Every road that leads to God leads to awe.

Hi everyone!

I am so sorry this update has taken so long! It's been a crazy and rough couple of weeks. The weekend of Father's Day I headed home to visit my family for the first time by myself! Two hours south of Dallas I got a flat tire. Booo. So that was no fun. But it was super fun being home and seeing my family! We got to hang out and go fishing. :) And then I got notification from the financial aid department that I will not have everything covered financially like I have the past two years, I'm not going to go into details, but I am having to figure out living situations and job situations and that's no fun. Then I locked my keys in my car. but that was my fault, so I can't blame the universe. And finally, this past Monday, my car broke down in my job's parking lot. My fantastic Uncle was able to fix it on Saturday and I drove it all weekend, and then it broke down again today. We'll get it figured out though. Needless to say, I am so over being an adult right now. :) 
 
Anyway, all that to say that I'm really sorry that this update has taken so long, please keep me in your prayers, but I'm excited to fill you in on the happenings of Teen Ministry! :) This is a long one!

Our classes have been going so well! The title of this post is actually something Ronnie says during class frequently that I love and has stuck with me. Thanks Ronnie! :) Two weeks ago, we started thinking about and preparing sermons that we gave this past Monday. They were short, at just 5 minutes, but it was an amazing experience. We each were to pick a section from Mark to talk about and give some points on. We had a certain style of formatting that we learned that was so helpful. We all came up with three points that we gleaned from our text. It was an incredible growth experience. I chose to speak about Mark 11:20-25. Go read it! It's so good. It really demonstrates the power of Christ and what He's willing to do for us. I'll give you a little outline. I gathered three action points from Jesus about what it takes to have "Prayer that Moves Mountains,": 

1.  Have Faith. Do not doubt. Trust in the Lord with your whole heart. Understand that what happens is in His control and out of your hands. Trust in his plans for you. Whether the answer to your prayers is a yes or no. Just have Faith. 

2. Believe that you will receive. Don't believe that God is a wish-granting fairy that will give you everything you ask. But believe that you will receive His Best. Because that's what He wants for you, the best. Not your every whim and desire. I could only imagine what my life would be like if everything I've ever prayed for came to be. Thanks be to God that He knows what is best for me. 

4. Forgive. Forgiveness isn't something that I typically think about every time I go to pray, and I need to think about why that is. Everyday I should ask myself, "Is there someone that I need to forgive today? Do I need to seek forgiveness today?" Forgive one another is what The Lord commands of us. It's not optional. God granting our prayers when we haven't forgiven others is like a parent rewarding a child for bad behavior. It just doesn't make sense. 

These are all things that I have learned from analyzing scripture and putting together my sermon. It really gave me a new lens through which to look at scripture. Instead of just reading in my quiet times and not absorbing much, every part of scripture that I read I can ask my self what three points I could gain from this. Everyone else did so fantastic with their sermons! Hearing everyone coming from so many different places with so many different points and ideas was an invaluable experience.

During my Sermon. It was a rough day, excuse the weird face. :)

John's classes have been equally as impactful, We've continued to go through our book. I love that we get to talk about super practical things, such as budgeting and being Christ-like in our workplace. John has such a vast wealth of knowledge when it comes to Teen Ministry, it's so great to hear him speak and get advice. John does this really neat thing where we go over some leadership axioms. Here are just a few that we've discussed: 

Be a fool for God, not cool for God

Ask the question

Think Pastorally 

People won't always live up to your expectations, but they will almost always live down to them. 

Our Sunday Night Teen Group has been so fun! One week we played a hilarious game called "Rock, Paper, Scissors Battle" and the week before last we played this equally as hilarious game that I don't know the name of. Basically, everyone got a balloon and had to try to pop everyone else' balloon. Last one standing won. Joseph Carothers, the Youth Minister for our Wylie church, spoke one week about the importance of Silence and Solitude. Emphasizing the importance of creating a quiet area where you can go to connect with God. He showed a really neat video that I'm going to leave a link to here. It's a little long, but it's SO worth watching! Also, there are Spanish subtitles, but it was the only one I could find! :)

Rob Bell "Noise" Video on Vimeo

The Sunday before last Brianna Marble, also at Wylie Northeast, talked to the teens about Surrender. it was super powerful. She talked about the 3 P's that we need to surrender to God: Plans, Possessions, and People. She gave us a challenge to pick something of value to us and give it away to someone else. I haven't figured out what that is for me yet, but I'll keep you guys updated. 
As always, we go to Wendy's together after group! I got to sit with three of our Teen girls Katelyn, Dhelia, and Madison. It was so fun. They are all in the 12 -14 age range. We talked about everything from camp to pinterest to summer and school. Speaking of camp, I'm so excited because....

We leave for Teen Camp in less than a Week!! 

The week before last was super awesome because I got to spend some 1-on-1 time with one of our girls, Crystal Machuca! She's so wonderful. We went to sonic and got some Ice cream and just spent some time talking about everything. Crystal is going to be a Senior in High School this year. We bonded intensely over our love of the same TV shows. I'm not sure how healthy that is yet.... 

We've also had super fun events since my last post like a Board Game Night that Matt and I put together and this past week we all met together for a rousing game of "Murder in the Dark," which is so much safer than it sounds! Raquel and I car pooled and picked up some other girls for the evening. And, honestly, the car ride was one of my favorite times. We sang and talked about some of our favorite movies and shows, and talked about camp. It's amazing how well you can get to know people when you're in a car together. 

Back: Priscilla, Crystal, and Katelyn Front: Me and Raquel

I've definitely realized how blessed I am to be a part of this beautiful church family. This past Sunday we had group, which was fantastic as usual. Kale talked about Prayer and it was really powerful because he had some activities set up after his talk that were meant to get us used to prayer at any time and in different settings and positions. It was really neat and got everyone out of their comfort zones. We prayed laying face down (prostrate), we prayed on our knees with our head bowed, we prayed out loud walking around outside, we prayed with our arms raised. It was a super cool activity. 

We ended group early that day so that we could all attend The Northeast Churches Pool Party and Ice Cream Social! Every church in our family of Churches was invited, so we got to spend time with our friends from Wylie and Denton as well. It was so fun! And for the first time ever I truly felt like a part of this church family. I've gotten to know so many new faces this summer that I would most definitely consider family. And I've never had a church family before. It was really special. I also got the privilege of driving a few of our girls from Teen Group to the party. It was a blast. Just the drive there we were cracking up the whole time, these girls are crazy goofballs and I love them to pieces.

Katelyn, Genesis, Madison, and I at the pool party!

 Thanks for reading again! Thanks for sticking it out through this long post! As always, please keep the ministry and these teens in your prayers! Please keep camp in your prayers! We leave bright and early for the mountains of Colorado at 4 am Sunday! I'll have so much to update you on upon my return! I'm going to leave you with a prayer that Sirak Asfaw read during worship last Sunday that I think the world of. It speaks volumes.

Love,
Mercedes

Who do you want to become?

 Hey everyone! 

 Thanks for tuning in again! It's been another great week!
Teen Group sunday was so fantastic! It was a lot bigger than the previous week and all of the teens were so fired up! Be prepared for a ton of video and pictures, because it was just a blast. 
We started off the night by playing a game where the teens were split up into 4 groups and had to race each other down the hallway on these little scooter things in relay-like fashion. Also, they had to retrieve flamingos! It was hilarious! The adults stood against the wall to be the cheerleaders. I attempted to include a video, so cross your fingers that it works!

Katelyn Lorenz and Kylie Von Runnen!

Crystal Machuca!

After our game, we had some great worship time. Guys, let me just tell you, There's nothing like seeing young people fired up for God. I also took a video, because I love videos. And what better way to tell you about the experiences than to show you? 

                                             

We had a time for Ryan Plauche (Youth Pastor of the Northeast Church in Denton) to deliver a message. This summer, our Youth Ministers are speaking from a book called So, You Want To Be Like Christ? by Charles R. Swindoll. It's an awesome book with really great key areas to focus on. I would highly recommend it. Ryan spoke about one area in particular on Sunday,  Simplicity. We did an activity where we just sat still for 5 minutes and wrote down all of our thoughts. We really realized just how cluttered our minds are. He really hit home that simplicity and a simple life is normally seen as a negative thing, but it's not. It's simply being of one purpose and focusing on one thing. We can't aim well at Jesus through a cluttered mind. He ended with 6 practices to help us unclutter our minds. We then did another activity where we all spent 5 minutes intentionally thinking about Psalm 1. It was really great and I hope that the teens got a lot out of it! Of Course, we all went out to Taco Bell afterwards and continued fellowshipping!

Ryan's Sermon

Intern Classes have been going so great! We memorized the Beattitudes and talked about them in depth on Monday with Ronnie. It was so enlightening. I really want to highlight some of the ideas that stood out to me. I had never really thought about what "Blessed are those who mourn" meant. But Ronnie really impacted me when he said that mourning isn't being sad. It can be, but Mourning is the opposite of apathetic and lukewarm. It just means that you care. He also made a really neat point to tie all of the beattitudes together. Because, ultimately, They are the characteristics of Christ. They all do go together. He really connected the dots between poor in spirit and mourning for me when he said, 

"Until you are empty of yourself and full of Christ, you can't care about others the way that God does."

There's so many more profound ideas that I got from the beattitudes that I wish I could share with you. But then this post would be dreadfully long. If you are interested in what some of the other great ideas are or what I'm thinking lately, feel free to ask or call! I would love to talk about it! If you haven't read through The Beattitudes (Matthew 5:3-10) before or it's been awhile, I would definitely suggest you go do that. There's always something new to ponder on there. We also took some time in Ronnie's class to read the first chapter of Mark and discuss Jesus style ministry. It's so simple, yet so enlightening. Try it sometime. Just pick a chapter from a gospel, read it, and ask yourself, "What does this tell me about how Jesus did ministry?" I promise that you'll get answers like we did, such as He's compassionate, always willing to help, very direct, not the typical "nice guy," He seeks time with God, firm, relational, inviting, humble... etc. This list could go on literally forever. I mean, just thinking about it gives me immense joy, How great is our God?

Often times in our classes, I find that my favorite ideas aren't the product of something Ronnie or John said, but come from my fellow interns. In John's class we are reading a book about simplifying your life, and this week we focused on making a God-first Schedule. Something from the book was really powerful to me, it said something like, What would your schedule look like if God was in charge of it? Matt, a fellow intern, shared something that has stuck with me in a powerful way, one of his mentor's David Parker outright asked him one day as a teen himself: 

"If you're not serving God with your time, then who are you serving?"

Matt told us that David proceeded to answer for him, "Either yourself or the devil." John's class was just super impactful this week. An idea I took away that I just love is that you schedule can be a tool that you use, not the other way around. Don't become a slave to your schedule. Bill Hybels put it this way in the book: It's not about what you've got to get done, it's about who you want to become.

On Tuesday of this week, we took the teens to see Jurassic world!! It was so fun! We all talked about it all the way home. It was neat to just get to bond with the teens and have fun with them. 

Our Jurassic World group!

Raquel and I are planning on getting a small group together to take a couple girls thrift shopping next week and we're really excited about it! Please keep this time in your prayers and pray that this time together can produce meaning conversation and that these girls will see how much we love them. 

I'll leave you with a quote from John Von Runnen, from our class on Wednesday!

Mercedes 

"The echo of what we do in our ministry, in any ministry, is felt throughout eternity." 

In the Beginning...

It's official! I am now an Intern for the NEXT Teen ministry. Our Internship started on June 1st, and what a crazy, exciting two weeks it has been! This blog will be my place to keep you all updated about my ministry experience and what God has been teaching me and how He has been growing me during this internship. If you're taking the time to read this, then Thank You for being a part of my team! I appreciate any thoughts and prayer that come my way. 

We kicked off our Internship with an ALL DAY Saturday Intern/Youth Worker retreat to prepare us for the upcoming Summer. It was so great! We got the layout of how the summer would work, we started planning for events, and discussed values and strategies to keep in mind when ministering to the teens. That day was the beginning of my brain on overload, and it hasn't stopped yet. Every day I'm not sure if I can learn more, yet I always do. We ended our Retreat with an awesome dinner together. It was also Raquel's birthday! Needless to say, I have had more cake than I ever want to in my life.

Intern Retreat dinner, Interns/Youth Workers (Photo credit: Raquel's selfie-stick!)

The following day, we had the NEXT Banquet! That was so much fun! Some of the other Interns and I stayed at the Church most of the day to help cook/prepare food and decorate. I have definitely learned how much effort goes into putting on an event. It was so fun to get to meet some of the teens and hear from the graduating Seniors the impact that this ministry has had on them. It got me so excited just to know that I'm going to be a small piece of this ministry. Having never been in a Youth ministry myself, I can't explain how blessed I am to have this opportunity.

Last week, we also started our Intern classes! We have class every Monday and Wednesday with Ronnie Worsham (mondays) and John Von Runnen (wednesdays), the Senior Pastors of our Garland and Wylie churches, respectively. I've never experienced anything like this time with them and the other Interns. They are teaching us to expand our minds and search scripture not for answers, but for the heart of God. To know Him. Honestly, I have found it slightly challenging, because I'm the type of person who wants definitive answers to all my questions. But this has been so so good for me. Because I'm quickly realizing that my faith isn't based on me having all the answers, Thank God, it's about the character of Christ. These classes are so wonderful and challenging and I can't wait to tell you more of what I've learned. Some of our first assignments in Ronnie's class include: memorizing the books of the New Testament, as well as memorizing the Beattitudes (Matthew 5:3-11). I am looking forward to knowing more scripture by heart. 

In John's class, we are reading through a book together called Simplify: Ten practices to unclutter your Soul by Bill Hybels. We're only a chapter in, but let me tell you, this is gonna be great. I can't wait to tell you more about it! We are doing some super cool things in John's class, including a 6-by-6 goal setting plan. We set 6 goals for ourselves that we will set about accomplishing in the next 6 weeks. I'm super pumped about this, I think it's going to be a fantastic growing opportunity. 

This past Sunday was our first Summer Teen group! I hope you're as excited as we all are! During the Summer, all of the teens come together for a combined group from the Garland, Wylie, and Denton churches. Everyone was so pumped and excited to be there. I can't wait to see what awesome relationships are fostered this summer! The energy was at an awesome starting place to keep building on until Teen Camp in July! We had some awesome worship and game time, as well as a super meaningful message given by Kale, our Senior Youth Pastor. We had some time to reflect on quiet times with God and talked about building relationship with Him personally. It was so awesome. Also, I've noticed how many times I've said "awesome" and I almost changed a few, but I'm not going to... because guys, Isn't our God just awesome? In every sense of the word.

Some amazing worship led by Austin Freeman.

A fun game with the High Schoolers to get to know each other.

This past Tuesday night we had our first Summer Teen event! It was so much fun! Each pair of Interns is in charge of planning 3 events during the summer. For this event, we had a Park Day that Matt and I were heads in planning. First of all, let me just say that I have learned so much about what it takes to plan an event. The who, what, when, and where is so overwhelming. Then there's smaller things, like we need to have bug spray, and sun lotion, and who's going to get ice. And does our location need to be RESERVED? Needless to say, Matt and I had a SUPER SUPER last minute change of parks because the first park was being reserved for something else. Defnitely a lesson for the books, it was very chaotic. BUT, After we had our plans in order and found a nearby perfect park, The Lord was SO faithful. The event went off so well and we all had so much fun. We played Nuke em (if you are unfamiliar, think Volleyball) and fellowshipped and had some great worship time. It was so fun. 

Thank you for taking the time out to read my lengthy first blog post! I would apologize for the length, but there has been so much happening these first two weeks! I think I'll update weekly from here on out, keep an eye out! 
As always, please keep praying for these teens and our ministry. 

Love, 

Mercedes