Random Video Thursday: Edible 26-Pound Gummy Party Bear

Yes this is real.  Yes it's huge.  No it is not good for you.  At 26-pounds, and 32,000 calories, this thing could put you in a sugar comma for about a week (or 2).

Random Video Thursday: Jeffrey Dallas - Akbar

There is not explanation needed.  Nor would one be helpful.  Just watch...

Random Video Thursday: Cell Phones in Church

In case you've never noticed before, not everyone silences their phones in church.  And this doesn't stop with students in our student ministry!  Then I found this.  The funny thing was, as I walked to the stage after showing this I saw at least 10 phones out right after this video.  Subtle hints don't work with this group...

The Way I'm Wired - Week 1 Follow Up

Parents of High Schoolers:

We’ve just started on Sunday mornings a six-part DVD curriculum entitled The Way I’m Wired: Discovering Who God Made ME to Be. In the first lesson, we unpacked the concept Understanding Your Spiritual Gifts, Best Qualities, and Finest Values. Our students learned how to recognize these three elements of life, which are bold indicators of how they’ve been wired by God to complete their extraordinary life mission.

Major Teaching Point:

If I understand my spiritual gifts, best qualities, and finest values, I’ll see undeniable evidence regarding the specific life work God has assigned me.

Our students learned that…

• spiritual gifts are those special attributes, such as hospitality, leadership, service, or teaching, that are given by the grace of God to be specifically used in building the kingdom of God for a particular season.
• all best qualities, such as honesty, loyalty, patience, and punctuality, were created to bring glory to God.
• Christ-honoring values (finest values), such as freedom, justice, lifelong learning, and teamwork, are principles that indicate who you are and what you hold in high regard.

Our Memory Verse: God has given each of you a gift from his great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another (1 Peter 4:10 NLT).

As the opportunity arises, I’d encourage you to talk with your teenager about our lesson. These questions could help jump-start your conversation:

• Spiritual Gifts: What top two spiritual gifts have you been given, with which you can serve the body of Christ? Why do you say that?
• Best Qualities: What two best qualities has God given you? Share a story about how you’ve used one of your qualities for good.
• Finest Values: In what way does one of your finest values give you a possible hint about what your unique life purpose might be?   

Prayerfully consider having a conversation with your teenager about your own spiritual gifts, best qualities, and finest values. (If you’d like to work through the core content in this series with us, you can pick up a copy of the parent’s companion book: HowYour Teenager Is Wired: Discovering Who God Made Your Teenager to Be. This lesson’s material is covered in Chapter 5 of the parent book. And you may want to get the series’ devotional with 200 Scripture passages about life purpose: The Way I’m Wired: DiscoveringWho God Made ME to Be.)

Thanks for your prayers for all our teenagers. Have a blessed day!

Random Video Thursday: Johnny & Chachi's Christmas Medley

Last night we hosted out 6th Annual Lip Sync Contest.  It's a night of simply getting together, having fun, and laughing.  Each year has been a little different, but each year has always been a lot of fun.  So, in keeping with the never changing Random Video segment, we had one after each of the different acts.  Here is my favorite from last night:

Random Video Thursday: 'Tis Better to Give

I may sound like a broken record here, but the Skit Guys can make any serious thing that we need to learn into the funniest things.  We've been in a series called Unwrapping Christmas, and last night was about how the stuff of Christmas competes with the satisfaction Jesus came to offer.  So, we showed this:

Random Video Thursday: For the Gifts You Can't Wait to Give

Ok, confession time.  Usually these posts are reserved for funny, random, non-sensical, stupid, hilarious, and/or pointless videos.  This week, as I watched this video I was laughing so hard, because I could see my son in this.  So I just had to put it in here, and show our students (that and it made me almost cry - all 5 times that I've seen it).

We started a series called, Unwrapping Christmas last night with them, and I felt like it definitely played well into the direction we were going for the night - which isn't a prerequisite of the random video segment.