TOB Shenanigans. August 27th, Entry #85.

Sara:  Theology of the Body.  It's great, I love it, I really do.  But I love it even more when fun drawings and hilarious conversations come from it.  Take this past Sunday, for example.

I was describing to the students how God is a Community of Persons in the Trinity and that this community of persons was (and still is) created out of and for love.  Even better, the love between a man and a woman is an image of the love of the Trinity.  Righteous, I know.  So, here is the picture Aaron drew on the board.

#1 - The Giraffe - Adam was not called to love a giraffe, he was called to love Eve, one who was "bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh".  Not giraffes.  Even poorly drawn giraffes.  Still better than I would be able to do.

#2 - The Poptarts - God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit were hanging out in Heaven one day, eating some Poptarts, and decided to share the love of their Trinity and so they created Man in their image and likeness and called him to love.  Duh.

Now, apparently our talk inspired some of the kiddos to borrow some books written on Theology of the Body, especially the ones written by JPII.  Here is conversation that followed:

Hailey: "For my homework, I have to write down the top 10 most important books for every human being to read. I need one more, what should I put?"
Jordan: "Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla!"
Hailey: "I thought Pope John Paul II wrote that??"
Jordan: "He did."
Hailey: "Oh yeah! He said all those speeches and SHE wrote them in a book!"
Jordan: "Shmay, KAROL is JP2 before he became the Pope, NOT A GIRL."

Thank you Hailey and Jordy for letting my reprint this lovely dialogue....even though I haven't asked, that's OK, right?  Great!

Regardless of the shenanigans, I LOVE that teens are evening having conversations, albeit ridiculous ones, about Theology of the Body and getting into the presentation enough to make jokes about giraffes and poptarts.  Good things are happening.

The Theology of the Burrito. August 24th, Entry #84.

Sara:

Things I love about being a youth minister - #412: late night text conversations with students.  (as seen below)

Abby: Do you think that God could create a burrito SO BIG that He couldn't eat it?
Sara: Yes, but nothing is impossible for God so even if he created the biggest burrito in the universe he could eat it.
Abby: Sooo, in essence, He couldn't create one that was impossible for him to eat?
Sara: Agreed.  Even if he intended to create one too big he'd still be able to eat it due to the simple fact that He is God.
Abby: This is blowing my mind right now.
Sara: Ahh, the mysteries of God....and burritos.
Abby: Together, they're unstoppable.

I feel really good about myself knowing that I can help answer the deeper questions about God, faith and life.

**3 high fives to the first person to guess which Abby this was**

More Construction....with paint! August, 23rd, Entry #83

Aaron: So we have made a lot of progress on the youth room! I know a lot of you saw it on Sunday, but I will post pictures for all of the unfortunate souls who did not. So, here they are!

Back in the saddle again. August 21st, Entry #82.

Sara:  It's time for FLOCK again.  Oh what a long summer it's been without you.  Among the many things we did at FLOCK last night, each group came up with captions to 7 different pictures.  Some of them were a bit FLOCK inappropriate, but for the most part we laughing....really hard.  I thought I would share my favorite ones with you.

Picture of Jordan and moldy strawberry
Are you a parking ticket?  Cause you have fine written all over you!
I have gas
Jordan is hanging out with a fun-gi!
The rare "Jordanese species" was captured on camera the other day.  She has reportedly been in the storage room for over 18 months.  She scavenges for any food available, including year-old strawberries.  The mold cannot deter her.  Her hunger is great.

Picture of Sara and Aaron being ridiculously good looking.
We think we have a real job
"Power in its most elegant form....FIERCE by Calvin Klein"
We thought Brian and Joe looked good
The only non-Eddie Bauer clothes in Brian Witt's closet

Picture of Annelise with crazy make-up and hair
Born this way
Ready for prom!

Awkward picture of Lucas and Max in prop box attire
Lucas' AWKWARD first and last date

Picture of Hailey and Mallory spitting water out of their mouths
We can pee out of out mouths
Gatorade - $2, Stainless steel water bottle - $10, spitting your way to a new world record - PRICELESS
Hey Talls McGee, is your pee clear?

Picture of Jane hitting Joe over the head with a blow-up shark
Shark bait - hoo ha ha!
Ello, my name is Bruce.  Today at "Fish are friends, not food" I brought my new friend, Joe.  Joe is a friend, not food.

And a drawing, I have to share the drawing.  It's so pretty.

Yay for FLOCK.  I'm glad you're back.

More Construction. August 11th, Entry #81

Aaron: So, you may have guessed we have been continuing construction here, but alas, I have not updated lately! Well, let's fix that problem. Here are some updated pictures of our new youth room!

Also, we have been tasked to come up with a name for this new room, so we need some ideas! Let us know!

 A view of the front of the room, not much has changed except for the ceiling on the right side, and the removal of whiteboard/cabinets.

 A similar view,but a better view of the new ceiling work.

 The start of the new bar area, we will be adding more cabinets and bank seating, very cool things!

 A view of the back of the room, notice the absence of doors! The door on the right leads into our new office!

A different view of the new office, look at those huge windows!

Well, we hope you like what you saw! We went out and bought a few surprises yesterday, get excited to see them!





And the Construction Continues... Entry #80, July 26th

Aaron: So, sorry it has been over a month since we have updated this deal, but it's been a crazy month with mission trips and such, but now that things have calmed down a little bit I have some time to update all 9 of you that read our blog.  Construction on our new youth room was moving slowly for awhile, but things are finally starting to speed up, here are some recent photos: (Expect some more recent pictures later on in the day/week)

 The new office space

 A view from the front of the room, note: the wall is gone!

 another view of the now absent wall

 looking towards the front of the room

what will soon be the kitchenette area

Things that only happen when you're a youth minister. Entry #79. June 17th

Sara:  It's been a fun, albeit LONG, week up here in the SMTA.  It's been VBS all week, which means it's been Get REAL for a lot of fab high schoolers.  I can't even being to extend my gratitude to the 15 high schoolers who showed every morning at 8:30am to spend their morning (and free time) with 70, count 'em 70!, 5th and 6th graders.  Now, while Get REAL is a ton of fun, it's just darn exhausting.  When I finish this post I might lay on the ground and put my feet up on my desk, like pregnant ladies do when they're 9 months pregnant and have swollen feet.  But the work that Aaron and I did for Get REAL is nothing compared to the small group leaders that did the day-in and day-out work with their 10 kiddos.  Thanks be to Jesus for you guys.

But, there are a few things I noticed about this week that I thought needed to be put into a post.  I noticed some things that we were doing at work this week and I thought, "man, no one else would be doing these kinds of things and calling it 'work'".  And then I remembered, "but wait, we're youth minsters, this is work for us".  So, I thought I should share:

Things that happen only when you're a youth minister and it's considered work:

wearing t-shirts, gym shorts and flip flops to work
filling up 1500 water balloons
holding a "red carpet walk off" for 6th boys dressed as girls
arranging with the Fire Department to send a fire truck to come and spray down the kids
doing the "Istanbul, not Constantinople" dance
watching a kiddo walk in dressed as Ronald McDonald

It's a fun thing when you think about it.  I mean, c'mon, some people might do this for fun, but we get to do it for work!