Author: Dave Miers

Halloween is just around the corner. October 31. Starbucks have this disgusting pumpkin spice flavoured coffee (Bec – a friend who works at startbucks – gave me a taste before it was launched). Other than that I haven’t seen anything else using Halloween as a part of their sales pitch. Tim Challies has written a great article on Halloween that I actually read (normally I don’t read his posts because they are too long for my postmodern attention span!). In Australia, Halloween is a non-event. Each year we would get maybe one or two visits from some punk kids who already have missing teeth from their sugar habit! So Christians in Australia don’t have to think through the same issues as North American Christians.

Reformation Day is fast approaching. October 31. Same day as Halloween. As of Reformation day last year my aim is to teach teenagers something of Reformation Day and its significance. Understanding our church history (beyond the 10 years of CCEC) is important to understand the present, the future and our Sovereign God.

Watch this space for some more info on what we’ll be doing with/for youth group and how we teach the wonderful truths of Reformed Theology. I think I might even have a Reformation Day party with growth group next Tuesday night!

To do some more reading on the Reformation check here and here.

Do you do anything to mark Reformation Day? What are your plans?

——-
Links:
Ben and Sally are having a Baby – funny video…
MySpace is Ugly
ccecyouth MySpace

Our morning church began a new sermon series yesterday morning. Andrew Heard kicked off the series preaching from Revelation 1. I didn’t hear the talk (we have yr 7-9 Bible study during 830 and 1030 church) so I’m listening to it now. Want to listen? Get it from here or directly from here.

Our church has a wonderfully diverse mix of people from different theological backgrounds. This series will be confronting for some, but my prediction is that it will be a fantastic series. Stay tuned for more!

Has your church preached through Revelation? How did it go?

Megan has been living with us for the last couple of weeks. It’s been lots of fun. Today she is leaving for Cairns and then will be going back to New Zealand. You can hear more about her on this week’s episode of On the Poddy (or here for mp3). We will miss her… but she says that she is going to start blogging when she gets back… so watch this space!

Praise
>For the encouragement that Megan has been to us and we (particularly Row) have been to her
>Row. She’s a delight.

Prayer
>For Megan as she settles back into NZ that she would find a good church and keep growing to be more like Jesus
>CCECYOUTH this term

Around the web:
>Mal has a blog
>Funniest thing I’ve seen this week
>Heardy is preaching at Men’s Convention

In Kurt Johnston’s post What not to do, he talks about some principles for guiding the activities they do in their youth ministry. Here they are:

1) Is it age-appropriate? Is it over their head? Will they ‘get it?’ etc.
2) Does it dishonor anybody? I don’t want to dishonor scripture, Christ, nerdy kids, jocks, tall kids, heavy kids etc.
3) Can we defend it? When a parent, church elder or senior pastor asks us why we played that game, watched that movie etc. do we have a defense that will satisfy?

He talks about how often it’s the impromptu activities that can be the worst. They haven’t been thought through and may have significant consequences. For me it means we want to be well-prepared and also have older-wiser leaders on hand to bring wisdom in the spur-of-the-moment activites.

What do you think of his list? Would you add anything? Change anything?

Not! See here. Can I remind Noel Gallagher that the last time Australia played England in the football (soccer) Australia won 3-1.

In today’s new episode of On the Poddy we talk with our Kiwi friend (Megan) about preaching in church. She spoke of the fluffy topical preaching she grew up with compared to the practise at our church. I love the diet we get at church. Typically we work through a book of the Bible during the school term and during the holidays we will have topical/different sermons. I personally think that that is the best diet for a healthy church. What’s your church like??

In youth ministry I think we need to think in a similar way. The temptation is to give too much weight to ‘topics’. However, in the last 2 years, I’ve spoken 5or6 times on sex stuff as it has occurred in the series’ we’ve been doing.

What does a typical year look like for your youth ministry? (re: what you preach through etc…)