October 5- October 19

On Monday the 5^th, I met with S again.  We sat at Tim Horton’s and talked for about an hour.  We quickly went over the reading that I assigned her by going over one thing that really stuck out to her and related to her life.  We then went over goals and aspirations.  I had her write down characteristics or qualities that other people would describe her as, or how other people see her.  Then, she wrote who she thinks she is and both her positive and negative qualities.  Then she circled the things she wanted to change.  Lastly, she wrote down three goals that she has or three main things she wants to work on in the future that would make her more like the person she wants to be.  On October 12 I wasn’t able to meet with S due to scheduling conflicts.

On Tuesday October 6^th, myself and two of the leaders that do the competition met to discuss the games and crowdbreakers for the rest of the year. It took about 2 hours to do this, but by the end we were bursting with excitement for the months to come!

On October 7, we had our “Glow in the Dark Games”.  We gave all the kids glow necklaces and turned off all of the lights in the gym, and then played various games such as capture the flag, ameba tag and a clothespin relay.  That night our crowdbreaker was “Follow the Flashlight”.  A sheet was put up in the middle of the stage, with a leader behind it who was flashing a light all around the sheet.  The student had to follow the light with their noses, not knowing that any moment the leaders would drop the sheet and the flashlight leader had a pie in their hands ready to hit the student in the face with the pie.   Tonight was also the kickoff to “The Network” series.  My main point was that “You’re only as good as your network”. 

On October 14 the crowdbreaker was “Cowboy, Ninja, Bear”, which is a goofier version of rock, paper, scissors.  Everyone was involved in this game, students got into pairs and challenged each other.  We continued to narrow it down by winners of each round and the last person left won.  The game for the night was Tube Mound Madness, an old favorite that students love!  (Follows the same format as Steal the Bacon earlier mentioned except instead of giant earth balls we use innertubes.)  Tonight the message was about picking the right kind of friends and knowing the difference between a counterfeit friend and a real friend.    We also started our new “choices” system, where after the message at the beginning of the night, students would go to small group time, and then they would have the option of what to do next.  They could continue small group discussion, play board games in the small group rooms or go to large group competition in the gym.  It seemed as though students really enjoyed having the choice of where to go, especially the girls who don’t always like going to play in the gym. 

October 17 was another Saturday Nite for Middle Schoolers; we had a great turnout of almost 300 students.  Overall it was a great night of hangout and it looked as though the students really enjoyed the night, especially the dodgeball tournament! 

October 19- November 2

On Monday the 19^th S and I met at her school and we went for a long walk around the Village of Hamburg.  We talked about her life, what she is going through; the important issues in her life.  We also went into more depth about her relationship with her parents.  Because her parents have an issue with trusting her, I assigned her “homework” to earn their trust by being where she says she is going to be when she says she will be there and not provoking fights with them.  The next week, October26, we met and took another walk to discuss her progress that she had made from the week before.  We quickly went over her reading and what she got out of it, what she didn’t agree with from the book and one point that related to her life.  She also reported back that she and her parents were getting along so much better than they had before because she was actually at the places she said she was going to be at, when she said she would be there.  At the end of the meeting, we went to her house and did a mirror activity.  I had her write down all of the positive qualities that she has on her mirror with a dry erase marker.  We did this so that she would wake up each morning and the first thing that she sees are the positive aspects of who she is.  Although this was a challenge for her to do, in the end she saw the greater purpose and was pleased with the final outcome. 

A lot of the time during these 2 weeks was focused on the event “Fall Fest” that I was planning for the Middle Schoolers on October 24^th.  To prepare for this I had to make contact with the Corn Maze Farm, send out permission slips, collect money, make contact with leaders who were coming and make sure that everyone was on the same page.  We had about 65 people attend this event, including 10 leaders and 55 students.  The day before, I finalized the arrangements with the corn maze farm, made sure we had a sufficient way to pay when we got there, made sure we had collected all of the payments and permission slips, finalized the leader list, called Fisher Bus to give them a final count of people and received our apple cider that was graciously given to us.  The day of I made the last minute trip to get timbits from Tim Hortons, printed out directions to and from the corn maze for leaders who were driving and gathered permission slips and money.  Students started arriving at the Hub at 4:00 and by 4:45 everyone was there.  We quickly got everyone into groups, informed everyone of what the evening was going to look like and then loaded everyone into the buses and into the cars.  Overall, the evening went extremely well, students had a blast in the corn mazes, and it was a great time of bonding for leaders and students.  We got back to the Hub at 9:00, a little earlier than planned, simply because it was cold, rainy and dark. 

The week of October 21^st, I had to prepare for the next series of messages.  I had the topic of wise decisions, but now I needed to research the topic and how it applies to students in Middle School.  I took many notes on a book called “The On October 21, our crowdbreaker was Candy Apple Munch and our game was Scoot-a-Rama.  We ended “The Network” series with a message called “Choose to Choose”.  On Wednesday I had to go to the store and pick up items for the Candy Apple Munch game and prepare the caramel covered onions.

October 28^th was our first “Dress 4 the Mess” (D4TM) for the year, called the Spooktacular.  To prepare for this I had to go to the store and collect all the materials for the games and get prizes for the crowdbreaker.  This week the crowdbreaker was the “Blender of Death” which required us to get cider and donuts to mix together in a blender for kids to drink.  For D4TM we did mystery buckets and games called trick or treat, pumpkin gut relay and pumpkin pie surprise. This week we also kicked off another new series called “Caution”.  This series is all about making wise choices and how we can make the wise choices in our lives.  This week I made the point that “We live in extreme environments that require extreme preparation, that lead to extreme action.”  We need to plan ahead and know our answers to certain issues before we are in those circumstances. 

After Overdrive on the 28^th, all of the adult and college leaders met to discuss the potential success or failure of the choices system.  We discussed different issues that were occurring in the program, such as the loudness of the boys’ small group in the front room, and then moved on to discuss the format of the evening.  Everyone agreed that the choices system was working out really well, and that we should make it the final structure that we have for the evening. 

November 2- November 16

On November 4^th, our crowdbreaker was a game called Clothespin Beard.  In order to do this I had to run to the store to get clothespins and prizes for the game.  This week we did a crowd favorite game, Australian Pillow Boxing.  We continued the series “Caution”, and I encouraged students to not ask themselves the question “… is this the right thing to do?” but “…is this the wise thing to do?”  At the end of the night, I met with the game guys to plan out the games for the rest of November and December.  We discussed crowdbreakers, games and possibilities for January games and events.

November 7 was another Saturday Nite at the Hub.  We had another large turnout, with chaos all around.  It was a crazy night with a few problems here and there, but overall was a good time for the students.

On November 11^th our crowdbreaker was “Get to Know You BINGO”, therefore on Monday I put together the game board.  On Monday I also met with S again. I picked her up from school and we went to Tim Hortons to talk.  We talked about the book that we are reading together, friends at school and how she is handling those relationships and her sister’s wedding.  Overall, it was a great meeting and we really bonded.   The game for the week was Garbage Can Gauntlet.  We ended the series “Caution” by talking about how “Your Consequences Go High and Wide”, meaning that our choices affect our relationship with God and our friends and family.

 November 16-November 30

On November 25, we had our “Ultimate FL!P” Night.  Basically, we were giving students the opportunity to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior.  The night went a little differently structurally because we were also trying to fit in our “Dress 4 The Mess: Thanksgiving Celebration”.  We started with our crowdbreaker, Turkey Day Leftovers (basically pairs of students feeding each other baby food) and then went to the gym for a toned down version of Dress 4 the Mess.  At the end of the night I gave the message, which was a spinoff of the earlier series FL!P.  In the series in September we focused more on what you have to change in your life to be like Christ, but this time we talked about how God can do the most ultimate flip in us.  I also spoke with our youth worship director to have him play during the time that the students were praying.  We chose a song and worked on the times of when he would come on stage to play and what the evening would look like. 

November 25 we didn’t have Overdrive due to the Thanksgiving Holiday.  So I took the week to get ready for the new Christmas Series and prepare the messages for the rest of the year.  I broke the year up into weeks of three and then assigned topics to each week.   (Including February=Dating and Love Month and April=Jesus’s death and resurrection)  For the Christmas series I did a lot of research trying to see what sort of series ideas were out there, and finally I decided on “Regifted”. 

I took the extra time to put together a letter for students who made a commitment to Christ the week before.  It was a congratulatory letter as well as instructions for what to do next as Christians.  I think the letter will really help those students to figure out what to do next after they made the first initial step in their faith.   I then filled them out for each individual student and personalized them with a hand written message at the bottom.

December 1-December 7

This week I took a lot of time to get ready for the Christmas series, “Regifted”.  I laid out the three weeks that we had and tried to put one idea with each week.  This week I chose to do an overview of the idea behind “regifting Jesus”.  I simplified it to two main points of how we can regift Jesus, Sharing His Truth and Serving His Children.

I also worked with our media guy to prepare the video introduction for the series, which had to be made from scratch.  I discussed with him my plans for future series ideas and the work that I would need him to do.  I planned out the series titles and ideas for January and February, choosing “MADE” for January and “I heart…” for February.  “MADE” is all about finding our purpose and doing the things that we dream of.  “I heart” is part of our “love, sex and dating” theme that goes hand in hand with Valentine’s Day.  “MADE” also requires video footage of students who will say “I wanna be MADE” (Like in the MTV show’s introduction) therefore we had to coordinate times to record the students.

Finally, I also continued to work on the commitment letters to the students and figured out Christmas cards for leaders and students.  I put together a card for leaders to fill out to go to their students and brainstormed for Christmas cards for the leaders.