VeggieTales

One thing that has occurred since my son started to enjoy watching cartoons; was that we are watching a lot more than I had in many years. The fun part of this is discovering shows that I never watched before that make our whole family laugh. One of those shows is VeggieTales, if you never seen VeggieTales I highly recommend it. It's really creative, funny and they are always pointing their lessons back to the Bible. Here is a short clip, one of the funnier ones...



Now with getting to know VeggieTales I decided to read the biography of one of the creators of the show Phil Vischer, its called My, Myself and Bob. Phil has an incredible story of creating VeggieTales watching it have immense success and then watching it fall all the way to bankruptcy. VeggieTales is actually own now by a large media company. Watching Phil struggle through the his book was difficult because he was attempting to do something great for God, impact children and youth with a great cartoon that emphasized Christian ideas, especially that "God made you special and he loves you very much" (this is said at the end of every show). He thought that he was following God and pushing into his calling and then it all fell apart.

Near the end of the book, Phil writes about what God taught him through taking away his dream (creating a cartoon to reach youth). One quote that really caught my attention was this, "He who has God plus many things has nothing more than he who has God alone" - C.S. Lewis. Wow, its especially eye catching when its written like this, "He who has God plus an amazing ministry impacting millions of lives around the world has nothing more than he who has God alone", that idea has really set me back. I want to be in a place where I can believe that on a daily basis where its not about what I do, is about God and my relationship with Him and that alone is enough. Thanks Phil

God loves sports?

When I first became a Christian I looked down on my love for sports. I knew that I needed to spend more time with God and if I cut out sports I would have plenty of time for Him. But during my Josiah Project summer God showed me the things I love can bring Him glory. So, we decided to start the Ambridge Sports Camp, Shea and I love Jesus and love sports and we attempted to mix the two together and see what came out.

As sports has become a golden ticket to college or to a wealthy life, I see us headed backwards, back to when you played sports for fun, to be around friends and to challenge yourself in being the best you could be.

That's what we want the Ambridge Sports Camp to be; a place for youth to have the opportunity to be youth, a place where they can be with their friends and make new friends, a place to be challenged athletically, mentally and spiritually and a place to have fun. Its work for the past 4 years. Hopefully the Ambridge Sports Camp will continue to be a place where we see God glorified in a camp and in sports.

youth center?

When I look at what we believe God is calling us to here in Ambridge...mentoring, lacrosse team, leadership initiative and a youth center. One really stands out, doesn't it...youth center. A youth center in Ambridge run by Ambridge Youth Ignite, wow just saying it makes me feel like I am crazy. For some reason recently God has begun to stir that in me. Honestly, it scares me and that's one reason why I think we need to start pursuing it.

I just finished this book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day by Mark Batterson, it really helped me see my fear as a good thing, something that was there for me to overcome, something for me to push into. With that I feel the desire to start praying over a building here in Ambridge that would be a great place for a youth center, that place is the old Foodland.

A couple of experiences have gotten me to this place of search for and praying over a possible youth center. First, in Batterson's book he talks about the building that they prayed over and received to start their own coffee house near Union Station in DC. Um buildings definitely come a lot easier in Ambridge then in DC near Union Station. Secondly, I met the people who operate The Open Door in Crafton Heights near downtown Pittsburgh. Their story is very similar to Batterson's and actually Ambridge Youth Ignite's, they opened a youth center and its still in operation 20 years later. Check out their video below



So, I caught myself saying well if they can do it why not us?

Faith and staying

Since my last post, we have had a difficult season. My wife and I who have been attempting to live on the support of our donors, looked at our financial numbers and knew things needed to change. From about April of 2008, I have been applying to jobs and not until recently have I felt peace about what I am about to write.

We are staying in Ambridge, not because I found a great job, not because we got enough donations, but because we can't run away from God's calling on our lives to this place. We love it here, we love our church, we love our friends, we love the youth and the challenges our ministry brings. With all of this God continues to place a burden on our hearts for the youth of Ambridge and we can't run away from that.

As I was thinking about what to say I remembered one of my favorite movies "Field of Dreams", there is a scene in the movie where Ray (Kevin Costner) is faced with making a decision about the field and his home.



I see a lot of similarities between Ray's decision and ours. We need people in our lives (like James Earl Jones in the clip) to say keep going, its worth it, even though things look bad now it won't always be this way.

Peace to you guys as you strive to stay or leave and go where God is calling.

try to update more often...

Here is some new news...we are still trying to find a field for the sport camp this summer. Due to the fact that they are tearing down the old high school where we have had camp for the past 4 years, we decided that it would be best for us to stay away from the demolition. Pray for us that we will find a field that all the youth who desire to come to the camp will be able to. We do have some great news about the arts camp, we will be holding the arts camp at Center for Hope in Ambridge this year, CFH's building is a former school with large classrooms that will be perfect for camp.

I am meeting with 3 middle schoolers now once a week, we are studying the book of Genesis. We just finished the book of Nehemiah . The youth invited one of their friends and it has been great spending time with all of them. We meet at the Brighton Hot Dog Shoppe in Ambridge, they have some great food there and its cool to sit and pray and read the Bible with these 3 guys in there too.

I think we may have found a field for the lacrosse team to practice on this summer, its a fairly small field (too small for sports camp) but its open and right in the middle of town, pray that it works out...

Its been a crazy year already and its only May...

Spring time is coming

Who is excited that pitchers and catchers report this week?
If you don't know what that means, its ok here ya go;
Spring Training is starting for baseball

If you live in the north you understand that anything with the word spring in it is a good sign; especially when temperatures are in the single digits today in Ambridge, PA.

As spring time approaches we are preparing for our 5th summer of ministry to the youth in Ambridge. Five years is a long time and its crazy to me to remember that all of this started from an idea we had in the summer of 2003.

I wanted to let you guys know that we are changing our name to
Ambridge Youth Ignite (because we are becoming so much more than a camp). We'll have a new web-site in a few days called www.ambridgeyouthignite.org

This is a really exciting time for us and we are really happy to see things moving, Shea and I truly believe that this is why we are here in Ambridge to push this ministry into the school year and continue the relationships that were created during the summer.

With that I have been meeting with two youth each week, in effort to start a mentoring relationship with them. We are studying the book of Nehemiah, we eat together and we pray together; its a lot of fun.

We are starting to recruit summer staff, if you know anyone who would be interested in helping us out this summer please e-mail me at ambridgeyouthignite@yahoo.com.

It's 2008

Time has really flown by recently for us. A few weeks ago, the Ambridge Sports and Arts Camp had a storyboarding session where we decided on 4 initiatives that we are pursuing in 2008.

1) Facilitate Mentoring relationships

2) Launch a leadership initiative

3) Establish a Youth Center

4) Field a lacrosse team


Each of these initiatives are being headed up by a different person, which is really exciting. We have also started recruiting for leaders for Ambridge sports and arts camp 2008.