Middle School and High School were on two different tracks again today at GSM.

Middle School: “What is the Wise thing to do?”  

I’m always a sucker for “less is more”.  Today we challenged the students ask themselves “what is the wise thing to do” when it comes to navigating relationships.  This is one of those questions that sticks in your mind because it’s so easy to remember.  We talked through how different (better) our relationships would be if we asked ourself this amazing question when faced with any decision.  

He said, “Decide in your mind right now what the wise thing to do is…then do it!”  Clear, concise and make the point!  He did a great job at taking something ginormous and making it accessible for middle schoolers! Brilliant! 

Main verse: Eph 5:15-17

John White spoke today and absolutely ROCKED!!  He did some crowd participation that always goes over well.  Our students and leaders love John and so do I!  Every ministry needs a “John White”.  (John White = amazingly devoted follower of Christ, great husband, great father, and extremely passionate volunteer!)

He ended by asking our students to answer this questions when thinking about how their friends are:  ”Am I bringing out the best in this person?”   

High School: “We’re just different”

We talked about some difference between guys and girls.  This week wasn’t the usual one speaker giving the message, we did something a little different.  We split the guys and girls.  Girls stayed in the auditorium and guys went into the atrium so that we could have some guy talk and girl talk.

We started the panel with 4 guy leaders talking to the guys about how we’re wired up and what to do with that.  And in the other room the girls did the same thing.  THEN we switched! We had our guy panel talking to the girls about “us guys” and the girls talking to our guys about….well being a girl.

 I specifically chose panel members who could speak from their respective vantage point.  (ex. Married, single, dated forever, dating, still trying to figure it out, perfectly fine being single, sooo glad being married…you get the picture)

I got REALLY great feedback from students after (except for one guy student who thought we “lumped” all the guys into one big category and he left me a voicemail stated “he wasn’t like all the other guys”…..) but other than that, everyone seemed to understand what we were trying to do.  (I only told the the story of the guy student so that if you try this, you know that there will be a handful of students who don’t like generalizations and they expect you to pinpoint everything about “them” or it won’t be helpful for them.  Just trying to help you out.)

Overall:  I felt really good about it.  John White absolutely nailed the message for middle school.  Students will definitely remember his charge for making wise decisions so that we can end up more relational healthy each day.

Middle School numbers seemed down a bit, high school was WAY UP from last week and it’s been increasing as this series has went on.

Parents April 1st is the first cut off for “Early Bird Pricing” for Camp Adventure!  Be sure to go ahead and get your students signed up and get the best deal camp is offering this year.

It’s going to be a great year at camp and we want your students to be there.  If you have any questions or need more info check out gccwired.com where you can get all the info or feel free to give us a call at 574-243-3500.

This week was titled “You’re not gonna listen to me”. We’re extremely aware that there is something inside of every teen that says “don’t tell me, I want to figure it out for myself.” We urged students not to use that train of thought, then we gave them healthy ways to think about friendships (Middle School) and Sex (High School).

Middle School Overview:

John walked us through “outer circle” & “inner circle” friendships. There’s nothing more powerful your pe

John gave three things that friends need to be for each other:

1. Rock – friend that are just there for you. John asked the students what “solid, heavy, strong, hard to move” Ecc. 4
2. Mirror – some people who will show you who you are. Some people to call you out. Some people who will show you good and bad things about you.
3. Coach – someone who will coach you through. They’ll course correct you AND want the best for you. People who will consistently call out the best for you.

High School Overview:

I spoke for high school tonight and used MANY resources to form the message. (big shout out to Rob Bell, Doug Fields, Mark Beeson, and Rob Wegner) This was the first time I taught on the topic of Sex at our church so I was a little nervous because I want to honor every parent as we help their students learn more about sex.

I went on stage fully aware that what came out of my mouth would either help or hurt our parents teach their student more about sex. I feel good about tonight. At high school i gave some myths we hear about sex & some things you need to know about sex you might not hear.

Arts Elements:

• Song Special: Sooner or Later
• We interviewed Katy Perry (yes the one who “kissed the girl and liked it”)
• Video and Dance to “Single Ladies” – this element was lead, created, and designed by a group of students.

I’ll post photo’s and videos of our Arts elements Tuesday.

(We got some goodness cooking for next weekend too. It just keeps getting better.)

There are some photo’s from GSM last weekend at Week 1 of our Love Lockdown Series taken by one of our volunteers (Jonathon Anderstrom) who doubles as a KILLER photographer.  I’ll have to tell you more about Jonathon later, he’s amazing.

I love hearing our students worship song requests.  This song hits the top 10 list of songs every so often.  Every now and then they’ll throw in an encore and insist we sing another song so they can worship together more.  I feel honored to lead a group of students and leaders who want more Jesus.