they’re a group of christians playing music not musicians playing Christian music.

amazing talents and great hearts made it a really fun night.  had a fun visit with a local leprechaun, Robbie O’Evo and even had a few students attempt an irish jig to “Cotton Eyed Joe”.

We ended the night with a timeless prayer from St. Patrick as a our closing blessing.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s hosts to save me
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a mulitude.

Christ shield me today
Against wounding
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through the mighty strength
Of the Lord of creation

ht scott williams

Started out with a fun nite for food.  Lots of different pasta.  great garlic bread and good desserts.

series: REALLY? Do I really want the gifts God has to offer? This was the last in our series focuse on  basic questions about a students identity and the Christian faith.

big idea: helping students understand that the best gift they’ve gotten from God, after salvation is God’s love letter to each on us through the bible.  We gave out more than a dozen new bibles to our students. It was humbling to hear students who were so excited to get their very own copy of the bible to keep.  Shows that even in a church that is intentional about the proclamation of the Word, we need to do a better job of growing those that call the outpost home.

Small Groups: great discussions in all the groups.  love it when the “light bulb” goes off as you start to tie the truths of God words into practical applications. Answering the deeper questions about our faith and wrestling through the big questions: Who did Cain marry?  What happens to the poor innocent native?  Do babies go to heaven.  We left many things unanswered, but left the door open that there are answers.

Played a really new fun game that our own Daneul Miller came up with.  We called it “monster”…mostly because Skillet’s Monster seemed like a great song to play during the game.

UPDATE: Our pal Chad at youth leaders stash calls this game can war .  go and grab the fun title graphic there.

BIG IDEA: Happy are the clean in heart. We talked about our responsibility to love God and to love others.  But to do that you have to start out with a clear heart yourself…and to get there we have to take on the righteousness of Jesus because of the messiness of our lives.  I used a large window pane to demonstrate what happens as we live our lives…rubbing dirt and then paint as we talked to show that there’s just a bunch of stuff that gets in the way…brokenness in our families and other relationships, sinful choices all keep us far from God.  Then when we decide to open up to God and his ways we can offer our strength and even our wounding and scars to help others.  I washed the glass off…although not perfectly clean we can see things better and can offer our strength to a world that needs it.

FUN:  Again our good friends at www.youthleaderstash.com had a great game called “apples and mallows” that just added the right amount of excitement and energy release for our crowd tonite.  finally we had an impromptu costume contest and you’ll have to watch the video to see who won.  lots of fun.

We also showed a video from  Up to Faith from a church in Hungary that has a crazy idea of impacting the world with a huge flash mob on Easter morning 2011.  We talked about our organizing to take part in Resurrection Dance.

Come Together Now – Music City Unites For Haiti from Provident Label Group on Vimeo.

Attendance: Excellent. many new faces and lots of fun.

Fun Factor: High.  Played a game called lick ‘em and stick ‘em (ht to www.ymnow.com) grateful for the willing volunteers.  (btw each week we do these games the raised hands to willingly subject themselves grows…not sure what’s up with that!)

added some craziness with the following jib jab cartoons that highlighted some of our volunteers.

Volunteer Involvement: Excellent.   Grateful for the many parents who stayed for the fun.

Student Involvement: Excellent.  VanGard was great and engaged the students.  Lots of creativity in the words and style of music.  The lyrics were solid with a biblical message.  their rendition of  the CHRISTmas tunes, joy to the world and winter wonderland added some cool variety to the evening. While waiting for the pizza to arrive Parker and some of camp new hope alumni led some crazy camp songs. it was an all around great night to end our year on.