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;
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
I got off the phone with the single mom of an 8th grade boy yesterday who smokes pot.
The amount of middle schoolers that smoke marijuana these days seems to be on the rise. And as the mother mentioned in a state like ours which legalized medical marijuana it becomes even harder when kids have easy access to weed in their friends backyard. While there are many reasons I believe it to be on the rise, I think one of them continues to be this idea that culture throws at our teens that it is pretty harmless…about as dangerous drinking alot of soda or eating only Big Macs for dinner. The evidence continues to suggest the oppositie. Check out this article;
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Dec. 23 (HealthDay News) — Marijuana use among teens may trigger neurological changes in the developing brain that lead to increased anxiety and stress levels that could persist into adulthood, new animal research suggests.
Although the finding stems solely from work conducted with adolescent and adult lab rats — not yet replicated among humans — the work suggests that certain troublesome changes in levels of the key brain chemicals serotonin and norepinephrine may linger long after marijuana use ceases.
“Here, the goal was simply to understand the neurological mechanism that could be underlying the specific phenomenon of depression and anxiety observed in previous studies among adolescents chronically exposed to cannabis,” explained study author Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, a psychiatric researcher at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal.
“And what we found with the animals we worked with is that when those that were exposed to cannabis as adolescents became adults they had low serotonin activity, which is related to depressive behavior, and high norepinephrine levels, which is related to an increase in anxiety and stress,” Gobbi continued.
“This means,” she cautioned, “that cannabis exposure when young seems to cause changes in the adult brain. And these changes could perhaps be irreversible, even if you stop consuming cannabis.”
The study findings were released online Dec. 5 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of Neurobiology of Disease.
The authors note that the main ingredient in marijuana — delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) — has previously been identified as having an impact on receptors in the brain that regulate cognition and emotion.
In addition, they point out that the adolescent brain is perhaps particularly sensitive to both drug use and related stress, given that this is the pre-adult period during which the brain and its neurochemical composition undergoes extensive reshaping and reorganizing.
To assess the role cannabis may play on adolescent brain development, for 20 days — a period characterized as “prolonged exposure” — adolescent rats were given daily injections of either a low-dose (0.2 milligrams/kilograms) or high-dose (1.0 milligrams/kilograms) of cannabis. For comparison, a group of adult rats underwent a similar regimen.
Following cannabis exposure, both the adolescent and adult groups went 20 days drug-free to allow the effects of drug withdrawal to dissipate, as well as to allow for a wide range of cognitive testing to gauge the long-term effects of cannabis exposure on task execution and mood.
The authors noted that by the conclusion of the 20-day waiting period, the previously adolescent rats were effectively adults.
The team found that chronic exposure to cannabis during adolescence does appear to provoke abnormal emotional activity into adulthood, typified by the onset of depression, poorer social interaction, heightened anxiety and increased stress.
What’s more, Gobbi and her colleagues also found a drop in serotonin levels in the adult brain following either low- or high-dose adolescent ingestion and an increase in norepinephrine levels following high-dose exposure.
Rats who had already reached adulthood when chronically exposed to cannabis, however, appeared to experience far less of the detrimental emotional reactions found among adolescent rats. Indeed, adult rats, they observed, seemed to be able to readily cope with, and even overcome, most of the neurological impairments that arose as a result of cannabis exposure.
“We were a little bit surprised by our findings because we didn’t expect to see such a strong effect on the adult brain from adolescent usage. It was a very significant effect,” said Gobbi.
“So, in general, I think that what people should take away from this work,” she advised, “is that just because it’s a plant it doesn’t mean that marijuana is harmless. It’s a pharmacologically active drug, and it must be used with awareness.”
For his part, however, Dr. Adam Bisaga, an addiction psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute, minimized the relevance of the findings.
“I think the translational value of this research is very limited insofar as what the clinical relevance to humans might be,” Bisaga cautioned. “It’s always very difficult to translate from animal models to humans. Yes, there is some indication that this may be of importance to humans. But most of the data with patients that I am familiar with suggests that most of these cannabis-exposure deficits are reversible. So, for the time being I’m not that impressed, although it’s certainly something to further study in humans,” he added.
“This is not new,” he noted. “Clinicians know well that exposure to large amounts of cannabis in adolescence may produce enduring changes in emotional functioning and reactivity in vulnerable individuals, such as difficult-to-treat anxiety and depressive symptoms. What this paper does is to try to characterize more precisely the components of this syndrome using animal models of emotional reactivity.”
More information
For more on marijuana use and its effect on the brain, visit the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Attendance
Average
Talk
Kicked off an exciting new series called: “You Asked For It.” The entire 6 weeks series is answering questions that some of our students have asked. This week I addressed Doubt and attempted to re-assure students that it is a healthy part of our spiritual life. I am taking a pretty laid back approach to how I prepare for these talks in the hopes that it will be more interactive and conversational. Seemed like the first one was well received and the students were into the topic. Once again we ran out of time for UnScripted which stinks.
Volunteer Involvement
It was a great turnout for our leaders! Always fun to come back after a break and feel the excitement in the room…energy is contagious and can go a long way in a program. Still need more co-leaders though…as we saw in a couple of groups when a leader is sick and doesnt have a co-leader it creates a pretty big problem.
Music/Program
Last night was Tyler’s first night leading worship with us. He did awesome and the students responded well. I especially liked his introduction of “We Cry Out…” we b0th liked the song and talked about it awhile back as being a great song for a student worship set. Luke led out with the game…which was Trout Toss. As usual a couple of our audience members got hit with a fresh trout. Whenever we play this game it always makes me wanna go to Red Lobster…not sure why. For our WiFi video we showed the funnest video I have seen in a loonnnggg time. It highlights a kid who definitely got what he wanted for Christmas and alittle demonic activity one might say. Check it out;
Final Thought
Breaks are a good thing. Obviously breaks are good because we all need them personally and spending time with family & friends is important. But for a program like Wildfire it is also good to take regular breaks because it benefits the students experience. It’s the idea of pattern interrupt…constant exposure to even the best of things lose their effectiveness over time. By taking a break you remind students (and leaders) what they love about a program.
