I promise you that it had nothing to do with the fact that I didn’t want a recording of me scratching off lottery tickets while in church. I am sure I wouldn’t even get fired for that.

The message was about “Get-Rich Quick Schemes” and why they work so well (And why we as Christians should stay away from them).

I really am sorry about the recording issues and that if you were not present that you will be unable to hear the message.

Sunday night finally rolled around, and in the midst of a busy weekend, I found myself preparing to preach, from memory and without notes. I was really nervous, but with the encouragement of Alan, the staff, and some of the kids, and the Holy Spirit (of course), I was ready to be used by God – knowing He would help me remember what He wanted to get across to the students. And now, reflecting back on that evening, I started out full-force, didn’t play out a joke about Alan’s iPad very well, and paced somewhat nervously. From what I’ve been told, I only lost someone once during an example but by the time it was over it made sense again and overall the message seemed to go over well. I was just so thankful that the Holy Spirit gave me an unintended pun in the middle of the message – while talking about a bobcat trying to get a chicken baiting a live trap, I said that the bobcat thought that this one way would be “no harm, no fowl”. The laughter around the room and the moment it gave me to pause and laugh out some of my nervousness was a huge blessing.

Though I was wordy and repeated myself a few times and moved a point around here or there, God helped me remember all my “key” points. So it wasn’t perfect, but I don’t know how much better my first time speaking to that many people with only my bible in hand could have been. I am very thankful I had this opportunity to speak and help do some of the background work for the series. All in all, I would say that this series has started out nicely.

Thanks!
~Megan Boggess

We went to Refuge.10, Momentum. That was May 28-31. That was awesome! Tiffany and Josh Pearman spoke, and brought the word of the Lord. It was excellent. We talked about building momentum in our lives. It starts by dreaming about the future. We did just that during Momentum.

Umm, let’s see, I know there was something else. Oh, right, Liz gave birth to our first child, Clara Beauchamp. She is absolutely beautiful. I won’t be putting any pictures up online, but if you text me and ask for one, I will send you one as soon as possible.

But we are back on the horse now, back in the saddle. We are starting our new series this week, so check in for information. Also, the summer events will be up soon. Don’t Miss It!!!

Before you go any further, feel free to listen to the message here:

10-05-02 – War – War Offensive

Check out the videos we watched on the sweet videos tab.

I did use the new iPad as my Bible last night for the first time. It was a distraction for the students i am aware, now ever the positives, I believe, outweigh the negatives.

I plan on using it for the next couple of weeks and see if the novelty wears off for the students. Then it will be more effective.

Any time you have multiple groups using the same equipment there will be malfunctions. Unfortunately, at some point the jack that records the audio from the sound board was moved from one port to another (the wrong one). That resulted in overdriven audio.

So…..

No audio of the message from this week. That makes me very sad….

It happens though, and I trust that those who were supposed to hear the message heard it.

All in all I felt the service went well. The skit was probably the funniest ever, you can find it on the sweet videos tab. Also the skinny on worship video was hilarious. That also can be found under the videos tab.

The message was on how to win the war.

If you like it, please don’t download it. Just go out and buy it for yourself. Matt Maher is a good worship leader and he deserves our support.

Please listen to it…
Christ is Risen

Here are the words to the song…
Verse 1
Let no one caught in sin remain
Inside the lie of inward shame
But fix our eyes upon the cross
And run to Him who showed great love
And bled for us
Freely You’ve bled for us

Chorus
Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over death by death
Come awake, come awake
Come and rise up from the grave
Christ is risen from the dead
We are one with Him again
Come awake, come awake
Come and rise up from the grave

Verse 2
Beneath the weight of all our sin
You bowed to none but heaven’s will
No scheme of hell, no scoffer’s crown
No burden great can hold You down
In strength You reign
Forever let Your church proclaim

Bridge
O death, where is your sting?
O hell, where is your victory?
O church, come stand in the light
The glory of God has defeated the night
O death, where is your sting?
O hell, where is your victory?
O church, come stand in the light
Our God is not dead
He’s alive! He’s alive!

10-03-28 – War – The Depths

So, this week a couple of very interesting things happened in the service.

First, during worship, I felt a nudge from what I believe to be the Holy Spirit telling me to turn the end of the message in a bit of a different direction. I had already planned on ending it with the point that no matter how sinful you think you are, you are more sinful, and no matter how merciful you think God is, He is more merciful. But I felt more and more impressed during worship to focus heavily on the second part of that. I did my best.

Second, I looked up at the clock, when I got the service after worship and there was only 20 minutes left in the regularly scheduled service time. Ouch….So, I talked really, really fast. If you didn’t catch it, while listening to the message, I was screaming through the scriptures and break-neck speeds. I laid the groundwork as fast as I could then focused on the important stuff as well as I knew how. I threw out some of the stuff I was planning on saying and added other things. All of this happened on the run….with no notes to guide me. I’ll be honest, I am not really capable of doing that. My mind doesn’t work that fast, or that well. Something else was going on.

Both of these things happening in the service leads me to one escapable conclusion. The Holy Spirit was helping on Sunday Night. He was guiding me during worship and helping me during the message. He had something He wanted to say. On nights like that it is nice to just sit back and watch Him work. I had prepared, researched, practiced all I knew how, but when the service came along, the Spirit took over.

So, all in all, it was a great night. By the way…check out the skit that the Wired peeps did, in the sweet videos section. They really rock.

10-03-14 – War – Intro

I really wanted to nail this introduction. The most important thing to do was lay the groundwork for the series. I did not lie when I said that I have been waiting for three years to do this series. Several times over the last three years I have thought about going this direction and I have always held off. I almost called it “Talking Stain.” But I have always held off. I wanted to make sure I did it well. I am not going to harp on this one subject over and over again, though I believe it is the most important series I may ever do, I just have the next 8 weeks to get this thing right. So, if you wouldn’t mind, start praying now.

As for the introduction. Hmmm. We have some great students in our student ministry. I feel like they are really trying to do this whole following Christ thing. They put the effort in and paid attention last night. That is good, because I didn’t feel like I did my best to keep their attention based on the message itself. Hopefully, I will do better in the future.

I do feel like overall, I communicated the important stuff last night, I just don’t know that I did a good job making the students want to follow me. But, I guess Its not so bad to make the students work for it every now and then.

Welcome to War

The Real – Money

All in All the service went very well. There were some unique circumstances which made it a bit difficult to go over my message on Saturday Night like I normally do, which meant that I was not as comfortable as I should have been on Sunday Night.

Also, it had been three weeks since I had spoken to the youth on a Sunday Night. Its is really interesting how quickly you can get a bit rusty. I had to follow Bethany Strawn, who did a fantastic job of communicating Proverbs 3:7-8 last week. With that being said, I do feel that I delivered all of the major information.

I have heard some positive feedback about the whole take on firstfruits that I brought. It definitely makes you look at it in a new light.

I am still a bit disappointed with the response we have been getting from the memorization of the scriptures. I hope that it just comes down to people being too embarrassed to get up in front of others. If not, that just means that the students are not that interested in really forming their hearts based on the commandments of Proverbs 3.