Name one time that you experienced spiritual growth while reading the Bible or praying.  Or thru the act of attending church.  That one is closer, because if you knew who I had to put up with while attending church, you would know I had to grow. 

I can't think of a single Bible reading that cause growth in me.  Or a single prayer, except when I got to the point of:  Thy will be done and truly, that was a struggle of wills and preception. 

What cause growth in you? the spirit quietly asks me.  Now, I am terrified.  Do I really have to talk about struggles and pain that bring growth to 5th and 6th graders? 

How about the act of service?  How about loving the unloveable?  Doesn't that bring growth?  How about being attacked by the church?  Back stabbing?  That sure brought a world of growth.  What about living in need?  Painful, but I have had to learn to trust God for what I need.

I'm driving and crying, going to this club, thinking about what has brought precious spiritual growth in my own life and how do I tell 5th graders about that?  How the bible, prayer and church attendance provides the framework for growth thru suffering, love and service?

The good news and the bad news.  The good news:  God used a simple lesson on Spiritual growth to turn everything I believed about spiritual grow upside down.  The Bad news:  Not a single student showed up this morning.  The good news:  I was able to freely minister to the sponsors and they both seem to need it.

Growth.  Who knew what I would learn this morning?

Power Bands at Berry Miller - The day of!

It is finally the day of the power bands at Berry Miller JH.  I am nervous, but hopeful and excited.  I am there early. 

I was emailing as late as yesterday morning because I didn’t have the 10 adult leaders I needed.  Today, I don’t know what to expect, but I know that at this point, it is about trusting God.  I’ve done everything I can do.

I end up with 8 adult leaders and 5 youth pastors.  One youth pastor had to cancel yesterday afternoon, so another had brought one of his volunteers to fill in.

I have Kurt, Caleb, Paul, Ronnie and Chuck as the youth pastors.

I have John, Julie, Benjamin, Lee, Alyx, Michael and 2 guys from Life church – I can’t remember their names.  They were all wonderful.  The teacher sponsor takes a group, which makes for 9 groups.

I am in the bleachers, breaking up the rowdy group as planned.  The sponsor opens with prayer, as usual.  I have sent about 20 of the rowdies to 4 different groups.  The sponsor announces that we are doing things differently, that the students need to join a group on the floor and if they don’t want to, they need to stay in the bleachers.

Where did that come from?  Oh, well.  Adjust. 

Paul quickly asked me what those kids were going to do.  I assure him, it wasn’t part of the plan.  He and Tamara get them together and Paul does a lesson for those kids.

Meanwhile, we recruit the choir teacher to do Paul’s part – the white bead.

I float from group to group, making sure that they have what they need, listening, advising, helping, checking, being available.  The students I notice are all very attentive, very engaged, in listening and making the power bands.  The students who chose to remain in the bleachers are giving Paul their full attention.  The choir teacher, quickly recruited to do Paul’s part – the white bead – is doing an excellent job.  The Black bead youth pastor is on group 7, the Red bead youth pastor is on group 5 – there are 9 groups in all.

And suddenly, the unexpected happens.  The bell rings.  The show is not over, but it is over. 

I am mortified, but I start breaking up groups and sending students to class.  Groups tell me:  Please, we are almost done, let us finish, but I send them to class. 

I check with all the adult leaders.  They tell me:  I had the best student leader ever, which makes me feel like I have given each and every adult leader the best student ever.  It is okay that we didn’t have a youth pastor present, I shared the gospel with each bead and every student in my group heard and understood the gospel.  The youth pastors were just re-enforcement. 

It wasn’t how I planned it, but I left thinking:  God is good, the Gospel went out and His ways are always higher and  better than our ways.

Thanks for your prayers.

Power Bands at Berry Miller JH - Part 2

To get this job done, there is quite a bit of prep.  I can do math and figure out how much of everything I need, but I must admit, assembling it all is something else.

I decide to be prepared I will need supplies for 400 power bands.  This means 400 15 inch lengths of leather cord, 400 black beads, 400 red beads, 400 white beads, 400 green beads and 400 gold/yellow beads.

All the supplies need to sorted and packaged.  This was a much bigger job than I would have thought.  I decide I will cut and bundle 100 leather cords a day on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  It takes me over an hour to get about 140 cords done on Monday.  Allie (my daughter) helped me a lot on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  She counted most of the beads and put them in pill bottles.  40 beads to a bottle, 6 colors of beads, 10 groups – 60 bottles of beads. 

Then the next step is 40 leather cords (bundled in groups of 10) and 6 bottles of beads put in a bag.

It may not sound like much, but it took hours to get this all done.

Power Bands at Berry Miller JH (part 1)

I have agreed to do power bands at the club at Berry Miller JH.  At this point, there should be at least one question:  What is a power band?

A power band (also called a salvation bracelet or a “rainbow faith” bracelet) is a cord with colored beads on it.  Each bead represents something in the salvation message.  I like to use Black –Sin, Red – Christ’s Death/Blood, White – Cleanse/pure, Green – Grow, and Yellow – Heaven/Streets of Gold. 

It’s a simple project – kind of a craft and a salvation message all rolled into one.

However, the club at Berry Miller has a consistent attendance of about 300 +/-.  I have done this before, but with about 100 students at a time, not 300.

So, I come up with a plan.  I ask for advice and suggestions.  I decide to break up the group into smaller groups of 30 and put an adult leader and a student leader with each group.  It will take 10 groups and 10 adult leaders.  Not only that, I decide that I will have 5 pastor/youth pastors come in and each give a 1 minute presentation on a bead color.  They will give that presentation 10 times – once to each small group.

I will have to recruit 10 adults and 5 pastor/youth pastors.

There is a group of rowdy students.  They sit the same place every week.  I decide that group should be broken up. 

What do you think?  Will it work?