A whole lot of stuff...

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. It was in my opinion a good holiday. It was nice to be able to spend the holidays with my family at home. I do wish that my sister and niece and brother in law could have been here. But they had to head to Calgary this year, which is only fair to the family they have out there. But hey a guy can be selfish when you have a niece as cute as mine. As an early Christmas gift my aunt and uncle came to church on Christmas eve for the first time. It was awesome to finally get them though the doors. I know that it is not a commitment to Christ but it is yet another step to God answering my prayers. I am believing and trusting that one day they will come to put their faith in Christ.

On a sad note my break is over. It is back to work as of tomorrow morning and back to getting all the youth stuff I have procrastinated on done. I love the youth stuff and it keeps me going. But the honest truth is that my other job is starting to wear on me. I still for the most part enjoy it, but there is so much more I could be doing with the youth if I but had the time.
Well, this I do know I am where God wants me and when the time comes I will be full time and my family will come to Christ. Until then I will follow the path that God has put me on to completion.
To all my friends out there I pray you had a Merry Christmas and I hope to talk to you all soon.

Music..what do you think?

As a youth pastor there is one inescapable influence upon young people today. That is music. In fact I am willing to say that music is one of the most powerful tools for spreading a message in this day and age of MP3 players and Ipods. It is so powerful that preferred styles are often used to define friendships, churches, and social groups.
In seeing this influence on young people today I am always asking my youth and friends what kind of music they are listening to. Not so much as to figure out what is new and what people like but to see what kind of message and influence it has. Now I am not a solid believer that all music must be Christian to be good. But I am amazed at the music many Christians listen to. Songs full of lyrics that speak directly again what the Bible speaks of. Words that glorify premarital sex, drugs, and many other things that as Christians we claim to be against. Yet I know of many Christian leaders that listen and support these artists because they like the sound or in the name of freedom. But is is really, as Paul would say, beneficial? In fact I know many Christians that publicly mock Christian music and artists that are trying to put out positive messages.
Now I agree that listening to a song is not going to send you to hell. But is it really helping you in your walk with God? What about the message we send others? I guess the real questions I am asking for you opinions on are:
1. What do you see as a line between Godly music/fun music/ungodly music?
2. Is the sound or style more important than the lyrics to you?
3. Can negative lyrics actually have an effect on a person?

Let me know I am curious.

You gotta love the snow...

So I woke up this morning and looked outside and it was white. I love the snow.....I just want to leave it with that. I love snow!!

Opportunity knocks...

So it is looking like I am going to be getting an awesome opportunity. Corwin is hooking me up with the BCJHL head chapel. We are going to discuss some ways that I can get involved with our local hockey team the Millionaires. If everything works out I will end up being the team chapel.
The reason I am so pumped about this is that not only is it an opportunity to get involved with the lives of the players but also the members of the community that support them. Our town has a lot of business men and women that devote huge amounts of time to the team. There is also a huge fan base of teens that live eat and breathe the Millionaires during the hockey season. It is almost impossible to connect with most of these people because they are always involved with team events. Now I will be there to connect with them in their environment. Which all us youth ministry guys know is the best place to minister to people.
The long and short of it is that I am very excited about this opportunity to get involved with something of this nature in our community that will help raise awareness of Christ at the same time.

Home.. Just where is it anyways

Ok, for the past 6yrs I have lived in 4 different communities for varying amounts of time. This has given me a bit of an identity crisis. By that I mean, I live in Quesnel, love Quesnel and see myself living nowhere else for the foreseeable future. Yet when talking to others I sometimes refer to Williams Lake as home, understandable because I was born and raised there and lived there for 24yrs before ever leaving. But when I am in Williams Lake I always refer to Quesnel as home. Then to top it off this thanksgiving weekend I went to Kamloops and was visiting my sis, bro-in-law, and niece (who is by the way the cutest little girl in the world bar none) and I found myself thinking it is so nice to home. What makes this so weird I had never been there before. My sister and brother just built the place and it was my first visit.
I have since pondered this and have come to a personal conclusion that home is truly where your heart it. And if you choose to love an area or group of people you will be at home. God has placed a burden and love for Quesnel in my heart and because of that it is home. I also love my family and therefore even when I am not physically in my apartment I can feel like I am at home in another town.
Home is a place where one feels safe, loved and empowered. Makes me wonder should we take more time to make people feel at home at church? And if we do take that time what would church end up looking like? Just some random thoughts I felt like sharing. I believe the answer will be different for everyone.

History Pt. 1

So, I guess the best way to start off this blog is to share some history. I am a bi-vocational youth Pastor in the city of Quesnel B.C. How I can to be here is a long story but I will give you the readers digest version. I graduated from Summit Pacific College a little over 2yrs ago. After grad I was pumped and ready to get out there and minister to the students of what ever city God called me too. I was offered several positions in the following year, yet everytime I wanted to say, "yes" I felt God tell me, "no." This was a very frustrating time for both myself and others around me, as they could not understand why I kept saying no to what seemed to be where I belonged.
Well, after a year of searching for where God wanted me and not finding it I was presented with a not so great sound proposal. The associate pastor at my home church in Williams Lake was accepting a Sr position in Quesnel and needed a Youth Pastor. Now this is great sounding at the moment, a position with a Sr. Pastor I have worked with before and respect, in a town only one and half hours from home. But the catch was that they could not pay me at all and the church was a seniors church with only 3 youth in the church (including the Sr. Pastors kids). Yet I knew instantly that this was where I was meant to go. God had held me back because he had a plan for me that I requested.
You see when I became a Christian 11 years ago, I prayer a certain prayer that never left my heart. I prayed for the chance to minister to my younger cousins about the love of Christ. You see they live in Quesnel and just happen to be the ages of 14 and 15 when I moved here. God was faithfully answering a prayer from 10yrs before. It is amazing how God does that, just when you think something is impossible he makes it happen.
So the next hurtle was to find a job seeing as I would need a source of income. I got one morning and as I got ready for work I prayed "God help me find a job, I hate job hunting." That morning as I was working away the owner of the company I was working for came up to me and asked if I needed a job in Quesnel. Yet again God came though in a miracle. Long story short I got a job that I had no experience at and do to the grace of God have begun to excel at.
God has taught me the power of prayer and of his timing though all of this. God makes things happen in his power and when we wait upon his power we will find great contentment. Never before in my life have I felt so secure in where I am and what I am doing. I know with out a doubt I am where God wants me. I am so thankful that I waited for his timing instead of running out in my own strength to make something happen
Now a year later, we have a youth group of about 35 students, mostly outreach teens from non-Christian backgrounds, who have begun to come to Christ. It is known as Quest Youth and is led by an amazing group of student leaders that are doing a great job of reaching out in their schools. But those are some stories for Pt. 2 of what God has been doing in Quesnel and my life.

It is a good day

I am not sure what this blog is going to look like yet. I look and read others and they seem to have themes and a direction. It is safe to tell you this blog will be much like myself, abstract and random. I am not much of a writer but I feel a desire to write my experiences in ministry and life. My hope is that this can be a place of encouragement for friends, a place where I can share my heart. Well that is enough of my rambling for now, I am sure much will follow soon.