youth group

Not a great day

October 24, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

This afternoon particularly was rough for me. There’s been another meeting scheduled with our youth council for this Friday and I started completely stressing about it. By the time Scott got home right before 5, he found me in a pool of tears on our bed. Not a great welcoming back home. But I say that to say this. God answers prayers. I’ve been so hopeless with our situation and all of the leaders being able to get along and I just have been begging God to show us the right thing to do. I don’t know if I have my permanent answer but for today, right now, a weight was lifted off. I don’t feel the anger, stress and worry that I felt this afternoon and it is many thanks to our pastor that showed this video during his guest-speaking sermon tonight in youth group. But more than that, many thanks to God for giving me what I needed when I needed it. I have no idea what Friday will bring but at least I’m going into it with the proper attitude.

If you know anything about Contemporary Christian music in the past 15 years or so, I’m sure you’ve heard of dc Talk or Toby Mac. This video features dc Talk members Michael and Toby talking about their friendship. It spoke volumes to me about our youth council and that there’s hope.

The video is kinda long at 10 minutes so if you don’t want to watch it, the best part is the last minute or two of Toby talking.

P.S. Kevin and Toby are still HOT!

Protected: The drama over?

October 15, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Looking for a little peace?

September 30, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Last night Scott and I had to get ready for Sunday School and youth bible study tonight. I normally teach Sunday School but was really tired last night and not up to studying. I asked Scott to do Sunday School and he said sure as long as I did the bible study. No other leaders were going to be there so it was up to us. Fine, that gave me another afternoon to prepare. Lately we’ve been using the Youth Link song sermons. I stopped by the youth room this morning to look through the book and pick a CD to take home. I mentioned hearing the song East to West last week on the way home and was pleasantly surprised to see this song as one of my options. I barely looked to see how the lesson was laid out and took it home. Honestly, I didn’t think the lesson did justice to the song and taking what’s been on my heart lately and tying in what our speaker from Wednesday spoke about, I came up with my own thing. I’d like to share it but it’s going to be long…it took about 45 minutes to get through. So if you’re up for it…read on.

You want me to sing what?

September 25, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

So my neighbor/lead guitarist in our worship band at church gets in my car on the way to practice and says, "We need to have a band meeting." Apparently, he got pretty frustrated last week between band practice being as insane and disorganized as it was and not being able to hear himself play on Wednesday night and really frustrated with the other guitarist I’ve been mentioning as being, uh, high maintenance.

So me being the adult, I had to sit everyone down and lead a meeting. We made it clear that I was the lead singer and we’d be singing songs in my key as much as possible. And that our rhythm guitarist would concentrate on his guitar stuff and provide vocals whenever possible but his first priority should be to play.

Also, we talked about direction. Which songs we should learn and such. I gave them a great pep talk about this band is only as good as the work they put into it. And I was just along for the ride and I’d help organize and sing when none of the youth members showed. And somehow in all that I agreed to learn U2’s "40". It’s a song that is written from Psalm 40. And I’m cool with the song but they want me to sing the same song Bono sang? Oh my, I’m really way out of my league here. And seeing we have yet to have one youth member attend a band practice, I’m guessing it’s pretty much up to me.

But they were excited about it. Apparently S kept saying they’d learn it but he left before they had a chance.

I do have to say band practice went amazingly smooth. We even got out 30 minutes early. We got through all 4 songs and even some of them a few times. And that’s even after having the meeting. It’s amazing what a little communication will do for you.

So, I just found that the "40" mp3 in a stash of music S gave me at one time and I suppose that’s what I’ll be listening to for the next week. Here’s hoping I don’t make a complete fool out of myself (well, that’s maybe a given) and rip a U2 song to shreds.

Technorati Tags: youth group , band , U2 , 40

Not too bad

September 19, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

OK I reported yesterday’s band practice was not too good but tonight turned out not too bad. I recruited a young but extremely talented female youth member to sing with us and she picked up on our new song the second time through! We’ve said from the get-go she would be great but she is a bit immature at times and says she gets nervous standing in front of everyone. Although she does solos in “big church” and in fact has this week’s choir solo so I’m not sure how much that is her needing reassurance from us or what but I’ll give her all she needs because she seriously could lead this. And she’s only in 8th grade so if needed, she could do it for several years to come. I all but begged her to come next Tuesday and plan to send her parents emails saying she did great and maybe even a note to her telling her how good she was. And yes, I’m kissing some major backside because we need her.

Not too good

September 19, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Band practice yesterday was the worst so far. We wanted to do four songs. We never did get through playing the first one after an HOUR. They were moving some sound board things around and it took forever to really get started. And I had to leave to go to the hospital so I think it put everyone in a tizzy trying to get it all done fast but not really doing anything productive. The second (new) song went well. We only went through it twice though. And then the 3rd one we skipped because I felt like everyone knew it enough. And the 4th, it is a song 2 of the guitarist had never played and they weren’t picking it up that quickly and the key was wrong for me and there was no time to switch keys when they didn’t even have the first one down. So I just said we’re only doing 3 tomorrow. So it could be a real mess tonight. The “backup” singing-guitarist didn’t help sing at all because he hadn’t practiced any songs through the week and couldn’t play and sing at the same time so it was even harder for me.

I’m planning on getting some youth up on the 2 songs we already know and only really leading on the new one we’re introducing tonight. I’m really second-guessing this singing thing. I’ve heard comments that some students want to sing, so I think I’m just going to go with that. I’ve realized I haven’t really been having fun doing it. It’s nothing but stress thinking about having to go to sing at practice and on Wednesday nights.

I really wish there was a student that could really step up and lead. Even if I had to go to the practices and help sing/lead the practice, I’d be fine with that. I don’t mind the practices themselves. It’s just I’m tired of embarrassing myself when I can’t find the right key on a song when I’m singing alone.

Hopefully tonight will turn out ok and they’ll by psyched about the new song.

Entertaining angels

September 12, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Tonight Scott taught the lesson at youth. He told a (true) story a preacher once told him. It was regarding the verse:

Hebrews 13:2 2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.

This preacher was walking along in town and saw a man he did not know around town (the same town I live in now which 20 years ago was very small). He was dressed like a homeless man and stopped the preacher to ask for $1 to get something to eat. The preacher waved him off saying he didn’t have time. About four steps past the man, he realized what he had done and that he shouldn’t have acted that way. He turned around to give him the dollar and the man was gone. He said there was nowhere he could have gotten that quickly, nowhere to hide anywhere around him. He insists to this day it was an angel sent to test how he would react.

There were two instances just this week where I felt led to give two people money or at least offer help and I didn’t. One was in the grocery store. A man was buying some very cheap meals in front of us and he gave the cashier all change and then was scrounging for the rest. I almost offered to pay the rest as I had a $10 bill right in front of me. He ended up producing some $20s out of his pocket so I didn’t say anything but still, I still felt like I should have offered. Those $20s may have been rent or mortgage money.

The second was of a man walkin on an Interstate ramp near my house. He had a hiking backpack on, was young and didn’t look homeless exactly but seemed on a trip in some way. He wasn’t really going anywhere and even after my van passed him and no cars were behind him, he didn’t attempt to cross the road on the ramp and wasn’t really going anywhere. Scott and the girls were with me and it wasn’t really feasible to take him anywhere but I still felt led to stop and ask if we needed to call someone or even if he needed money. And yet, I kept driving.

Opportunities missed that I’ll never get back and probably have to answer for in heaven. It saddens and disappoints me that I can’t listen to His voice even in the simplest of things.

Band practice

September 11, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

So band practice today…we actually learned a new song together! Yay! It went way smoother than I thought although it’s not nearly perfect. I’m still no singer and one of the guitarist is having an issue with the transition from the verse to the chorus but hey. We can get through it without stopping.

Had an interesting conversation with one of the guitarist though. There are 3 guitarist. One is basically the leader and was heavily involved in the youth group. One is my neighbor and went to camp with us this year but is heavily into being in the band and is a serious musician. The third is not so much part of the youth group, just a guy playing in our band. Well apparently he can be hard to get along with sometimes, trying to play too much rock and also trying to dominate everything. Well the other week I asked him to sing with me to help me figure out when to come in until I learned. He graciously agreed. But then last week when I had a couple key changes he mentioned it may be too high for him and also that he’d figure it out. Fine. Well tonight he says, “We’re going to have to figure out something about these keys, they are too high for me to sing.” I wanted to say, well, I’m sorry, the other keys are too low for me to sing so if you want me in this band, we need to sing them in this key. But what I said was, “Well, you and I are like me and St, we can’t sing the same key so if you can sing either the chorus or the verse, just come in then.” Trying to say just sing when you can basically. He says, “Well, I don’t want to be a backup singer. I only can sing when I project.” So I say, “Well, I don’t want you to be backup. I want you to project when you sing.” So I say, “Let’s just leave it like this for now since we’ve been practicing it like this and if you figure out something, we can talk about it next week.” So I’ve been invited to sing in the band but yet I’m not supposed to sing. And he is still playing guitar when he sings. It’s not like I can just stop singing and just play. I would just be standing there. He could play when he’s not singing. So why tell me “this is not working”. What does he want me to do? Just quit?

I took my neighbor home and he complained about him almost the whole way home. The bad part is the guy really does help me when he sings. I guess I’ll just ignore him for now and say something a little bit more forceful if it comes up again.