Praise Band, Paint Fumes and the End of Summer

First of all, I apologize for the lack of an update for so long. The past few weeks have been a bit of a transition and I haven't had a lot to blog about. But here is what I have been up to.

We are heading into our third week of praise band. I am really enjoying my time with this group. There is a great group of students on both our Praise Band team and our tech team. My job for this fall is to be the director/producer for the praise band, which is essentially the fancy way Mark came up with saying that I am going to be working with them behind the scenes to help make sure they sound their best. I am really excited for this and I can't wait to start worshipping with them next Wednesday. Tomorrow is our last practice before the school year starts and they begin leading worship on Wednesday nights.

Which brings me to the next part on this post. The summer is over! I have been here for almost 3 months (where did the time go?) We took the past two weeks off to make the transition from the summer to the fall and this coming Wednesday we will pick up with our Street meetings and begin the year. I can't believe how fast my time here is going and although I miss everyone back home and at school, it will be sad when the next 3 months end and I leave this place. I have been learning so much so far and I can't wait to see what God has in store for the rest of my time here.

Now those of you who are observant will notice that unlike other posts, my title is a different order than the way I wrote the post. Two reasons for this. 1) I am saving the fun part for last and 2) "Praise Band, Paint Fumes and the End of Summer" sounds better than "Praise Band, the End of Summer and Paint Fumes". In my last post I talked about the new floor and how we were painting the walls and how it would look really cool. Well, its just about finished and wow... I knew it would be cool, but its pretty amazing. Rather than describing it to you, lets go on a picture tour. (Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. I am not responsible for any lost items.)

So as you come down the stairs into the youth area you see this.

That is the beginning of our new floor. It is tile that was cut using some machine and then put together like a puzzle. As you walk through the door you see the Welcome Window (This is part of what isn't quite finished. This is also my office.

The plan is to build a wall inside the office so that our Welcome team can go inside and be in a "building" with this being the outside. Once it is all done it should look really cool.

On the corner of this wall we have our street signs. The Welcome Window is on Welcome Way, and the other street is, BK Avenue in honor of our very own Brian Kramer.

This is a view of the street as you turn down Welcome Way.

Our kitchen area is know as Deb's Cafe. This is a little awning/sign area outside the kitchen area.

This is where the art begins. Luke Jones, who was the other summer intern I worked with, is going to school to study art. One of his jobs this summer was to work on designing and painting this area. He decided to "keep it simple." As you can see things quickly left the "simple" realm and moved on to the pretty amazing.

This is a view down BK Avenue.

This is the beginning of what Luke painted. His goal was to make it look like you were walking down the street in downtown Chambersburg.

This is the first of four buildings that Luke painted.

And the second, Sites Inc. named after Denise, our youth ministry administrator.

The third is Vincenti's Pizza, named after Mark.

This is one of the walls that we decided to do a collage of street signs. (All obtained legally.)

This is the final building that Luke painted. LBB Enterprises, named after Lee, Bernard, and Brian. They are our maintenance/janitorial staff here at the church.

This is just an area that Luke painted and then added a face and a final message for the youth group. It says "Our time is now. Let's make a difference for Christ today."

This is my own contribution to the project. We couldn't decide what to do with the three walls outside the bathrooms. I suggested that we graffiti the area and offered to do that. I spent several days contributing to the paint fumes while working on this area.

An appropriate sign for the men's bathroom I think. Although we thought a "No Dumping" sign would be funny too.

And our anti-drug message.

Revelation 22:7- "Is anyone thirsty? Come! All who will, come and drink, drink freely of the Water of Life!"

John 4:13-14- "Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst- not ever. The water I give will be and artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life."

I think it turned out awesome. I am blessed to be working in a church that is so willing to serve and equip it's youth.

Things to pray for:

-Everyone going back to school.

-Our ministry as we make the transition from Summer to Fall.

-Continued growth on my part as I finish out my time here.

God Bless!

-John

Guest Speaking at Christmas, Mountain Streams, and Munchkins

Sorry for the delay. I've been busy. The Saturday after my last post I had a unique opportunity. Another church in our area was having a Christmas in July party. They had two other guest speakers cancel on them and the two days before were scrambling. The previous week at Chambersburg Project the daughter of the youth pastor had been in my crew and I had met his wife. This woman was making phone calls trying to find someone to fill in and Mark was her first call and I was her second. So I had my first guest speaking gig. It was a really good learning experience. Their students have gone through quite a bit and are overall largely unresponsive to things like the devotion I led. But despite that I found good in the opportunity because it was a unexpected chance to speak to some youth and gave me a chance to evaluate my own speaking ability.

Last Tuesday we also did another prayer hike. We had a much better turn out this month and I was much more prepared for the hike. It was a great time and I got a chance to spend some time in prayer and the Word while sitting next to a little mountain stream complete with a mini waterfall to provide peaceful sounds.

The other big thing last week was VBS. It started Sunday night and went through Thursday night. I helped out with some tech stuff and got a chance to interact with the 20-some students we had that were helping. It was a good time but after spending each of those days working and then helping there I felt like I never left the church. It was a tiring week.

This week begins painting in our lobby outside the Sr. High youth room. Two weeks ago we had the old carpet torn out and replaced by a tile floor that looks like a street going with our ministry's theme. Now we are painting the walls to look like a street in downtown Chambersburg. Its going to be pretty cool looking when we finish. I'll post pictures when we get that far.

Anyway, I tried to keep this shorter, one because I didn't have a lot to say and because I know how boring it gets having so much to read. Hope you all are doing well and thanks for reading!

Things to pray for:

-Energy. Our big stuff for the summer is done, but I'm still busy.

-Focus. I used my busyness as an excuse to avoid some of my homework. Now the busyness is subsiding and I need to get to it.

-Our students. They have amazing potential.

-Everyone getting ready to head back to school in the coming weeks.