Week 18 was all about the coffee. Two different students in two different coffee houses. The first student is an AVID coffee drinker, and after asking him where he would like to go for the BEST coffee, he suggested the local 7/11. Wow. We went to Starbucks. Not that 7/11 would have been bad, but it wouldn't have a place to sit and chat (at least that is what I said...). My high school students and I are going to a national youth convention called CIY MOVE and this student had some reservations regarding going. From doubts that he would have fun to speculation that it was much like church camp, this student was very uneasy about going to CIY. However, I REALLY wanted him to go because it is unlike anything he had ever experienced, so we drank some coffee while discussing it like velociraptors. I just wanted him to know that I was his biggest fan and that I thought the trip wouldn't be the same without him. I really like this dude and hope that our relationship continues to flourish - especially through CIY...  My other student was just a casual coffee with not much direction other than just spending time together. Sometimes it's just good to check in with my students...

Week 17 was probably the best find of my entire Youth Pastor existence. I was taking a student out to have some chips and soda at Moe's and he suggested that we go to this new restaurant called "Pizza-Go-Round". Sounds dumb. Whatever, I caved and we went. At first it looked like a pretty lame pizza place that had very little decoration. But what we found at this hole in the wall pizza place was far from lame...

Orlando. Did I expect to get anything accomplished? No. Did I? Absolutely. Even though I wasn't at home with the students, I did get some work done on the outside... Andy Stanley says sometimes you need to work ON and not IN the ministry. And that is exactly what I did. I decided to invest front end into some of the materials for the upcoming discipleship class. I wanted to make sure that everything not only looked good, but functioned well. My intentions are to have the students pay $15 for the program, which should cover the costs of the materials, binder, and flash drive. By the way, do you know how hard it is to find a A5 paper size transparent binder? Ya, don't even try it. Anyways, I purchased all of those materials for a starter booklet to begin putting the program materials together. Hopefully things will begin to take shape and when I start the video part of the program i'll be moving along like a steam engine. I hope this program changes lives...

PS: the program is called up*.

Week 15 was definitely the last week before spring break for me... Mike and I were traveling to Orlando the following week and we were so pumped up about the trip that it was hard to focus... However, I still had enough focus and time to meet with one of my students. We went to Moe's and enjoyed some chips and queso together, chatting about "the weather" and other random junk. One thing I found important that I was able to chat with this student about was his involvement in our student events. It had been a concern of mine for a while now that he did not like to attend or support the events that we did... From lack of attendance to sometimes even commenting on things he would be doing instead, it was a little frustrating that I did not know what was going on. I did come to find out that it was just a transitional phase and that he was feeling left out based on his age and maturity. I encouraged him to focus on hanging out with the older students and focus on spending time doing events they would be doing. I feel bad for him, but unless he invites his friends or chooses to fit in, he takes part of the blame. Hopefully our conversation ended well and he went home with a slightly better perspective... We'll see....

Week 14 was one with not much going on. We had just rebounded from two weeks of group being in different locations and having  two completely different objectives or "focuses", everything gearing up for spring break, and a furious work ethic involving the new discipleship program. And did I mentioned that I moved, painted my new apartment, and set up the new office as well? Needless to say, I didn't get much of an opportunity to spend my $25. However, my goal was to use it for food for one of the Sunday nights in which we grilled out at my new apartment and in a sense "united" as a youth group. That intention was plundered in the check-out line when another volunteer swept in and paid for food before I could quick-draw with my wallet. Moral of the story? I have GREAT volunteers and SLOW reaction time. So, for now we will chalk it up as $25 in limbo and I'll look for another great avenue to invest it... Possibly into the new discipleship program... Until then, peace!

Catching back up... Two weeks ago I finally made it back to FCA at Broad Run High School after what seemed like an extended stint of business... All of the moving and shifting and painting and installing had me - in a sense - brainwashed and mummified into doing all of the menial tasks around my new apartment and somewhat abandoning my students for a week. However, I was able to make it back to FCA - like I said before - and I took donuts for everyone. Even though the turnout was small that week, we were able to accomplish so much just with the crew that we had. First of all, we acquired a new in-school sponsor to aid us in the gaining of a new space to meet... My Kyger helped us to reserve the auditorium for the remainder of the year. Great guy. Secondly, I convinced them to let me design some T-Shirts since things weren't going well on their end. Here is what I came up with:

Last week I met with five students on five separate days - for lack of better words, it was insane. However, none of them made me go to the same place as the others and they all were entirely different than the last. Probably the best part about the situation was that my entire schedule was dominated by student meetings - so much that I lost track and didn't seem to get much accomplished on the admin or creative side of my life. It made me feel like a legitimate youth pastor though... So, I'll just give a quick run through since it is so much information...

Week 11 was all about the power and energy shakes. In fact, for two days in a row I went with students to both Robek's and Smoothie King to enjoy some energy explosion. The first student I went with was one of my younger students (and I'm just assuming - one of the more extensive video-gamers that I have in group). The odd coincidence was that we decided to skip on over to a Blockbuster that was going out of business and check out the inventory. Aside from that little detour, we spent the afternoon chillin outside of Robek's and talking about family and school. Best part about youth ministry? Just hanging out with students and learning what is going on in their life. My second meeting was with another young student of mine and this time we went to Smoothie King. One of the most talkative, we spent most of our time together chatting about the differences between him and his siblings - how he sees himself and how he still hasn't made his goal of getting super excellent amazing grades and as a dog. Even with the lack of good taste, the energy shakes and conversations made for good company. NICE.

Over the last few weeks I have been either out of town or in so much tooth pain from my root canal problems that I have had no time to hang out with students at all. Probably a blessing in disguise though since they have complimented my lack of engagement in their lives wit the nagging talk of new equipment. Ever since we went on Purple last year, they have been wanting to play dodgeball. Problem being, they LOST the dodgeballs while we were at Purple. So, I sidestepped their comments long enough to make it to winter - where a student dare not go outside and play dodgeball because of the serious cold welts they would incur. However, now that spring has come around again, I felt it was time to invest in some dodgeballs. Turning to the trusty Gator Skin ball, I made up the last two weeks of $25 by purchasing 7 new dodgeballs. Best part is, now I get to destroy the students.This town ain't big enough for the two of us...

I had two meet-ups scheduled for week eight, but one canceled on me so I decided to wait until I had another meeting to write about. The only problem was last week I was out of town for a conference in Tulsa, OK. So on Monday of this week I was able to hang out with a second student to fulfill my $25 for week eight.

On to the important stuff...

Week six was a sweet week! Part of me is sad because all I ever get to hang out with is the dudes... The girls in my youth group are at a disadvantage because we don't have a building - a place where they can come and hang out one on one with me... All of the youth pastors out there that don't have a building and have problems meeting wit members of the opposite gender - I understand completely. We are currently in the process of finding a work-around; a sort of situation that bridges the gap between us and a facility. Hopefully our brainstorming works out some details of how to accomplish this...

This last week I started a new trend of splitting my $25 on two separate student meetings. Now that I have my schedule figured out for the year and I have tons of awesome volunteers, I am able to be a Pastor more often than an Admin.

I took a new student prospect (along with one of our current leadership team members) out to lunch last Saturday. We went to Partlow's BBBQ here in Ashburn to talk about FCA and life. I bought his food and my student a water and we just got to hang out. It was one of those times where there wasn't an intense or intentional (per-say) conversation and we just got to hang out and live life together. We also talked a little bit about what it would look like for him to join our Converge Students group. I told him I was a leech and there was no way he was getting away at this point, and he agreed. Not sure if that was a compliment...

The Post - Parents Night Leadership Meeting. So, I made a mistake at Parents Night 2011. I made a pretty huge cultural change without consulting my leadership team. I changed the time for Converge @ Night from 6-8pm to 6-7:30pm. I didn't think it was a big deal at the time, but I was later reminded that they had been going to youth group from 6-8pm since it started - way longer that I had been there. So, I brought my leadership team together to set things straight. We met and I apologized, telling them that I had really not thought about it. We then further discussed the issue and other things that needed to be changed. To end the night, I used my $25 plus $5 from each of them plus some of my own money to buy us all sushi to celebrate a great start to the new year. The best part was that we hung out from about 3:30pm until about 8pm - tons of time to just invest in each other. And tons of time to further our already exploding relationship. I couldn't ask for a better leadership team.

Week three was yet again an interesting week as my scheduling came down to the last few days before Parents Night 2011. I met with my newly elected leadership team, now called Legacy, and discussed dates and times of trips, cost implications, and AWAKEN event expectations. An AWAKEN event for us is one where we expect to bring a friend. In fact, if we do not bring a friend, the event will not happen. The best part about those expectations was that my entire leadership team was stoked! We also made some necessary changes and updated the calendar. Part of my $25 was invested on coffee and a few breakfast items for them while the remainder was invested in supplies for Parents Night 2011. We had pizza, soda, snacks, and had tons of fun playing competitive games. The best part of the night was that I really had an opportunity to cast vision to the parents. Vision about connecting with their students. Vision about our direction for this year. Vision about outreach. And overall vision about Converge @ Night. The night was a major success and I really owe it to my leadership team and their commitment to making Converge an awesome environment.

Still catching up... This week I had been thinking about what to talk about with my students this year. I want to be relevant above all else. I really want to connect with them. One of the biggest issues with connecting (as my boss and I discovered) is that when we were in youth group the culture was to go on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights & Wednesday nights. I occasionally hung out on Fridays with my youth group as well. Out here in Ashburn, VA I get one night a week with my students and it just isn't enough. So,

Back-tracking a little bit here... I had to pause on the blogging to finish scheduling for the 2011 year and to clean up a few items to prepare for this year's Converge @ Night. So, week one was an interesting week as most of it I was in Kansas with the family. However, I did come back at the end of the week and was able to hang out with one of my students. We went to the big bad McD's and had some fries and McDoubles (not to be confused with Double Cheeseburgers). Even though the conversation never really went deep, it was a great opportunity to get back in the swing of Youth Ministry...

I have attempted to make it a priority to always blog about my $25, but as you can obviously tell, I have been sporadic about my posting. Not that I don't want to blog, because I love seeing my thoughts on paper, but it seems I get distracted by other things in my life - work, my wife, my Xbox, etc. So, now that I have had a short break and started the new year fresh and ready for Converge '11, I decided that maybe I should make a few New Year's Resolutions. I, in fact have never, EVER made a New Year's Resolution; probably for fear of both not living up to my resolution and feeling the pressure to do it. You set yourself up for failure a lot when you set resolutions. Anyways one of my resolutions is to blog every week. I want to make sure that both my $25 sponsor and anyone reading gets the opportunity to hear what I spent the $25 on. So, we'll see how it goes!

A few other resolutions (not all):

Learn Piano
Learn Italian by My Birthday
Show My Wife I Love Her Betterp

- That Guy