Hey church, I just gave a recount to our high schoolers
about how i thought the junkyard was doing.
In a nutshell, I said it was going great! I thought it
was going to take another year before our car group strategy (if you want to
know what a 'car group' is, then check out the 3 minute video) would run smooth. But with awesome veteran sponsors leading
each car group, things are really running smoothly. The junkyard, to some
degree, is it's own church body. And we strive for health. That means growing
up in and out, of course. We have tons of kids coming to participate in wed
night activities and the extra opportunities we offer to learn more about God
and talk with Him and learn about him. We are growing in by creating a place
where kids can make friends, have fun and live life with adult sponsors who
care for them. Less kids are falling through the cracks now because of our new
car group strategy. We are also growing IN by identifying ourselves outside of
youth group. We wear blue bandanas and blue buttons and blue bracelets that say
junkyardigan on them so if you see someone with one around town, you know they
are part of your junkyard family. We also wear white bracelets and buttons with
IL4J on it. It means that we live for jesus. So now we know who else are
christians that are walking the hallways in the schools. We are also reaching
OUT by collecting treats that made over 30 huge care packages for college
freshman. We collected nearly 500 items of food for the food drive, we
collected a TON of school supplies for a des moines middle school and we plan
to do something every month. It's called our monthly BIG GIVE and we started
doing this last year and it's getting bigger and better every month.
After telling all this to our high school kids, i told
them that as great as things are going, i want them to be even greater. Not so
we can brag, but so people around ankeny will know that God is here, God is
awesome and God really does love us. Too many people in today's world are
turned off by the church because of the way that christians behave. I
challenged our high school kids to live in such a way that other teens would
actually WANT to be a part of our church.
Lastly i told our high school kids that if they are
christians, then they are part of the junkyard body. And the junkyard is part
of the ridge and the ridge is part of the world wide church. I told them that
if a catcher on the softball team did not show up at practice or to games, that
the team would feel the effects. They would be letting the team down. The team
wouldn't be able to do what it is meant to do...win! I told them they are part
of the junkyard team. If they do not participate....if they skip meetings...if
they don't prioritize life with us, then we can not do what we are meant to do.
And we are meant to love God and love others. We can't do that if our team
members are not participating. Now I understand that we all participate in
different ways...but we must be participating.
Okay, i said 'lastly' in the previous paragraph, but i
did tell them one more thing. If you get hungry at home, YOU FEED YOURSELF! You
don't wait for someone else to walk by and feed you. YOU have to put the food
in your own mouth once you get past 3 yrs old. The same goes for being in the
junkyard. If they are spiritually hungry, then they need to feed themselves. Do
NOT just sit around and complain about the situation. CHANGE the situation.
They need to join a class or read their bible or invite a peer to do a bible
study with them or start a small group or invite a junkyard kid to a movie to
get to know them better or come to the many things that we offer. They need to
DO SOEMTHING!
Okay. That's it. Sorry it's long. It give you a glimpse
into what we talk about on wed nights. Later!
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