On the personal side of things, we’d like to ask you to pray for the following requests:
Tomorrow in Youth Culture class, we’re going to watch the movie, A Walk to Remember, starring Mandy Moore. The movie has many scenes with topics about what we have discussed in class, including positions in society, attitudes of the church towards the culture, and manifestations of a culture. I’ve also taken about 10 clips from the movie to use in the final exam that will be on Friday. I’m looking forward to it. The students also have a research paper about a youth culture topic (religion, education, family, etc). This has been a difficult class to teach because of the vocabulary, but I think that we have accomplished the objectives of the class. Next up: Programming in Youth Ministry. It’s more of a nuts and bolts kind of class that helps the students understand the details of youth ministry planning. Programming is a two-part class, so it will take up the remainder of the school year.
Yesterday, I had a 6 hour faculty meeting at the seminary. I love working at the seminary, training in a formal setting, but I’m not a huge fan of meetings. We talked about a lot of stuff, not a lot of which had much to do with the youth ministry department. Oh well. Tomorrow is the last class and Friday is the final exam.
Us at Furr’s with the Torbert and Dix families on Thanksgiving Day.
We drove 12 hours yesterday to McAllen, Texas, for Thanksgiving. We are here with our friends, the Dix family and the Torbert family. We had a crazy day today, fighting crowds in the stores and shopping for Christmas. It’s good to be here with them, taking some time off from our busy schedule.
We spent the last week entertaining and ministering with a group of youth pastors and youth leaders who are working with the International Center for Youth Ministry at Southern Seminary located in Louisville, Kentucky. We were blessed to have them here with us. Here’s a brief rundown of what they did while they were here:
Friday: After Rigo and Huberto gave their presentation on Ravers, Troy taught the youth culture class at the seminary. He also preached in chapel.
Saturday: We spent the whole day in Cuautla, giving a workshop on youth ministry. Each youth pastor gave a one hour conference about a theme related to youth ministry. Israel did a great job translating for us.
Sunday: We went to our church, Dios Es Amor, for both the morning and evening. The morning worship service was great as usual, and the group led the evening youth group meeting. We played “banana relay” with the group and Greg shared the lesson.
Monday: We went to the pyramids of Teotihuacan on Monday, and the group had a chance to practice their Spanish and buy some things from the vendors there.
Tuesday: Gary preached in chapel at the seminary, and then we went downtown to eat at the House of Tiles and do more shopping at Ciudadela, a huge market in downtown Mexico City. We also had a great meeting at Renovacion Baptist Church, the church where Huberto works as the youth pastor. It was a great meeting with youth and adults from the church where we cast the vision for what is happening in youth ministry all over the world.
Wednesday: The group left for home this afternoon. It was a great trip, and we enjoyed having them here sharing in the ministry with us.
