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IN THIS ISSUE
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1. Unconditional Love
2. Global Outreach 3.
Breakaway 2006
4. Spotlight On: Asian Open Bible
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Read Any Good Books Lately?
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 Red Moon Rising: How 24-7 Prayer is Awakening a
Generation, by Pete Greig
If you want to have your heart stirred
up to pray, this is the book for you. It tells the story of the prayer
movement that is impacting the young people of Europe
(and now many other places in the world) as 24/7 prayer rooms are
popping up all over the place.
You can order it from walmart.com for $9.16 (which is cheaper
than Amazon of CBD) by clicking on the book cover above (it will take
you right to it).
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 Your First Two Years in Youth Ministry, by Doug
Fields
If you are new to youth ministry, or
even if you aren't, this is a must-read. If you are just getting
started you will find ideas and principles that will help you to
establish a firm foundation for your ministry to students. If you
are a youth ministry veteran, you will find a lot of reminders and
useful information that can re-energize you, your leaders, and your
student ministry. It's $9.58 at walmart.com. Just click the
cover and you're there.
Places to check out on the web:
http://www.stupidvideos.com/ You'll
find hundreds of stupid videos to show your students (or to amuse
yourself).
www.mtv.com This is the
official site for Mtv. It's a great place to catch up on what's
going on in today's youth culture. All of their shows are listed
and you can get brief descriptions of what they're about. You'll
gain instant street cred if you have a clue what your kids are talking
about when they mention this stuff.
http://preview.gospelcom.net/
Find out about the latest movies, what's in them, what their messages
are, etc.
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Re-understanding God's Reckless Love
 All of us
who grew up in the Sunday School ciruit learned a few core concepts
that we heard over, and over, and over, and over... (you get the
picture). We saw flannelgraph stories about them, colored in
multiple pictures of them, and probably memorized Bible verses about
them (all for the hope of winning something from the 'Treasure Chest'
full of Oriental Trading Catalog items, which we later found out had a
retail value of seven cents). One of the simple passages that I
learned was 1 John 4:7-8, which I can still quote in old school King
James. It says, "Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and
everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that
loveth not knoweth not God for God is
love."
Because passages like that are so familiar to us and because we
constantly speak of God's love, it is something that I can sometimes
take for granted. But recently I have been
"re-discovering" the importance of that truth. There
are a million-and-one things that I can tell students about God, but
the greatest truth I can share with them is that God loves them
unconditionally. And more that telling them that truth, I can
live that truth. Think about what it would look like to show
unconditional love to someone... How would that change their
lives? How would it change yours? Not love and... Or love
if... Or love but... Just, love. Acceptance.
Value. Belonging. The great downfall of religion in the
church is that it replaces the unconditional love of God with judgement
and legalism (read about the Pharisees in the New Testament for a clear
picture of that).
That truth - that God risks loving us unconditionally,
will be a major focus of our Breakaway conference this year. I
hope and pray that you will come expecting that message to cut
through all of the barriers that a student might have and find its
way straight to his/her heart. I am excited to see what will
happen, I hope you are too. See you in a few weeks!
Ready to get reckless,
PS: I am recommited to keeping an updated blog online and I
would love to get feedback from you. I'll keep the topics
flowing, you tell me what you think. You can hit it at http://centralregionstudentministries.blogspot.com/
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Global
Outreach Offering
 A new
year means a new opportunity to give to missions in the Global Outreach
offering. Each month we are going to be providing a reminder
about GO as well as a resource for you to use in motivating your
students to give to missions. The money that our students
give/raise for GO helps our missionaries all over the world to have
vehicles and equipment they need and to buy land and building materials
for churches, schools, orphanages, and other projects. In 2005,
our region gave $25,897.96 to Global Outreach, which is great.
But it was given by 11 churches (out of 85). What if every church
in our region gave at least $500 this year? That's about $41.67 a
month. At the end of this year we would have $42,500.00 for
missions! Let's all make a fresh commitment to Global Outreach
this year - it's the greatest investment that a student will ever make
- an investment in someone's eternity.
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RECKLESS
 The countdown is on for Breakaway 2006! By now
you should have received your Resource Kits with music, teaching
outlines, and videos, so you can use them before and after
Breakaway. Rooms are going fast at our host hotel, so get 'em
while they last. Also, if you have reserved rooms that you will
not need, please turn them back to the hotel ASAP. We need to
free up as many as possible, especially the double rooms. We
would also appreciate it if you would call us at the
Regional
Resource
Center
and let us know.
If you need IBEX forms (for the rock
climbing late night activity) driving directions, schedules, evaluation
forms, or anything else from our information packets, click this link
to our regional website and you can get it all: http://www.openbiblecentral.org/Event/Breakaway/2006/default.asp
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Spotlight on: Asian Open
Bible, Des Moines, IA
On December 17th, the youth ministry at
the Asian
Open
Bible
Church
in Des Moines , IA , had a winter
concert and it was awesome! There were easily over 200 people
there, the place was packed, and the atmosphere was electric.
Chris Cavan who leads the youth at the church and also is a great
worship leader pulled it all together. The youth worship team
from their church led off the night and then they had a bunch of
"open mic" songs and a couple of raps thrown in. Then
the break dancing began and it was amazing. Darrick got the
chance to be there and share a message at the end. The night
concluded with more worship. It was a great night and showed that
God is up to something in the hearts of the youth at Asian Open
Bible. Props to Chris and Lucky for all of their work to make it
happen and all of the things they do for the youth at Asian Open Bible.
Got something big
going on in your student ministry? Let us know about it - we want
to pass it on.
centralregionyouth@yahoo.com
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