So that is where the switch comes for Switch. God has been moving upon my heart to step out into youth ministry on my own, which is what He has always wanted me to do in the first place. I believe that my time at Cornerstone and Innerface was a time of personal healing and restoration.

My previous ministry experience was a difficult one, as I faced many politics and two-sided workers. But I won’t divulge those details other than to say I was seriously hurt by church members, and needed God to restore me. I do know that even though it was a time of hurt, I needed to walk through it. God is a faithful God, and carried me through that, and has since healed and restored me. Praise Him!

Anyways, the time has come for me to step out into ministry and fulfill the call of God on my life. My time at Cornerstone was an effective one, and the launch of Switch was a great learning and growing opportunity for me personally, and I thank Matt and Lynn for that. Since that change is coming, I have stepped down from Switch, which will be taken over by Jeff and Tracee Reyes. I think it’s a great fit, and an excited to see what God does with Switch under this new leadership.

I am also excited to begin this new chapter of my life to see where God takes it. This is something that I have been dreaming about and working towards since God called me in high school. Lord, I cannot wait!

It was a little loud since the room has NO acoustical suppressors in it. It’s just 4 walls, metal ceiling and concrete floor. So sound bounces off of it terribly. Andrew did a great job leading worhip for it though, as usual.

Also, Rebecca Hansen showed up tonight, much to our surprise. her dad recently accepted a position as a Children’s Pastor in Dublin. It was good to see her. She was a little teary the entire service, I think she misses being at Cornerstone.

Small groups went well, but we were without our 6th grade boys AND girls. It’s semi-normal to not have any 6th grade girls or boys on a night, but to not have BOTH has never happened. King of strange since we had record breaking attendance last night.

Game time was fun. I don’t often get involved in the game, no particular reason. But last night’s game was fun. Jason made a ball of duct tape, and we played baseball with it, with a minor (major) change in gameplay. Instead of using a bat, you used your hands to hit this ball. The rest of the rules applied. Also, he gave the winning teams (2) each 1000 points for our competition, instead of the usual 250. That can be a major boost for some of the teams that are falling behind. Next week, we announce who is the winning team that gets to go to Boomers in Dublin for free.

I spoke on giving, but not in the monetary sense that we all naturally think of when we hear that term. Instead, I began with a story of a Chinese girl that at a very young age was thrown into prison for telling people about Jesus, and how she led many in that prison to Christ. I ended with the message’s title, “All gave some, but some gave all.” Everyone is giving something, but there are some that are giving everything. The amount of yourself that you give to God is the amount that He pours back on you. That was the basic of it.

Overall, it was a great night, depsite the missing leaders, missing students, and smaller venue. Praise Jesus for a great night!

The night was Addie’s first night speaking, and due to the week’s events, we paired her with Jason for the speaking. They both did a fantastic job, hitting the topic, “What do I do now?” In a nutshell, it was go to church, pray, and become a student of the Word of God. Addie, amidst some personal turmoil due to some circumstances, still pulled out an awesome point. I am so proud of her. She is fast becominng a powerful woman of God, and I can’t wait to see how God uses her.

Richard had me a little worried on his game (which seems to be a normal occurence). They played musical chairs in the dark, an interesting twist. The part that he didn’t think about was the multitudes of students that were roaming around since they were “out” of the game. Richard, gotta think through the game man. Gotta give it your best. He’ll learn.

The band was a little different, two members had made another committment for the night that actually got cancelled. I was a little (ok, a lot) perturbed by that situation, but it worked out in the end. Andrew still did a fantstic job with worship despite the band member changes. I came up toward the end of worship, feeling a need to simply let God touch them. After a few words, and then asking if they needed that, many of them claimed that they did need a touch from God. God is so good, I love it. especially since I myself am not doing so well spiritually.

On that note, I wrote a lesson today for tomorrow night’s College group that seriously cut me to the bone. God seriously dealt with me on some stuff about it. but I’ll make an entry after the discussion tomorrow.

The competition portion of Switch is coming along nicely, with the students becoming passionate about their respective teams. I heard things like, “What team are you on? We’re on the Flying Squirrels! We’re gonna win!!!” When you hear them saying things like that, it makes it worth it to us and to them when we get to the end of the competition.

Jason did the game tonight, breaking them up into their teams. They had to have one member at a time from their team run over and peel a banana with their bare feet. If they got the banana unpeeled as a whole, it was 2 points. If they had a whole banana’s worth of slush, they got one point. The team with the most points won the competition. I don’t remember which team won, but they all had a lot of fun doing it. It was all kind of gross to me, but that is why they play.

The small groups are the core of Switch, and they need to be emphasized more. The fact that they are getting the same leader everytime is a plus and is definitely something that we lacked last year, mainly due to a lack of consistent leaders. This year, the leaders are starting to take ownership of the groups, and that is what we wanted all along. Richard told me that a student was teary after the message in his group because he realized that he was trying to serve two masters. God is definitely doing some awesome stuff.

Next week, Switch kicks off immediately after At Hell’s Gate, so we should see a huge influx of students that attend. It could very well be a madhouse.

Tonight was Jason’s night to speak, so that makes things a little easier on me. He did a fantastic job talking about “Whose are you?” taking the concept that to whom you belong will establish your identity. He talked about us being confused and not knowing who we are. Well, that’s because we don’t know who we belong to. When we realize that we belong to God, then we surrender to Him and allow Him to mold and shape us into who He has designed us to be.

Right before the service started, Jason and I were worried that no one would show up, since we only had 7 in attendance (including the Switch leaders). But in the last few minutes just before we started, the Cornerstone bus pulled in and many of those students got out and ran over to Switch. Overall Jr High attendance was 31, so we are slowly building it back up to the numbers of our first night and beyond.

It is my goal that by the end of the Fall semester, that we will have 50 Jr Highers. That’s true faith, as we have never pushed past the 35 mark before. But I think with the regular attendees and the occasional ones, we can do it. But it’s gonna be a lot of work on our part and with the cooperation of the Switch Leaders.

Also, tonight was Becca Hansen’s last night with us. Her dad accepted a position as the Children’s Pastor at a church in Dublin. She became a big part of Switch last year, and continued this year in Switch Leadership. She has done a phenomenal job being part of the team, and I know that God has amazing plans for her far beyond what we can imagine. She is so gifted and talented, and a natural leader. She is gonna rock some part of the world for God. She will definitely be missed.

Overall, it was a great night. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and can’t wait to see what God does in the weeks to come.

Jason did a fantastic job last night, talking about who’s voice are you listening to. The devil is whispering lies to us, and God is shouting for us and cheering us on. We tend to listen to the one whispering the lies instead of the one that truly believes in us and is madly in love with us. The end result, we throw our lives away when we listen to the lies. It’s easy for us to listen to the lies though. When we don’t know who we are in Christ, we have a hard time believing that we can make a difference.

The band did a pretty good job, despite the issue we had with another ministry being in the building for a practice time. Andrew is growing in his worship leading, but still needs some work. Switch is a great place for him to get that developed, and he is doing good with that so far.

We had about 24 Jr Highers last night, a little drop from the previous service two weeks ago. I think part of it is the off-week we had with no service. Once the momentum of a weekly service gets going, it should build again.

I’m excited for next week. We are talking about identity, and there are already some things stirring in me about it. So I’ll write about it after it happens!

Many of the students showed up early, since we started it earlier last year. We decided to remove the hour of “hang out” time before the actual service started since it didn’t really serve it’s intended purpose. It was good, but it wasn’t necessary. Instead, we started promptly at 7pm with the opening song that led right into the service.

We changed the entire format of the service as well, keeping all of the main elements, but shifting them around to better suit our needs and create a better flow of the night. After tonight, it seemed to work a lot better than it did last year. There was more of a natural flow to the night, and it helped enhance the various parts of the evening.

As I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of first time attendees, and it was awesome! Last year, we were very “girl heavy,” meaning that we had more girls than guys show up. This time, we were very “guy heavy.” It was great since I have more guy leaders than girl leaders, so it balanced out. Every element of the service just clicked and flowed smoothly (although the inbetween parts were a little rough). There was great response from all of the students throughout the night, and I can’t wait until the next one.

Another major change we did was completely drop the “hang out” time before the service. We looked at it, and ultimately decided that it was a good thing, but not totally necessary. It wasn’t quite accomplishing what we had intended it to. So instead, we start at 7pm and kick right into the service.

The small groups are going to be a major focus this year. We want the leaders to really connect with the students, and really take a mentor role with them, moreso than before. The team I have this year is top-notch, and I think they will do a fantastic job of doing that.

Andrew is leading worship, which is something that kind of was happening at the end of Switch last year. I want him to be able to take that entire area, and just run with it. That is his gifting and his passion, and he just needs to learn to do it. What better a place than for Switch?

So I’m really excited, we’ll see what God does.

As usual, we had more girls than guys, and more guy leaders than we REALLY needed. But I asked Kelly Navilhon to help out, and she did great. I also had to ask Javier to come and run the cafe, which he did fine.

Worship was pretty good, and I am intentionally cutting them shorter to leave time for the Word. I am discovering that the Word is the most important part of the night, as that is where the real depth is being deposited in them. We did a new song called “The Stand.” It was pretty awesome.

I preached part 1 of a who knows how many parts message called “What kind of play doh are you?” I talked about Jeremiah going down to the Potter’s house to watch him mold the clay. I described how we are like play doh and that we are to allow God to mold us into whatever He wants us to become. It was…good, but deep. Too much explanation, not enough illustration. I gotta remember that these are Jr. Highers, and need more examples.

Can’t wait for the next one though. It should be pretty awesome.

It’s always a little challenging when you don’t have your normal meeting, and try to come back from that. This week, we had our usual amount, but a few of our regulars were out. We also had a few visitors, which numerically balanced it out.Since the band was late, it made practice just ok, and thus the worship portion was just ok (from a technical standpoint). The gametime was also ok, many of the girls didn’t participate (it WAS pretty gross, taking each other’s socks off with our feet?!?!?) But when I started preaching, I could totally feel that I was completely in my element, and the Spirit of God was going to do something.

My message was about God being on the throne, regardless of what we go through. Often times, when things don’t go so well for us, we tend to think that God must not be in it. The fact is, God is still on the throne, and is still overseeing the universe. Just because our little situation might be getting a little crazy, He doesn’t stop being God. His throne endures forever, according to Psalm 45, verse 6. No matter what happens, He is still God.The cool thing was that number 1, it was a message that was totally timely for the students. Many of them responded to the altar call, which I don’t normally do. I usually break them into small groups and have their leader talk to them about the message. I knew that there would be some that just needed God, and I wanted to give them opportunity to surrender their situations to Him. It was really cool.

The second thing was that the response at the altar time, literally personified my message. As I mentioned earlier, there were several things that just weren’t coming together the way that I was planning them to. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t great either. But then God showed up and was God. And that was basically the core of my message. God is so awesome!