Monday, October 27, 2014

Update from PRAY....by Youth Director Doug Applegate


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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