Welcome to my Blog!



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I'm a youth pastor in Southern California at a Nazarene church. I've been serving here for about 4 years. We have a large youth group of around 100 teens from all different cultures and backgrounds.

We merged with a Spanish church in January of 07 and our youth groups are now ONE! As of a little more than a year ago, I am working with a co-youth pastor named Javier. If you want to know more about me, you can read my very first blog post here.

I started this blog as a way to remember the amazing things that happen in my everyday life in ministry... the hilarious things that my teens say and do, the joys and victories, and the life stories of the amazing teenagers that are the future of our church, and our world. But I am also glad when it brings encouragement and joy to others. Feel free to leave your comments and let me know you're reading!

I am so blessed to be here, I love my teens... they are my heart!


And by the way...
at our church...
we speak 5 languages!!!
English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese and Gypsy! :)


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It's been a while...

9:50 AM at 9:50 AM

...things have been crazy over here. I write another blog as well, that you can see HERE. It's my photography blog, and it seems to have kept my writing brain busy lately.

Quite frankly, I haven't felt much like writing this one. There's so much that God has been doing and so many great things, but I've been tired... worn out... and needed a break. But today, I thought I'd share some things with you.

First, some funny stories... I know you all love those :)

We were talking in youth group about the "armor of God" from Ephesians. One of the teens looks at Javier and says, "Javi has the muscles of God." I'm sure that's a compliment but it sounds so funny!

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I was talking with several teens one Friday night about when they first came to youth group... they were sharing stories of how they first met me. One of the girls, after sitting quietly and listening to everyone else talk, says to me, "Did I ever meet you?"

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Javier was kind of teasing one of our junior high boys about his mustache that is starting to grow. He was saying how "mustaches get the girls," and things like that (remember, Javier has a mustache.) A few days later in youth group, we realized that this junior high boy was showing off his mustache to a new girl that had wandered in to youth group.

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We were talking to the kids about the Holy Spirit and how when you feel guilty about something, that's God talking to you. One of the kids says very excitedly, "Yeah! Before I was a Christian I would do something bad and not feel guilty about it. NOW I do something bad and I totally feel guilty!"

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During a discussion of where you'd go if you died (heaven or hell)... one of the kids says, "Who here is going to heaven TONIGHT???" I'm sure he meant if you were to die, but all of the kids kind of looked at him with this puzzled look.

I will try to do better at keeping up with this blog. So many funny, touching, and wonderful things happen in youth group on a regular basis. I have so much to write about, and yet there are days I just can't seem to find the words. I know God is good... all the time... even when things are hard and ministry is draining. The cool thing is that even when it's draining, there is so much JOY! I am blessed to do what I do.

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