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WinterXtreme

This past weekend  Wild Kingdom  loaded up on a bus and headed to Timber-Lee Christian Center in East Troy, WI for our annual winter retreat. We had a blast playing and growing together!

I’d like to share a few highlights I observed:

  1. On our bus ride up the driver  said, “Wow! Your group are angels!” I always enjoy it when other people think our group is well-behaved ;)
  2. I saw our group mixing up cliques really well! I saw middle schoolers connecting with new people and choosing to include each other!
  3. I loved how our group lead the way during worship times – no reservations!
  4. I saw middle schoolers freely praying out loud for each other!
  5. I was privileged to be part of conversations where middle schoolers chose to step up in faith!

My favorite middle schooler quote from the weekend: “I would give anything to be close with God!”

Please join me in asking God for more!

-Daniel

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1:09 pm 1:09 pm

Spiritual Warfare

I find it’s easy to settle in to defensive mode when the enemy attacks. Tonight was a night where clearly the enemy attacked. Ironically, our discussion topic was “breaking fear.” (Based on 2 Timothy 1:7 ) That means we can press in for the victory, out of defense into offense, even when the enemy advances an atmosphere of fear. Our team took the challenge and pressed in through prayer and I want to share with you some of the fruit from tonight:

1. Before youth group I was chatting with one of our 6th graders and it went something like this: “Daniel, I invited my friend to church.” “That’s great! Has he come yet?” “No, his parents won’t let him.” “Bummer.” “Yeah, but I’m gonna get him to come soon!”

I don’t advocate for undermining parental authority but I was so encouraged by this boy taking risks and stepping up in obedience to Jesus! Let’s pray for breakthrough in his friend’s family!

2. We were concerned for the worship time because we had a rough start to the night. It was easy to just pray, “God let us make it through the night.” But in prayer God called us into a place of thankfulness ahead of time for what he was going to do so we pressed in. Guess what happened? God showed up! During worship one 8th grader asked me, “Can we sing this song again on Sunday?” I LOVE seeing God touch middle schoolers hearts and draw them into worship!

3. In my CARE Group  I got to see boys stepping up and praying prayers over each other of breaking off fear and releasing God’s Spirit of power, love, and self-discipline!

Let’s keep pressing in for greater victories! We haven’t seen anything yet! God has more!

Daniel

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10:34 pm 10:34 pm

Two Great Tuesdays

Over the last two weeks (1/19/2010 and 1/26/2010) I had several fascinating conversations which I’d like to share with you.

1. During worship on the 19th one of our 8th graders came up to me and said, “I brought a friend who doesn’t know Jesus. Can you tell him the prayer?”

2. During the lesson we challenged our group to move from inactive, benign faith into active, dangerous, Kingdom-advancing faith. After the lesson one of our 7th graders came up to me: “Daniel, I want to be a warrior in God’s Kingdom. Can you find someone to teach me to be a warrior?”

3. On the 26th one of our 6th graders walked in to our leader prayer time before youth group and joined us for prayer. He started, “God thanks for leading me to walk into this room tonight…” and went on to passionately intercede for the crisis in Haiti!

4. After CARE Groups one of our team members told me about how chaotic her group feels but then went on to celebrate the fact that they got to spend 15 minutes (out of 30 set aside for CARE Groups) in prayer!

5. Tonight I heard of two different middle schoolers expressing a desire to connect with God in deeper ways, to hear God, to have more of God!

I love seeing movement like this! Thank you for all your efforts in prayer! Let’s keep pressing in for greater fruit!

Praying with you,

Daniel

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9:36 pm 9:36 pm

Bursting at the Seams

Over the past few weeks of youth group I’ve been super blessed to see middle schoolers bringing friends who haven’t been to church before, who don’t know Jesus, and who don’t fit right in to our church culture. Our middle schoolers are obeying God and reaching out to non-believers and it’s creating a healthy problem for our youth group!
Please join me in asking God to meet these new friends with the truth of his love and his grace for them!
- Daniel

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11:05 pm 11:05 pm

Taking Risks

This past Saturday (11/7/2009) I had the privilege of joining one of our CARE Groups  as they took the challenge to share their faith. We travelled to the St. Louis Gateway Arch and spent 4 hours initiating faith conversations, praying for people, and giving away Bibles. It was a little slow starting as each of us chose to surrender our fears and step out in obedient faith. However, as the day flew by I enjoyed seeing the middle schoolers break out and really start to think strategically about sharing their faith. In fact, at one point they started initiating conversations with the people they thought most likely to say no!

Afterwards we recounted the experiences of the day and figured out that we had significant faith conversations at least 28 different times (usually with multiple people). We gave away 40-50 Bibles, prayed for people who would receive it, and shared the good news about Jesus’ gift for us on the cross!

-Daniel

Sharing at the Arch

Sharing at the Arch

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1:02 pm 1:02 pm

Teens praying for parents!

After a recent lesson on relating with parents, I gave our students several ideas how they could take steps to better honor and obey their mom and dad. One idea was to pray for them every day the following week. I spoke with one parent who was a little nervous when her son asked to speak to her only to be pleasantly surprised when he asked her how he could pray for her! Good things happen when teens are praying for their parents!
Glenn

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2:45 pm 2:45 pm

A Student’s Answered Prayer!

– I’ll post this one in the words of one of our students: “I have a praise that I couldn’t wait to share! I brought my friend to youth group on Thursday and she turned to me right after Glenn was done talking and said she loved it. I talked to her about it and she said she really liked it, but she didn’t know if she would come back because she hardly knew anyone. But today she texted me asking if she could come again this week if her parents will let her go out. I’m soo happy! I’ve been praying for her for a couple months now so this is soo cool for me! Praise God that He softened her heart to at least put the desire to come back and try it again!”

- Glenn

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2:16 pm 2:16 pm