Spahr Family Christmas

We had a great, enjoyable and relaxed family Christmas at home this year. Heading to Rosalie's mom's house tomorrow to spend Christmas in Wisconsin for a bit. It was nice to be able to get up and enjoy our traditional monkey bread for breakfast and grilled out steaks for dinner. That's a tradition my family started the tradition when I was growing up in Florida. Up here it's a bit chillier grilling out in December!

The boys got some Wii games and the family got the Wii version of Dance Dance Revolution (good thing I'm not Baptist anymore!). Wow - what a workout! I'll be shedding the pounds by playing that game, let me tell you.

It's been a great time to reflect on the blessings of the past year. It's definitely been one of the most eventful, exciting years of my life and it's been awesome to see how God works out everything for His glory! We have a great family, a wonderful new house, a tremendous church family, incredible staff and leadership at church, and we love every minute of serving at Journey North.

Thanks to all who have shared and blessed us during the launch process and throughout the holiday season. We love the goodies (and thanks for not bringing us fruitcake!), but most of all we just love the people!

I can't wait to see God continue to work in the year(s) to come. It just keeps getting better and better!

Oh, The Drama!

We had another great time gathering together on Sunday morning before Christmas - our Christmas Eve Eve service! The highlight - for me, anyway - was being able to perform in a sketch we did called "It's a Wonderful Fruitcake". I played a UPS driver while Darrin and Karissa Lange played father and daughter (not too big a stretch!) and Julie Adams played the mom. It was a great time, even though we skipped a little bit during the first service. By the second service we nailed it! (Just a note to first service attenders - you know you're guinea pigs for a lot of stuff, right?! If you value excellence highly you will likely want to attend second more often. First service is great for those who are more casual and flexible with imperfections. Fortunately that describes most if not all of the people at JNC!)

It was great to be acting again. I was in many drama productions in college (from Twelfth Night where I had four lines - that I still remember, to musicals like Shenandoah, to major roles in The Inspector General and The Night of January 16th. I have been in numerous sketches in church in the subsequent years, but never really got over the acting bug. I have often thought that had I not become a youth pastor I would have enjoyed acting.

Thanks to those that performed, those that endured the performance, and those that helped get everything set up. Thanks to Jeanne Johnson and her son who loaned me the UPS jacket for a costume!

And just so everyone knows - I do not like fruitcake in real life! That's called "acting", my friends. (Actually, that's called Apple Fritter Bread from Wal-Mart's bakery - yum!) So don't bother giving me any fruitcake - it'll just get re-gifted!

Spahr Christmas Letter Mailed!

I finally have our family Christmas letter in the mail as of yesterday! Some may get it before Christmas, but I'm not counting on it. Those friends and family with e-mail will have received a digital copy (saving me well over $100 is postage! Thanks!)

If you didn't get one and would like to read it, you can download a copy from my Facebook page.

Encounter at Districts this Spring

Wow, it’s barely Christmas time and already we’re thinking about Districts this Spring! I just received the information yesterday, but it’s never too soon to start planning. Ignite students, put it on your calendar because this will be one you won’t want to miss!

Here are the details:

Theme: The Encounter - ". . . .Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” -Isaiah 6:3

When: Friday, April 25, through Sunday, April 27, 2008

Where: Rochester, Minnesota – Rochester Mayo Convention Center

Lodging: Various Hotels In the Rochester Downtown area (all within walking distance of the Mayo Civic Center)

Speaker: Bill Allison- Cadre Ministries (www.cadreministries.com)

Worship Leaders: By The Tree (www.bythetreeonline.com & www.myspace.com/bythetree)

Some Highlights: 4 powerful rallies, a choice of 10+ different seminars, outreach/ service opportunities, pre-rally youth band performances for 2 NCD churches, break out times to discuss the speaker’s message, prayer army and more.

Ignite Christmas Celebration

Ignite students celebrated Christmas this past Sunday night with a combination Progressive Dinner and White Elephant party. A fantastic time was had by all! Thanks to the host homes and all of the workers who helped to make this such a fun wrap up to the calendar year.

Finally Time to Vote

Pine City School District residents - the day is finally here! This is our big opportunity to vote to improve the quality of our school facilities and invest in our children's educational future. Please don't forget to vote today for the Referendum!

Ignite Updates

Ignite students at Journey North Church:

A couple of quick updates for you. First, we will be having our White Elephant Progressive Dinner Christmas Party this Sunday night beginning at 5:00 pm (note the earlier time than when we usually have Connect). All junior and senior high students are invited! If you have never been to a Progressive Dinner you are in for a treat (several, actually!) We’ll be traveling to various homes in Pine City and Rush City and enjoying a different course to our meal at each location. Then we’ll return to our house for dessert and the White Elephant gift openings. You will need to bring a wrapped White Elephant gift to share. A White Elephant is a gift you find around your house that is interesting, weird, or wacky (not something you go out and buy.) Be creative! We’ll have a lot of fun as we eat and share together.

Second, we had hoped to play some broomball this Saturday, but between the weather and basketball tournaments it doesn’t look like this week will work. We may try for next Saturday, the 22^nd. E-mail me and let me know if you’re interested and if you’ll be around.

Finally, I know that many of you have expressed interest in attending Nationals next summer. Here are a few details:

The Challenge 2008 National EFCA Student Ministries Conference will be held Sunday, June 29 through Friday, July 4. We will leave Friday, June 27 and return Sunday night, July 6. The cost will be $500 per student with a $100 deposit due by March 1. We will not be having public youth group fund raisers as we don’t want to be known as a church/youth group that is always asking for money. We will, however, try to make opportunities available for you to work and earn money that you can apply toward the trip cost. We don’t want money to be the reason for anyone not to attend. There may be some need-based scholarship money available, too. Talk to me if you are interested. If you know now that you would like to attend please let me know right away so that we can begin planning and so that I can help you find ways to earn any money you need. The maximum number of students we can take is 10. For more information on the conference itself, go to http://blogs.efca.org/challenge/ to see highlights from previous years’ conferences, bios on the speakers and band, etc. Let me know if you have any questions.

Planet Wisdom Wrap Up

It's been over a week since we returned from our first trip to the Planet Wisdom Tour. This gathering for junior and senior high students, held 13 times in various cities throughout the year, returned to the Twin Cities for the eighth year. Hosted by Grace Church in Eden Prairie at their fabulous church campus, this conference challenges growth-level students to deeper levels of discipleship.

I'm really surprised that I hadn't heard of the Planet Wisdom Tour before this year. Mark Matlock, the primary speaker and the driving force behind Planet Wisdom's ministries, spoke at the SHIFT student ministries conference at Willow Creek this past spring. I was impressed by his presentation and began to research Planet Wisdom and this tour. Although this was our first year to attend it definitely won't be our last! Every student that attended had an excellent time sharing, learning, and growing together. Next year we are going to extend our stay by one day and come back on Sunday. This time we had to skip the last session in order to make it though the snow storm and be able to return in a timely manner.

Here are some pictures from the conference. The rest are on my Facebook page. Thanks to Northwestern College freshman Sarah Hanson for taking the photos and for serving as a youth sponsor on this trip! I've known Sarah for a very long time (Rosalie's known her since birth - Sarah's, not Rosalie's!) Sarah was in our youth group in Ripon and has attended several events with our youth group since we've been in Pine City. It was great to serve alongside her as a youth sponsor! She's a great role model and a wonderful example for our students.

15 to 20 below!

That was the temperature here in Pine City last night and early this morning - somewhere around -15 to -20 degrees! Now, I love Minnesota and Pine City, but it's mornings like this that make me ask, "I live in Minnesota why?"

Nevertheless, I am glad for a hot cup of coffee and a fireplace on cold mornings like this, as well as the fact that I don't have to go anywhere too early today! I can even catch up on a blog post!

(And to my friends and family who live in the south - I don't want to hear about it!)

I'm Back!

We finally have internet access at our new house! I apologize to those who check this page daily, waiting for the highlights, insights, and nuggets of wisdom that you have come to enjoy (endure?) Between moving, an excellent Planet Wisdom conference, daily ministry tasks and meetings, and trying to get our house in some semblence of order I have had to back-burner my blogging activities temporarily.

I am actually composing this entry at school on my PocketPC during my planning period as I am subbing today (I'll post this when I get home. As my text entry method is "block recognizer" - one step up from handwriting - this entry may be somewhat less verbose than is my custom. (I actually have an infrared folding keyboard but haven't loaded the driver since my last hard reset. Oops. Too late for today.)

Speaking of substitute teaching, this is my first real opportunity to sub this fall and I am excited to be back in the classroom. It is a great chance to get to know students and staff and keep up with what is happening in the schools.

Snow Cancellation and other Stuff

You may have read Pastor Tim's blog and seen this already but there will be no worship service or CONNECT small groups tomorrow due to the snow (and the fact that many people will not have their roads plowed in order to be able to get out).

We did get back safely from Planet Wisdom (we left early and missed the last session in order to beat the sleet). What a great conference! I'll blog more later - with pictures! - but in the mean time I just wanted to say thanks to those who have been praying for the conference and our students! It was awesome.

Finally, we are all moved in, but I don't have internet access at home until Thursday. I'll catch up at the church office, but don't expect instant replies like you're used to from me.