I don’t know how or why, but I only just discovered this today.  Foursquare has a new ministry / training / discipleship opportunity for 18-24 year-olds.  The basic idea is explained below in this quote from the Foursquare web site:

The Foursquare Church believes that graduated high school students have a desire to step into their future prepared, trained, and with a strong sense of purpose and mission. Students who desire to tithe one year of their life in order to discover God’s direction for their future are encouraged to consider IGNITE as one way of fulfilling their call. College credit may be earned for courses taken as part of IGNITE and students who participate in the program gain valuable ministry experience in the local church and in worldwide outreach.

I love the concept!  It’s definitely something that I’ll be excited to tell our grads about.

Only Louie Giglio (from Passion/268generation) can get me this excited about laminin. Wow! I love this. Set aside 8 minutes of your day and watch…

ht caffeinatedfaith

Josh Griffen’s team edited these videos for a walk-through-the-decades as part of Saddleback student ministries’ current series on sex. Good snapshots… I might have to get permission to use these sometime.

The 50′s…

The 60′s…

The 70′s…

The 80′s…

The 90′s…

…and today…

Check out the “Umpa-Land” set being built during the David Crowder Band’s initial performance at the GMA’s… love it!

Here’s some comments from Crowder on his GMA blog:

“…regarding the Crowder band and the umpa-land that we were creating during our inaugural performance on the doves, no physical injury occurred, and so we count it a success. Also, my mom thought it was cute. I thought it was quite fun and adequately campy, our hope being that it would be just about impossible not to smile when the happy sunshine drops in at the end. Hogan said he caught a glimpse of The Mr. Jeremy Camp grinning madly and clapping like a four year old when the sun came, so, i mean, to make a manly man like Mr. Camp feel what I would classify as “glee” is pretty fantastic.

…We also had a lovely night as far as awards go. We were really happy to see our latest effort, Remedy, be awarded the dove for Album Packaging of the Year. The whole green cross thing was something we had in our heads the whole time we were making the recording and of course we think Gary and Kaysie Dorsey (the folks at pixel peach who do our art stuff) are freaking geniuses with the Photoshop or whatever wizardry they use to make us look presentable. I mean, yes, it is undeniable truth, we are an incredibly photogenic band, but really they do a fine job despite this. Also there was the dove for “Worship Album” and one for Pop/Rock recorded song of the year “Everything Glorious” and I also received one for singing on Mac Powell’s “Glory Revealed” album. The highlight of these recognitions was that Bibleman was the presenter for “Worship Album of the Year”.

I don’t even know what I said when we got up there because it was all so weird, you know, a guy in a plastic muscle suit, presenting you an award for a worship album, it was just mind blowing. But the cool thing about the Doves is that it is all of those people that you’ve gotten to know over the years that are voting and it’s just really, really nice to have them vote and acknowledge that they think what you are doing is meaningful in some way. At least that’s how i like to look at it all.”

Too bad I couldn’t find a link of Bibleman giving Crowder the Dove.  I’m sure that was entertaining, too.

NEW RALLY SERVICE MESSAGE SERIES:

It’s tough to be a teenager, let alone, a Christian teenager in a world that doesn’t really support things like God’s truth and serious faith.  Add that stuff to the mix and it gets even tougher.

In fact, maybe the teenage years — especially high school — are the first and most memorable “proving grounds” for developing the heart to stand up for and defend your faith.  It’s a time that really tests how serious a Christian is about resisting temptation.  It’s so difficult to say “No” to peer pressure, even though, as believers, we know it isn’t the way God wants us to live.

That’s what makes Paul’s picture of the armor of God so cool.  He shows how the different pieces of this crazy thing called “being a Christian” all come together to not only protect us, but to help us live the life that God has designed for us; to live out the purpose He has for us.

The thing about battles is, they’re never easy.  They’re never without casualties and losses.  But they’re also never without successes and triumphs.  For the next six weeks, we’re going to dig into these 6 pieces of the Armor of God:

1. Belt of Truth
2. Breastplate of Righteousness
3. Shoes of Peace
4. Shield of Faith
5. Helmet of Salvation
6. Sword of the Spirit