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.

In just a few, short hours LOGOS5 will draw to a complete end here in Grand Rapids. The lights will fade in the “Street Party” area, the teens will all tuck into their beds (yah right!), and we’ll get a few hours of sleep before heading back to our home churches.

Tonight Dan Seaborn “knocked it out of the park” by explaining in the “official” Dan Seaborn way that the BIBLE is to be ON TOP of everything else in our lives. He exclamed again and again the importance of ALL of us taking this WORD OF GOD home with us and allowing it to penetrate our hearts and our lives. His illustrations were very familiar for anyone who attended this year’s Promise Keepers rally – he brought up his “famous” trophy basketball and his “famous” dollhouse. Nearly every teen responded to a call to put Christ first and read his word EVERY DAY for the next year.

Each teen was then given the opportunity to come forward and receive their copy of the ONE YEAR BIBLE (NLT).

January 1st begins the “YEAR OF THE BIBLE” for the Wesleyan denomination where the leaders of our denomination are challenging Wesleyan’s to read the Bible through this year!

Can you imagine what this will do for the Church – ESPECIALLY if it begins with the Junior High and High School students?! WOW!

Other highlights from the night – dinner with the Pence family – Dr. Jerry and Mrs. Pence and Kris & Lanni and Kory! What a blast!

TONS more pictures of tonight’s adventures here.

Tomorrow we’re heading out by 9AM – we’ll be home in mid-afternoon after fighting LOGOS5 traffic and stopping for lunch.

This morning Jeff Eckart gave a great message on the Word. He talked about the story of Samuel being called by the Lord. After his morning rally message we headed to his afternoon breakout seminar where he gave us some great insight into how we can implement this YEAR OF THE BIBLE in our youth groups.

Our second breakout session was by Rob Tippey. He spoke on Matthew 16 and how we as the “Church” need to do so much better at loving! We do a GREAT job at letting everyone know what Christians are AGAINST, but we do a POOR job at advertising what Christianity is FOR. Rob had a great message.

Photo set from this morning’s events here.

Another day under our belts.

What a day it was!

Tonight Kutless rocked the main rally and Kurt Johnston gave the message. Kurt is the Junior High Youth Pastor at Saddleback Church in L.A.

Kurt gave us a great message about what God’s will is by explaining a very interesting equation:

LOVE GOD + LOVE OTHERS = GOD’S WILL FOR OUR LIVES.

He challenged teens to live a life that resounds: LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS AS I WALK – explaining that living God’s will is an everyday experience! There were a couple dozen teens who responded tonight to a first-time commitment to Christ, too! Hundreds of others made a commitment to follow the “LOVE GOD, LOVE OTHERS AS I WALK” motto!

Jess and I enjoyed an IWU-sponsored pizza party this evening after the evening rally where we enjoyed visiting with fellow IWU graduates and students in one of the “suite rooms” here at the Amway Grand.

Photo set of tonight is here.

Photo set of this morning is here.

So far, Day 2 has been nothing short of splendid!

This morning all 35 of us met at our meeting spot in the main auditorium to sit together for the second main rally. (getting 29 teens and 6 adults to get anywhere on the same time is pretty miraculous!)

This morning Marilyn Lazslo, a former missionary to Papua New Guinea where she translated for Wycliff gave her gut-wrenching account of just how powerful God’s Word is. Teens had an opportunity to make a commitment to God to be used by Him in ANY fashion to spread the Good News presented in the Bible. It was a powerful message and one that made an impressive impression on my own “calling” to be in the ministry.

After the main rally we enjoyed lunch and then two “breakout sessions”.

Jess and I went to the same breakout sessions.

#1 – Brad Zimmerman (brother of Benji, whom I went to IWU with) who owns a production company – “Vinmark Productions” and works on staff at a church doing multi-media. He gave us some great details on media in ministry as well as some helpful links to websites that will be beneficial!

#2 – Gary Schnepp (senior pastor of Faith Wesleyan in Cheektowaga, NY) spoke on what was supposed to be entitled, “How to recruit & build a team” – but turned into a VERY helpful reminder that WE as pastors and youth leaders are empowered by the God of the universe to act on the “Royal Heritage” we have been given as ministers of the Gospel. He reminded us of our need to take care of ourselves – NOT ministering 24/7/365, to eat correctly, and gave us a humorous, yet SERIOUS look at the “12 Commandments of Youth Ministry” if you want to TANK (“tank” not “thank”) your youth ministry:

The 12 Commandments (reprinted WITHOUT permission – Gary, if you want these removed, please tell me!)
01. Wipe out incentives.
02. Depend on only a few students.
03. Don’t ever commend your students.
04. Reprimand your students for their weaknesses.
05. It’s only right that everyone conforms to YOUR WAY of thinking.
06. Never attempt to develop morale or “team spirit” among your students and adult leadership.
07. Never ever spend time with them for personal development.
08. Betray their confidence.
09. Set up an espionage system for spying on them.
10. Blame your lack of leadership on your students.
11. Make Christianity a religion of “rules” and for old fogies.
12. Most important, be grumpy in their presence all the time.

His hand-out obviously went into detail on these “12 Commandments”, but I’ll save those details for my own use.

In about 20-minutes I’m heading back over to the convention center for some dinner and a chance to relax before the evening rally.

Tonight after the evening rally, one of our students, Jared, won a game this morning and won the opportunity to go back-stage and meet the band, Kutless! How cool is that? He also got to hit a hole-in-one in front of 2,500 of his peers! You would’ve been a proud youth pastor had he been one of yours! You should’ve heard the rest of our group cheering for him from our seats!