rock island lately

The last several weeks, probably close to a month and a half, we haven't had many consistent "worker-outers". From when school started through the beginning of November we had anywhere between 2-7 kids come each Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday morning to workout, eat breakfast and get a ride to school. But, like I said, since November there hasn't been much turnout in the mornings.

That changed this week. During our meal and worship Sunday night two of the boys asked why we hadn't been doing the workouts lately...uuuuuhhhh, we informed them that we are at Cross and Crown each day of work at 8:00 whether they show up or not. They told us they couldn't handle the three day workout plan and we did what any good youth leader would do... we called them weaklings.

We believe we have devised a reasonable plan that now addresses both physical wellness, mixed in with a little bit of spiritual wellness. Workouts are Monday and Wednesdays followed by cereal and smoothie's for breakfast. Tuesdays we have temporarily deemed, "Pray and Play". From 8:00-8:30 the kids can get on the computers, turn on the t.v. and Ron and I make breakfast. This Tuesday we had sausage, biscuits and fruit juice. After the "play" we shut everything down, head upstairs, grab a seat and observe the "pray" aspect.

In years past we have gone through one of the gospels and observed a lot of what Jesus did during his life on earth but this time around we are focusing more on how to pray. The kids that have been around long enough know that prayer is the core of anything that we do. We are trying to get past the idea that you just pray to give thanks for a meal, prayer for a sick relative, pray that the hot girl at school will say "yes", ect.

When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray this is what He told them (according to our simplified version)...

"This is how you should pray: "Father, may your name be honored. May your Kingdom come soon. 3 Give us our food day by day. 4 And forgive us our sins – just as we forgive those who have sinned against us. And don't let us yield to temptation. " - Luke 11:2-4

We are breaking this prayer down and talking about what each sentence really means, in a practical way. This past week we talked about how we can honor God at school, at home, with our friends, with our families. Each of the kids stated a way they will try to honor God this week.

After, "Pray and Play", (yeah, we know the name is bad, we are open to suggestions) we loaded up and headed to school. Check out the top quote from the ride to school and top pic...

Top quote after one of the boys dropped the "N" word in a conversation...

Ron, "Would Martin Luther King call someone the 'n' word?"

Kid 1, "He's not my daddy."

Kid 2, "He did before he was one of those Christian men."

Fair enough.

Top picture... Cereal and milk in a bag