Join The Movement

A student approached me after church with an idea of how we can share the message of Christ during the easter week. This is what she decided to do.

I want everybody to join me THIS friday, good friday, to draw black circles on your hands (like nail marks) to represent how when you decided give your life to Christ you died with Christ of your sins and follow him. This will give everybody an opportunity to share the true meaning of good friday with everyone :) wear them all day friday 4/2/10 and tell all your friends!

Share this with your friends and repost it to your blogs, twitter, facebook, etc. Lets start a movement!

Top 10 Reasons to Go to Big Stuf

We still have some space available for Big Stuf, June 7-11! This will be a summer event you don't want to miss. You want to do whatever it takes to get there with us. I've listed 10 reasons why you should go to Big Stuf.

Top Ten List

10. The drive with your friends to the beach. Time just hanging out and asking Josh...7000 times how much further. It's been 20 minutes for the last 6 hours!

9. You can't get a beach trip for a week for $375 anywhere else.

8. Growing in your relationship with Jesus! This will be a week you grow in both depth and width in both wisdom and knowledge of God.

7. Trying to take your leaders down in the pool.

6. Staying up way to late talking about how things will be when you get back home.

5. Days at the beach. Who can beat that? Time in the surf with your friends and several thousand other students.

4. Worship! The worship will be incredible. It will be memorable and powerful. The Band will rock every morning and evening.

3. Have I said the beach yet?

2. Powerful communicators will bring truth with amazing creativity and energy. Doug Fields, Jared Herd, and Stuart Hall will bring it.

1. Have the most life changing experience of your life. (bring a friend with you to)

Big Stuf will be amazing! Sign up today at www.72students.net. It will be worth every penny.

Help Our Kids This Easter Season

In order to make our "Easter Eggtravaganza" a success our kids, we need your help. We need a total of 300 dozen (yes, I said 300 dozen) plastic candy filled eggs (no chocolate please) to be donated no later than March 28th. We are asking you as students to please consider having you and some of your friends help out with this. If you could donate a dozen candy filled eggs that would make a huge dent in what is needed and you might even be able to do more. This is a great way to serve the children of our church and community. Lets make a difference!

New Series Starting This Weekend

The Cross
People wear a cross on necklaces, sport one on bumper stickers and even slap on across T-shirts, but what does the cross really stand for? What does it really mean? Over the next two weeks, we will take a look at the cross in a different way, a way that moves beyond gratitude and nostalgia to a way of life. The cross teaches us that we live so we can die, and we die so we can live.

Week One (3.21.10)
Most of us think of the cross as the place where Jesus died for us. That is true. But it’s also about more than that. The cross isn’t just the place where Jesus died. The cross is the place where we die too. It’s not just an event that happened thousands of years ago. It’s an ongoing part of being a follower of Jesus. This week students will discover the ongoing, sacrificial life Jesus called His disciples to lead—a life characterized by the cross.

Week Two (3.28.10)
If the cross is where we come to die, then how do we live? Because the cross is not the end of the story. There is also an empty tomb. The cross isn’t just about death, it’s about life. We die to something, but we also live as well. After all, Jesus says: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10 NIV). This week, we’ll talk about not settling for a half-life, but a life that is full.

We hope you will be our guest during The Cross. We meet each week from 4:45pm to 7pm on Sunday nights at The Brook. This is for students in the 7th - 12th grade. Hope to see you soon. Leave a comment with any questions.

We Need Pictures

We need your help. We need you (our 72students) to send us 5 or 6 pictures of you doing everyday activities like brushing your teeth, walking your dog, doing your homework, working at your job, helping out with chores, hanging with your friends and family, etc. Send your pictures to Robert Ross at robert@72students.net by Friday, March 19^th. Feel free to use your cell phone or your digital camera to capture these activities. You don't want to be left out of this one. Start snapping!

5 Ways to Make Your Student Indifferent to God

5 Ways to Make Your Student Indifferent to God by Mark Cox

In youth ministry, one of the hardest things I’ve had to experience is leading students into a growing relationship with Jesus, while their parents are doing the opposite. In a lot of cases, the parent wants the best for his/her teenager. It’s just that their definition of “best” might not match up with mine. There are some hard-and-fast rules to engage if you don’t want your teenager to care about God. The following are just a few.

1. Make sure their extra-curricular activities are priority over church. You should always make sure that their scholarships are intact, and that they don’t get kicked off the team. That’s definitely more important than their relationship with Christ and eternity, for that matter.

2. When your teenager screws up, ground them from church. Of course! If they don’t care that you take away their TV, cell phone, or friend time, hit them where it hurts. Take away church. Yeah – that oughta do it.

3. Don’t call them out when they need guidance. Always let them make their own mistakes. And if they’re about to do something super-destructive, it’s probably best that they learn on their own. Because learning it the hard way is always the necessary path, right?

4. Talk negatively about your church staff around your teenager. If your pastor messes up, make sure that you call a family meeting to roast him. You should definitely let your teenager know that people can’t be trusted, especially incompetent church leaders. Your teenager needs to know that trusting church leaders isn’t smart! If they don’t trust church leaders, there’s a small chance they’ll ever accept God’s direction in their life. And that’s the safer way to live.

5. Don’t model real faith. At the end of the day, the last thing you want to do, if you want your teenager to ignore God’s voice, is to follow it yourself.

Please know my heart on this issue. We parents need to be leading our families to Jesus every chance we get. Maybe it’s time to take inventory of who or what we’re actually leading our families to.

After all, actions speak louder than words.

Mark Cox is the Student Pastor at Indian Springs Baptist Church. Stalk him at his blog www.thinknextnow.com or on Twitter @markhcox.