Burning Questions ~ New Series for the Fall

As soon as the school year starts back up, we are going to be starting a new series called Burning Questions. Basically, this is going to be a series about the burning questions that students have about life, the Bible, Christian conduct, relationship with God, and countless other things.

I am particularly excited about this series because the students will contribute to what will be talked about in the messages. Students will have the opportunity a few weeks before the start of the series to anonymously fill out cards where they can write down their top 3 burning questions about whatever. I will then look over all of these questions and prepare lessons about the questions and the answers to the questions. I will do as many of them as I can, but chances are that I will not have enough weeks to talk about all of the questions (not to mention, neither me nor anyone else is really qualified to answered ALL of a student's burning questions, but I will work with what I have and try to help the entire group and myself included to discover the answers to the questions that we can answer)

This should be a lot of fun, and hopefully it will be a time of great discovery and life change as well. If anyone reading this would like to put in their two cents about possible questions to be addressed in the series feel free to comment on this post and leave them for me. They will be thrown into the mix with the rest of the questions. I am sure that lots of you out there have some really great questions that students wonder that they just may not think to submit.

It will be a BLAST!

In Christ,
Mike

Mission Trip: A Sucess!

The local mission trip was truly awesome. Not only were our nightly worship times great, but our service projects went really well...and they served to teach the students that we can do some really great things for God right here in our community (we do not necessarily need to go on a far away trip).
It was truly incredible to see the transforming power of God as we heard the stories and testimonies of some of the men at Haven of Rest and some of the women at Under His Wings. Also, we were able to really serve the community by helping to clean up Calvary Home for Children after the big storm and by putting on a back yard Bible camp for the kids there. Lastly, we hope to have made an eternal impact by walking two local communities while inviting them to church/VBS and sharing with them the love of Jesus.
All in all, we did awesome things for God, learned some awesome things about God, and were hopefully truly transformed by God. As a result of the trip, it is my prayer that the students will now understand that no one is beyond salvation or the help of God...and that we must be the hands and feet of Christ. Christ is willing...will we be His hand that reaches out and touches others in love? That is the challenge that this trip is to bring. And hopefully my students can now see that they can live out this challenge for the glory of God!

Mission Trip Update

Here is a quick update on our mission trip and summer activities:

The mission trip is called Servolution! The dates are still the same (June 14-19). BLAZE, the youth group from Electric City Fellowship, will be joining us on this trip. We will be working with Haven of Rest Ministries, possibly Calvary Children's Home and Shalom House, and maybe AIM. We will also be doing some neighborhood ministry in preparation for VBS in the form of reaching out to the community. We will have nightly worship services, and plenty of fun and games throughout the day!

It should be a totally awesome time! Sign up by June 8th. It will only cost $50 per person!

p.s. Be on the look out for a possible retreat towards the end of the summer...

Mission Trip Update

The dates for the 2010 mission trip have been finalized. The dates are June 14-19. We will be staying at Anderson University, and we will spend our time throughout the week working with local ministries in town to help those that are in need. This will hopefully help us to realize that we do not need to go somewhere else to help people; God is at work right here in Anderson. We should join Him here and serve those who are in need right here where He has placed us!

As for cost, the only thing that we will have to pay for is food. Anderson University is not charging us to stay on campus. I will give specific prices soon, but it will not be much.

I look forward to this amazing opportunity, and I hope that you join us as we serve our community in the Name of Jesus and share His love with all!

p.s. The deadline to sign up for summer camp is May 1st. If we do not have more people signed up by then, we must cancel the trip. Please, let me know if you want to come.

In Christ,

Mike

Summer is almost here!!!!!

Well, the summer time is fast approaching, and that means the good times are getting ready to roll.

The Verb has a couple of major plans for this summer.

First of all, we are going to Centrifuge Summer Camp in Ridgecrest, NC from July 19-24. It will be a super fun time and a major blast. However, we only have about 6 spots left, so make sure to sign up ASAP!

Here are two awesome videos about the kinds of things that you can expect at Fuge:

Additionally, we will also be going on a mission trip this summer. The dates will be finalized by Tuesday (assuming that everything on the other end works out), and I will post those as soon as I can. We will be doing some awesome ministry evangelism work with great ministries here in Anderson. This will teach the students that you do not have to go far away to find people who need Jesus and who need help. They are right around the corner. Therefore, since God has placed our church in this town, we will devote ourselves to serving it for His glory! We will use Anderson University for our base of operations, and we will go out from there to do some great work. We will also have some great worship times planned at night for the students as well.

Hope to see you around this summer!

Verb mission and vision: What are we all about?

We believe that the Gospel is a Verb, and we strive to live it before all!

We primarily do this through three things:

1. Christ-centered living

2. Christ-centered mission

3. Christ-centered discipleship

Our mission is to actively display the Gospel, in both word and deed, in order to see God transform our friends, communities, and nations and to bring Him glory.

We believe this to be in line with Jesus' command in Matthew 22:37-39, which is the driving verse for our ministry.

Our dream is to see the Verb become a place in which middle school and high school students can come and meet new people, have fun, and learn about Jesus in a way that is relevant and engaging to them. Through this, we hope to see God transform their lives and the lives of those around them into a beautiful display of His love, mercy, and grace.

At the Verb, students will learn to appreciate the Word of God, to worship Him in every moment of their lives, to serve Him wholeheartedly, to love Him first and foremost, to love others as themselves, and to have fun while doing it. We seek to challenge, encourage, engage, and laugh with the students in order to help them draw closer to God.

It is our sincere prayer that God would do something eternal through this ministry!

First Post

Welcome to the new blog for the Verb. The Verb is the youth ministry of Capstone Church in Anderson, SC. For more info, check out our facebook group. More information to come via blog...

My plan is to semi-regularly update this blog with Verb information and with some thoughts or reflections that I might have that would be relevant to the Verb. I have never really been a "blogger", but we will see where this goes! Feel free to join the ride and follow me!