From Sampler to Sower

Mythbusters: Water's Edge

Weekend Teaching Series: Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Title: Myth #5: If you give up on hope, then you’ll be happy.

Sermon in a Sentence: Biblical hope does not disappoint because it is grounded in a God who does not fail.

Text(s): Ecclesiastes 9:3-5, Isaiah 38:18, Romans 5:1-5

Weekend Scale of Difficulty:8 of 10; This week’s lesson incorporated several videos which all had to be cued at the right time, plus shooting the best (and most complicated) of our Mythbusters videos.

Message Summary:

This week we wrap up our Mythbusters series with a sermon on hope. Originally we were going to complete the trilogy of faith, hope and love, but a couple of snow days and the fact that our next series is set to coincide with Lent means we have to cut it short and wrap up this week.

We began by showing a video from eleven72 called Change IS Possible.  It features a guy singing about hope.  Only he realizes as he sings that some people never change, and hoping they will really is meaningless.  The song ends with the line: “There is no hope.  Give up on hope.  If you give up on hope then you’ll be happy. Or whatever.” The video closes with text on the screen encouraging viewers not to give up on hope, but we made sure to stop the video before that.  Our fifth myth was the closing line of the song – “If you give up on hope, then you’ll be happy.”

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Our youth ministry in Middletown is called Water’s Edge.  We’ve built on that name for many of the other things we do.  Our Junior High service is the Shore.  Our youth center is the Cove.  Our series of discipleship resources to help students go deeper with their faith is Submerge.  But where did the name Water’s Edge come from?

Our Ministry Leadership Council did not just pull that name out of the air.  It was the result of a very intentional process that sought to understand first what we were hoping to communicate before considering any possibilities.  Here’s how we came to the decision:

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Mythbusters: Water's Edge

Weekend Teaching Series: Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Title: Myth #4: All You Gotta Do is Believe

Sermon in a Sentence: Biblical faith moves from mental assent, to trust, to obedience, and ultimately to an experience of God’s grace.

Text(s): Genesis 15:6; John 3:36, 6:29; Acts 8;Romans 5:1; 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 2:8-9

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 of 10 Yeah, we did another custom video (see below) but that’s nothing new.  The only “new” thing was having to convert a Quicktime video clip from wingclips.com so it would play in EasyWorship.  (We use Super for video conversions. I thoroughly recommend it.  I do not, however, necessarily recommend EasyWorship.  It has some real plusses, but also some significant drawbacks.)

Message Summary:

The message this week focused on what exactly the Bible means by “Faith.”

We started off talking about the “power of positive thinking.”  Showed a quick video clip from the movie Paul Blart: Mall Cop from wingclips.com.  If you haven’t checked them out yet, I’d strongly recommend it.  They have a detailed and current index of movie clips.  What is more, you can get the clips directly from them, including clips from movies that are in theaters right now, like Mall Cop.  Seeing a clip from an “In Theaters” movie instantly got students attention.  Next time it might not, but for the first time we’ve used Wingclips, it was an instant attention getter.

The clip we showed featured Paul Blart (Kevin James) explaining that “the mind is the only weapon that doesn’t need a holster.”

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MinistryQuestions.com

Tim Schmoyer of Life in Student Ministry has just launched a new website to help answer some of those nagging youth ministry questions you might find yourself asking.  Tim describes MinistryQuestions.com this way: “Think of Yahoo! Answers except with the added ability to interact via video and audio clips.”

If you haven’t checked it out, do so, now!  It’s not only chocked full of information and growing by leaps and bounds, it’s absolutely beautiful!  And be sure to check out this Youtube video to see how it all works.

Now, go, check out the site, and be sure to vote for all my answers. I’m saving up rewards points for a free trip to Peoria! (Now all I’ve got to do is figure out how to redeem them.)

Building a Wordpress Website

Late last week I told you about a new series we will be launching at Water’s Edge in about three weeks called “My Brand New Life.” Now here’s the first post showing the work that’s going on behind the scenes to get this thing off the ground. In this post I’ll walk you through what we’ve been doing to get our website launched for this series.

But before I go any farther I should probably point out that this is primarily about designing the architecture for the site. We’re still developing the artwork, and that will come later. What’s more, for those of you well versed in Wordpress, this will proabably be pedantic. But I tried to avoid omitting any of the steps involved for any newcomers to a self-hosted wordpress blog.

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I’ve you’ve been reading youth ministry tech blogs or listening to many youth ministry twitters, you’ve probably come across talk about the digital camcorders from Flip, including the fan favorite Flip Mino (and Flip Mino HD).  At least I have. And so this morning I set off for Indy, in part to drop by Best Buy and check out this thing they call the Mino.

We’re getting ready for a new series at Water’s Edge called My Brand New Life which we hope will not only challenge students spiritually, but also unleash their creative side. One of the aspects of the series I’m most excited about will hopefully send them out into their world with camera phones to capture pictures and video that demonstrate what they’re learning.  Of course, not every student has a camera phone.  That’s why I wanted to check out the Mino.  At less than $150 a camera, I figured wouldn’t mind loaning one out to a trusted teen each week to enable them to take part in the video challenge.

When I arrived at Best Buy I was greeted just inside the door by an end cap display featuring their Insignia digital camcorders.  They are the same concept as the Flip, just from Best Buy’s discount brand.  The upside that caught my attention – $99 per camera. And the price was the same for both the SD and HD models.  But of course the skeptic in me wondered what’s the catch?

I looked into them, compared them with the Flip Mino, and bought a couple.  Here’s why:

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Anyone who’s on Facebook has probably seen the 25 things meme that’s been spreading like wildfire over there.  I myself was recently tagged, as was friend and fellow blogger Todd.  Not to be outdone, I succomed.  Here are my 25 things, reposted for your enjoyment.

Photo courtesy of annamon on flickr

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Don’t know who Apophis is?  It’s the Greek name for Apep, the archenemy of the Egyptian god Ra, also known as the Uncreator, a giant serpent that tries to swallow Ra (the Sun) as it passes through the underworld each night after setting in the West in order to rise again in the East.

The more important question though may not be who, but what.  What is Apophis?

Asteroid 99942 Apophis, formerly known as 2004 MN₄, is a near earth asteroid predicted to pass closer to earth than our orbiting satellites on Friday the 13th, April 2029  and may very well impact earth on it’s way back through seven years later.

I was fascinated by this after seeing astrophysicist and incredible public speaker Neil DeGrasse Tyson on the Daily Show a couple nights ago. And then today in my Google Reader was a post on Garr Renyold’s blog Presentation Zen examining what makes Tyson such a captivating educator.  There, as one of the examples of the way in which Tyson engages both his audience and his interviewer, is a video from last February in which Tyson speaks in greater detail about the possible Apophis impact.  In case you missed it, here it is:

Does this have anything to do with youth ministry?  I don’t know, you tell me.  It was just fascinating to me.

However Presentation Zen should be in every public speakers rss reader.  And that does apply to youth ministry.