“Hell Week”
And so it begins…what some in youth ministry circles refer to as “hell week.” Hell week is the final week leading up to a camp and is always an emotional roller coaster that I wouldnt recommend for the faint of heart. Leading camps for 100’s of students involves quite the undertaking, with lots of teams working together. Whether it is the transportation, programs, activities. food, worship or budget…there’s alot that could go wrong. Satan loves to remind us of this fact with a number of curve balls and last minute issues. Thankfully we believe that the chances of “alot could go right” are much greater and continue to run camps.
If you are a believer I would appreciate your prayers this week, personally and for everyone involved in camp. I will be speaking for five sessions this weekend and Tyler is leading our worship. Both of us are sick and could use some healing & energy. We are still looking for a camp nurse if you know someone that might be interested in coming for part or all of the weekend.
Wildfire Wrap
Attendance
Above average.
Talk
I was back on this week after a couple of weeks of other speakers taking the stage. I answered three questions from the audience that we got back in December; Who created God? Who created Satan? and Does God have any faults? I have to be honest that I didn’t put alot into this one…as camp is now just a week away and I will be giving 5 talks there. The audience seemed to have a decent response…although we continue to have a rowdy group that seems to be growing. Our attendance was the highest it has been in a couple of months, just under 200 at 199.
Volunteer Involvement
A unique night in that we had not one but two first time high school volunteers checking us out. Both of them are solid Christians who I’ve known for years and am super excited about them potentially joining our team. One thing I think our team still needs work on is being bold in dealing with behavior issues. I think alot of them assume someone else will deal with it if they ignore it, and after enough time passes they are totally right. The irony is that the leader closest to the bad behavior should be dealing with it….not someone across the room. I have been criticized in the past for not addressing behavior issues more from the stage, but in my view no matter how soft I attempt to make it, it always comes across too strong from the platform and is better coming from a leader in the audience.
Music/Program
Good night from the worship/tech team. Our new lighting guy is doing a sick job setting up our stage lights. You might think this sort of thing doesnt matter at all…and compared with pastoring students it doesnt…but when it definitely adds something to the atmosphere. The band lead You’ll Come and Shout Unto God which are personal favorites. For the game this week it was CoCo Puff Chaos. We had a record for the most coco puffs sticking to a kids face I hear. Good times. For the WiFi video I struggled to find one, so I just showed them this one of a BMW Concept car that I want;
Final Thought
Going into the night we were 15 students below our minimum number that we planned on coming to this years Winter Camp…and by the end of the night we were 13 above! That is definitely a record for us of students signing up on the last day of registration. In this down economy I know it’s hard for any parent to come up with $169 for a camp, much less if one of the parents are out of work. On Tuesday I was pleased to learn of a donor paying for 6 students to come on scholarships to camp…allowing us to take all 9 of the students requesting scholarships! I pray I have that sort of money one day…
Did We Create Satan?
Tomorrow at Wildfire I’m continuing to answer questions from our audience and this weeks questions are; Who created God and Satan? Definitely can give the “pat” Christian answer to both of these but there is alot of Theology wrapped up in these. In my study for the Satan question I found a fresh angle on the ancient story in the Garden of Eden. Check it out below and I would love your thoughts.
Who Made Satan?
By Andrew Wommack
Most Christians believe the answer to that question is obvious: “God created Satan.” But that is not really true. God created Lucifer. That may seem like a small distinction at first glance, but once you understand who really made Satan, it will change your perspective of him forever.
You will never again doubt your authority over the devil. You will realize that he is an inferior being, unable to do anything without the cooperation of a human being. And any fear you have of him will disappear as you realize he is nothing but a big zero with the rim knocked off.
I believe that God created everything, including Lucifer. He created Lucifer as a powerful anointed angel. However, Lucifer wasn’t satisfied with that, and he didn’t remain the anointed cherub that God created him to be.
Ezekiel 28:13-14 describe him as he originally was in the Garden of Eden:
“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.”
Most people believe that Lucifer took one-third of the angels and rebelled against God in heaven, where he was defeated and then cast to earth. This is all taken from one scripture, in Revelation 12:4, and was popularized by Finis Dake in the Dake’s Bible commentary. I don’t believe that is what actually happened.
I believe that Satan was originally on this earth in the Garden of Eden as Lucifer. He was God’s number one angel sent to earth to be a blessing to Adam and Eve.
Hebrews 1:14 says this about angels:
“Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”
Lucifer wasn’t sent to the earth to tempt Adam and Eve but to bless them. He was an angelic being sent to be their protector, to minister to them, and to serve them. He was there on a divine mission, still in his perfect state. It was in the Garden that his transgression against God was conceived and carried out.
Ezekiel 28:15 goes on to say,
“Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”
I have never been able to follow the logic that God sent Satan to earth to tempt man and see how he would respond. As a father, would you take your two-year-old child and put him or her in a cage with a lion just to see how he or she would respond? That would obviously be irresponsible; the child would be no match for the lion. God wouldn’t do that to us, and he didn’t do that to Adam and Eve.
So, what made Lucifer turn against God? Lucifer watched as God did something for man that He had never done with any other of His creation. When God created man, not only was he made in the very image of God, but he was then given unconditional authority over this earth.
Genesis 1:26 says,
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
He didn’t say to them, “Now as long as you follow my leading and as long as you do what I want you to do, I will let you have dominion over the earth.” There was zero qualification for this power and authority. God spoke it and that was it.
God says in Psalm 89:34,
“My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips.”
In Hebrews 1:3 it says,
“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high” (emphasis mine).
What this is saying is that God cannot lie; it’s the integrity of His Word that holds the entire universe together. Unlike human beings who reserve the right to change their minds, God will not violate His Word. When He told Adam and Eve they had dominion, authority, and power to subdue and rule, it was done.
Lucifer understood the integrity of God’s words, and when he heard this, I believe his antenna went up. He saw that Adam and Eve had something he wanted but didn’t have: They had unconditional authority. In a way, they had been made the gods of this world; it was theirs to rule and subdue.
We read in Psalm 115:16,
“The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’S: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.”
Even though Lucifer may have been God’s number one angel, he still wanted more. He was jealous and envious; he actually wanted to take God’s place.
In Isaiah 14:13 it says,
“For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.”
The next verse says,
“I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”
Lucifer understood that if he could deceive Adam and Eve into willingly relinquishing their authority to him that he could become the god of this world. He could take the authority that was given to mankind, use it to thwart the kingdom of God, and receive the praise and adoration and glory he wanted.
Romans 6:16 says this,
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”
So, who made Satan? We did! The moment Adam and Eve yielded to Lucifer, he became Satan, the god of this world. You might be thinking, But Satan deceived them. Shouldn’t God have stopped him?
Read 1 Timothy 2:14:
“And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”
Adam knew what he was doing.
I believe the moment Lucifer transgressed against God, he lost his angelic power. Satan now has no power or authority of his own; he only has what he has been able to deceive people into giving him. Now, that is a powerful statement.
Think about what that means to you as a believer. When we are resisting the devil and fighting against him, Satan does not have a superior power or authority. He is absolutely dependent upon the cooperation of a human being who will empower him with the authority God gave them.
Satan is going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He is looking for people who will open the door through things like lust, rebellion, strife, unforgiveness, fear, and more. When we yield to those things, we are empowering him to destroy us, and I guarantee you, given the opportunity, he will eat your lunch and pop the bag.
(You can see the original post HERE)
This one’s for you Frank…
Tonight a man is being honored in Livonia Michigan, a man who fought in WW2 in the South Pacific, a man who protected the streets for 35 years as a policeman and was also a father and husband…the man was my grandpa Frank Brandemihl. He passed away January 22nd in his sleep, he was 85 years old.
This one’s for you Frank;
Wildfire Wrap
Attendance
Above average.
Talk
This week we were treated to Dr Bart Rask coming and sharing with our students on Evolutionism and how the science is actually not there to back it up. The response from students was mixed, which I was expecting. As one of the students remarked via text in Unscripted, it felt like they were in science class. Overall I’m glad we had him in because it answered a lot of tough questions that I would have had zero response to on my own. I was very happy we had time for Unscripted as this by far got the most text in questions from the audience…like 50 in all!
Volunteer Involvement
A great night for our volunteers…as usual they shined and loved on Middle Schoolers like good missionaries to that generation.
Music/Program
Tyler and his team lead a solid set of worship. We Cry Out continues to be a great new song that I think the students respond well to. It was awesome to see Tyler filling in with a guitarist from the main service team when our regular student guitarist couldn’t make it due to finals. I love hearing someone opinion of Wildfire who has never been there before. The game was the Impossible Shot…which remained Impossible. Basically its just a half-court shot over the students heads…we have one student from each grade give it as “shot,” if they sink it they get a $25 giftcard to the store of their choice. No one has made the shot this year. For the WiFi video I found a video to appeal to our skater kids…we don’t have a ton of them but definitely a few. Check it out HERE.
Final Thought
In the end it was a somewhat crazy night….we lived up to the first half of our name. I think the combo of attendance being up and having a “scientist” speaker answering questions that a select group of students had made for a mix of highly interested and completely non-engaged ones with little in-between. I knew this was a risk with answering these sort of questions, but honestly when we get questions almost every week having to do with Dinosaurs we had to go there at least for one week.
Floating Thoughts
- Haven’t blogged alot lately…haven’t been doing alot of things I normally do lately. Why? Well until Feb 12th its camp prep season! Crazy busy time…
- Speaking of camp, still have some needs…looking for a camp nurse, a drama of the temptation in the garden and a couple more high school guy co-leaders. Know anybody free Feb 12-15th?
- Excited to see what Apple has to launch tomorrow. Obviously there will be some sort of iTablet…which I think wont do as well as they are thinking it will. But what I am hoping for is the launch of an all new iPhone that will be released on Verizon or Sprint this year. There has been a number of rumors and AT&T cant hold the exclusive rights forever.
- At Wildfire tomorrow night we have Dr Bart Rask coming to share with the students about Evolutionism vs. Creationism…you might remember he was at Sunset a couple of weeks back to share on the same topic. Definitely excited to hear from him again and allow the students to ask questions.
- Tomorrow is also the state of the union address. All I got to say with this is that I hope Obama comes across very honest and doesn’t try to put a positive spin on the state of our union during the past 12months…is has not been good.
- Thought THIS was a pretty cool time lapse video of the plane in the Hudson getting taken out of the water.
- The Book of Eli is a good movie with a nice Christian theme to it (rare in today’s world). I liked the idea of you can kill just about everything except the Word of God.
- Still feel very unsettled about the future…yet I am hopeful that 2010 will bring a positive change.
Video Games
The combination of a new flatscreen TV, a PS3 and internet has definitely turned me back into a gamer in the past 6 months. Having been born in 1980, my generation IS the video game generation…I have seen it evolve from PONG to Modern Warfare 2. Now for those of you who might think that its a waste of time for a 29 year old, it has become an essential tool to reach today’s adolescent boys. I found the below infograph pretty interesting.
Source: Online Education
Wildfire Wrap
Attendance
Average.
Talk
Tonight Austin took the stage and answered students questions related to sharing your faith with your non-believing friends. As usual it was awesome to give him this opportunity and see a budding youth pastor teach. It was our monthly game night which always makes for a tough transition from running around the gym to sitting and listening to someone speak. We didnt have time for Unscripted…but I think we will make up for that in coming weeks with some rapidfire questions.
Volunteer Involvement
Again we were down a couple key players…and coupled with a strong showing from our students made for alittle tougher small group time.
Music/Program
This week was our monthly game night where we replace our worship time with an extended game that all the students participate in. We tried Dodgeball this week…which I will admit was NOT a good idea. It ended up being complete chaos! We didnt have nearly enough time to let both teams get long enough time to play. 170 people makes any group game a challenge! Thankfully we didnt have anyone get hurt which is always a risk when you play a game like Dodgeball. For the Wifi video we showed this video of some teenagers messing around with a ping-pong table.
Final Thought
Of the first three programs of the year this one was definitely the craziest. I wouldnt say it was a failure of a night…just alittle more chaotic than previous weeks. Part of staying in ministry for the longhaul is learning to roll with the ups and downs…the wild nights and the rare nights where kids seem to be on the edge of their seats to learn truth. I will admit it is not easy and I can imagine this is just a glimpse of what God feels with each of us in our individual faith journeys.
Ten Bucks.
A couple years ago I starting using Twitter never knowing it would become such a daily part of our lives. Now some of you readers out there still might not twitter and even think it’s a waste of time, but as we are seeing with the Haiti relief effort…twitter is playing a unique roll…raising literally millions of dollars from 100’s of thousands of people around the world. Basically the Red Cross has a partnership with cell phone providers and if you text “Haiti” to ”90999″ you can donate $10 to help bring aid via your cell phone bill. I did it the other day and was pleased to see both how easy and secure it was.
So I am encouraging my readers to join this cause…everyone can afford $10 on their next bill to help provide food, water and shelter to those who need it. What an awesome use of social media…to bring rapid relief to people in need thousands of miles away.
Wildfire Wrap
Attendance
Slightly above average 
Talk
This week we continued the “You Asked For It” series…answering questions our students asked. Last night all the questions focused on the Afterlife. It was a very encouraging talk as I sensed that the students were really interested to know about Heaven and how to get there. Right as I was done speaking a student approached me…7th grade boy, skater looking type with shoulder length hair…he came up and said; “Can I ask you a question?” “Of course” I replied…wondering what I was in for. He said; “I am an atheist…is it too late for me?” Wheeww…talk about making my talk prep worth it. I responded by patting his chest and saying; “As long as there is breath in your lungs its not too late man.” I later checked in with his small group leader to learn that he went on to share that he didn’t want to be unsure about his eternal destiny any more. Good stuff…cant wait to hear more stories tonight at our meeting.
Volunteer Involvement
Some nights its like the Bermuda Triangle appears over Wildfire and causes alot of chaos…last night was one of those nights. For no connected reason we were down 5 female leaders, 1 coach and our family ministry person. I think for such a weird night we ended up doing good…it just still reveals the need for more co-leaders to ensure that if someone is sick or needs the night free we are covered.
Music/Program
Turkey Bowl was the game…always one that the students seem to get into. Luke brought alot of energy which is always a bonus and gets the students focused where they should be. This was Tylers second week leading worship and I think he did a good job. As we talked about this week it is going to take some time for him to build relationships with the middle schoolers and to feel more confident in leading them. It is a unique age to lead when it comes to worship…somewhere between children’s ministry and adults there are these “mini-adults” that dont wanna be treated like kids anymore and definitely find adult worship BO-Ring! For the Wifi video we showed this clip of the highlights from Tuesday’s American Idol Premiere. Excited to see where this season takes us.
Final Thought
Doing a series that answers students questions directly is great for a number of reasons one of them being that it reminds me where their hearts and minds are. The best communicators are not the ones who have amazing, flashy, slick presentations…the best communicators are the ones that consistently give messages that their audience needs/wants to hear and is helpful to them. This is the type of communicator I strive to be.
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