Broken Arm
The x-ray pictured above is of Collin Whalen's arm. He broke it at our FacePlant Lock-in a couple of months ago. He was trying to hit a giant front-side disaster from our kicker onto our quarter pipes. It turned into more of a disaster than we had hoped. As he fell onto the quarter pipe you could hear the bones snap in half. He was such a trooper. All of us gathered around him and prayed for him as I splinted his arm and his mom took him to the emergency room. We thank God that the injury wasn't worse. Collin's arm is healing up quite well. He will get his cast off sometime in August. We also thank God that this has been our first serious injury at FacePlant Ministries in the last year and a half.
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Broken Souls
Young people continue to enter into a hand-holding relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Last Thursday we had 1 young person stand up to make a first time commitment to Christ and almost everyone else stand to make a re-commitment to Christ. The Thursday before that we had 4 more conversions and another re-commitment. I'm not trying to take some kind of ungodly census to bolster our numbers and I know that this blog is NOT the Lamb's Book of Life, but I want you all to celebrate with us as we have had 54 coversions at FacePlant Ministries since the beginning of 2007 and a total of 134 conversions since the beginning of 2006 when FacePlant Ministries began. Praise the Lord!
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Unbreakeable Faith
Not only are young people entering into a hand-holding relationship with Christ, they are growing closer to God in that relationship. We have had some awesome God-stuff happening here at FacePlant Ministries. Again, I want to share these things with you so that you can celebrate with us and that the stories will build up your unbreakeable faith as it has been strengthening our faith as well.
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Middle School Prayer Sessions
We have been meeting every other week at 5:00 pm upstairs with a group of 10 to 20 middle school students to pray and worship. During these meetings we have been since the mighty hand of God move. The power of the Holy Spirit has been so evident every time we have one of these meetings. I have written before on this blog about some of the gifts of the Spirit that have been received and exercised. Today I want to document some of the miraculous healings that have taken place. A couple of weeks ago we laid hands on Codie Cardon for healing from diabetes. It wasn't just youth leaders praying, it was the youth as well. He was completely healed from the diabetes. Last week we prayed for the healing of Kyle Ponciano's knee and for Dakota Wawrzyniak's ankle. Both were healed. Both Jesse Gellatly and Blaine Strachan said that their eyesight was getting worse and that their perscription glasses and contacts were not working anymore. As we laid hands on their eyes, God healed them and restored their eyesight so that they could read words that were blurry just before we prayed. Then Codie Cardon said that one of his ribs had chipped and the chip had tore a hole in his muscle around his rib-cage and had actually gotten into his liver. The doctors said they would probably have to operate. He was also unable to eat without throwing up. We laid hands on Codie and we believe that God actually put the chip from his rib back into it's place, and also repaired the muscle near his rib and healed his stomach problems. He hasn't thrown up since and the hole in the muscle is no longer there. When he went back to the doctors, he told them that he had been healed because his youth group prayed for him. As the doctors examined him, they was stunned and said that there was no longer a need to operate. These are just some of the miraculous healings that we are seeing take place. And as we are praying over these young people, physical manifestations of the Holy Spirit are being felt and experienced. God is also touching the hearts of these young people's family members through these healings and the power of the Holy Spirit manifesting in their lives...Kind of like the early church in the book of Acts!
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Tuesday Night Middle School Youth Group
If you come out on any given Tuesday Night at 6:00pm you will see a lot of skating outside, young people hanging out in the grass and what would seem like chaos. We actually are purposeful in this chaos. What would seem like chaos to some onlookers is actually our young people feeling comfortable and at home. They hang out here like they would at school, with their friends. We herd them all in at about 6:30 pm or so and have a more in-depth Bible study. Currently, we are studying the book of 1 Peter. It has actually been really nice studying God's Word verse by verse and letting God speak to our hearts through His Word. We have had an awesome response and have had great small group interaction. We have an awesome volunteer youth staff who make all of this happen: Mari Walters, Joice Hamilton, Andy Pence and Tim Hull. We did have an awesome couple, Jesse and Tanya Gellatly, helping out, too. I married them two weeks ago and then they left last weekend to be full-time missionaries in Mozambique, Africa. They were a vital part in all that God has done at FacePlant Ministries.
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Tuesday Night High School Youth Group
As the middle school students are filtering out, the high school students make their way in at around 7:30 pm. We usually have some awesome group games for the first half an hour of high school youth group. Then we have been getting into our study time. Currently, we have been getting back to the basics at high school youth group. For the past three weeks we have been focusing on the importance of God's Word to the believer. The first week we practiced the discipline of memorizing Scripture. The second week we looked at how God's Word can actually speak to people in their specific situation or circumstances in life. Each student looked into God's Word and asked God to show them a verse or passage of Scripture that someone else in youth group needed to hear. As they did that and came back together, it was phenominal that God spoke to every single person present through God's Word given to other individuals. The third week we looked at the importance of studying God's Word in-depth. We got out Bible dictionaries, commentaries, lexicons, concordances and handbooks as we broke down John 1:1. It was amazing to see how much more there was to that one verse as we studied the original Koine Greek language. This week we will be looking at meditating on God's Word as we transition into the importance of prayer. Great stuff! Again, we have an awesome volunteer youth staff who are vital to the ministry: Adam and Sheena Rice, Zach and Stephanie Crawford and Micah Manning.
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Summer SkateChurch Times and Schedule
FacePlant SkateChurch on Thursday Nights is still going strong. We have moved our ramps, boxes and rails outdoors on Thursday nights for the summer while the weather is nice. We have gone back to our original times and age groups. SkateChurch is now from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm every Thursday night. All ages are welcome and skaters, BMX bikers and scooters are welcome. Don't ask me about this scooter fad. Not sure what's up with that. Anyway, we have a great time of skating and such with a pause in the middle to study one of Jesus' parables or hear a testimony or teaching from other people. We are still praying for an indoor skate park of our own and are working on the promotional DVD to try to raise funds to build it and staff it. Please pray for us. I also want to thank our volunteer youth staff that faithfully serves at SkateChurch every week: Christy Jung, Russ and Becky Manning, Tyler Peebles, Erica Patchen, Micah Manning, Nick Ross and Tim Hull.
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Combined Middle School and High School Worship Night
On Tuesday, June 19th, we have a combined youth worship night at FacePlant Ministries. It will take place from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm. We have a worship band coming up from California to play and lead worship as well as other stuff. This is our summer kick-off and "graduation" of 8th grade middle schoolers moving up to high school. Make sure to come out. It's going to be a blast!
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High School Summer Camp
This summer for high school summer camp we are going rafting for two days down two legs of the DeSchutes River as well as doing an awesome ropes course. YD Adventures is running our camp and it will take place first in Canby, Oregon and then we will set up camp at the Wasco County Fairgrounds. Sign up soon if you want to go. Cost per high school student is $176.00. The dates are June 28th through 30th. Our theme this year is SURVIVOR! Dead in the Water, Safe in the Boat. More information is available at youth group.
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Summer Skate Park Tour and Outreach
This summer the plan is for our sponsored FacePlant skaters to take trips to various skate parks. This will probably take place on Saturdays as I am going back to work doing hardwood floors during the week. We will be filming our sponsored skaters at the skateparks and releasing videos on YouTube and on this blog from each park. We are also going to use this opportunity to tell other skaters and spectators at these skate parks about Jesus Christ. We will hand out gospels of John and make time to interact with other people and hopefully be able to lead many to Christ and get them plugged in to a healthy local church. Our sponsored team will also do some community projects like mowing lawns and picking up trash in the community surrounding the church. I am looking forward to an awesome summer.
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Christian Young
Youth Pastor
