Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx1-q0KP3NI This fall for one of our middle school events we are going to be taking our students to an indoor trampoline park called Sky Zone.  I just recently heard of them popping up all over the place and was pumped to find out that we have one less than an hour away.  I've never been to one, but I can't imagine it not being a hit.  What could be better than tons of trampolines to play dodgeball, basketball, and do flips on.

Have you been to a Sky Zone yet?  What did you think?

PSA: Body Odor

This is a video I put together last week; I thought it'd be really fun to give everyone a chance to laugh and joke about the idea of smelly middle school boys and the importance of them wearing deodorant.

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Advent: God With Us

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Why Do People Have a Hard Time In Middle School?

For a lot of young people, middle school can be an incredibly difficult time.  If you don't believe me, take a survey of adults and find out what percentage of them would like to go back to being in middle school.  I have a feeling that very few adults would have any desire to re-live their middle school years and that's likely because for many of them they have memories of middle school being a difficult time in their life.

What makes the middle school years so difficult?

Everything is changing

And by everything, I mean everything.  Changing schools.  Changing bodies.  Changing faith.  Changing friends.  You name it; it is changing during middle school.  This can be difficult to navigate through.  Change is a normal part of middle school, but the sheer amount of change that is happening during these few years is a lot to work through.  All of the sudden a middle school student has to start figuring out why they have emotions they never had, make new friends as they go to a new school, and deal with the embarassing time of puberty.

Not a Kid, Not an Adult

Have you ever heard a middle school student that is frustrated with being treated too much like a kid?  It's common because they are no longer the kids they once were.  They long for the independence of adulthood, but unfortunately they are far from being ready for it.  This makes middle school difficult, because at times they want to be treated like an adult, but other times they want the freedom that they are used to from their childhood.  Middle school students are literally stuck in the middle between childhood and adulthood.

The Opposite Sex

In childhood years, nobody thought twice about playing with the opposite gender.  But all of the sudden during middle school, boys and girls start looking at each other differently.  Some students quickly become interested in talking to the opposite sex, while others still have no interest in speaking a word to them.  For the student who is not interested, this becomes a difficult time because they don't understand why so many of their peers are obsessed with the opposite sex.  For those who are interested it can be difficult because it is a whole new set of relational dynamics that they have to learn that often consumes a large part of their middle school years.

What do you see making the middle school years so difficult?

Photo Credit: Visions by Vicky

Fall Teaching Plan 2011

We are kicking of all our fall programs and that means we have a slew of new messages coming up during our weekly program.  One of my favorite things that we do is get to have time to share a sermon on Sunday mornings with our students, and I wanted to give you a look at some of the things we will be talking about.

Now Showing:

This is our first series for the fall.  The idea is simple to use popular movies to teach the Bible.  The Bible routinely uses things that aren't Christian to help spread the message of Christ and we want to do the same by using movies that we likely have seen or heard of to talk about the message of Jesus.

2 Big Words

Justification and Sanctification.  These two words are complicated and likely words that none of our middle schoolers have ever thought about or have any idea what they mean.  For two weeks we are going to break down these concepts into a simple explanation that our students can understand.  They are big words and are very important parts of the Christian faith so I want to make sure that we touch on their meanings.

Me & My Peeps

I saw the peep concept years ago and have kept the idea filed away as an image I'd like to use as we talk about friends.  Every middle school student sees their friends as a big importance and we want to spend some time talking about this felt need and explore what it means to have good friends and to be a good friend.

The Wise & Foolish Builders

This is an awesome video that was made for our children's ministry about the parable of the wise and foolish builders from Matthew 7:24-29.  It was made by my brother Corey.