A cool youth group Stuck video

This is from First United Methodist Church in Wichita, KS.

Stuck Stories #2

From Jacob, an 8th grader:

For the past couple of years I have had a struggle with being Christian or Atheist because of peer pressure. I didn’t want people to think differently of me because of my religion. I have gone to Stuck in the Middle for all of the first 3 years and this year I feel like I want to accept Christ into my heart and worship Him.

From Lacey, an 8th grader:

I LOVE Stuck in the Middle! It inspires me to try and become a better Christian every time I come!

Stuck Stories #1

Over the past few weeks I’ve been honored to lead a young couple through some pre-marital counseling sessions. We’ve already met a couple of times, and are going to meet a few more in the time left before the wedding. The groom is a former student of mine, and I’ll be officiating at the wedding in a few months. I have to admit that I’ve never led anyone through pre-marital counseling before and I was pretty scared to give it a shot. I’m basically just following the model set up by Robin Williams in “License to Wed” (not really). Anyway, the mother of the groom (and a good friend and stuck board member) sent me this really cool story that I thought I would pass on to you.

I have to share -
This weekend we were at (her son’s) fiancé’s house making invitations for the wedding when several of her relatives showed up for something else. One of them was a 7th grader. She sat in with us and listened as we talked and somehow the subject of Sean being the officiator came up. I mentioned that he was excited and it then it transitioned to Stuck and how exciting our weekend was, etc. The 7th grader looked real funny and finally spoke up and said, “Are you talking about the Middle school conference in Kansas City recently?” To which I said yes and explained that Sean was the founder of Stuck. She smiled from ear to ear and said, “I have a friend at school that went to the event a couple of weeks ago and she came back so excited and pumped about God and everything he could do through us if we let him.” She went on to say her friend had approached her school about starting a bible study group and actually allowing the students to meet and pray before school as long as they did not disrupt anyone or were late to class. This 7th grader was more than impressed with the “change” that occurred in her friend and was begging her church to be a part of it in the future. In fact, she said she was trying to get her youth leader to contact Sean to speak at their camp.

Needless to say, I was beaming with pride to think that a small seed had blossomed into such a fruitful tree and was going to make a difference to many.

THANK YOU for being who you are and listening so closely to our leader even when things don’t always want to cooperate and the adversary makes it so difficult.

God allowed you to hand pick a SUPER team this year and it showed. Thanks for letting me be a part.
God Bless!!

Pretty awesome and humbling stuff!

The Story: A Review

Ken Rawson, jr. high pastor at First United Methodist Church in Wichita, KS recently posted a review of “The Story” on his blog. Pretty cool stuff! I’ve posted the text and a couple of pictures below. You can check out the full review on his blog HERE.

Stuck In The Middle 08

Another great year for our students at Stuck In The Middle, a conference for middle school students put on by my buddy Sean Meade.

Here’s our recap along with a couple pics! We have a sweet video that our tech crew at First church did and I’ll throw that up here as soon as I can.

On March 7, 13 middle school students and 2 adults pioneered two vans to Kansas City for Stuck in the Middle, a 3 day conference designed to help middle schoolers experience Christ.

Eight of the thirteen students made personal decisions regarding their faith, seven of them being to rededicate their lives and one to follow Christ for the very first time.

It was an amazing weekend that began with entering into the auditorium into a scene out of the movie “The Chronicles of Narnia” complete with “snow” on the ground, light posts, pillars, and sculptures of Aslan. “Snow” bubbles fell from above, which threw our students into a compulsion to stick their tongues out and catch the snow, like kids seeing snow fall for the first time.

Beginning with a video montage of famous scenes from movies like Star Wars, Napoleon Dynamite, Chronicles of Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Superman Returns, the stage was set to help students understand the idea that God wants them to be a part of an amazing story.

Next, Joe Castillo, the Sand Artist, told the creation story through is amazing sand art performance that had our students absolutely captivated.

After some comedy, a testimony of a man being completely healed of cancer, and worship, the speaker for the first two sessions took the stage. Jason Raitz, a Junior High Pastor from Willow Creek, opened the night and shared two thoughts about Christ:

1. Your story is amazing! No matter who you are, or what has happened to you, you are not an accident. You were created by God and your story (your life is incredibly valuable).
2. God wants you to be part of His Story. His story is amazing and you have a starring role in it.

For 8th grader Emily Henning, what stuck out to her was that, “How even if you wake up in the morning and you feel irrelevant, you are still important.”

After meeting with our individual youth groups to debrief the main session, students took part in lat night activities that consisted of inflatables, a scavenger hunt, video games, pool, karaoke, ping pong, bull riding, and hanging out.

On Saturday, Jason Raitz spoke about Crisis and how every story has crisis. Jason emphasized how our sin causes crisis.

One of the great things about “Stuck” is that they give an hour after each session for youth groups to debrief. We were able to also explain that sometime’s other people’s sin causes crisis in our lives. And that some crisis happens that isn’t our fault. And when our story has crisis, we can lean into God and listen for his voice.

The afternoon began with a powerful message about the Holy Spirit from fellow United Methodist Steve Jacobs, the Chief Scientist for the Discovery Channel, that included Grant Apsley, Cody Guinn, Aubrey Maxwell, Alex Cox, and Jason Cox all on stage in front of everyone!

Next, our students took part in two sets of workshops.

One of our students, Jonathan Buster, went to the workshop led by a great Chicago based youth pastor named Andy Jack who gave our students a lesson in Lectio Divina, otherwise known as Divine Liturgy.

With candle’s set and music playing, Andy read from John 13 when Jesus washed the Disciple’s feet.

“The world that we live in is pretty loud. And God tends to speak in a whisper” said 8th grader Jonathan Buster. “And we really need to turn the volume down and listen.”

“When he read the Scripture about Jesus washing the disciple’s feet, I felt like God was saying to me, ‘You were dirty and now you are clean.’ That’s really the first time I’ve felt like God has talked to me. I think that tops all three years [I’ve been] at ‘Stuck.’”

The main session on Saturday night began with a dramatic skit about a popular boy asking a disabled girl for the last dance at school. Many of our students really connected with this idea about the difficulty of being a Christian and doing the right thing.

Sean Meade, the President of Stuck in the Middle spoke Saturday night about Christ and how he will never abandon us. His message was brought home when he shared a video testimony from Gracia Burnham about how she felt abandoned but saw God’s care after her release from Philippine terrorists.

After scurrying to get packed and eat breakfast on Sunday morning, we left the hotel and headed back to Stuck for the closing session. Sean shared about the need for community and how we cannot do this journey alone. He challenged our students to look for ways even on the van ride home to love and serve each other. And before we knew it, Stuck was over and we were on our way home.

Stuck in the Middle is a great weekend that helps our students grow in their faith. For 8th grader Sydney Potvin, it’s a weekend she will not easily forget.

“ ‘Stuck’ opened a new door to Christ and how God works” shared Potvin. “It was about being able to listen and being open to what Christ is saying and just taking time to listen [to God] and saying, ‘This is what I will live by.’”

“And for me, I committed that I would begin to follow His footsteps and begin to live as a Christian and it’s topped everything I’ve ever done.”

Preshow at The Story

I’ve quickly learned that you have to count on at least one thing going wrong at every event. It’s basically a given. This morning our production set-up was supposed to start at 9am. It would have been fine, except our trailer full of tech gear had a wheel go out on it about 2 hours from the venue. We managed to find other things to do while our courageous friend Chris pulled everything out of the trailer and loaded it into a U-haul trailer (and then left the other trailer at a repair place in the nice little KS town of Emporia). So, we started the day behind schedule, but everything ended up working out just fine. We have most of our camera stuff set up, and our sand artist, Joe Castillo, has his stuff all set up too. While all that was going up, we also set up some of the design stuff. I’m really pumped about our stage design this year. I had the basic concept in my head, and our friends at The Design Centre helped me pull it all together. It took some work (and some fun painting time!), but I think that it looks great. Tomorrow morning the rest of our team arrives, so everything else should come together quickly.

The team at COR is really amazing. The head of their youth department, Jason Gant, is a great guy who has been a real blessing to work with, and the rest of the staff has been awesome. Their middle school director, Taylor Ogden-Thomas is tops, and their youth events director Deborah Comstock has been super sweet and very accommodating. On the production side, they have an incredible technical director named Dave Pullin, and an awesome tech crew. Jason Watson does a lot of production for them, and has helped Jill learn Motion on her Macbook. He also produced a video for us that is awesome! Another cool thing about the tech team here is that we have the same sound and lighting guys that we had last year. Rob and Chris are awesome, and I’m really stoked that Jill gets to work with them (and the whole team) for her first time doing the technical directing.

After we set up tonight, we went out for an awesome bbq dinner (Jack Stacks anyone?). It was me, Jill, Bella, Joe and Cindy Castillo, Chris Kaufman, Josh Tryon, and Betsy and Sally Rymer. Chris is part of our stuck team, and Josh is here from Minnesota running Media Shout for the event. He’s also an ace at all things tech, so he’s helping set up the live video stuff too. It’s been a blast having him here, he’s a great guy with a lot to add to any program. Betsy Rymer is the mother of Sally, a 15 year old abolitionist who lives here in KC. I first met Sally in the fall of 2005 while leading worship at a retreat for her youth group. She struck me as a really incredible kid with a heart and passion for God, and a really sweet spirit. She also attended our first event in 2006. I’ll share more about Sally in a later post, but you can check out her ministry here.

We’re back in the hotel now, and I’m getting really excited about our event this weekend. And, as a side note, I’m feeling 100% better. Jill is still pretty sick though, so please keep praying for her.

Are you kidding me…???

We’re only a couple of days away from our KC event, “The Story”, and I think I’m coming down with the flu. Aiden was throwing up last night, which doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that I’ll get through this without doing the same.

Still, I’m confident that this event is going to blow away anything we’ve ever done before. If I throw up on stage, that just makes it more exciting and jr. high friendly right?

A Stuck Preview…

A little while back I submitted my ideas to our t-shirt artists for this year’s Stuck merchandise. We’ve worked through the process and just got our final artwork in. I thought I’d give you a little peak at what some of the Stuck merch will look like in 2008. We’ve still got another few designs, but I’m going to keep those a surprise for the event.

This will be on a t-shirt:

This will be a t-shirt too:

And this will be a black zipper hoodie: