I asked Jesus into my heart when I was 4 years old. It's hard for me to remember a time when I didn't believe in God. Even the short period of my life when I wasn't serving God, I still believed He existed... I was just mad at him. So it's hard for me to imagine how some of these teens feel... the ones that don't believe in God.

There's one teen in particular that came to our youth group because some of our teens were evangelizing on their own at the grocery store down the street. Several months later, this teen is an active member of our youth group. When he came to us, he said he was an atheist. He has since decided he believes in God, but he wants to see a miracle before he'll accept God. He has a plan to put himself in a box... and see if God gets him out. We've been talking to him about how you shouldn't test God, and trying to work through some things with him.

The other night, he was talking to pastor Orlando...

***Side note: I think it is the COOLEST thing that our teens are comfortable enough to go to our senior pastors (or any other pastor on staff) and talk to them about their lives... their problems... the things they're doing... or just what they like to do. We are blessed to have pastors that show interest in our teens. It seems to me that most youth groups are kind of shunned in churches, but ours has been embraced. It's made all the difference in the world.

...so the other night he was talking to Pastor Orlando, who told him that God says the only place we can test him is with our finances. After having this conversation, the teen emptied his pockets, handed Javier about 15 cents and said "That's all I have but God can have it." Needless to say, it was hand delivered directly to the offering.

We've also started taking offering in our youth services and teaching the kids about giving and being a part of a WHOLE church... not just a youth group.

Sunday morning, one of our teens chased my dad down with a handful of money and said, "I need to give my faith promise! Is there somewhere I can do that?" Our teens are starting to see what it means to really give God 100% of your WHOLE life... even when it's not a lot. I think God sees these things and just beams with joy... I know I do!

Here's a funny video that was sent to me today that goes along with this:

...although typical for us...

...is really not typical at all :)

We have a service called TNT. Basically it is an alternative service that happens at the same time as our main service. It is held in the gym where it's dark, the worship music is loud, we have coffee and doughnuts and it's much more laid back and relaxed. One of the things about this service is that it requires a lot of set up. And right now, our teens are doing most of that.

Sometimes it's hard to remember that they are still teenagers...

...but they always have a way of reminding us:


I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from Sunday:
This is our "alter". It's a cross.

...and I guess that's our fault because we took them to one.

One of the things that is cool about the Nazarene Denomination is that we have a university... several actually... but the one that our district is connected with is Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California. It's actually where I went to college and it's a great school.

Once a year, they have something called Preview Days. It's a chance for kids from the Nazarene churches to go and check out the school. They stay in the dorms, eat in the caf, go to a chapel and a class and if they're seniors, they do their admissions interview. The school also does some other fun activities for the kids while they're there. This year, we took 7 teens down. It was quite an adventure. Things like this are always fun when we have a smaller group of kids because we really get to have fun with them and get to know them better.

I have some kind of funny stories... but I thought I'd share a few pictures also! So enjoy!

This was on the way down.
I was driving.
We decided to have a contest to see who could blow the biggest bubble...
This was mine.
I didn't like Crystal's... so I popped it :)This is me and one of my boys (Kyle) at a rest stop on the way there.


This is Isaac.
He's super cool.
But you might notice something kind of odd...
He's wearing fake eyelashes...
And they're on his eyeLIDs...
We love him :)
This is the Greek Amphitheatre (with the ocean in the background!). It's kind of famous at PLNU.This is the baseball field (in the background) and the track. Notice the ocean again?This is me and Javier... he is "hexing" me.
I don't know why.
Some of us down by the cliffs... this is actually on PLNU's campus!
This was taken on our way back up the cliffs... you wouldn't believe how many different versions of this picture we have with all of us trying to get in on it!
This video is from our hike back up the cliffs. The teens headed up the way we came down. Then Javier took the "easy way" and told me to try it.
I did.
It wasn't so easy.
I got stuck.
The teens laughed. And videotaped. And this is what happened.

We really enjoyed the time at PLNU, but before we knew it, it was time to head back home. We got on the road and decided to take our time... so we pulled off at a gas station (mostly because there was a lot of traffic and I panicked :) and then we decided to head to the beach for a while.

Remember Isaac?
We love him.

As soon as we got to the beach, the boys ran up this sand hill and posed for a picture:
...Then they pushed each other off of it...
Typical boys.

Shirley, me and Crystal... the only girls that went. We had fun!
There's a lot of love in our youth group :)I'd like to take this moment to thank God for Javier. Because before he came along, the boys did this to me... now he takes them on:
Don't worry... no teens were harmed in the making of this blog...
The next stop was the McDonald's dollar menu...
There are no words...
I'm really not sure about them sometimes... but they sure think they're funny.
One of the jokes that started circulating (i don't know how) is they would come up to me and say "Diandra my arm is swollen!" and then flex their bicep. At McDonald's it got taken to a whole new level... "Diandra, I have a headache":
We stopped at a Rest Area on the way back. The kids were making Sims of all of our teens... it was pretty funny! They were playing with the little Sims, and I hear Crystal say,
"Is that a hamster? Or a dog?"
:)We returned home safely and all the kids had a good time. I am reminded again about how wonderful my teens are and how cool my job is :)

...I've had one since Wednesday night in youth group.

This might explain it:



Because at any given time on Wednesday night before and after the worship service... there are 4 or more balls flying through the air. For some reason, they all seem to end up at one central point: my head.

We've got a group of teens that have started a worship band. The band plays on Wednesday nights before we teach. We've been talking to them a lot about how important their role is. They lead people in worship, and really set the tone for the rest of the service, and for what God is going to say through the message.

Sometimes we talk and talk and it sure seems like it goes in one ear and out the other.

On Wednesday night I realized that sometimes, it sticks.

The kids were kind of messing around during worship, so right in the middle of it, Isaac, our guitar player, stops playing and gives the youth group quite a lesson. I quickly pulled out my phone when I realized where it was going and caught most of it on tape:



It's a little hard to hear, but he basically says that it inst about how they sound, God doesn't care, He just wants us to worship Him. He goes on to say, who cares if you look silly or if people look at you, sing, dance, raise your hands, whatever... just worship God. (that's a bit of a paraphrase :)

Here is the official camp video from summer camp this year... I know it's a few weeks late, but I wanted to put it up here :)

I'm not really sure who reads my blog.

Occasionally someone will comment to me about something I've written in it... or mention that they read it, but I really don't have a clue who actually reads it (or if anyone does...). I know my mom does :)

But I've had a couple of my other youth pastor friends mention that they've read it, so today I'm hoping they are cuz this is for YOU!

This is a video from the skit guys. They're AMAZING and hilarious! I saw this today on another blog that I occasionally read for ideas... and I was cracking up. I think I literally can name a kid from my youth group that is like each of these characters! If you're a youth pastor, you probably can too :) Even if you arent a youth pastor, this is pretty funny... its kind of long, but stick it out.

***And if you read my blog... I'd really like to know. I know its hard to leave comments, but shoot me an email or something... I'd be interested to know who actually checks it out :)

We recently started a youth worship band.

We are sooo blessed to have wonderful volunteers because neither me or Javier is musical. So every Tuesday night our volunteers run our youth band practice.

We walked into the gym the other night and watched for a few minutes as the kids practiced. I realized that there were like 10 teens hanging out on a Tuesday night doing band practice. It hit me that when I started as the youth pastor here, I didn't even have that many on a Wednesday night... and now here on a Tuesday are these kids practicing for the youth band!!! It absolutely blew me away and I was once again reminded of how INCREDIBLY blessed I am!

Here is what we saw:



Here is part of the band playing on Wednesday night (we were missing our drummer):

Have you ever wondered what happens to all of the snacks and drinks that are left over from overnighters?

Some of our boys found some 2-liters of sodas that were left in a cooler from an overnighter a couple months ago.

This is what they did:
(by the way, one of my teens grabbed my phone and taped it... its not me you hear egging them on... at least not this time :)

So I thought I'd share a couple more videos from the past that crack me up!

As I've mentioned before, I have a co-youth pastor named Javier. He has a 15 year old son named Javier Jr (Javvy). Javvy is a riot. He has so much personality and is just a kick in the pants!

He is also a bit of a clown, and likes to pick fights with his dad. Here are a couple of clips of those... from trying to tackle him and take him down, to trying to start fights... just a typical day.









and this one... oh man, this one cracks me up (you can even hear me laughing in the background)... We were going out to go home after locking up the church after youth group... and, well, I don't think it needs anymore explanation...


These crack me up, so I thought I'd share them with you!

I'll leave you with a story... I got knocked down playing games in the gym after youth group a few weeks ago, and Javvy, being the gentleman that he is, came to help me get up. But instead of really helping me get up, he got me up just enough to leg swipe me and knock me right back down. It was quite hilarious and I sat there and laughed for a while... wish I had that on tape :)

I tell you all of these stories about getting thrown around and beat up by my kids, but really they have a lot of respect for me :) I just enjoy playing around with them. They are serious when they need to be and know when to stop. I really have a wonderful group of kids! I am very glad to have the relationships and friendships with them that I do!

...actually, yesterday was far from typical.

One of the things that we do at our church is something called a brunch service. Actually two of them. About 4 times a year, we forgo our regular church services and instead we set up tables in the gym and serve brunch. While people are finishing their food, we actually have a service! We do this once at 9 and again at 10:30. Since we merged with the Spanish church about a year ago, we've been doing a combined service at 10:30. Basically we do everything in both English and Spanish so we can all worship together. For instance, the Spanish worship team played songs in Spanish, but we put the words on the screen in English so everyone could sing along. Then we had a short drama that was done in English, but the words were on the screen in Spanish. Then Pastor Rollie preached in English and Pastor Orlando translated it into Spanish. Yesterday was one of these services. Here are a couple of clips so you can see what it's like:





As usual, they were cracking me up. Chrisha (one of the girls) is absolutely hilarious! ALL THE TIME! We were sitting at a table and the kids were rowdy and I said to them, "You guys are out of control!" And she looked at me so very seriously and said, "We're not out of control, you're just in control!" After the service, I headed out to hang out with some of the teens. We hung out for a while at the mall. They are so random and do things completely unprovoked. Like passing out mall maps to random people:



We did a little shopping at the mall...

Chrisha made a new friend:
after hugging her new friend and posing for a picture, she looked at me and said, "She doesn't have a head!"

Even the boys got in on the shopping:

We ran into a couple of the other teens while at the mall and decided to head over and get some pizookies at BJ's. When I discovered that a couple of them had NEVER had a pizookie, I taped their first bites (I am my mother's daughter! :)



At one point during our BJ's trip... I walked outside to meet a couple of the teens, and Daniel decided it would be funny to pour salt in my water. So he did. And when I came back in they were saying everything they could think of to get me to drink the water... and I just wouldn't drink it! Finally Chrisha said, "My water tastes funny", so I took a nice big long drink of mine. SURPRISE!

Just a typical day's work :)
I'll be sharing some more funny stories and videos from the past that I've had on my computer over the next couple of days... I'll probably have some new ones for you too!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd taken some teens to the beach this week.

Ministry (especially youth ministry) is about so much more than teaching the teens twice a week. We run a relational ministry. Javier and I both spend a lot of time one on one and in small group settings with the teens. We do things purposely to go where they are. We take them lunch at their schools, we take them to eat and do fun things. The whole point is to build relationships with the teens. And I honestly enjoy it so much! I really truly love these kids! And I enjoy spending time with them.

So I had kids on spring break this last week... so I took a few kids to the beach one day. I thought I'd share a couple videos... cuz they're always fun!!!






If you remember from my earlier blog... I talked about how they tried to throw me into the ocean... You can see a little bit of them doing that to each other in these clips.

This is my job.

I am the luckiest person in the WORLD!!!

:)

...To Chrisha!

Last week Chrisha's birthday fell on Friday night (which is when we have girl's and boy's Bible study), but she came anyway. She hung around for a while afterwards, and after most of the teens were gone, Javier got creative and make her a "birthday cupcake". Check it out: