Don't see this everyday...

Saturday some friends of mine, Brendon Burrell (L) & Charles Thacker (R), went Gator hunting.  They caught a 12'11" Aligator that weighed around 600 pounds.  I hear it's one of the largest gators caught in AR history.  It took them over 4 hours to wear it down and kill it.  They said it pulled their little flat bottom boat all over the place.  Pretty amazing!  Charles also is our Sr. Boys Small Group leader, this made for some great discussion starter Sunday Morning.

Watch this...

The world is changing fast and how we communicate and interact is changing.  Check out this video, I have seen this video on several blogs and on YouTube.



Very interesting and thought provoking.

It's Your Year Series - week 3

Last night at h2o I continued our series, "It's Your Year..."  Last night I spoke on how "It's Your Year to Lead."  I preached out of Daniel 1 and looked at how Daniel was a leader in a very difficult situation.  I told students if you want to lead you must:
1. Be Grounded - have a firm foundation in your relationship with Christ so you will not let the little things harm your relationship with God. 
2.  Prove Yourself - when's the last time your proved your relationship with God by telling someone to watch you?  If you want to lead it will take time for you to prove it.
3.  Be the Best - If you are going to lead, be the best you can be and set yourself apart from others.

A lot of people want to lead but few become leaders.  You can lead but it's not a position or an appointment and it doesn't happen over night.  It was a night that the Word went forth and impacted lives.  I talked with several students about their relationship with God after it was over.  I love seeing students let the Word impact their lives!

Doug Fields steps down from Saddleback Staff

Doug Fields has been the Student Pastor at Saddleback Church in California for the past 18 years and has built/grown a ministry that has/is impacting thousands of students.  He has also been a great leader and friend to Student Pastors all across America and beyond.  He is a great man of God that has been used powerfully at his local church and to influence Student Ministry as a whole.  Here is a link to what is going on in his life as he transitions to a new phase in his life.  It's neat to see how Pastor Rick Warren, the church leadership team and the congregations are very supportive of what God is doing in his life.  Read about it (click here)  The Story...

What a great guy that God is still using to grow the Kingdom.

Sunday @ Beech Street

God continues to allow us to impact lives each and every week.  I'm so proud of our Small Groups and they way they are reaching out to people.  It's fun to see all the new faces connecting with a Small Group.  Our Faithworks (discipleship) is going extremely well.  Sara and I are teaching "The Five Love Languages."  We have a large class and they are a lot of fun.  We laugh a lot and learn a lot together.  All of our other teachers are doing great with their classes as well.

This Sunday Pastor Craig started a new series called, "Identity."  He is looking at what we believe.  Yesterday he talked about "God."  Check it out on our Beech Street Website www.beechstreetfbc.org

Week 2 of "It's Your Year"

Last night Rob preached part 2 of our series, "It's Your Year." He message was title, "Upgrade." He spoke on growing in your walk with Christ. He challenged students to want more out of their lives and to "upgrade" their walk with Christ. He led students through scripture pointing out how to grow and the importance of growing. I always love when it's invitation time, because our students are sensitive to the Word going into their lives. We also had one student that accepted Christ last night and another that is searching out God's plan for his life. Pray that he to will soon accept Christ.

Not only is it neat to see what God is doing in students lives, but also to see how God is growing Rob as a communicator. He did a great job sharing the Word. He has come a long way in the past year and the growth in his life is evident as well.

Just one of those encouraging nights as a leader to watch how God is using people under my leadership and growing them and moving them forward in their lives as well. One of those nights where you get...can I say it...warm fuzzy feelings about how God has used you in other peoples lives.

Pop Culture...did you know?

Maybe the hottest thing in Pop Culture right now is what Kanye West did to Taylor Swift at the VMA Awards on MTV Sunday Night. Didn't see it? Here it is (there is a 30sec add at the front before it come up).

MTV Shows

Later in the show Beyonce actually won the Best Video of the Year Award and called Taylor Swift back out on stage to finish her speech that Kanye stole from her. CAUTION: Beyonce's clothing is very revealing (again another 30sec add at the beginning of this one also).

MTV Shows

Then Tuesday night Kanye appeared on "The Tonight Show" with Jay Leno and offered this apology (another 30sec ad prior to video).

MTV Shows

This is the culture we seem to live in. It's sad that we no longer seem to respect people. We don't have to agree but there are a lot better ways to disagree then being rude. The sad truth is this is what kids and teenagers all over are watching and in most cases reenacting. Sad but true. As a Parent I encourage you to know what your teenagers are listening to and watching. Be engaged in the way they treat other people. Parent's be engaged in culture, because kids and teenagers are.

Faithworks kickoff

Sunday night we kicked off our Fall Semester of Faithworks. Faithworks is our discipleship strategy that takes place each Sunday Night from 5:00-6:00pm. Instead of having another worship service on Sunday night we provide another avenue for people to grow in their own personal walk with Christ.

We offer a wide variety of classes for people to chose from: How to handle your finances, a "Discover Beech Street" class for those visiting and new members which is always led by our Pastor, we switch up classes on marriage/family and parenting, Beth Moore class, focused in-depth Bible study classes and more. Plus we do all our Children's Choirs during this time. For Teenagers we offer Leadership Tracks: Worship Band, Puppet Ministry, Praise Team and a growth/study class. On the third Sunday of each month we offer a meal immediately following the Faithworks classes at 6:00pm. We charge a very minimal amount, yet it's very fun for everyone to get together and fellowship. Then as a point of rest for everyone on the last Sunday of each month we have what is called a "Green Night." These are nights when we have no church activities.

This has proved to be a very successful model for us. This past Sunday night we got of to a great start with a huge crowd of people plugged into these various classes. It looks to be a great semester for us.

Great start to the Fall

Sunday was a great start to our fall ministry here at Beech Street. I'm amazed by how many visitors God is bringing to our church each and every week. I believe it's a testimony to very productive ministry being done, of which our lay leadership is a huge part of this taking place.

Sunday Pastor Craig preached a vision message and talked about two main things:

1) New Day Campaign:
Our new day campaign will work to remodel and improve our facilities. Our Preschool & Children's area will be receiving a very nice face lift. It will look very kid friendly and be rearrange to better meet the needs of this ministry. Also our Preschool will be gaining a much needed update. Another element is our h2o student ministry will be relocating our worship room. This will allow for added growth in this ministry. Our Sr. Adult area will be updated to better meet their needs and accessibility. Finally, our Adult Small Group area will undergo a redesign to allow us to add more Small Group classes.

2)A 2nd worship service
Pastor Craig shared the vision to launch a second worship service. This service would be done in the same area we will be moving our student service. The area would double for student ministry and for our 2nd service. It would have a completely different feel and worship experience from our current service, but would still hear Pastor Craig via video/simulcast. I believe it will allow us to reach a people that are not currently being reached in Texarkana for Christ.

There are a lot of exciting things launching right now at Beech Street! It's a great time to be apart of what God is doing here. I will blog tomorrow about the huge kickoff to our Sunday Night discipleship ministry called, Faithworks. Wow, we had a lot of people here growing in their walk with Christ.

New Series @ h2o

Last night I began a brand new series at h2o called, "It's Your Year." Over 4 weeks we will be challenging students to make this year like no other year in their life this far. Rob and I will be team teaching this series and I kicked it off. I preached on "It's Your Year...To Transform." Yes, we did play off of the Transformers movies. I preached out of Acts 9 on how Saul's life was Transformed. We looked at how Saul fought against God, and asked the question "Are we destroying the name of Christ or Building up the name of Christ. Secondly we looked at how we each must be Transformed by a personal encounter with Jesus. Finally we talked about how once you've had a real encounter with Jesus it radically changes you, I asked the question "when has anyone been 'baffled' by what God has done in your life." You find that in Acts 9:22.

The just of the message was you must change...Transform your life if you are going to have a year like no other year in your life. For some that means salvation for others that mean refocusing your life on Christ. It was a powerful night and several students talked with me after about how they could Transform their lives.

Below is a video we shot that I used toward the beginning of my message.

Vote on who will win Tigers vs. Razorbacks!!!

vs

The big State Line Game of Texarkana Texas Tigers vs. Texarkana Arkansas Razorbacks is Friday Night. It's all on the the line for bragging rights.

Who will WIN the State Line Battle?

• Arkansas
• Texas
• Tie

View Results
Create a Blog Poll

Rob's 1 year Anniversary

Rob has officially served at Beech Street for 1 year, the actual date was September 7th. Rob has been a great asset to our team. Robs strengths are his creativity and his relational skills. He is on the school campuses almost daily at lunches and heavily involved in student lives. He has been a great help to me in expanding our reach to teenagers. With him here it has also allowed me to be more hands on with our adult ministry.

I appreciate Rob's heart to see more people reach for the Kingdom, and the incredible job he does serving along side you and me as we seek to reach people in Texarkana.

Kickoff Night

Our AWANA ministry kicked off Wednesday night. Emily Smith, our Children's Minister, did a great job organizing the event and getting kids signed up for this year. The parents signed their kids up and they had a huge shaving cream fight and met their leaders. Emily had over 95 kids here for the kick off. Great job Emily & AWANA workers!


h2o student ministry continues to grow as well each week now that school has begun. Last night I finished up my series, "high quality h2o," looking at what h2o is all about. I preached on "Reproducing" what God has done in your life in someone else life. I finished preaching on John 4:27-42.

God continues to grow both our Children & Student Ministries each week. It's neat to see new families connecting with Beech Street through these ministries.

h2o YouTube Challenge - Part 2

If you missed the previous post check it out and the video we put together for the h2o YouTube Challenge. (click here to read it or scroll down)

We are very passionate about reaching more people for Christ here at h2o and God has greatly blessed our ministry. Due to some major space limitations we are not able to do any major outreach efforts on Wednesday nights since we already pack that room out each week. So instead of doing our outreach focus on Wednesday nights this fall we are moving it to our Small Group Ministry on Sunday Mornings. Our goal is to see more students connected with a Small Group on a weekly basis as a result of the h2o YouTube Challenge. Plus this will be a lot of fun.

So how does it work and how did we organize it?

Important Dates:

August 16th: Inform Student Ministry Volunteers of the idea and basic instructions for the YouTube Challenge.

August 26th: Issue the YouTube Challenge to students via video at h2o live,
Wednesday night.

August 30th: Issue the same challenge via video in h2o Small Group

September 27th: Due date for the Videos from the h2o Small Groups.

October 2nd: Upload YouTube Videos to YouTube on our ministry YouTube Page. Show a group’s video in Bible Study. (www.youtube.com/h2otexarkana)

October 4th: Show a group’s YouTube Video in h2o Small Group.

October 11th: Show a group’s YouTube Video in h2o Small Group.

October 18th: Show a group’s YouTube Video in h2o Small Group.

October 25th: Announce the YouTube Challenge Winners!!!
(possibly have 1st, 2nd & 3rd prizes)

Show a Groups video each Wednesday Night.

YouTube Challenge Guidelines:
Time Limit: Videos should not exceed 2-3 minutes
(although creativity trumps time limits)

Content: All content must promote the h2o small groups on Sunday Morning at 9:15am, and should be clean and reflect a positive mentality about involvement in our Student Ministry. We will watch and censor any videos that we deem to be inappropriate.

Editing: The groups are required to edit their own YouTube Videos. We will not aid or edit anything for you. See programs like “iMovie” or “AVS Video Editor”. They are free and easy to use.

Remember: This is a YouTube Video, not a professionally edited and directed movie. Make it good, but don’t be a perfectionist, you will ruin the fun nature of the project.

Final Format: You may turn your video in on a Jump Drive, or a DVD. Please call with questions.

Completion Date: Your group’s video needs to be turned in on or before September 27th!!!

Uploading: We will watch and up-load all YouTube Challenge submissions. Please don’t upload the video yourself or it will not be eligible for the challenge.

How do we win?
We will upload every group’s YouTube Challenge Submission on October 2nd for the whole world to see. Whichever Group’s YouTube Video receives more “hits” by the end of October 22nd by 11:59pm will win the YouTube Challenge!!!

We modified this to fit our ministry from an event done by Brian Mills. Gotta love sharing ministry ideas with your brother! Check out his blog to see what he's up to. If you're a staff member at a church I suggest reading his blog often.