Summer Reading Idea

Summer is usually a time when our normal schedule is thrown out the window. Think about this with me.

Students- you are on summer break. Whether a junior high, high school or college aged person you are on break. That means: no reading, no going to classes, no homework and no opening your locker on campus.

Adults- you are loving the warmer weather. People are traveling more and you are seeing places you've never seen on your Instagram feed. You're roommates may be out of town or you might have an old college friend visiting you this summer.

Parents- you are still waking up early because your kids don't know how to sleep in. You're trying to figure out what to do with your kids. You're creating awesome adventures with your kids or dreading some days when you have no plans.

Grandparents- you might have the grandkids for a week or two this summer so that your children (who are adults now) can get a break. You are loving the change of pace and the new routine of having the little ones around.

No matter what stage of life you find yourself in we can all agree that summer brings about change. With this change that means we may find it tough to have a Bible reading plan. What if this summer you made a commitment to read two Gospel accounts in the Bible? What if you said, "I'm going to read Matthew and Mark"? You may not read every day but you can sure try your hardest.

The Gospel of Matthew is 28 chapters long and Mark is 16 chapters. That means 44 days of straight Bible reading. You might miss a day or two here and there but you could finish both of these books by the middle of August with no problem. It would require about 5 mins of reading a day. Did you hear that? Five minutes of reading is all it would take to read one chapter a day! Make it even better and use the YouVersion Bible App to help you out.

Take a summer reading challenge and start reading God's word today!

Young Adults: State of the Union

Last Thursday, January 14, we started a new series in our Young Adults ministry. Its a seven week that I kicked off where we will go through the six core values of CPC. I started the message series off with what I called "The State of the Union" address.

The State of the Union is a rally cry for our Young Adults for the year, it is what we will focus on for this entire year. You can hear the entire message on our Young Adults site, but let me summarize what we're going to focus on.

The mission of CPC Young Adults is to make and mature more followers of Christ. 

This is the same mission statement for our entire church. We're not going to mess with that! Its a great focus for our church, especially with the location God has strategically placed us. We're going to have two main focuses for the year: to help more people find Christ and follow Christ.

Maturing Christ Followers
Our main goal for 2016, in the maturing followers of Christ part, is to double our small groups. We currently have 4 small groups meeting on a regular basis. The average size of each group is somewhere around 12 people. With the amount of people we have in our Young Adult ministry we need to double this this 8 groups so people can be in discipleship community.

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25

Making Christ Followers
We live in an area that is approximately 97% unchurched. That means there are a lot of people who we can tell about Jesus! We're going to do this by focusing on friendship evangelism. The goal is for each person to share Christ with one of their friends this year, in hopes that they will enter into a life changing relationship with Christ. When a person meets Christ is it normal for them to go and share that truth with others.

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. John 1:41-42a

An Eternal Purpose
This ministry isn't about us, its about making the saving truth of Jesus Christ known. We're going to focus on reaching single and married people, on the Peninsula, ages 18-35. We're going to do this by meeting on a regular basis. If its Thursday, our Young Adult ministry will be meeting. We're going to do this because people are dying without the saving truth of Jesus.

Hope to see you on Thursday!

Serving with your children

Serving your your children can be a tricky thing to do. You have to ask yourself things like, "Am I willing to take my kids to the inner city to serve Jesus?" or, "Do I want to take my kids on a plane to serve in a foreign country?"

This Sunday I preached on Nehemiah chapter 3. There is a great verse tucked in here that really caught my attention:

Shallum son of Hallohesh, ruler of a half-district of Jerusalem, repaired the next section with the help of his daughters. Nehemiah 3:12

Here is a guy who is out working hard with his kids. Since I’m a dad with young daughters, I imagine Nehemiah going around encouraging the workers, and then he sees one man serving with his little girls out in the hot sun. We don’t know their ages, so any guess is speculation on my part, but I imagine the girls helping to clean up the rubble. They are moving the stones they can and laughing and giggling the whole time. They are helping their dad plaster and get the stones in just the right place so the wall will be as strong as possible. Their laughter and joy encourages those around them and motivates them to continue working hard.

Now this father probably could have completed the work faster without his daughters there. If you’ve ever served with your children it can actually take longer to work with them. But as the Church we are called to train up those who are younger and this is a great example of a father who did this!

I want to be like Shallum. I want to follow his example of serving alongside my kids, right in my hometown. That is why I am going to take part in our upcoming backpack drive at CPC this summer.

CPC Foster City /// Staff Fun

Since arriving at Central Peninsula Church I've made it my mission to help our Foster City staff feel like a team.  There are a few ways I've done this but one main way has been by getting our team doing team things.

Within my first month we did an off-site lunch; something like this hadn't been done in a while.  We loaded up the church vans (yep, I put a bunch of adults in church vans) and headed to a classy restaurant by the name of IN-N-OUT.  This was a great time for everyone to have lunch, laugh and we kept it cheap.

The first time doing something like this can be the easiest, it takes time to make the next ones worth the team's while.  I pulled a page from the playbook of my mentor and our next few team lunches were brown bag in our JH room.  My mentor has shared this idea with me while I was in Vegas as a way to help leaders connect and gain team mindset.

After winter had passed it was time to get the team out for lunch and doing something fun.  Thankfully our Lead Pastor is fiercely competitive and has been bragging about his bocce ball skills!  In early June we headed over to the Foster City bocce ball courts for a bocce lunch.

We slotted a Thursday, a day everyone is in the office, and took our lunch hour.  We meet in the church lobby 15 minutes before lunch to make sure we were all there.  After everyone's accounted for we packed in four cars and drove over to the courts.  Charity, my wife, brought the girls over so they would have some time with our staff also.  This was a huge win having our family there to spend time with our team and it gives our team some time to see I interact with my family.  

The competition was pretty fierce!  We had some good throws and with our Lead Pastor being undefeated it increased the competition level.  Since this was my first time playing bocce ball I wasn't the best person to have on your team.  I did love watching our team bring out the rope to measure and see who was the closest to the ball!

Obviously it isn't about the competition or bocce ball or what we brought in our lunch bag.  The goal is to unite as a team.  I want to work with a group of people who are radically committed to Christ and each other. We have some very capable, qualified, people on this team and our Elders have called me to lead this team.

The reason we have brown bag lunches and play bocce ball is because I believe: the team that plays together stays together 

The "Almost Done" Letter

Earlier this month I spent a week in Redding, CA working on a week of seminary.  While I was up there I was handed this letter:

Now this letter isn't the easiest thing in the world to read but it says a key line in there:

"If you successfully complete the above courses as scheduled, you will finish the requirements for the Masters of Divinity program as listed above."

This is something that I have been working on for over five years now and to be handed this letter was crazy emotional.  There are a few things this letter means to me that some people may not understand:

1) Less Time Away From Home
I have spent a good deal of time away from my family over the last five years, six when I finish, and this letter means that I can have more time with my family after graduation.

2) Accomplishment
Many of you know that I dropped out of high school my junior year.  I ended up going back and finishing at a continuation school.  I didn't drop out because I was stupid I dropped out because I had a bunch going on in my family life and I was bored at school.  Studying the Bible is something that I love to do!

3) Education
I started this MDiv program because felt that God was calling me to but during the process He taught me that it is more about the education I have received than a piece of paper that will sit on my wall.

These are just a few things this letter means to my life.  It will always be a reminded to me of all the hard work I put in, studying the word of God, to help others know Christ.

My Yellow Watch

Even since I was a wee little kid I have always wanted a Shark watch.  I know... some people want a Rolex but I want a watch with a rubber wristband.  So for my 30th birthday my amazing wife found me a Shark watch in my favorite color (see picture).  This is me wearing my watch the first day I got it as we are heading to watch a movie for my birthday.

This summer we went to Hume Lake and I was so stoked to wear my watch and actually have the time on my wrist!  On Tuesday some of the Senior guys invited me to go kayaking with them.  Once we were on the lake I realized that none of them have ever been to Hume before and told them that we have to head down to the cove to play on the log roll.

We rowed to the other side of the lake, parked the boats and swam over to the log roll.  Now the log roll is an amazing experience that I could not let these guys miss out on.  After playing for a while I knew it was getting late so I looked at my wrist but my watch was gone.  I was so bummed.  I was beyond bummed.

That night, back at camp, I started thinking of how to get my watch back.  I had a pair of googles but I would need help.  Then it hit me; my alarm is going off at 6:23am to wake me up and my watch is waterproof.  That night I asked around and was able to get five guys to help me and four more pairs of googles.  The next morning we woke up before 6am, borrowed a car, drove to the cove and did this:

My watch spent the night at the bottom of Hume Lake but today it sits back on my left wrist as I type this.  The craziest thing about this is something that wasn't caught on video.  Before I jumped into the lake I stopped to pray that God would help me find my watch and sure enough I did!

Financial Peace University Debt Load

Our church just finished week five of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and we are getting ready to start week six.  This course has been super cool, for me, to see how many people have jumped in to get involved.  We have almost 40% of our church involved in this course which tells me two things:

1) The Las Vegas Economy has hit harder than I thought
2) People want to find financial freedom

One of the steps in the class is for the people involved to anonymously write down their debt load.  To be honest I had no what to expect to see with this number when it came in.  Now we have three different sessions of the class that we are offering to our church and from those different sessions we came up with one debt load number.  I am not going to share that exact number but I want to let you know that it is over four million dollars.

I have been hesitant to put up that number because I think it can bring up emotions in peoples lives and to be honest I have a part of that number.  In yesterdays blog I shared my personal learnings and personal debt load that Charity and I are carrying.  The reason I chose to end up sharing that number is because I am excited to share with you in December the new number.  See FPU is designed to help people get back on their feet financially and take control of their finances.

If you are in our church and you are reading this I want you to know that I am praying for everyone in our church to find financial freedom.  I am praying for people to be able to take control of their finances and not let their finances take control of them.  I am praying for people to find new connections with people in our church that they may have never met because of this course.  I love my church and I am so proud of everyone taking the course and making the steps to get financial freedom!

Hume Lake Paintball

This week I wanna take some time to dedicate this blog to some of the amazing things that God did while we were at Hume Lake!

Every year we take some of our students to play paintball while at Hume Lake and this year was no different.  The only change was that twenty minutes prior to paintball we had students mediating on God's word and getting super connected to Jesus right before they shot each other!  So its the middle of the week and playing paintball on Wednesday afternoon this year was amazing!

My first year of Hume Lake (summer 2005) some of the students said that the only way they would play paintball would be in shorts and wife beaters (tank tops).  That has been the standard for our paintball attire ever since that summer.  Now you are probably thinking something like this: "That is stupid to play paintball in shorts and a tank top".  You are right.  Its not the smartest thing that we can do but it is so fun!

This year was even better because one of my friends Kurt Johnson is working up at Hume and he brought his Go Pro on the paintball field and made this video.  Make sure to watch it all the way through so you can see how my armpit it bleeding at the end!

No Pushing

I can't tell you how many times I heard that when I was growing up.  I was a rowdy kid when I was growing up and being the fact that I am a boy that can add to the ruckus.  Little boys like to push other kids. We get upset and we don't know how to control our emotions so we do the only natural thing: we push.  Then when we push an adult typically approaches us and reprimands us for our actions.  We get upset because we are emotional and now we have been caught acting naughty and that can embarrass us.

With all that said we are raised in a society that tells us that pushing is bad.  I want to say that we need to push people more often.  I think we live in a culture that has a tendency to become spiritually lazy.  When we become spiritually lazy we fail to take the time that we need to so we can grow in our relationship with God.

One thing that I have been committed to in life is to push people to grow spiritually.  I want to see adults and students grow into their full potential.  Two weeks ago I pushed one of our students leaders out of her comfort zone.  We were hosting our mid-week service together and I was the one who was supposed to pray for our Compassion offering.  When it came time to pray I passed it off to Chandler to let her pray.  My throat was kind of hurting but more than that I knew that Chandler was ready to be pushed for more.

I knew that I would get one of two responses from Chandler.  See one thing I try to assess when I'm going to push someone is how will they handle this push?  Will this push be something that helps them to grow in their walk with Christ or will this push be something that upsets them?  To be honest I get it wrong every now and then and I hurt people's feelings but that night I was right.  I knew it was a good call to ask Chandler to pray on stage because I knew off stage she would say no.  I know it can be a risky call and I was totally putting her on the spot but I just knew in my heart that it was the right call.  After that night I sent Chandler a text thanking her for praying and this is the text I got back from Chandler.

I have two questions to ask in life:

1. Are you pushing people in your circle of influence to grow in their walk with Christ?
2. Have you placed people in your life that will push you to grow to be a better Christian?

Hungry for God

The line I use the most in our high school ministry sounds something like this:

"I wish that when I was your age someone would have invited me to something like this.  I'm not saying I would have come but I wish I would have just been invited."

Just over a month ago there was a tragic event that happened in our community and I was invited to the local high school to help on the grief counseling team.  While I was there I met a freshman girl who was pretty shaken up.  I saw her first period and then during second period I had a chance to chat with her and she was just in tears.  I found out that she had been to our high school ministry a few times but never really got connected.  She knew a bunch of the students that come on a regular basis and have been invited.

(this is why I do student ministry)

Through that tragedy a guy in my small group was able to invite her to Explode again and she came.  She started coming and then one day I got a text message that said this (see picture).  I was so ecstatic for this young lady!  She is such a sweet girl and it was so cool to see her reach out and say that.  Later that week she went out to lunch with Kristen McComb, our freshman girls small group leader, and Kristen was able to lead her to Jesus.  Now Jordyn has more than one student that cares for her.  She has a pastor in her life; and by that I mean Kristen.  Kristen took the time to reach out to her, pick her up, take her to lunch and answer some of her questions.

I'm so excited to serve in a ministry with leaders that Love God and like students so much (most of them love the students).  I feel honored to serve alongside a leader like Kristen who would take the time to help Jordyn find Christ and not just leave her after that. I know that Kristen is a Godly woman who loves the Lord.  She will pray for Jordyn, encourage her, call her out and help keep her feet pointed towards Jesus.  Thanks for letting serve with you Kristen! And Jordyn I am so excited about the life choice you made.

Senior Grad Night

Its almost June and that means that our seniors will be graduating from high school very shortly.  Last night we had our annual senior grad night.  The night is really a time to honor the students who are graduating, allow our adult leaders to share some funny stories and invite their parents to watch.  This event has morphed for us over the last six years, since I have been here, and I think last nights was the best we have had!

We originally started doing this event on a Friday night and inviting just the families of the graduates and their parents.  The night was good but I feel like we were missing something; the rest of our high school ministry.  After that we changed to doing the event on a Wednesday night at Explode.  This allowed our students to see how important graduation was and gave parents a snap shot of what their student experiences at our high school ministry.

We have bounced back and forth on feeding families and this year we choose to make the event a desert event and went with the theme "Dress for Success".  Here are some highlights of the night for me:

• Having Kurt Johnson (graduate from 2008) come and host the event
• The room set up that our student leadership (SL) team did
• Watching our leaders share about the investment they have made in the graduating class
• The video that we showed from some of our past graduates (scroll down to watch)

Grad night has always been a tough night for me and last night was no different.  The most difficult thing about high school ministry, for me, has been investing into students for four years and then watching them leave the nest.  Last night I looked at young men and women who have given their life to Christ in our high school ministry, been baptized at our church and serve here.  It was tough.  There are students I have known since I moved to Vegas and its been a huge blessing to watch them grow in their faith and reach out to their friends on their campus.

The line I left our graduates with last night is the same line I have used before:

"Just because you graduate from Explode does not mean you are graduating from my life"

I love you class of 2011 and I am so proud of you!


Explode Alumni Video from Neal Benson on Vimeo.

Chicas y Muchachos

We are currently doing a series in our High School Ministry called "Chicas y Muchachos". The point of this series to talk about sex. Yep, you read it right; sex. We want to teach our high school about sex and how to wait. See I have worked with students now for almost eight years and the reoccurring theme I hear is the pain and hurt from unwise sexual decisions. The series has been a home run so far (I never played baseball but have always wanted to say that).

The great thing about doing a series on purity is we get the chance to radically be involved in the lives of the students we work with. The adverse side of this is that stuff comes out. I think there are times that I avoid teaching on a topic because I know stuff is going to come out. Like when the hurricane happen in Louisiana the water filled the sewers and stuff came out that no one wanted to deal with; well we have some rad leaders who are prepared to deal with the stuff that comes out!

Here's how the series breaks out:
Week 1: Sex and Love, Love > Sex (Intro week)
Week 2: R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (you gotta respect yourself)
Week 3: The Difference between Pink and Blue
Week 4: Dealing with Lives Hurts
Week 5: I got a Question
Week 6: The Choice of Purity

See the first three weeks of this series we have just talked about sex and how that impacts us and the world we live in (we live in Sin City) and the last three weeks we are going to talk about healing and how to make right choices to avoid the pain of unwise sexual decisions.

My little girl is growing up...

So this post is just dedicated to my amazing family that is growing. Sophie Marie is going to be 17 months old tomorrow and Leah Joy has about 7 more weeks in Charity's tummy until we get to meet her! My girls are growing:

Sophie when we went on Family Date a few weeks ago




















It seems pretty undeniable that she is my daughter















Sophie has a different feeling about the snow than we had expected




















But a few weeks later I took her snowboarding and she changed her mind

My 30th

So the rumors are true... I turned 30 this year!
When I was growing up I never thought that I would live past my 18th birthday; it is evident that God has a different plan for my life than I thought. This year's birthday was so amazing. Charity totally surprised me with some of my favorite things and gave me some new adventures in life.

On my birthday we went to family dinner at my favorite restaurant, pretty much of all time, Bonefish. This place is amazing! If you have not been you have to go check it out; I love the food, the service is top notch and one of my friends owns it so that is always nice! Charity made plans for us to go on a family date; which I totally loved cause it is always a laugh having Sophie around!


Then for the big surprise... I drove a Nascar! That is me in the drivers seat of car #45! Charity and my mom went in and got this package deal where I drove the Nascar on the track here in Vegas. The deal is called the "Richard Petty Driving Experience" and it was totally worth it!





So I'd have to say that this was the best birthday ever! Not to mention; we finished it off on Sunday with the Chargers beating the Cowboys! Go Bolts!

It keeps getting better

This last week has been super crazy! From coming home to a clogged AC drain to getting out of our house to doing a wedding to family in town to speaking at church on Sunday: our week has been full! If you have kids you know that full weeks= craziness and craziness= jacked up schedules. Sophie had been off her "normal" schedule since Friday and it was no fun but that changed today.
Sophie woke up from her nap a little early and I took her to visit Gilbert at his work (if you ride dirt bikes you gotta check out Red Seven). It was so rad to have some me and Sophie time. I was a little scared cause I forget everything you need to take a baby out; literally everything!
After we got home Charity took Sophie swimming while I did some homework and then Sophie and I played with Photobooth on my comp. Here is my favorite picture that we took.
I love this stage that Sophie is in and just have so much fun hanging out with her. Thank you Jesus for my daughter.

Pics from a Proud Pastor

A few weeks ago we took our students to write Bible verses on the metal studs in our new youth room. I was so stoked to see our kids show up to own there area! It was fun seeing them with their Bibles in their hands and their hearts to be there (did I mention that it was about 105 degrees outside?).

Please keep praying for our building as we move forward and watch God work in the hearts and lives of families and students.

This last picture makes me smile. This is Kody Rock; Kody is one of the first kids I met in Vegas. I met Kody when he was in 8th grade and just saw him graduate High School. I am so stoked on how God has grown him and made him the man he is now!

I LOVE THIS

Here is a pic a student drew for me during finals...
(you gotta click on it and read it)

Making the Most of Your Mission Trip

As I sit shotgun in the van on the way home from our Spring Break mission trip to Mexico I just started reflecting on what made this trip so amazing. Yes, the sixteen minute border wait on the way home will make you smile, but did we do right that made our team smile the entire trip? Having been able to do multiple mission trips since being a Christian here are some things that our team has implemented into the trip to make it more successful (maybe one day I will write something on “How not to lead a mission trip” but not this year).

1) Give your team plenty of team before the trip to connect and get prepared
This year we started plenty ahead of time. This allows the students, adult leaders and families in your church who want to come the ability to come. Most people want/need ample lead-time before the trip to get prepared; respect that and plan ahead so that you are prepared. When you are prepared then everyone on the team can be prepared. This will allow you the time to think when the plans need to change and trust me they will.

2) Have clearly defined limitations on your trip
When you know who this trip is aimed to, what people can expect, what kind of work you will be doing and things of that nature it helps you know who this trip is designed for. If you are going to be building a building then you may not want younger kids on the team. Know your sleeping arrangements so that people can know what to expect and what they need to bring. Also if you have a dad who wants to bring his eight-year-old daughter on trip are you prepared for that with the sleeping? These are great things to think through ahead of time.

3) Be clear and intentional at your team meetings
This is where you need to be prepared so that you can communicate what is necessary for the people on your team to know. If the meeting is going to be an hour long be prepared for that, if the meeting is going to be three hours long let your team know that ahead of time.

4) Utilize your leader on the team
This is a great time to read Exodus 18 again. Look at what Jethro says to Moses about the way he is leading. Appoint leaders on your team and let them lead. Teach your leaders to lead, help them lead and let the team know that they are going to lead. This has been one the greatest learning experiences for me. When you can focus your time on helping your leaders and taking care of them, then your leaders can lead; us the resources in them that God has given you.

5) Pray hard
This could probably be the first point but we’re talking about it last. Pray throughout this entire process; pray for God to put the right people on the team. Pray for God to lead your team, stretch them, keep them safe and unite them for a common purpose. When you take the time to seek God in this entire process of following the great commission God will speak to you and lead you in the right path.

The day after it snowed in Vegas

So the long awaited footage is here! This is what my small group did the day after it snowed in Vegas! I am so stoked I got some guys who are down to do this!

PDYM Tuesday Night: Session One

Night one is coming to a wrap and I have to say that it was amazing! We started out with some grub outside in beautiful So Cal weather. Then moved into The Refinery to the auditorium; where HS meets. The night was amazing and I have to say that I wish I took better notes. The opening song by the HS team was so sick! They had this 7th grade boy sing some song by "Cold Play" (I am not good at music).
After that about 15 people came up and shared why they are in youth ministry; very refreshing for me to hear (I'll try to find all the list on that).

I thought it would be interesting to post the list I was working on to try to post before the conference:
Here are five things that I am most excited about the conference this year
1) Getting to connect with like-minded youth workers
2) Spending some time away from "the ministry" to get refreshed
3) Having dinner at The Reed's house on Wednesday night (kinda forcing that one on them)
4) Staying at Danny Bower's house and having good friends to decompress with
5) Learning how to better serve students and reach them for Christ

Here are five things that I am not excited about:
1) I packed myself; that means I forgot all the necessary items to live
2) My wife and daughter are at home without me and I miss them (actually cried already)
3) Honestly I hate eating out all the time; it makes me feel sluggish
4) I have to leave early (I am excited that I am doing Greg and Richelle's though)
5) When it ends; I bet this is how our students feel when camp is over