Sunday Mornings we have a service that we call TNT. It's our service that is more contemporary and aimed at teens, college students and young adults. We have loud, upbeat worship and then when it's time for the sermon, the show the main service sermon on a big screen. Javier and I are the pastors in the TNT service.

Last Sunday, as the service started, there was something not right. We were having sound issues, people were distracted and the worship was off. So a couple of songs into it, I stopped the service. We stopped and prayed together and asked God to take away the distractions and be in the midst of the service. Then we started again.

And the service was amazing.

It's so cool to see how God continually answers prayer, and continually shows up at church with us :)

I was looking around during the sermon at the array of different people in the service. A large portion of that service is made up of teens. And as much as we have emphasized the fact that this is NOT a teen service, I got to thinking... how many of these teens would be in church at all if we didn't have this service? I came to the conclusion that even if the service never grows... even if it stays EXACTLY where it is now (which I don't believe it will), it is worth the work that has gone into it, because it is accomplishing a lot. It is reaching people that quite possibly wouldn't be in church otherwise.

...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.

I almost feel like just leaving it at that and not even telling you the story behind this picture...

...almost...

...but I like to talk :)

This is Sarah (our intern) and Daniel (one of our teens). This is what Daniel did to Sarah instead of just saying "hello" like a normal person.

But that is why we love our kids...

...they're hands on...

...and they seem to have this weird obsession with hair... anyone know if there is a medical term for that?

We have a service called TNT (the Next Thing). It is our alternative service, and while it is not a TEEN service, a lot of the people in it are teens. The whole point is to "come as you are"... for people off the street to walk in and feel comfortable however they come. This is what I saw on Sunday:

To some people... that may be offensive.

Personally, I think its awesome :)

Sunday morning... after the service was over... you cant tell from the picture, but a few of the kids were actually jumping and dancing... it was pretty cool :)

...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!