Stepping Up: A Call to Courageous Manhood

I recently finished reading Stepping Up by Dennis Rainey. Our Men’s Ministry has been using the DVD curriculum and discussion guide based on the book. My ministry responsibilities have caused me to miss several weeks of our gatherings, however, during the weeks I was able to be present, the DVDs and discussion were excellent. My suggestion to our Men’s Ministry was to have a longer time during our gatherings for the discussion questions.

The book was a good read, a great picture of how men can be influential in each phase of their life, and a challenging call for men to embrace their God-given calling to step up as leaders. My only minor critique is that when there is talk of parenting it focusses almost exclusively on raising boys. As a father of daughters I would have liked some content geared toward fathering girls.

Rock Sr. High Bowling

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Jr. High Students Serving Our Community

Here are some pics of our awesome Jr. High Students serving at La Jornada in Queens 2 weeks ago. They prepared food and sorted food for distribution for those in need in Queens. So proud of them!

Simply Youth Ministry Conference Day 4 and Team Feedback

Today we wrapped up the Simply Youth Ministry Conference 2013. It was such a great weekend. I was so happy to have shared it with some of our awesome adult youth leaders. I am grateful to Shelter Rock Church for caring enough about our students to invest in high quality training for our volunteers. Over lunch today we shared our learnings with each other. I then asked each person to summarize how they were feeling after the weekend. Here are the words they used: Refreshed, Ready, Knowledgeable, Full, Reoriented, Amazed, and Home. They also expressed how they want all of our team to go to the conference next year. We are going t take a week to unpack and summarize our learnings, then on Sunday we are going to have a volunteer lunch and each person will share with the team members who were unable to go so that we all benefit. 

Team with Josh Griffin

Danielle and Julia with DJ Promote
Ady and me with DJ Promote

Simply Youth Ministry Conference Day 3 and a Visit From Mom and My Sister

Kurt Johnston teaching
Our newest nephew

With my sister Naomi’s kids

With Mom, Naomi, her husband Mike and their kids

Kung Fu Fighting with Uncle Kevin

Yankees Fan like Uncle Kevin and Mommy

Margaret Feinberg speaking

DJ Promote

All Sons and Daughters

Simply Youth Ministry Conference Day 2

Jordan Howerton Band
Rick Lawrence
Jon Acuff

With our friends Darren and Katie Sutton

Our team with Rick Lawrence

Our team with Jason Ostrander
Our team with Group founders Thom and Joni Schultz
Danette Matty
Our team with Kurt Johnston

John Stumbo
Lecrae