Thoughts On Last Wednesday Night

Something new I will be doing on my blog is to write my thoughts on our weekly preteen gathering, which is on Wednesday nights.  I will try to blog about it sometime on Thursday while it is still fresh on my mind.

Last night was killer!  We kept our momentum and almost tripled our weekly Wednesday night attendance since just a few weeks ago.  Newcomers are coming back and bringing friends.  We even have newcomers bringing friends!  There is a buzz in the air and it is really exciting to be a part of it.

Hang-Out Time
Just bought Lego Rock Band for our preteen room.  Really cool game!  Preteens school me though.  I’m not that good.  Rated E and a great alternative to the Rock Band, which is Rated T.

Game:  Silly String Wars
I was brave enough to give virtually every preteen a can a silly string and tell them GO FOR IT!  Got sprayed a lot myself but managed to get some preteens too!   An interesting smell arose in the room after that many silly string cans were emptied.   Anyway, they had lots of fun!

Teaching:  Is Being A Christian Boring?
Shared with preteens my church experience growing up.  It was uneventful and boring to say the least.  Because church was boring, I thought God was too.  It wasn’t till I was 19 years old that God begun to work in my life.  Since then, I’ve discovered that Christianity if full of adventure.  Doesn’t mean life will be perfect.  Life is full of ups and downs.  But God has an exciting adventure awaiting us all!  Think preteens really connected with the message.  Both regulars and newcomers were engaged.  Anyway, it is the first week of a four week series that I will release on PreteenMinistry.net in February.  Totally unrelated to the topic, we ended the night praying for one of the preteens in our group who got in a car accident New Years Eve and is still in a coma.  Her name is Ashley, please pray for her.

Small Group
We intentionally decided not to do small group last Wednesday.  We were experimenting with some creative elements during large group instead.  They worked but we didn’t have time for typical small group.  Oh well, nothings perfect.

My Mac
In December, I entered the Mac world.  No more PC for me.  It has revolutionized my life and ministry!  You can do so many creative things with a Mac.  I run Keynote (Mac’s version of PowerPoint) through my iPod Touch, eliminating the need to always rely on an a/v person to operate everything.  Keynote is 10 x better than PowerPoint.  I can run video seamlessly through it.  Not choppy at all.  I am now a fan of www.wingclips.com, where I can download video clips from current movies.  No more Blockbuster or Netflix!  I put a video clip in Keynote and whola, there it is!  Got a Flip video camera ($200) and can now easily create and edit video.  The Flip shoots in HD too!  Going to create my own videos to promote events, enhance a lesson or just for fun stuff.  Plus, you can do so much more than what I described.  So many options and features! And Macs are just cooler.  If you have it in the church budget to get a new computer soon, I recommend getting a Mac.

Consistency
Something has changed in the air at X-Zone (our name).  Not a fan of the name, it was inherited.  And it’s not just Lego Rock Band, the cool room or fun games we play.  Before I arrived, X-Zone experienced lots of leadership turnover.  I could see it in the preteens’ eyes.  When I first met them, they were distant.  They wanted to engage, but were guarded.  But lately, they’ve begun to open up and show their true selves.  They feel an atmosphere of trust.  I feel it too.  It just reminds me the importance of consistency in leadership.  Preteens want to connect with leaders.  They want other people in their lives who really care about them and are interested in their well being.  Leaders who challenge them in their relationship with God.  Leaders who are involved.  A preteen ministry can offer that to preteens and it should.