Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!  

Johnny’s Drive In and the Missions Auction were a great success thanks to the efforts of many of you.  I don’t make a habit of sharing exactly how much we raised over the internet, but it was enough for our Guatemala Trip Deposit, and some ministry trip deposits.  This will help us a lot.  Many of you went way beyond the call to make up for my lack of planning on the reset of the auction.  Considering we made a lot of changes, it really didn’t go all that bad, and the results were better than I expected. 

A special thanks goes out to a set of grandparents on whom I dumped a tremendous responsibility without much direction (you know who you are)  I truly appreciated your servant hearts and sweat.  You did way beyond the call amidst difficult circumstances.  Thank you.

Some of you may be temtped to poke fun at the bald-headed Youth Pastor.  It may seem like an easy target.  The mild-mannered man seeking to lead you to a saving knowledge of Jesus might just snap when provoked.  Don’t believe me?  Don’t believe it’s worth fearing? Consider this not-so-famous story from the Bible (2 Kings 2:23-25):

23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths came out of the town and jeered at him. “Go on up, you baldhead!” they said. “Go on up, you baldhead!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths. 25 And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.

 So seriously…BEWARE THE BALD-HEADED YOUTH PASTOR.

HAHA.  Have a good day!  and watch your back : )

Today was another W for the “Just for Fun” Team.  We played our 2nd church team, a group of young athletes and a few athletic parents.  A tough team.  The game was almost called on time, but we were tied.  So with a little coaxing, the ump gave us one more inning.  We led off.  A base hit and home run.  Then two outs.  Another base hit, and Zach Hill smashes one over the fence to make it 14-10. 

We were able to hold them one with a caught fly, a throw out, and a strike out.

Of note:  Patty made her IR return giving us some good fielding and hitting. 

My performance, aside from a miserable first at bat, included some decent throws to second to hold batters to first, and I only lt one fly ball get by me because my legs didn’t want to turn around.  I overran it.  I had one solid hit, the first toward the fence of the season.  It was caught quite a bit short by the center fielder, but it felt good to put one out there in the grass.  In my defense, I should’ve had the walk, but the ump called a strike 4′ behind the plate.  Frustrating.

It was a good team effort, but MVP probably goes to Zach and Brian for the HR and for great saves in the field with a couple of great catches.  Jill made a great grab at first as well, so honorable mention.  She’s a great hitter too.  It was truly a team effort.  Well played.  That moves the team to 2-1 overall.  We have a double header next week.  Looking forward to that.

We’re putting a team together right now for the 2008 Paradise Bound Mission Trip.  This summer we hope to travel to Guatemala and assist Paradise Bound Ministries with building homes and holding mountain village medical clinics.  These outreaches to the people of Guatemala have made an eternal difference in the lives of children and families in this underdeveloped and beautiful part of the world.  We preach the gospel through our actions, and the words of Hermano Jesus the local preacher.

Get the idea what its all about, or remind yourself what it was like by watching this video of the 2006 trip.  Sign ups are ongoing, and our first team meeting will be held on September 6th.

One of the first big events of our season is the See You At the Pole Prayer Rally.  We meet at 7AM at the Middle and School and at the High School for student-led prayer rallies.  The morning includes corporate (all together) prayer time for our world, our nation, our community, our school, and then small group prayer time for praying for and with our friends.  It’s a great way to get the School started in the right direction with prayer.  Watch this video ad, one of several, that tells about the theme for this year’s See You at the Pole.  Don’t miss out, each year includes donuts, juice and usually Chocolate Milk.  See you on the 26th at 7AM.

Here is the first of several videos we will be posting to the website at church and here on the blog and perhaps other places.  It features the song Everlasting God sung by the Authentic Praise Team.  Hope you enjoy it.  Look for more videos including opening night hi-lites and sermon hi-lites. 

Saturday, August 25, 2007By Matt Vande Bunte

The Grand Rapids Press

ALLENDALE TOWNSHIP — In a minivan with a cross dangling from the rear-view mirror, three men in black cruise slowly through one of the latest additions to the student housing boom near Grand Valley State University.

Coming upon a stocked car and the loaded back of a pickup, the trio hopped out to lend a hand. Bob and Durene Worth were eager to accept the assistance, making their daughter’s move into her off-campus townhome easy.

“You guys are unreal. You guys are a blessing,” Bob Worth said as he was handed a bottle of water while the leaders of a new college-age ministry lugged a television, grill and other necessities of student life, including the game Twister, into one of the units at Meadows Crossing Townhomes.

“This outreach is great,” Worth said later. “It just shows the community of the church. It shows they’re willing to step out and go above and beyond.”

It shows, in the words of Jason Hoppa, the desire of Lighthouse Community Church to be the real hands and feet of Jesus to a growing population in need of spiritual guidance, yet often neglected by the church.

“(Jesus) didn’t come to be served, but to serve,” said Hoppa, a 28-year-old GVSU alum and pastor of discipleship for Lighthouse’s new college ministry. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to plant a seed.

“This age right now is very influential for the rest of their lives. They’ve got to make huge decisions.”

Hoppa, along with Chad Demers and Brandon Sloterbeek, have been handing out water and helping students move in this month as they promote “authentic,” a new Saturday night worship service geared toward people age 18 to 24. Devised in a deer blind last fall and launched last spring with a pair of trial runs, the service starts a weekly schedule 6 p.m. today at Lighthouse, 5947 Lake Michigan Dr. NW.

“If there’s an ulterior motive, it’s to make connections with the kids,” said Sloterbeek, 32. “There’s been a desire in our church to reach the whole community of Allendale, and obviously the campus is a big part of that.”

Churches now are taking more notice of the growing GVSU population, which has swelled since 2001 as the number of on-campus student beds has increased by about 50 percent, to nearly 5,000. That number does not include the surge of off-campus complexes such as Meadows Crossing, which has 189 two- and four-bedroom units.

Looking to serve GVSU students and faculty, the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids this spring announced plans to add its first new parish in nearly 30 years. An installation of priests for St. Luke’s University Parish is planned next month, and a church could be built kitty-corner to Lighthouse on 16 acres at Lake Michigan Drive and 60th Avenue.

In the meantime, on-campus Mass is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. Sundays in the Cook-DeWitt Chapel.

In addition to “authentic,” Lighthouse aspires to play an on-campus role by conducting outdoor worship at some of those apartment complexes and organizing morning Bible studies. A live worship CD recorded last weekend will be distributed next month at a GVSU campus fair.

The effort “is about tearing down walls that were built” in order to “raise up a new generation of leaders” in the church, said Demers, worship leader at Lighthouse.

“This is the age when they’re really looking for truth,” he said, explaining the design of their black-and-white shirts. “The church isn’t a building. The church is the foundation, the rock, Jesus Christ. Worship isn’t just a Sunday morning thing.”

Jamie Worth, 20, said “quite a few” fellow Grand Valley students are involved in a church, and that “youth groups are big.” She has taken part in worship at Mars Hill Bible Church on occasion, and a couple times went to an on-campus service.

After watching the Lighthouse group move her belongings, she said the help makes her interested to check out “authentic.”

Well we were mercied tonight and ran out of time.  The final score was 14-4.  I am wondering if the “Just for Fun” name means, all the the other teams play us for fun.

Personally, I did not contribute to the hitting.  I grounded out once.  I did get a base hit, but it contributed to the force at second.  So… not a stellar night. 

Defense:  I did handle the ball pretty well in the outfield.  Caught one fly ball.  No errors.  Well, unless you count overthrowing 2nd a few times.  I still need to control the ball when I throw to 2nd. 

I still hit worse than most of the …team…, I throw ….poorly…. (Corrected after considerations to my team mates) as well.  So maybe I need to stick to shot put.  If we all had to play with a 12lb ball, Zack and I would dominate.  But…I digress.  I look forward to next week.  A new game.  Another chance to swing way too hard, to hit way too short.  I must look pretty funny.  1st at bat, they all back up.  2nd at bat, they all come in.  Tells you something doesn’t it.

See you next week.

Our middle school youth group went on a canoe trip.  Here are the pictures!  These will also be on Facebook, and I will get to tagging the photos and adding captions at some point.  But I wanted to get them out there quickly so here they are.  Please feel free to tag them on facebook yourself.  I will approve them later.

Canoeing on the Muskegon River in August is usually quite safe.  And this weekend was no exception.  But for me and one other leader, and I suppose one young girl (I will protect her identity here), it sure looked a little scary for about 15 seconds.

Two girls were on the canoe.  They floated too far to one side and had gotten themselves stuck on a log with a branch overhead.  It is usually not wise to grab the branch, because that allows the bottom (ie the canoe) to float out from underneath you.  That is exactly what happened next.  One of the girls clung to the branch, while the other disappeared under the canoe, or so it seemed.  Me and my partner had been out of our canoes, helping people through this tricky part of the river.  Both of us were running at this point to the spot.  There was a hole just beyond the log where the river got pretty deep.  My partner dove in towards the canoe several yards ahead of me.  I ran along the bank, trying to get ahead of the floating canoe before it met the end of the Island I was running on.  As I started into the water toward the canoe, my friend reached the edge of the boat.  I was fearful we would flip over the boat and find no child underneath.  “had the boat struck her head when it rolled and sent her to the bottom of the whole”.  I was a little nervous.  But just as my friend reached the canoe, she popped up next to it with her life jacket intact.  She wasn’t the least traumatized when she came up.

Seconds later, it all turned to laughter as we gathered up the dumped over towels and crocs (that’s the shoe variety not the man-eating variety) and we made it back to our canoes.  No damage done.  The only long term effects, a little more wisdom about how not to fall out of a canoe, and some blue-lipped shivering for the rest of the overcast and slightly breezy trip down the river.

For pictures of the canoe trip, check back here soon.  I will be posting a slide show here and on facebook.  I think you will see a “before” of the two girls, and then perhaps an “after” at the lunch stop.  I would have had more of the action, but I threw the camera when I went running for the canoe.  Yeah, it was that intense!

Check back tomorrow for the photos.