September 1, 2008 by Matt.

Ok, I know that posted this morning., but since I hadn’t slept, the that was still yesterday for me. So, I consider this to be like a new days post.

Anyways, yesterday in addition to preaching for the first time, I threw my first lock-in since taking over the youth at the The Rock (that was one week ago for those of you that are keeping score. It was GREAT. We planned to go to Disney Quest at Downtown Disney. We anticipated a good crowd. We did not anticipate 52 kids. Add to that 9 adults and you ahve 61 people that I was taking to Disney Quest and had to make sure they all made it home. Ok, this is a little stressful for me…. Oh and probably a third of them were kids I had never met before. Oh and our us only seats 34…… Well, we managed to cram more then that into the bus and we head out.

Upon arrival me and another guy go to get our tickets. We had made reservations for 30 kids and 5 adults. Well, we nearly doubled that. As we asked the gentleman at guest relations about picking up the remainder of the tickets we needed he told us that they would have to be at the regular price. That would mean $17 more then we had planned on spending. Well after some discussion they were able to add the additional tickets to the original group purchase and we were on our way.  We all got our tickets and headed in for over 4 hours of gaming. We had a blast at Disney Quest. If you work with youth and are looking for an activity that is a bit different, I would highly recommend Disney Quest. With the group discount the price was just under $20. This is for a day pass that is good for as long as you want to be there for that day. The place is fully enclosed so you have 5 stories of games in one building so you kinda know where your kids are the whole time.

Anyway, that enough advertising for Disney. So, it comes time to come home and we get every person loaded up without any drama, and we start heading back to the church. All appears well, until I stop at a gas station with the group of students that is in my truck to get something to drink. As we are loading up in the truck to leave Kim calls. The bus is acting funny and they think it is going to die…… Then, it dies in the road on highway 27…… Ok, so now I have like 40 or so kids on this bus, in the dark, in the middle of the night, in the middle of no where and the bus is dead. Well, we do manage to get it out of the road and we get all the adults with our group to start carrying kids back to the church. After the last of this kids is shuttled to the church. I call a tow truck and I take the next shuttle back to the church leaving the bus driver and a deputy to wait for the wrecker.

Once back at the church we resume our activities as previously planned and have a great time for the remainder of the night. So for a recap:

• 52 kids and 9 adults.
• 4.5 hours at Disney Quest.
• Every kid makes it on the bus.
• bus breaks down in the middle of no where.
• all followed by 6 hours of fun and games at the church.

All in all I would say that this is one lock-in that the students will remember for some time.

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September 1, 2008 by Matt.

Well, for all the bloggerheads out there that are wondering how my first message went, here it is. It actually went rather well. In fact I rather enjoyed it, it felt good. I had a number of people come up to me after each of the services and tell me I did a good job (of course that would have happened no matter how poorly I may have done, church people can be such liers). Anyways, I also had a friend of mine tell me later that he thought I did a really good job. He said that I seemed comfortable and that he couldn’t tell at all that I was nervous (thanks Adam and Carrie for that encouragement). The weird thing is, I really wasn’t nervous. I  was certain I would be, but when it came down to it, when I got up there, I simply delivered he message God had for me and enjoyed doing it.

Well, now for a really cool part of all this. After completing the second service I was gathering up my stuff when a young lady came up to me. I did not know this person, but she approached me to say thanks. She said that the message I delivered was exactly what she needed to hear. That was really cool, but then she went on to tell the story of how she came to be at The Rock. Turns out she doesn’t even live in this area. She is from North Carolina and was just in Winter Haven visiting some friends. She had planned to attend church with these friends. However, these friends were not feeling well and so were not going to attend this Sunday. She, however, was determined to attend church. So, here friends gave her directions to their church and she set out to find it. She promptly got lost. She tried in vain to find her friends church and finally prayed to God, “God, I really want to go to church today, guide me.” About that time the truck in front of her made a right hand turn. When she looked to see where the truck was going she noticed a sign on the tree in the entrance to our property that reads, “Jesus Loves You.” She had not seen our sign and you can not see our building from the street, but she turned. She came into that service even thought she knew no one, and knew nothing about our church, and heard a message that spoke to her.

I am constantly amazed at how God works. I believe that God lead this young lady to our church so that she could hear the message he had for me to deliver and so that she could provide encouragement and reassurance to me. When she spoke to me I knew that her words were completely genuine because she had nothing to gain by telling me that and had no previous relationship with me. Isn’t our God great.

Heather, if you are reading this, I thank you for your encouragement and I am both pleased and humbled that God would us me to speak to you.

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August 30, 2008 by Matt.

Ok, I know I just poseted part one, but I forgot something. If anyone is interested in coming to make fun of me, throw rotten fruit at me, listen to me preach and offer support (yeah that’s the ticket) then we do have a Saturday night service from 6-7. This is in addition to our 9:15 and 10:45 services on Sunday morning.

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