FAMILY PLUS High School - July 21

Hello HS Parents:

It's tough to believe that summer is almost over. I know the past several weeks have flown by for many of you just as they have for me. The next week and a half will fly by as well, and before you know it your students will be back in school.

We have had such a great week in the New Orleans area with your high school students. It has been my privilege to work and serve with them again in St. Bernard Parish. I've watched them be selfless and give more of themselves than a reasonable person could expect…and most of it under some pretty adverse conditions.

By Friday night of this week we will have worked on five homes and served 35 children at KidzDays in the Parish. The impact on the children and families we serve AND on our students as a result of these opportunities is quite humbling. It's difficult to comprehend that people still need help six years after The Storm. Hearing people share their stories with us about the chaos that has been their lives since Katrina affirms, again, that our strategy and focus are correctly placed in the heart of this area.

This Sunday we will continue our study in the District on Abba during our Bible study time. We will be discussing what it means for God to be sovereign and using as our text: 1 Samuel 2:2-10 and Isaiah 46:9-11.

Please be in prayer for our students and leaders as we complete our week of missions in St. Bernard Parish. Pray for safety as we travel home and for God to continue His work in the lives of people in the New Orleans area. Please contact me if I can pray about something specifically for you or your family.

FAMILY PLUS High School -July 16

Hello HS Parents!

As I write this I'm on a bus with many of your teenagers on our way to New Orleans. Don't worry -Robert's driving right now! I'm so excited about this trip as it is one we have been preparing for nearly three years. Many of our previous trips have served as the ground work for this missions opportunity for your students.

This week we will have about three construction teams working in St. Bernard Parish and Orleans Parish. Yes, there is still MUCH to be done in the rebuild effort in the Gulf Coast areas affected by Katrina - or as the locals refer to it: The Storm. These rebuild teams will continue to be a apart of our longterm strategy in New Orleans.

A new opportunity for us this week, though, is our initiative to provide a KidzDays camp similar to the one we provide in Gladeville. We have rented a local park in St. Bernard Parish as our camp facility and haven marketed the camp for the past several months. Our prayer is that we will encounter the students we have come to know through our work in the local school system.

Please pray for the work God will do in the lives of your students this week and the lives they will touch on behalf of His Kingdom. "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news." Romans 10:15b. Your teens are bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to children and families in the New Orleans area.

Students who are at home this week will be tackling the second week of our Abba study on Sunday morning. This week covers the question: What is the Trinity. The Scriptures we will use are 1 Corinthians 6:8, John 1:1-3, and John 16:13-15. I challenge you this week to try to articulate to your spouse or a friend what the Trinity is. I suggest this as a practice for having a similar conversation with your high schooler.

I would also suggest that you refrain from Googling the Trinity and using those search results as the basis of your conversation with your student. Our church library has some excellent resources for biblical questions and the library staff can point you to other solid resources to help you as well.

Thank you for your prayers this week. Please contact me via email or cell phone if there is something you'd like me to pray about for your family.

-Michael

FAMILY PLUS High School - July 9

Hello HS Parents

Only one more week until we head out to New Orleans for our July Mission Trip. We'll be doing a KidzDays camp in St. Bernard Parish (just east of New Orleans). This is the same parish we work with students in the public school system. We'll also be working in homes in St. Bernard.

Tomorrow we begin a new study in our student area entitled "Abba." This study will last four weeks and will provide solid answers about who God is. On the surface, it might seem that this type of study would be elementary for high school students. My experience, though, is that these are the types of questions that students have a difficult time answering/articulating verbally. Many of them "know" the answers to these questions, but they don't know WHY they know them.

Lastly, I want to share with you a new class that will be starting in August. David Watkins and I will be co-teaching a Family Plus parenting class for parents of students. Here is the copy that will be in our fall connect book regarding this class opportunity:

Family Plus Class for Parents, Taught by Michael Eubanks and David Watkins, Sunday mornings at 9:15

Our New Generations ministry operates on a principle we call "Family Plus." It's simple - we believe that parents are the key voices in the lives of preschoolers, children, and teenagers. We also believe that the church is a strong, and necessary, voice in the lives of preschoolers, children, and teenagers. We are resolved that although young people will benefit from either of these voices in their lives, the greatest benefit with the strongest impact comes when they have both of them in their lives. To that end, we believe that the messages from each needs to be a clear, united message.

Family Plus Class for Parents facilitates another layer of support from our church to the success of your family. It encourages you as a parent trying to rear your child in a godly home. It equips you to be a godly parent and helps you, and our church, unite the messages we both send to your child for the purpose of seeing spiritual transformation in their lives, your lives, and in your family.

If you are looking for a Sunday morning connect opportunity, I hope you will consider this class. I hope you're having a great summer with your students and seizing EVERY unplanned opportunity to model and discuss matters of faith with them. Let me know if there is something I can pray about for you or your family.

Michael

FAMILY PLUS High School - July 2

Hello High School Parents

This past Wednesday night we wrapped up our 2010-2011 year with a heated game of Minute To Win It against the middle schoolers. J.D. Young took home the grand prize - $50 gift card to Providence Cinemas. Wednesday night programming will resume on August 3rd at the Back To School Bash.

This coming Sunday in our Bible study time with high schoolers we will continue (actually complete) the last study on patience. I thought we would finish it this past Sunday, but there is content from the midweek portion that I want to cover that we have not gotten to yet. It relates, specifically, to the question, "Where should my patience show? We'll be looking at James 1:19, Galatians 6:9, and Hebrews 12:1-3.

This Sunday also marks the last day for high school graduates to be in our Sunday morning Bible study. On Sunday, July 10th, they will begin their new classes. I've communicated their options this week in a personal letter, but if you need help getting your graduate transitioned to a new class - please email me or give me a call.

My challenge this week is for you to practice and model patience with your teenager, his or her siblings, and your spouse/their other parent. If things are rough in your home, think of ways to model Christ's patience with you in the things that you're facing. If your teen's other parent doesn't live with you and that situation is stressful - think of how to show Christ's love to him or her as a means of modeling Christlike behavior to your student. This is one of the toughest areas to live as a parent, spouse, heck...as a human being!!!! Thank goodness we're in it together and have the PERFECT model to show us the way!

If I can pray about anything for you or your family, please contact me via email or phone.

-Michael

Because....

Since I was out of the country last week and missed my posting deadline, I thought I'd go ahead and write a note today...but one that is not "technically" a FAMILY PLUS Update.

Last week Robert Post (our Interim Middle School Minister) agreed to allow the high schoolers to crash his middle school trip to Holiday World. I was SO thankful that our students would be able to go AND for Robert's graciousness to handle the logistics to make it happen. They had a GREAT time - THANKS Robert!!

But the trip (as always happens when we do something out-of-the-norm) raised a few questions about why our high school ministry doesn't do more trips like that. You know - more "fun" stuff. Whether you're a seasoned veteran in our ministry or you've just recently inched your big toe into the waters of New Generations - I hope you find this post helpful.

Having worked in student ministry in some fashion for a long time (almost 20 years now), I have "done" ministry many different ways. And I have certainly had action packed, calendar-filled years that left no down time for family and stressed even the most creative budget planner. But what I have realized amid all the "fun" that we can be about is that the fun is - typically - very short lived.

About five years ago I felt led to change the focus of our ministry from what had grown to look like inward focused activities to something higher - outward focused missions. I began to focus on what our impact could be outside the walls of the church and what we (as students and student leaders) could be about in the greater life of God's Kingdom (not just in our youth group). This led us (our team at the time) to ask serious questions about the purpose behind each and every event we planned.

You see, to mobilize a group of students and leaders is not cheap. For example, a regular trip that we take to New Orleans costs us about $13,500 in transportation costs alone. Add food and other logistics to that, multiply by three trips a year and you'll get really close to about $50,000. Well, those numbers actually hold pretty steady for other trips as well. So when we were taking retreats or going to camp - the costs were relative to the amount of time we were away, but still had a significant impact on our budget.

I became very convicted that if we were spending significant dollars to go somewhere away from our church, then we should not be going to do something for ourselves. I found that although rafting and going to Six Flags were great trips and I had fun hanging out with students, the lasting impact those trips had on students connecting with our ministry or giving us opportunity to share the gospel with them was barely measurable at all. It was poor stewardship of our resources.

I also found that ministry opportunities had much greater impact on the lives of students - especially high school students. For example, one year we took a split camp/mission trip experience. We did the missions part first and the camp part second. The result? Camp was a HUGE let down because students had such a rich experience serving others. The camp experience felt too inwardly focused - and that made students feel guilty for not spending the camp time continuing the mission work.

Another problem that can be overlooked by the casual observer is the impact that these trips have on family budgets. So, let's say we are going to do these types of "fun" trips as long as they are self funded. In other words - no money from our ministry budget can be used to sustain that type of trip. Well, that would be fine at first glance. But what happens when a family budget is stretched to the point that a student can only participate in one trip a year. Now I have put a student in the position of making a choice between something "fun" that (in my mind) will have a short-term impact on his or her life and something "outward" that (in my mind) will be much more fun and reach something deeper in the student's core. I believe it's better to just remove the ambiguity and spend my time facilitating and equipping the church to be the church.

I believe that in the more formative years (children and middle school) the impact of camp and the discipleship provided in an isolated setting is incredibly valuable. But I think providing isolated settings for discipleship connected with an effort to do something for someone else has a longer lasting, more focused impact on older students.

I know that our high school ministry is probably less entertaining than many others. I know that participating in it requires proactive rather than reactive choices from its students and parents. But that seems to go hand-in-hand with the DNA of our church body. I do not believe that any of our age level areas should be looked at as separate entities of the church body - rather, we are the body. And as the body we have to be concerned about the worldview we have when looking at ministry opportunities. To that end, our focus in high school work is serving others for the fame and renown of Jesus Christ. In doing so, we also provide rich opportunities for spiritual growth, challenge, and transformation.

FAMILY PLUS High School - June 17

Hello HS Parents!

This past Wednesday night Robert Post continued our series on Patience. He shared some personal stories about how his patience has been tried and tested over the years as a ball player, a fiance, and as a man. He talked about the good that comes from waiting and how God has shown him again and again the value of waiting on His timing. This Sunday our students will continue that study in small group Bible study with Scott Weeks.

Many of your students were (as always) a key to the success of Summer Jam this week. Our students continue to make themselves available with their unique gifts for the sake of making Him famous. You should know that they are and were the heros this week...especially to the kids at our church. Our New Generations Team are so thankful for their service and your willingness to allow them to be used for God's Kingdom.

I will be in Peru with 7 of our high school students and Courtney Bradley. Please pray that God will give us safe travel and will reveal Himself to children and adults. If there is anything I can pray about for you or your family...please let me know.

-Michael

FAMILY PLUS - June 10

Hello High School Parents

I guess it's safe to say that summer has officially started and your high schooler has already been hitting you up for some extra cash to get in on whatever his or her friends are getting into.  Although my son is only four, he is already capable of asking for money and wanting it right when he asks!

That brings me to the series we just began this past Wednesday in the District on Patience.  We talked about how tough it is to wait on things, but that it seemed the absolute BEST things in our lives were the ones on which we had to wait.  We also talked about how being patient is a mark of the Holy Spirit in our lives as patience is a fruit of the Spirit.

Try to be aware this week about what you are modeling when it comes to patience. I'm sure your student already knows the limit of your patience as it relates to him or her. Watch for opportunities this week to show patience toward your child.  I guarantee you he or she will notice!!!

Take a look at other fruit of the Spirit by looking at Galatians 5.  As always, please let me know if there is something I can pray about for your family.

Michael