TNBFT

Hey everyone! Last week we had TNBFT, which stands for The Next Big Fusion Thing. We had some inflatables, played some gold rush and other games, painted nails, had a giant video game room, a just dance room and some karaoke. Plus we had a giant whipped cream fight with all the leaders and all 268 students that were in attendance! it was insane! I still found whipped cream in my ear the next morning, or should I say my puppy Oliver found it. Besides all the crazy fun we had a concert with a gospel presentation where a bunch of students stood up to accept Christ. Not just stood up, but filled out some information so we can follow up with phone calls to make sure they connected to Fusion. It was an awesome night! the thunderstorm couldnt even keep us from having fun, haha. told some students to just start praying when the rain started and they thought that meant no whipped cream fight. looks like their prayers were answered.

Fusion Camp

This past week was Fusion Camp! And it was incredible. We took 197 middle school students to camp michindoh for a week. While it was exhausting, it was totally amazing to see God move. 32 students stood up to accept Christ the first night, and God continued to move in the lives of our students all week. The guys in my cabin opened up about all sorts of issues they are facing. It always breaks my heart to hear stories from students about bullying, and divorce, and everything else that they deal with. Those were the two biggest issues facing the guys in my cabin. 7 of the 12 come from broken homes, and all but 1 of those 7 said they had no relationship or wanted no relationship with their dad. Most also had bad relationships with step-dads. Just breaks my heart. Divorce is not a part of God's plan, and there are some deep wounds. Sherry Haueter gave a great talk on parents, and we had some great discussion and had some breakthroughs afterwards.

Been Awhile

Hello again everyone! Sorry it has been awhile since my last post. This summer has been a full one. Ministry during the summer is totally different than ministry during the school year, especially student ministry. Students are not in their normal routine and it can be very easy for them to disconnect from church and worse from God. Part of what I've been working on is keeping students connected.
I also had the opportunity to go teach for a whole weekend in Kidville, which is our 1st through 5th grade ministry, that was tons of fun. It was also the same weekend of  my first Fusion Teaching Video. linked here if for some odd reason you want to watch it   http://vimeo.com/24755806
Also in two weeks is Fusion Camp! We take 195 middle school students to Camp Michindoh for 5 days! It is going to be incredibly fun, and even more incredibly tiring! Luckily I have some vacation time saved up from Starbucks so i can take not only that week but also that next monday off to recuperate.

Crazy Weekend

This past weekend was a very emotional and busy weekend. My week started by finding out Dave Jester, the father of one of my best friends, Adam, was not doing well. Dave had been battling cancer for around 5 years, and passed away last week. So Keshia and I headed up to Michigan friday for the visitation, and I stayed Saturday for the funeral. It was nice to see some old friends, but an emotional time saying goodbye to Dave, and hurting for my friend Adam and his family.
Also Saturday night we had a Fusion Girls Night, which was a huge success. Over 50 girls came, and had a great time. I am so proud of my female volunteers for pulling of a great  night, and for taking the opportunity to connect with our girl students. Some great conversations happened that night. I was unable to make it there due to the funeral, which I was sad about but obviously my priority was in Michigan.

Then we had to switch from grieving to celebrating because Keshia graduated with her Masters on Sunday! It was a great day of celebration. Both of our parents and Keshias brother and girlfriend came down. We got to hang out and have dinner later that night together. I am so proud of Keshia for this accomplishment, she has worked extremely hard to make this happen. Going to school full time, working full time, and dealing with me full time was not easy. I am so proud to be her husband. God is definitely working in her life. Please be praying for us and we figure out what comes next. She has some meetings and interviews coming soon. We will keep everyone updated.

Thanks everyone for your support! All of this would not be possible without you. Thank you sooooo much!

Ninja Night

This past Saturday we had a Fusion Dude Night, with a Ninja theme. We play this game called Ultimate Ninja and it is one of our more popular games. So I came up with a way to do a tournament and we played it at Dude Night. We also had a ninja dress a like contest, which went over better than expected. We had 21 middle school students there, and over half had costumes on, and some of them were very impressive. It was also hilarious to see big groups of middle school guys coming in the building dressed like ninjas as adults were leaving after the 7 oclock service. lots of weird looks, which is awesome.
this saturday we have girls night, full of nintendo wii dancing and nail painting. our female leaders are great and have put together a fun night.
Sadly it looks like i will not be at church saturday because of the passing of Dave Jester, a great man who is no doubt laughing with Jesus right now.

Easter Weekend

Hello again. This past weekend was a crazy one. Easter is always a fun season celebrating the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus. It is crazy to think of the incredible sacrifice that Jesus made for us. If you haven't already take a moment and just reflect on that. I was able to take a few moments this past week and stop and reflect on the sacrifice made by our all powerful God so that we could be saved and be in relationship with Him. Every time i think about it I can't believe it.
We did not have any of Fusion services for Easter. Overall we had nine services and that would have been too much, and they would not have all been well attended. Plus the kids ministry needed extra help so we sent all of our volunteers down there to help out. Which also meant that I spent 8 out of the 9 services  in the kids ministry. I was able to attend a service with Keshia, which was great! Then I went and hung out with 5th graders! My goal was to help make the transition from CedarVille (kids ministry) to Fusion easier. So putting a face to the leaders in Fusion will hopefully help with that.
It was a tiring weekend for sure, but one where God moved in the hearts and lives of many people. Over 700 people stood up to accept Christ!

Moral Trifecta

This weekend at CedarCreek we are talking about the moral trifecta, abortion, homosexuality, and premarital sex. All three are fun topics to talk to middle school students about, but all three are very necessary. We are posing the question do you live cultures way, or God's way? If you live God's way what does he say about these three topics. It is crazy to think about the things these middle school students are already involved in, and the things that they hear, see, and are taught through media, friends, and our culture in general. We saw some walls broken down tonight at both of our Saturday services, and are expecting God will move tomorrow at all three of our Sunday services!!

Chicago

YO! so last weekend I had an awesome opportunity to go the Simply Youth Ministry Conference in Chicago with some of our team. it was great. two guys had to back out at the last minute so myself and one of our amazing volunteers got to go. I got to sit in some breakout sessions designed just for middle school ministry with the middle school pastor from Willow and from Saddleback. Learned alot of adolescent development stuff, and came back to our ministry here at CedarCreek with more questions than answers, weird how that works. One thing we are wrestling with and I will be developing in the coming months is leader/volunteer training. we have awesome volunteers, but at times we don't set them up for success by giving them adequate training. And anyone that as ever been around middle school students knows they are weird, so we need to help our volunteers understand why middle school students act like they do. I am excited about it, and excited about working through all the areas of our ministry to really make sure we are intentionally pointing students to Jesus with everything we do.

Fun Weekend

Last weekend was a busy and a fun one. In Perrusburg most of our fusion volunteers are high school students. They are awesome high school students who volunteer to help show middle school students Jesus, but most of those high school students were on their winter retreat last weekend. As well as the other student ministry interns and staff members. they left me behind to run Fusion for the weekend, and we had a fun time talking about being connected to Jesus, like branches are connected to a vine. This is a picture from the 10:45 service, it was pretty full. Some guy who was teaching went too long so we didn't get to play a game during this service (oops). but we did get to watch a couple funny videos so i guess that makes it worth it. We had some volunteers step up huge this weekend, and some had a chance to step up into bigger roles than they normally do. It was awesome to see some leaders step up!

Fusion Weekend

Hey everybody! We had another great weekend at Fusion. Being in Perrysburg is starting to feel normal. It was strange at first, and I miss all my Toledo cromies. But Perrysurg Fusion has been lots of fun. Lots of new students to meet, and hopefully point towards Jesus. I taught 4 of our 5 Fusion services over the weekend. We talked about how many people have been decieved into thinking they can earn their salvation. When in reality the only way to be saved is faith in Jesus. This was also camp weekend, our first camp weekend where we really focused on promoting Fusion Camp. We take over Camp Michindoh for a week in July, and this weekend we handed out information to all of our students, as well as all the fifth grade students.

All Nighter

Wow. That was the only word we could use to describe what happened friday night. We planned an all campus Fusion Overnighter at the Perrysburg YMCA. We challenged the students that if they could get 300 students there we would give away a free trip to camp. 300 was the number the Y told us they could fit in the building. We ended up having 501 students show up to the Perrysurg YMCA, wow. We had to cap it at 441 sadly, and a couple students did not get in. they will all get into our next event for free, and we are doing a prize drawing for all of them. We could not believe how many students came out. We were a little overwhelmed, but amazed at our students. We had a whole bunch of students who had never been to Fusion or CedarCreek before. We were amazed that our Fusion students brought so many friends, which is so cool. God can and God will use us when we are willing, and our students are willing. We are so proud of them.

Snowmageddon

Keshia and I survived the storm of the century, or snowmageddon. ha. Thankfully it looked like we did not get as much as they predicted (big surprise). Keshia did not have to work wednesday and i had to work at starbucks wednesday so we went up and stayed with her parents tuesday night. so the storm didn't hold us down much.
thursday night was my last night with my Toledo students before moving to Perrysburg. They surprised me with a small "going away but not really" party. we had some cake and played some games. i will miss those students, but the nice part is i will still them occasionally. I am  not totally cut off from them. and i get a whole new group of fusionites to get to know!

Big Move

We found out this week that I will be moving from our Toledo campus to our Perrysburg campus. It is an exciting opportunity and will definitely have its challenges. It is a bigger campus, and will bring more responsibility for me. I will responsible for the teaching, lifegroups, and everything else fusion. I will get the opportunity to work closely with Stephen Whitlow (student ministries pastor for Perrysburg) as well as Levi and Chad (student ministries interns). It is very sad to leave Toledo, but Perrysburg will be fun. Please pray that the transition goes smoothly. thanks again!!

This past week was a very exciting one. We had a welcome the new interns party at Hooties house on Friday. Hooty is one of the elders at CedarCreek.tv He shared some of his personal story with us which was great to hear. He has one crazy story. At the age of 19 he was kidnapped from work with a gun stuck to his head. While he and one of his coworkers were being put into the car the other coworker tackled one of the kidnappers, and Hooty was able to run away. That experience made him start contemplating life a little deeper and two years later decided to give his life to Christ and he was not turned back since. His heart for reaching people with the gospel is very apparent when you talk to him. It is so great knowing that the heart and passions of the people leading your church are in the right place.

Earlier that day Shawn (the student ministries pastor of our Whitehouse campus) Levi (another student ministries intern from the Perrysburg campus) and I made a video to promote our Fusion Overnighter on Feb 11. It was a blast. we went to the perrysburg YMCA and made fools of ourselves in the gym, then went over to Levi's house where the foolishness continued. The video should be uploaded to our fusionlife.tv facebook page sometime this week, as well as some blooper footage.

It was great to get more in depth with student ministries again. It might sound weird, but sitting in meetings with other leaders planning out the weekend and some other events we have coming up was great for me. it energizes me knowing I am a part of students knowing God. Is there anything better than that?

Getting Started

My internship officially kicked off this week! I will be starting working with Student Ministries at the Toledo Campus. I am now filling out all my documentation to get access to the buildings and rooms I need to get access to, as well as all my tax information and W-2's, yeay. man i can't stand all this tax stuff, but it is necessary. I am just ready to be done with it so I can start working even more with students and showing them Jesus.

Thank you all again for your support