Some Thoughts From Joel

OK, so last night brought some ideas to my head that I wanted to share with all of you as well as some good stuff that happened. We are still just learning together how all of these RAGE groups are going to work and we are hitting some bumps in the road, but nothing we can't fix! Last night I was able to lead a girl in our group to the LORD!!!! She felt the LORD was calling her to receive Him and that was awesome. I want to make sure she doesn't "fall through the cracks" and we disciple her on this new journey. I have a little booklet that I (or someone else) would be able to go through with her (it is six weeks)! I just don't want to pray the "prayer" with her and let her go; I want to make sure we help her along this new journey. Second, God is doing some awesome things in the lives of our teens and Satan is fighting hard against it. I am asking for your prayer in some decisions that need to be made, not only on a leadership level, but also some decisions that teens need to make.
I can't say I had a vision last night, but I can say that the LORD impressed something on my heart so strongly that it took me a long time to fall asleep and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Karolyn and I are going through "The Truth Project" right now with some people in our church. We had to make a committment to meet every Thursday Night from 6 till 9 PM (and that is huge for us with everything else we do). We have only had two classes and all I can think as we sit there and watch the video and discuss is how much the teens need this stuff (it is awesome)! The thing about this video series is that you can't just buy the materials and take people through it until you have gone through it yourself. My dream/vision was that after Karolyn and I were done with the class that we would lead a small group at our house of the RAGE groups leaders (since it will be good for you as well) and then when we were done the RAGE group leaders could take all of their teens through it. The material is meant to be done in a Small Group setting. I will talk more about this at our next YWT meeting that is on September 23rd from 7 till 8 PM at our house. See you then!
-Joel

YWT Meeting

Hello everyone, it has been a long time since I have posted anything on this blog and I think it is time to start again! The summer has been hectic, crazy, busy and fun. I enjoyed seeing a lot of your around for at least some of the summer and spending some time with your teens. This summer was a lot of fun and went way too fast like always, but I feel we did a good job of making sure we stayed focused on Discipleship but included plenty of time for fellowship. I think my favorite event that we have ever done was two weeks ago with our Back 2 School Bash! Your help with that event was amazing and it was successful in doing what we wanted it to do. This week for our first "normal" Wednesday Night we had 63 people, which is way more than we have ever had before. I am excited to see what happens with the RAGE groups and with our Wednesday Night format that we have right now. I look forward to talking through these things with you all at our next YWT meeting. We will be meeting at our house the Greenwood's house on September 23rd at 7 PM! The meeting will only last one hour and there will be time to hang out afterwards if we want to. Thanks for serving and helping.