Sherilyn arrived safe and sound tonight just a little late for theBOX! She left around 6AM from South Carolina this morning and is now getting tucked in to the futon for her first of a week-or-so of nights!

She instantly showered us with some Christmas gifts from home and some amazingly foreign gifts from her year in Bosnia!

It’s a privilege to have her here staying with us for this week. She’s speaking to our church on Sunday night this coming week, too!

Tonight at theBOX we revealed our spin on the Wesleyan-influenced “YEAR OF THE BIBLE”. Our campaign is called “EAT THE WORD” – and I promise that the Lord gave me this campaign BEFORE I sat through Jeff Eckart’s “EAT THE BIBLE” seminar!

I talked about Ezekiel 3:1-4 and showed how this year we would EAT, TASTE, & GO – just like Ezekiel did. EAT – we will read the Bible everyday this year! TASTE – not only will we read, but we will apply the Word of God to our lives everyday as we “taste” and see that it is good! GO – not only will we read and apply the Word of God to OUR lives, but we will reach out and impact our world with the Word of Christ this year through the EAT THE WORD campaign!

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it!?!

Next week the teens will have an opportunity to respond to whether they want to be involved in the year-long campaign!

Sleeping in tomorrow. Dinner with Phil & Steph Stuller tomorrow night!

It’s the second day of 2006 and it still feels like Christmas is about to happen or should’ve happened on a grand-er scale or something.

Guess that’s what happens when you move 3 days before Christmas!

The office was closed today. I went in anyways for a few minutes to get some things together and realized just how busy things will be again, starting tomorrow.

I actually enjoy the busy-ness of ministry. That’s weird, I think, but seriously – I’d MUCH rather be busy than bored.

I was realizing my “bored” afternoon today as I flipped through our 40-some channels for an hour or so until the doorbell rang. Two of my teens showed up (Mark and Adam) and we spent the next few hours setting up and playing my new dartboard that my in-laws got me for Christmas! We had a blast chatting about life and threatening to throw darts at eachother all the while!

I’m sure I will continue to covet the “down times” of ministry – and I am already learning as a newlywed the HUGE need in setting aside “family time” as things can get way out of hand very quickly.

This year one of my “resolutions” is to do better at time-management – in doing ministry “projects” AND in being healthy in giving enough time to my wife, my personal health, AND (in 4-ish months) with the newest member of the Sheets household!

How do YOU manage your time, web-world?

Didn’t stay up and watch the ball-drop last night. Enjoyed sleeping in my own bed next to my wifey!

Church today was pretty incredible. Neither service had preaching today. The Holy Spirit moved in a way that allowed folks to give testimony to what God was doing in the life of our church through His people! It was a humbling and emotional time!

It was SO encouraging to hear just how God is moving in the hearts and lives of the people of Warsaw Wesleyan!

To open the service, we showed this video:

Well it’s New Year’s Eve and we’re all home safe-and-sound tonight from an AMAZING 4-days in Grand Rapids, Michigan!

Everyone woke up on time this morning, and everyone was even ready to head out of the hotel at 9:30AM just like we had planned! I am the youth pastor of a VERY special group of teens. The sponsors that we brought along – Mark, Tina, Thomas, and Bethany made the trip possible by giving up their week of vacation so that Jessica and I wouldn’t have to attempt controlling 29 students on our own! THANK YOU SPONSORS!

A quick stop for lunch at Wendy’s this afternoon and we were back in Warsaw by 2PM! After waiting for all of the students to get picked up this afternoon (4:30PM!), Jess and I headed back to South Bend to drop of the borrowed church van to the Sonlight Fellowship Wesleyan Church! They were VERY gracious to have allowed us to use their van for this trip! We arrived back here in Warsaw in time for a quick dinner at Applebee’s.

Jess is now passed out on the sofa in our living room and as I type this a photo-montage video is rendering for tomorrow’s announcements!

I can’t wait to see the students respond to their pictures on screen tomorrow of this LOGOS5 adventure.

Thank you for all of your prayers and notes of encouragement for Jess and I and our youth group this week! God did a mighty work in the hearts and lives of many of our students and literally THOUSANDS across this country through this year’s Wesleyan Youth Conventions!

Today’s photoset here.