Weeks Four & Five: Asking for More and Staying Alive

These last two weeks have been a little bit of a whirlwind for me. There was a lot to do and not a lot of rest, but it was all good work.

Starting on Monday, the 13th (Hollywood’s next horror film), I was up bright and early to assist with the Rotary club breakfast. North Carolina Senator Burr was brought in as a speaker. I helped bus dishes to the dish washing room. Events like this are very important to the church because it helps to establish the church as the center of the Kernersville community. The fact that the Rotary club regularly uses the church building for it meetings speaks volumes to how FCC is working to meet that goal.

For the rest of the week, there were two things on my mind: Wednesday’s lesson to the middle schoolers on language, speech and gossip, and the weekend mission trip to Florida also with the middle schoolers.

Wednesdays lesson kicked off the summer student series called Signs of Summer. The first sign was “Stop” and was talking about stopping using course language, gossip and starting to use our words to build people up. This is especially an important lesson for middle schoolers because they are just starting to know how to formulate words that are hurtful, but they are not always aware how harmful they are being. Getting them to start thinking about what they say and what power those words have is very important. Plus, it is easy to keep their attention when you are using a mirror, a garbage can, and a present as illustrations!

On Thursday, four other adults and I left with 16 or so middle schoolers and traveled to Florida Christian College to volunteer our time for physical labor. We were assigned some landscaping and painting jobs. It was a great trip! Everyone worked hard and long, even when the weather got hot around noon. I ended up quarterbacking the landscaping job, organizing kids into groups and arranging a system to complete our landscaping job. Everyone followed directions, there was very little complaining and we were able to get a lot of work done. In fact, our groups set the standard for what other groups will have to accomplish when they do the same job later in the summer. After two days of working, we went to Bush Gardens in Tamba Bay and had a day off. We left the next day (Monday) and arrived home late. It was a great trip and many of the students expressed interest in doing this trip again next year!

On Tuesday, I had to hit the ground running as far as work goes. I was helping the high schoolers with their Across the Street Ministry VBS, preparing a lesson on God’s Will for Wednesday and getting ready for the next weeks VBS.

The Across the Street Ministry is something very cool. The high schoolers work to create lessons, crafts, and other VBS and then travel across the street to the trailer park and minister to the kids over there. This park has a lot of underprivileged kids there, and the high schoolers do this VBS to minister to them and be a blessing to them. It is a great experience and the kids there love it. Tuesday evening, they also put on a free spaghetti dinner for the families across the street to give them a break from having to worry about food and to try to minister to the whole family.

Wednesday, I taught the high schoolers about “Yeild”ing to God’s will. It is the second sign in the summer series. Tim and I coupled this lesson with student testimonies about the ministry across the street to reinforce submitting to God’s will, and encourage more students to be involved.

Throughout the week, I have been helping get ready for the part I am playing in the children’s day-time VBS at the church. The first thing I helped with was create a poster for the missions offering.

The theme for this VBS is PandaMania and it is all about how God loves us and how me made his creating so beautiful and wild! I will be working with running the sound during the main sessions and assisting with teaching one of the break-out sessions.

Sunday was a different day from most. Over 50 high school students were leaving for Summer in the Son at KCU. I am teaching the high school class about ministering when you are young, but most of the kids left for SITS. So instead of having a class of 30+, there were about 15 in the class. So we made a circle and created more of a Bible study type atmosphere and discussed how they are minsters right now. I believe many of the students hadn’t thought about how they don’t have to be “minsters” in order to be in the ministry. Simply being a Christian makes them in the ministry.

This next week coming up includes another high school lesson, Children’s VBS, a middle school cookout, and the beginning of my week of vacation!

Week Three: Lots of Lessons from Me

Between last weeks Sunday service and this past Sunday, I had three lessons to prepare. This past week I taught the high school students on Wednesday and Sunday. I prepared a lesson on Hope for Wednesday from the story of Jairus and the raising of his daughter from the dead. I did a word study that demonstrated that don’t mean to use the word hope, according to its definition. When we say hope, we often mean wish and that can cause problems when we try to apply our hope to God. Hope is saying we have assurance in what we believe in. The students were really receptive to this, and I talked to one student who said that he has been more aware of how he uses that word since the lesson. God was really able to reach some of the students.

Sunday’s lesson was on wisdom, focusing on the story of Solomon deciding the mother of a newborn child using a sword. This lesson talked about how wisdom is more than just knowing things, it is also about knowing what is true and right and then acting on it. And since what is true and right only comes from God, we can only have true wisdom is we follow Him. Though this wasn’t the best presented lesson I have ever taught, I could see that God was still able to get the attention of some of the students.

The main challenge I discover last week was what a struggle it is to create lessons every week from scratch. One of the reasons that the wisdom lesson wasn’t as good as it could have been was because I wasn’t able to finish it until a few hours before the class began. I can see the importance to leaning of God for every lesson, so that he can pick up the slack on weeks where the lesson puts up a fight.

Monday night I accompanied Pete Kunckle for house calls. When I talked with him about what these house calls are for, I found that they cover a wide range of things. Firstly, it is their main way of staying connected with new members. We take a bag of information about the church, a tray of cookies, and tell them that we were glad to have them in church. We ask them if they liked church and if they have any questions. This connection shows visitors that they weren’t missed on Sunday and that we care for them. Secondly, it is used as an opportunity stay connected with current members. Those who do house calls build relationship with those that they visit and all in all encourage those we visit. Thirdly, those who used to come to church but has stopped coming for any reason are visited. They are not pressured into coming back, but they are asked how things are going, if they need prayer and let them know that they are missed. Lastly, this is the time when those who have issues with the church are confronted. Whether they just don’t like the music or whether they have a difference in opinion in doctrine, this opportunity is used to hear their voice and explain where the church is coming from. The three houses I visited with Pete were pleasant situations and I had a nice time visiting with those those I met.

Saturday was the youth car wash. We had a very good turn out. We washed around 70 vehicles, equating to around 100 cars washed! We even washed a tour bus, which counted as 10 cars. This car wash was run differently than I have seen before. Students are encouraged to raise pledges before the car wash, receiving a certain amount of money for every car that they wash. This way, the students can earn most of their money before the wash. Those that took advantage of this completely paid for their trips!

I have done a little more with poster making. I have been organizing a Nerf gun battle for the middle and high schoolers where we will turn the gym into a battleground. To help build interest, I have been designing a poster. It looks a little like this:

Yes, that is Rambo. There is still some work to do on it, but I am excited for how it is turning out.

This next week is going to be busy for me. I will be leaving on Thursday on a mission trip. I am going with the middle schoolers to Florida to work at the Christian college there. I have packing and lesson writing to do before I leave. It is going to be exciting!

I Made It Through Week Two

This week was not a normal week at the FCC offices because of Memorial Day. Things did not begin until Tuesday and ended with a half day on Friday. But there were still many things to learn and do, and that is exactly what I did.

The biggest part of the week for me was preparing for my first lesson that I gave yesterday, June 5th. I prepared a lesson for the second middle school hour based on the story of Josiah in 2 Kings 23:1-3. This lesson revolved around the idea of influence and getting the kids to realize that they have the power to influence people and if they do not stay in God’s word, they can easily lead people astray like Josiah did for 18 years. In order to help the student understand this concept a little better, I had one volunteer complete a maze blindfolded while two people were giving them directions; one was giving correct directions while the other was not. I feel the lesson went well.

The other big project that I had this week was creating a promotional poster for the summer series we are doing this summer. The theme is signs of summer and it is a walk through different road signs, each one with a different Biblical lesson associated with it. It will cover nine different signs including stop, yield, one way, merge and others. I will be writing two of the lessons for this series, but I am creating a poster first to get the kids excited about the series. While creating the poster, I had to learn some skills with Photoshop. I  finished it on Wednesday and I think it turned out well.

I was also placed in charge of creating a fun activity for the students towards the end of the summer as sort of a last hurrah before Isaac and I leave. So I am organizing an event called Nerf Wars. We will turn the gym into a huge Nerf gun battle ground and play several adapted paintball games. I am very excited about this event because we will have some small prizes for the students that attend and, of course, I love Nerf guns! I have the gym reserved and some basic game selected, now I just have to recruit some volunteers to help referee the games and get some promotion going.

On Thursday, Isaac and I went with the FCA middle and high schoolers to Park Springs camp to help chaperone their end of the year trip. It was a very cool experience! We started the day with four low ropes course elements. By the end of the fours element, my group had learned the importance of working together, following directions, and only having one person lead them. They did very well on the elements and asked some very good questions after we were all done. After lunch, it was time for the rock wall, zip line and swimming pool. In order to go on the zip line, you had to climb up the 30 foot rock wall. And the zip line was really fun! They have a small lake on their property, and they were able to have the zip line cross above the water. We then had hotdogs for supper and smores for desert. It was a long and hot day, but the students had a really good time to end their school year.

I finished the week on Sunday with teaching the middle schoolers, assisting with teaching K-5, and accidently spending time the the nursery when I was supposed to be with the pre-schoolers. There as a little lack of communication mixed with misunderstanding that led to me helping in the nursery with the toddlers. After church, Isaac and I helped with the graduating seniors banquet.

Having finished the second week of my internship, I am glad I was able to come to this church to experience ministry. This is going to be a very good summer.

First Week Done, But The Best Is Yet To Come

Wow…week one of my internship is already over, and I am even more excited for what I am going to be doing than I was before I got here. This church is doing some amazing things and I get to be a part of that!

The campus at First Christian Church in Kernersville, NC is so much different that any church I have been too.Though this church has between 1300 and 1500 people who attend on Sundays, there is so much more going on besides just church. When Isaac (the other intern) and I went to lunch with Pete Kunkle (senior pastor and planter of FCC), he outlined how the vision of the church was be be like the synagogue in Jesus’ day. During that time, the synagogue was the center of town; every part of the Jewish life happened in the area of the synagogue. It wasn’t just about the worship service on Sabbath, and that is what FCC has done. In addition to the FCC ministries, the campus is home to a pre-k through 11th grade school called First Christian Academy (FCA). Next year, it will be a full pre-k through 12th grade school. On top of that FCC is home to the Family Life Center, a recreation and exercise facility that houses a weight room, gym, walking/jogging track, and various classes from zumba to self-defense. In addition to these, the FCC multi-purpose room (auditorium) is the largest room in the area for conferences and events.  The Rotary, Lions and other clubs frequent the campus to host their events. Pick any given day the FCC campus, and the parking lot is always full. There are thousands of people who participate in activities inside the church who do not attend. When they attend or participate in any of these activities, they are being exposed to a Godly environment more than they would on a regular basis. Just being in the building is exciting!

The goal of this internship is to give Isaac and I a working picture of how a church is run and give us experience in teaching a wide range of age groups. This is based on the idea that our first jobs will probably have us in charge of more than just middle and high school students.

I had a pretty busy first week. On Monday, we were a part of the FCC staff meeting. This is a time of devotion for the staff members, lead by Pete Kunkle, and it get everyone of the same page for the upcoming week. To continue the fellowship, the ministers have made a tradition of going to lunch as a group after the meeting. In between, Isaac and I were busy filling out the proper paper work, getting us ported into the proper computer networks, getting us keys and key cards and general other things that come with arriving on a large campus. These activities took up most of Monday and Tuesday. However, on Monday night I went with Pete Ramsey (my supervisor) and went on house calls to some of the middle school student’s houses. This is a chance to personally meet new students, keep in touch with students who already attend, and build a relationship with the parents.

Wednesday was a busy day by breaking away from the paper work of the first two days. Isaac and I were recruited to help with FCA’s last k-5  chapel of the year. Pete Ramsey taught the story of Esther and Isaac and I were the sound effects. After chapel, we were taken to lunch by Pete Kunkle where we were able to pick his brain about church, he was able to pick our brains about our internship, and we were able to see a little bit of Kernersville. By the way, the sea food at the restaurant we ate at was the best I have had in a long time! We were then kidnapped by Mike Wallace (associate pastor) and he had us review the ministry reports of everyone in the department. This was to show us that we may have to write reports for our elders, and it gave us a chance to see what is and what isn’t good or appropriate to put in a ministry report. Not long after that, I attended the children's musical that was in place of regular Wednesday night activities and an ice cream social afterwards where Isaac and I were officially introduced to the church as interns.

Thursdays we have off.

Friday was our chance to participate in the last middle and high school FCA chapel. We again introduced ourselves and led a small group of students in prayer for their summer. The rest of the day was filled with end of the week duties, such as stuffing folders for Sunday, and preparing for summer lessons and themes. I am working of creating a poster for the summer series of lessons that Isaac and I will be helping to write.

Sundays at FCC are a little crazy. There are three hours of services and classes: 9:00, 10:15 and 11:30. This was all about observing for me as I observed Tim Snow teach K-5’s lesson first hour and Pete Ramsey teach middle school’s lesson second hour. Both of these classes I will be teaching next week.

I am very excited for all the work that I will be doing at FCC, even though it is a lot of work. Please keep praying for me as this internship starts ramping up.

Welcome to My Blog!

Greetings internet traveler! You have successfully stumbled across my blog in which I will document my adventures on during my internship. Though my internship doesn't officailly start until Monday, I wanted to take some time to make sure that you are filled with the proper background information.

Between May 23rd and August 6th, I will be working with the youth ministers at First Christian Church in Kernersville, NC. This is an internship that is required for my youth ministry degree that I am working on at Kentucky Christian University. I will be staying with a member of the church for the duration of the summer. As an intern, I will be working with youth of all age ranges in a variety of activites and arenas. That should be enough boring information, but if you need more, leave a comment below!

Now, here is what I will be putting in this blog. At least once a week, I will be writing about what is going on in my internship and different experiences that I have gained. But in addition to that, I will be laying out various thoughts that will be churning in my brain. Needless to say, this blog should be quite diverse and chalk full of information.

Important information for you as a reader to remember: if you have a specific question about what I am writing or want me to write about something specifically, please be sure to leave a comment. This also means that you should be sure to read the comments, in case someone has asked a great question and struck up a conversation with me. In summary: COMMENT AND READ COMMENTS!

This will soon end my first blog post. I am super excited for what God is going to be doing this summer, and I can't wait to see what I learn and what friends I will make. Please be praying for me through the summer.

In Christ,

Jeremy