This is fun...

One reason I love to read other people's blogs is to see what they are doing in their church and to get fresh ideas for ministry. With so many pastors/youth pastors blogging these days, there is an endless supply of resources and fresh ideas on-line.

Recently, I was checking out Corey's blog and I saw a really cool picture that hit me. It was a picture to promote their upcoming youth ministry Christmas series. Here's the picture... (Corey - hopefully you're cool with me posting the picture here! The person on your team did a great job!)
Looking at that picture got me to think. What if we really believed that other people mattered this Christmas season, and throughout the year? What would that look like? Then I started to think about how can I push the teenagers at lvc to live beyond themselves this Christmas season and really bless a family in need? As I thought about that question, I pulled together a team to think about how we could do this. After giving it some thought, we came up with this idea -- have teenagers think of a family who is struggling and will have a hard time this Christmas, challenge teenagers to share these situations with us, and then the whole group will vote on the family they want to bless. Once a family is selected, then the teenagers can go crazy and think of ways to really love this family.

This past Wednesday I shared that we selected the family that we want to bless. Well, now it's getting fun. Today, a couple people went to meet with the family to hear their story and see what they need, and to hear what their boys want for Christmas. Before they went down, someone came up to me, and said, "I heard what you are doing, here's $20. Get the family something to eat today." I was blown away! I handed the $20 to the people going to visit the family and off they went.

As I walked down to my office, I was approached again. This time I was given an envelope by a teenager. Inside was another $20 bill. We received this $20 bill because a teenager was talking about what we are doing with the librarian at their school. Up hearing this, the librarian gave the teen a $20 bill, because she was amazed at what these teens were doing. No we can use that to buy some food or a really cool toy for one of the boys.

All I can say is... this is getting fun. I can't wait to see what else happens. But most of all, it's great to hear about how people are seeing the love of Jesus this Christmas, instead of just hearing about it.