Pastor Keever's Blog

Sunday Morning Service - The Business of Jesus!

2011-06-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Praise the Lord for a wonderful service today.

We had a first time visitor and we had one new believer baptized. It was awesome.

The music was right in line with the message which was very neat since I don't pick the songs and the musicians had no idea what I was planning to preach about. Even the very special music was right - He Touched Me. The message was on Jesus.

The sermon began with a little bit of emphasis on how Christ is the same; yesterday, today, and forever. Then we went to Luke 4 and focused on the example He set for us.

He served in the power of the Spirit.
He sat in the synagogue.
He searched the scriptures.
He saved sinners.
He spared the sick.

It closed out with three thoughts on some things that Jesus wasn't interested in:

He wasn't interested in fame or wealth.
He wasn't interested in rest and relaxation. Yes, He rested and he slept, but the focus wasn't on being slothful, lazy, or an unproductive life - He worked and worked hard to fulfill the will of His Father!
He wasn't interested in popularity with the people. Phil. 2 teaches us how He humbled Himself and became a servant! Amen.

Christ is all we need.
Christ is our ultimate example.
Chirst is, or should be, paramount in the life of a Chirstian. Not ourselves, our money, our time, our ANYTHING. It is by the Grace of God that we are not consumed. Without Christ, I am nothing. Without Christ, I am headed for HELL! Without Christ as a vital part of our Christian life, our life will be hell on earth. We need HIM and we need HIM badly! Praise God for salvation; Praise God! Thank God for Jesus! Amen!

What a great day. I can't wait for church tonight. I love church!

I hope that you all have had a wonderful day and that your evening is just fantastic!

Updates and Upcoming Events

2011-03-07T19:41:00.001-08:00

Here is a general update and some information about upcoming events.

We have been very excited about what God is doing at the Fords Bush Bible Church. Thank you to all of those who have been helping out with our needs and giving toward our newly implemented debt retirement program. It is just fantastic to see God moving in such a great way.

We had a great Sunday despite the fact that we had a blizzard roll through in the PM. We were so glad to see everyone who was able to attend. It was just such a blessing to see each and every one who was able to attend.

We will be planning to have the Lord's Supper next Sunday evening and our monthly business meeting on the last Sunday in March. What a joy.

This week saw a fantastic blessing in the special offering that we took and we look forward to finishing it up on Sunday the 13th of March. Praise the Lord. I'm really looking forward to seeing what God is going to do with our fine people. May God bless you all. Thank you for your continued support and participation in what God is doing at and in His church.

Next month, on the 29th, we will be having our Second Chance night. This will be on a Friday night at 7pm and will be a realy time of blessing. It is such a joy to see how God works in the lives of people and how He gives second chances and demonstrates GRACE!!! God is so good.

The Victory Christian Academy is involved in a fundraiser right now to help offset some of the costs incurred and our field trips and such. We are excited to offer the students the opportunity to participate in some fantastic events. We've been to the planetarium, the Proctor's Theatre, Science Centers, power plants, and museums. I thoroughly enjoy these educational and cultural adventures. Wednesday, we will be doing a field trip that is really just for fun. We'll be taking the students out for bowling and lunch along with a behind the scenes tour of the bowling alley which is always a big hit! :)

I will be sure to keep you updated as to the upcoming events as we move on into our final quarter of the 2010-2011 VCA school year, and also I will update you of the Spring events of the church and keep you posted on the Summer and Fall events to come.

God bless everyone.

Pastor Keever

Monday Night Soulwinning - 9/07/09

2009-09-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

We had eight folks out for soulwinning tonight including two who have never been before as far as I know. We had four ladies that went out together and four men that went out togther. It was great! It was really GREAT.

It was also SHOCKING!

Why? Why was it SHOCKING?

I'll tell you...I know that shocks you...that'll I'd tell you about it. LOL!!!

We stopped the very first person that we saw. We were driving down River Road and I saw this man standing on the side of the street drinking a soda. He was just starring into the western sky. It was clear that he was just enjoying the absolutely beautiful sunset! I just happened to have my camera with me so I stopped just beyond him and tried to take a picture of it, but my batteries were dead. Also, I was just seconds late. He even said to me, "You just missed it." We talked for a moment before I gave him a gospel tract. He said he would read it but was not interested in talking about it. I told him that I appreciated his time and his kindness in talking with us and then we moved on.

Before I was able to drive away, TWO men just appeared out of the brush with SHOTGUNS over their shoulders! We gave up! No fight from us! I don't know if I've ever encountered two men with shotguns while out soulwinning! We talked with them briefly and gave them tracts. They were headed home from target shooting. They didn't seem like they wanted to talk so I didn't push my luck...especially with them armed for bear!

We went on into town and found five kind folks resting and talking after a long day of working on their home. I shared the gospel with them and four of them trusted Christ as their Savior. What a JOY it is to share Christ with people. The fifth man, Sean, said that he wasn't sure if he believed Christ died for him. I simply told him that I cared about him and that I wanted him to be saved. I asked him to consider what I had told him and think about it, and I left it at that. We did have a good talk though. He is about to get married so we chatted about that for minute after I witnessed to his future family. It was so wonderful to see a family saved together. It was a dad, Bobby, and two of his sons, Bobby Jr (an adult,) and Ben a teenager. Also, Bobby Jr.'s wife trusted Christ.

WOW, WHAT A PRIVELEGE! AMEN!!!

I love soulwinning. I love taking new people with me. I love serving God. I love spending time with other people who love serving God!

I hope you all have had a great Labor Day!

Bro. Keever

What a GREAT Day!

2009-09-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

I hope you had a great day! I know we did!!!

It was a long day at the office because we got new office desks and new carpet so we are moving out, painting, laying carpet, and moving back in. Not to mention getting ready for school to start in one week and planning Sunday, a holiday weekend Sunday. :sweatdrop: So, I left the office to go home, grabbed my kids, and went right back. A family picked up my wife to go tco the carpet (donated,) and then get back for church. I had my children with me from 3:30 until church and it was CRAZY...but a good crazy. :) They played some and helped me some with the reorganization of my office. I've been given an "L" desk so I have to sort of plan a little different lay out, but I'm glad because I've never had a "L" desk and I've wanted one. The desk I have was given to me and now I've been given another one.

God is so good. People are so kind. I am so blessed.

Anyway, it is the first Wednesday of the month so I didn't speak tonight. We had the teens meet seperately and we spent most of our time in prayer. We did have a short time of Bible study, but it really wasn't study, it was just a reminder of the importance of prayer. It really does work. :)
God has been so good to us.

We had a GREAT time on Sunday night. I mentioned that I planned to take my kids to McDonald's for an ice cream after church and I jokingly invited everyone to join us. I got a much better response than I actually thought about and it WAS A STINKIN' BLAST. We had visitors at church who came to McD's with us...one of which I actually attended PCC with in 1993 (but I didn't know her,) so that was fun.

There was missionary present Sunday night, but I didn't know he was coming; he just dropped in. I had him give his testimony and after church, we gave him an offering. That was Sunday...WELL! Let me tell you folks, I got a check in the mail today and God gave us back that offering times (x) TEN. I like this giving business! If you take care of others, God will take care of YOU! AMEN!

What a MIGHTY GOD we serve! AMEN!

I hope that you have had a great day. I hope you had a great night at church. I hope your day was a GODLY day!

When I get 'em done, I'll post some of our videos from Wednesay Bible Study. We are "Walking In Truth" and studying Principles of God's Word. It has been great!

Please everyone, have a good night and a good day tomorrow. :)

Kevin

2009-08-31T19:58:00.001-07:00

Praise the Lord!

We had six people out for soulwinning tonight.

We had 7 people saved!

Praise the Lord.

I went to visit one precious lady from our church. I took one of our fine young men with me. We had a great time. I didn't spend a lot of time with her because it wasn't visitation time, but it WAS soulwinning time! Amen! I needed to give her something and speak to her for a minute and I do so. I knew she had lost neighbors so I planned to witness to some of them, and my plan was to just knock on some doors in her neighborhood after I talked to her! Well, that isn't exactly what happened.

We spent probably less than five minutes with her and, as we left, we noticed two of her neighbors sitting outside. We headed over to speak to them. I was glad it was a little windy because the lady was smoking. The wind took the smoke away from my face thank goodness.

I have to admit, I had a little fun with this lady.

I walked up and said, "Hey, let me get a drag!"

She started to hand me her cigarette!!!

OH NO.

I said, "One, I was just kidding; I don't smoke. Two, I'M A PERFECT STRANGER! Why in the world were you about to give me a DRAG off your cigarette!" Note: I was smiling HUGE the whole time. I guess she had seen me at her neighbor's and heard me talking so she figured I was the "preacher man." I think she didn't really intend to give me her smoke stick, but was taken off guard when I asked! It really broke the ice though! Her name was Crystal. I was able to talk to her, her friend Robert, and her other neighbor. Crystal said she was already saved as did Robert. However, her neighbor Chelsea did not know if she was on her way to Heaven. She had two friends in her dining room, Patrick and Tim, so I invited myself in and won all three of them to Christ. My silent prayer partner wasn't silent though...thank goodness. He stayed outside and played basketball with the kids so I could talk to the adults. ALL THREE of them GOT SAVED. One of them, Patrick, lives near Boston, MASS, but he comes up here for work and he said he would come to church Sunday! Praise God!

Our other group that went out led four people to the Lord. Amen! Pray that this precious folks will come to church. We have to make some visits and get some folks in the tank and in the pews! Pray that God will convict their hearts of their need for HIM and their need to be in church. :) AMEN!

IT STILL WORKS! We prayed when we left the church that God would guide us. We asked the Holy Spirit specifically to help our path to cross the path of someone who wanted to be saved and was ready to receive Christ! WHAT an answer to prayer! AMEN AMEN AMEN!!!!!

Soulwinning still works.

Bro. Keever

Lawn Mower Races and BonFire

2009-08-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

Hey, be there or be square.

Bring some dogs, marshmellows, and 87 octane! We're going to race lawn mowers and eat! What a combination!

Then we are going to gaze at the stars in the DARK bush night. Gotta love it.

I bet I can find more constellations that you can...try me!

Help me out Dad!

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Bro. Keever

A Great Night at TNT

2009-02-18T21:29:00.000-08:00

What a great night we had tonight.

We played dodge ball in the lunch room and gave away money to the winner! It was great! The best part was when I was the only one throwing and the all the boys left were going crazy trying to come out on top! We finally had a winner and I got to blast them with the ball...great fun!

When we began our Bible study it really got on! We have a new young man in our class, a few new ones actually, and they are full of questions! I love it. We are in a Bible study right now on purity. I have been studying a book called Living Purely in an Impure World and I've learned so much. I have basically just been sharing with my class the lessons I've learned from the book. Over the past several weeks we discussed the topic, "What is sin?" We examined several passages from scripture which tell us specifically how sin is defined. We looked at "whatsoever is not of faith is sin," "to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin," "all unrighteousness is sin," "the thought of foolishness is sin," and "sin is the transgression of the law" and we discussed each in detail. Then last week we looked at the word "purity" and what it means. Then tonight we started on a series of lessons on how to be pure. It was great! The boys really participated and they are going to memorize Phil. 4:8 for our Bible study in two weeks.

Tonight's lesson was real simple. Prov. 23:7 tells us that we are what we think in our heart so we talked about Phil. 4:8 and thinking about right and pure things. One boy asked me how he could think about pure thoughts while listening to Korn! That was great! I basically said, "Can you think pure thoughts while listening to Korn? If not, then don't listen to it!" I also told him that the more he grows in Christ, the less he will want to listen to music that doesn't talk about Christ! He will soon be listening to worship music...actually he already is listening to worship music...we are just going to change the "one" he is worshipping. :) Yeahman!

I told the boys I would start publishing their prayer requests for the whole class to get a prayer journal going, and I thought a good way was to post them here. This will also allow the other groups and the church at large to view them and join us in prayer. I will not post specifics here until I talk to the class about putting their personal prayer requests online, but I will post them generally.

For tonight I will post these requests. Please join us in prayer for the requests of our class. Thank you so much.
Prayer for a mom to stop smoking. Her health is deteriorating and she needs to be saved.
Prayer for the family of one of our leaders. Their mother/grandmother has cancer.
Prayer for the upcoming school play. Many of the students are working diligently to learn all of their lines and they asked for prayer that the Lord would be glorified and people would be blessed.

God bless you for praying with us. I sure do hope all of you have a great day.

Bro. Keever

Mall Maze Madness - Colonie Center

2008-08-06T18:31:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone. Don't forget to be at the church at 5 PM on Friday, August 8th! We will be going to Albany and having our Mall Maze Madness at the newly remodeled Colonie Center Mall. I went over on Tuesday night to prepare for the Maze and the mall looks fantastic. They have really changed it up a great deal and it is gorgeous! I know you'll have a good time.

Be sure to bring a little bit of money to eat as we will be meeting in the food court after the scavenger hunt to eat and fellowship for a little while before we come home. You don't need much money and you don't need a specific amout. Be sure to bring as much as you think you will need to spend on food. There is a variety of restaurants at the new food court so you'll have plenty of choices. Also, if you have one, bring a digital camera to take pictures of certain things at certain stores. You will also need to take pictures of your friends at some of the stores.

Ok, I'll see you Friday night.

Look for a new post from Paintball coming soon!

Great Message Tonight!

2008-08-03T18:49:00.001-07:00

Tonight, our pastor preached another message in his series on "Taking it Back." The series is really good and covers things that Satan took from us and that we can Take Back from him through salvation and the power of Christ. You see, when we were born again, Christ not only intended to save us from hell and from sin, but He also intended to restore to us the relationship that we had with the Father before man sinned. Christ wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him. God wants us to have more than just fire insurance to protect us from hell; God wants us to desire Him, seek Him, know Him, love Him, and love Him as He loves us. What a concept.

Tonight's message was great. God especially spoke to my heart as Pastor Marty was reading from I John 3. At first, he only read from verses one and two, but then he used several other verse from that chapter. After he read verses one and two, I kept reading. I read up to verse thirteen. He used some of those verses that I read later and even used verse nineteen. I will tell you the message he preached and then I will also tell you what God spoke to my heart about from the message and from I John chapter three! Stay tuned; I'll post Pastor Marty's message and my thoughts tomorrow evening.

Have a great day!

Youth Conference Hammond

2008-07-21T05:21:00.000-07:00

Wow!

What a great trip we had last week. What a great testimony service we had last week. For those of you who went, THANK YOU! I had a great time with you!

For those of you who didn't go, you should have! :) I hope you will get to go next year. I missed you and longed to be with you.

For all of you, I hope you know that I am praying for you today.

I love you.

I will post another entry here later today or tomorrow and tell you all about our trip and even post some pictures.

Until then, remember this: Psalm 10:4...Is God in all of your thoughts?

Bro. Keever

Youth Conference Sermon #1

2008-03-05T20:04:00.000-08:00

Here is the first sermon from Winter Youth Conference 2008!

Pastor Guy Beaumont
"Are you a Disciple or just a Christian?"
Mark 8:34-38

Casual Christians are not Committed Christians
Convenient Christians are not Committed Christians

Faith Never Gets Strengthened Until it Gets Challenged!
Convenient Faith will Fail when it gets Tested.

What Does Christ Expect from His Disciples?
1. Learning
Learn of Christ - His Life - His Righteousness

2. Leaving
Deny yourself - Pick up your cross and follow Christ - Have you moved at all since being saved are you in the same place? If you are following Christ you will leave something...leave the old man and the old life behind. Move forward!

3. Losing
Lose your life for Christ! Mark 8:35
Galatians 2:20

4. Leading
Matthew 4:19 - Fishers of Men - Disciple = Fisher...of Men! Soulwinning! Servant! A disciple will lead others to Christ!

5. Loving
John 13:35 - Love One Another!

The Theme of our WYC '08 was "CSI - Christian Student IMPACT" We wanted to motivate and challenge our teens to make a difference in their areas of influence...we want them to make and IMPACT for CHRIST - A DISCIPLE MAKES AN IMPACT!!!!

Are you a disciple? Are you making an Impact!?

More to come.....:)

Bro. Keever

Flem, Son of Flem, and Pastor Beaumont!

2008-02-25T21:11:00.001-08:00

I hope you didn't miss the Winter Youth Conference 2008, but if you did, here is a taste of what you missed. :)

I will also post some of the messages that were preached.

Look on youtube for a video from teh conference as well. You can search under "kkeever" and you should find it. I hope you enjoy it; I sure did!

I hope to see you Wednesday...I got some good prizes today for our game so don't miss it! I'm going to try to play the wheel again if we can! Prizes galor...and not POTTED MEAT!!!!

Bro. Keever

Announcement: Snow Tubing

2008-01-01T06:49:00.001-08:00

LOOK! Do you know what this means? Snow Tubing at Glimmerglass on Saturday.

Be there! January 5th. 10 AM at the church. Bring some money for snacks. I'll cover the tubing cost. We will provide rides to the park but you gotta get to the church! :) Tubes are provided at the park. There is a snack shack with hot chocolate and stuff like that so bring a little money for that. We aren't stopping for lunch anywhere since there ain't nothing between the Bush and Glimmerglass, but you can get stuff at the shack so bring some dough! I'll see you there! Bring cameras if you want a record of Big Mace tubing down a mountain! :)

Bro. K!

Former TNT Members Party at SYD Batcave

2008-01-01T06:34:00.001-08:00

Hello Everyone. Happy New Year!

or as I like to say:

Happy Christmas and a very Merry New Year to You.

On December 26th, last Wednesday night, we did not have our weekly TNT Club meeting due to the Christmas Holiday, but I thought it would be a good time to fellowship with some of our former TNT Club members so I invited them over. These are young people who were in our youth group and have now gone off to Bible College to further prepare to serve God with their lives. I was thrilled to spend some time with them and enjoyed their fellowship very much!

Here are a couple pictures from that night as well as a link to a short video on youtube. Enjoy!

This is a picture of Travis, Sarah, and Matt all trying to get a look at a picture of Alyssa's boyfriend on her cell phone. Good luck guys, I think her battery was dead...or something.

Here is a pic of four of the young people who attended our secret Batcave meeting of the minds! :) HA.

Watch the video to see all five of the attendees!

The link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLNC3UBqauE

Hey ya'll. I am very proud of you. I am praying for you and I can't wait to see you all again and spend some more time with you. Let's go soul winning sometime and see if we have any more close encounters! :)

God bless you all!

SYD.

Thoughts from Daniel

2007-11-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

Daniel 1 - 2:23Daniel 1:8 - But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with th ewine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

Daniel 1:12 - Prove they servants, I beseech thee, ten days; and let them give us pulse to eat, and water to drink.

Daniel 1:20 - And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king enquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm.

Daniel purposed to be pure. - Daniel 1:8
Daniel purposed to be proved. - Daniel 1:12
Daniel purposed to perservere. - Daniel 1:12-13
Daniel proved to be empowered by the All Powerful! - Daniel 1:17-20

What a great testimony of God's presence in the life of a believer. Daniel was a follower of God Almighty and he knew God would take care of him. How awesome it is to see what God did in Daniel's life and how God used Daniel in the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar.

What an encouragement to us to have purpose in our heart. How very encouraging it is to know that we can live pure lives before God. How great it is to know that we can be proved pure and have our dedication to God tested and proven. I know that I can past the test and be proven through the grace and power of the Holy Spirit of God.

Praise God for verse 17 - "God gave..."

How wonderful it is to perserve and come out on top. How sweet it is to be empowered by the Holy Ghost. Like Daniel was filled with God's Spirit we too can be filled with His Spirit and knowledge and wisdom and skill and understanding and truly make a difference in our world just like Daniel!

Amen.

SYD

Thoughts from Scripture

2007-11-25T20:12:00.000-08:00

I Peter 3:10-4:6 :)

God is teaching us several lessons in this passage.

I Peter 3:10 - For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: *Do you know what guile means? Several different uses; main definition deals with deceit and deception.

1. Speak no guile. Be honest. Do not speak lies. Deal honestly! Live a life characterized by honesty and integrity.

I Peter 1:15 - But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

2. Study to show thyself approved. Be ready to answer for the hope that we have in Christ. Know your Bible. Know why and what we believe! In answering for our hope, do so with meekness and in reverential awe of that very hope!

I Peter 1:16 - Having a good conscience; that whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.

3. Strive always to live upright through and in Christ. Live according to the convition and pleasure of the Holy Spirit. Glorify Him in your daily walk so that those who would accuse you falsely will be ashamed. Their false accusations will have no substance based on a live that pleases God.

I Peter 4:6 - For this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

4. Seek to live our lives according to God in the spirit. Open up our own spirit so that the holy Spirit can flow through us. Open up our spirit so that the Spirit can fill us. We can't live according to God if we don't KNOW God! This is a great inspiration and motivation to get to know God better everyday!

Have a great evening everyone!

SYD

New Photo Album

2007-11-11T10:49:00.000-08:00

Greetings!

I hope that you will take the time to look at our newest photo albums from the TNT Youth Group. I have decided to place most of our TNT pictures on my facebook account because of the fact that I can post entire albums instead of just individual pictures. Also, it is much quicker than posting an image at a time on the blog. I will continue to post to this blog with a picture now and then, but primarily, the pictures will be hosted on the facebook site.

www.facebook.com

You can add yourself as a friend of mine and then view all of the pictures you want. I am planning on starting a FBBC TNT youth group group on facebook so that many of us can join there and stay in touch online. Many of our teens are online and for those who are not, the likely will be eventually. Even those who don't have computers have told me that they view this blog at the library so hopefully they'll be able to participate in the facebook group as well.

God bless you and I'll talk to you later.

Bro. Keever

Mall Maze Madness

2007-08-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to be at the church at 5 PM on Friday August 31st for our last Friday Fun Night of 2007! We are going to the mall in Rotterdam where we will eat supper in the food court, which means you can eat at any restaurant you'd like, then we will complete a "MAZE" or a basic scavenger hunt. We have done this activity once before and had a great time. You will NEVER be able to figure out which store to go to in order to find what you need to complete the maze. HA. I dare you to succeed! :-)

Hey, a big thanks to everyone who was praying for me while I was in the hospital. Also, I really want to thank those who came to visit me. Dallas twice, Nathan, Mike, Mace, Robert, Kyle, Travis called me about 6 times, and Brandon called me. Also many youth workers came to visit and some called or sent cards. I even got a nice boquet of flowers from a family friend of ours in California. That was nice because it kind of brightened up the room! Also, my wife made some posters that many of you signed and my children made a couple posters and we taped those up in the room. Very nice.

I can't wait to see you all again on Wednesday. Don't forget to be at the church at 5 PM on Friday and bring enough money to eat supper at the mall!

God bless you!

SYD

Games and Faces

2007-05-19T18:09:00.001-07:00

It is amazing how fast BOYS can put on knee nylons when they have the opportunity to win candy bars! It is also fun to watch them try to invert a straw with no hands. That was a challenge for some, but a few of them wag their tongues so much that they were experts at turning a straw 180 degrees - they girls anyway. HA!

More to come.

SYD!

Cheerleaders of VCA

2007-04-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

Here are some pix of our VCA Cheerleaders - spirit, spunk, and strange all rolled into one! :-)

BTW, Mrs. Lois is the Cheerleading coach so they all get it honest! :-) She doesn't have the admin password to edit this so I can say that and hope she doesn't read it for a week or so! I ain't bashin' though, we like her that way! Really honey, I love you Lois! :-)

Hey Cheerleaders! Great Job this year! Good Pix! Looking forward to next year! Raise the roof for us in September!

SYD

Here's the Pix!

Past Due Pix

2007-04-16T20:11:00.000-07:00

Dallas and Emily making something yummy in our Girl's Life Prep Class at VCA.

Bro. Saxe, Mark, Desiree, and Dallas. Dally wasn't sleeping; she just blinked right when I snapped the picture! :-)

I told a couple of young ladies that I would post their pix and then realized I didn't have one for them from the night I took all the pix at TNT Club. Now I don't know if I took one and lost it or if I just didn't get one of them, but I decided to look elsewhere. I found on from school and one from our youth conference last year in Hammond.

So Dallas, here are two pictures for you. I apologize for taking so long to post them. I hope you like them. :-)

I will post some more pix of some more teens later this week - I really will! :-) I have a lot of pix with multiple people in them that I haven't posted yet so I'll post those. Ya'll will like all of your group pix!

See you Wednesday!

SYD

Guys' and Girls' Pix

2007-03-10T15:25:00.000-08:00

Dustin

Ira

Alyssa

Chelsea and Lacey

Athena and Erika

More Teen Faces

2007-03-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

Chris

Rusty

Travis

Dustin and Ira next post!

TTYL

SYD

All Night Teen Prayer Meeting

2007-03-03T13:35:00.000-08:00

Praise the Lord.

I have the best youth leaders and teenagers in the world! Last night I hosted my very first all night prayer meeting. It was great. We had a really good group of about 24 people. 5 of those were youth leaders and the rest were teens including all of my seniors and several others from other grades as well. We had a great time of fellowship and prayer.

We started out around 10pm with a small snack type meal. I guess I wouldn't call it a meal, but it was very good. It was ground beef in cheese sause on nachos with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and beens. My wife called it "Super Nachos!" We ate and fellowshiped for a while and then prayed. It was really good and everyone had a chance to pray. We prayed until just after midnight.

After prayer we watched "Facing the Giants." We also had some time to play and fellowship. Some of the guys played XBox while I and 4 others played Monopoly. I haven't played that game in so long and it was awesome. I also played a baseball video game, I think it was called Slugfest - not to realistic and somewhat annoying. I am not into crazy video games. I love the very realistic baseball and football ones, but don't dig the ones where you can beat up the pitcher and then back flip to first base. I played and had some fun, but only made it through about 4 innings. :-)

After that, around 3:30am, we went to prayer again. It was really good because (if I can remember the time line right) we had a time of testimonies first. I am a strong believer that if you talk about what God is doing in your life it helps to solidify it in your heart! I started by sharing my testimony, some of the teens are new enough that they had never heard it, and then I had all the seniors give their testimony. It was really sweet. God did some ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC things during our youth conference and this was the time to share those things and rejoice together in them!

After the testimony time, we all prayed again. We prayed for our church in several very specific areas, we prayed for some teens' requests who were not at the meeting, and we prayed for each other. We also PRAISED GOD for some very specific things that He has done for us in the recent weeks. :-) It was great. This took us up to almost 4:45 or 5:00am.

After that, we finished the Monopoly game we started earlier, and some of the teens watched a DVD of a preacher challenging us in the area of our relationship with God. Then some boys played some more video games while my wife and I made pancakes and bacon. MAN were those good. After I closed the meeting with a final word of prayer, almost everyone had a very good breakfast. :-) My cat Chief Wahoo ate my nachoes so I was ready for those pancakes. :-)

It was really a great meeting and I look forward to next years' already. :-) Someday, I am going to have a basement or garage, or both, and we'll really pack it out. :-) It was good though with who we had. I wanted teens to come who would really take the meeting serious. Youth activities are fun and we all do enjoy goofing off, but I wanted kids who would take our prayer time serious and really get ahold of God and it worked out wonderfully.

Thank God for Jesus Amen! Thank God for the opportunity to serve Him and to serve His people. I have the best youth leaders and the best teens in the WORLD! :-)

Bro. Keever

More Youth Group Pix

2007-02-24T17:31:00.000-08:00

Bro. & Mrs. Keever

Sam & Lacey

Bro. Mace & Mrs. Connie

Katrina

Hannah

Some more of our precious young ladies and wonderful youth workers.
It was great to see each of you at the conference over the past two days.
God bless you and I look forward to seeing you Sunday and Wednesday!

SYD

Happy Valentines Snow...I Mean Day!

2007-02-14T11:43:00.000-08:00

Here are some more pix from our TNT Club!

Amber and Amy.

Amanda, Desiree, and Patti

Kelsey

Emily and Stephanie

Hannah and Sarah

Hope ya'll had a good Valentine's Day. I'm stuck at home because there is 3 feet of snow outside and it is still falling. More pix of the ladies to come. I'll finish posting all the guys pix after I post some more of the lady's.

Take care.
Bro. Keever

Some More Pix of the Guys

2007-02-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

Jared Battisti

Shawn Lambert

Peter Leonard

Timmy Liebing

Mike Hogan

More to come...we'll get to the ladies eventually!

More Pix - 5 to Thrive

2007-02-06T16:15:00.001-08:00

Brandon Morley

Michael Bulger

Joey Bulger

Cody Shutter

Gary Gay

Glad to have these great guys in our youth group. Gary will eat anything (except baby food lasagna) and he and Cody always want to help ushering. Brandon is nuts (and suprised to have his picture taken, even though I was standing there with a camera!), and Joey and Mike are still pretty new but fun to have around. Thanks for being part of our TNT Club Fellas!

Your Super Youth Dude!

Bro. Keever

Oops, that's not SYD; that's Super PMB!

This is your SYD. :-)

Take care Ya'll.

Post Script:
Congrats to the VCA Sabers who pulled out a HUGE Victory tonight in the second round of the playoffs and advanced to Friday's Championship against their big rivals the Columbia Chistian Academy Team from Ghent, NY. I can't remember their name right now, Crusaders, I think. Best of luck to both teams. GO SABERS!

More Pix from TNT Club

2007-02-05T16:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some more pictures from our
TNT Club.

Dave Carpenter

Future Dog Face!

Walter Lewis

Where's Waldo...I mean Walter!

Mace Phillips

Finally without the hat! How many Jobs you have man? Mace = 3!

Robert Morley

Although he looks nothing like what you'd expect Moses to look like, he does leave Egypt daily! :-) Robert is pretty new to our TNT club, but he has made a few friends pretty quick, even one girl...she must be blind!

Alex May - 2nd baseman!

Hey Kid - 10 days to pitchers and catchers! Can't wait for Softball! Turn it! Good job on the head shake BTW! IT IS 1:55 - YOU ARE NOW DISMISSED! :-)

More to come!
SYD

Attack of Zach

2007-01-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Here is one of our most faithful young men
at TNT club. His name is Zach.
Zach is constantly drinking soda and helping us with ushering!

We are praying for Zach to be able to come to our school, Victory Christian Academy, where he wanted to come last year but was unable. He came to some of my soccer practices until he found out he wouldn't be able to attend. ZACH, you gotta come now man, I need defense AND offense! My goalie is gone and so is my playmaker up front!

We are also praying for Zach's mom who has had some health problems of late. Please pray that God will heal her very soon. God bless you, Zach. TNT Club loves you and hopes everything is okay!

Next post is Where's Waldo...I mean Walter! :-)

Bro. Keever,

Your:
Super Youth Dude

New TNT Bios!

2007-01-25T18:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, we took pix of all the teens at TNT club. I'll post 'em here for your enjoyment and to help all of us get to know each other better. For now, I'll just start with our workers. A couple weren't able to be there last night, which is rare, so I'll add them next week.

Here is our guitar player, Andy Paliling. He and his wife are a huge help with our music, he plays and helps with the Jr. High Boys, and she sings and teaches our Jr. High Girls. Here pic is coming next with a group pic of our lady workers.

Here is a group pic of our fantastic lady workers. They are from L to R, Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Keever, Mrs. Bennett, Mrs. May, and Mrs. Paliling!
Mrs. Phillips, Mrs. Keever, and Mrs. Paliling serve our Jr. High Girs and Mrs. Bennett and Mrs. May work with our Sr. High Girls! They are great and I thank God for them!

Here are my two big helpers with the Sr. High boys group that I serve each week. First pic is Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. Mr. P is our newest helper for the boys' group and has been a blessing to me.

The next pic is Bro. Pen in Nose! Aka, Mr. May. He is a great help to me expecailly since he is as wacky as me!

As the weekend approaches and I get some time on Saturday, I'll add the pix of the teens and give you a short bio of each. I'll also include some prayer requests so that we can all pray for each other.

Thanks for checking out the blog. God bless you!

SYD

New Online Directory

2007-01-13T16:24:00.000-08:00

I have decided to re-energize an old effort to create on online directory of our teens; with a twist. :-)

About a year ago, I took a picture of each young person in our youth group and started to put together a nice pictoral members list or directory. Well, with the blog and another website, I will now create a nice online album and directory. I even think I may post a picture a week and write a nice commentary or article about each teen. :-)

I will start with our workers and go from there and then I'll update it each week with a teen of the week! :-)

Well see how it goes as we get to know each other better together!

See you tomorrow!

SYD

Welcome Back To Me!

2007-01-09T18:06:00.000-08:00

Boy it has been TOO long since I posted.

In my last post I told you that we were trying to break our previous high day of 88. Well, in October, we had 98 teens on a Wednesday night.

In November we had a great concert with the Monument Quartet and then spent the whole night after the singing at the Clarke Sports Center in Cooperstown. We started the new Bush Bowl and look forward to next years event. Here are some pictures.

I'll post again on Wednesday night or Thursday to update you on our new TNT format and how well it is going!

Take care.

SYD

P.S. When I post again, I'll include a pic of all our leaders and workers at the Bush Bowl. We could not have done it without them. Also, each and every Wednesday night, the youth leaders are KEY in our TNT meetings and I am so very thankful for them and proud of them!

Fall Program & Praise

2006-09-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

Starting this Wednesday night, we will be attempting to break our attendance record of 88 teens in TNT Club. As you all know, I have given the challenge in the past that if you all will bring 100 teens to church, I will shave my head. Well, I have know updated that challenge a little. Are you ready for this?

You came close with 88, but know we need to turn it up a notch. If you will put 150 teens in our auditorium during October I will shave my head, but if you bring 200 then I will sky dive out of an air plane and land on our soccer field. I am scheduling sky diving lessons right now.

I don't think ya'll can do it! We will see how bad you want it! :-)

I am excited to report to you that we had 4 teens saved on this past Wednesday night! Praise the Lord. Also, I have been looking at our attendance reports and we have had at least one new visitor every week since the beginning of July except for just one week. Wow, you all are doing a great job bringing your freinds and family members out to TNT! Keep it up and if we can get you all to do it at the same time, I'll be flying in the sky!

God bless you & I'll see you soon!

SYD

Prayer Works Whether You Believe It or Not!

2006-08-01T00:54:00.000-07:00

Today I was thinking about people I know personally who have had very specific prayers answered for them lately. The Lord brought people to my mind as I meditated on prayer whom I hadn't thought of in a while. It was a sweet time of reflection. I personally saw God work a miracle today!

Why? Because of prayer, His mercy, and His will that none should perish (found in 2 Peter 3:9.)

Today, I had a sort of okay day. I went to work, got some things done and it was an okay day. I had some stressful things that took place later, but over all it was an okay day. I spent a little time with my family, put together a new vacuum cleaner that we got for our anniversary (much needed by the way,) and then headed off to visitation/soul winning after which we planned to have dinner.

Soulwinning mostly got off to a normal start. We fellowshipped for about a half an hour until everyone arrived for the start of our meeting. We took just a few moments to discuss who was going with who and to where. It was my week to take my wife with me. She usually goes with me once a month on Monday night. Before we left, we prayed and specifically asked the Holy Spirit to guide us. We had some planned visits to make, but weren't sure exactly where they were. We knew the road, but not the exact location of the house. We asked the Holy Spirit to guide us to a specific person who was under conviction about their lost soul's condition. We asked in Jesus' name, that He would cause our paths to cross paths with someone who was ready to accept Christ.

I will try not to make this so long that it is laboring to read. My wife and I drove a long way down a road we had never been that far on until we came to a collapsed bridge. We could go no further. There was a nice family standing at the end of their driveway nearby who knew the family we were looking for and told us a back way to go way around and come out on the other side of the damaged bridge to find the home. We didn't really want to drive all that way for fear that we may not find the way they were telling us since we are unfamiliar with that area. So, instead, we walked over the bridge that we couldn't drive on. That was fun! The home we were looking for was just over the bridge on our right. We walked down the quarter mile long driveway to find just who we needed to find.

After spending what seemed like 20 minutes there, it was actually an hour, we lead a dear, precious lady to Christ. IT WAS WONDERFUL!!!

The Holy Spirit of God Almighty caused us to visit that house before the other one because he knew that lady would be on that front porch as we arrived. He caused us to walk over that bridge instead of staying in our comfortable airconditioned vehicle listening to some great gospel music and driving the long way around to their house. The devil broke out that specific bridge to keep us from getting to that house when we did, but Hallelujah, GREATER is HE that is in me than he that is in the world! Praise God for Prayer and for answers to Prayer.

I have had two seperate incidents within the past several months when I witnessed to someone for a long while and they told me that they understood what I told them, but they just didn't believe it at all. I am still praying for them that God will water the seed that we planted. Praise the Lord for the Miracle He performed tonight when He saved Sam! I can do nothing, I can't make them accept Christ, all I can do is introduce them to Him and share with them the free gift He is offering them. It is then up to them whether or not they receive that free gift of salvation or if they don't!

Praise God for conviction unto conversion! Thank God for Prayer! Praise God for JESUS!

Talk to You Soon!

SYD

I'm Back - Finally

2006-08-01T00:36:00.000-07:00

Well it has been over 2 months since I have posted here on TNT's blog. I have missed it. I have had much to say and just haven't had time to say it. Tonight, I decided to make time! I will make two seperate posts: one now to tell you about the events of yesterday, and one later today to tell you about the past two months of our TNT club events.

I look forward to sharing God's goodness with you and pray that He will encourage you through the encouragement He has been to us.

SYD
P.S. I'll explain the picture with this in a later article.

Rain or Shine - We Were Fine

2006-05-31T19:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight some terrific thunderstorms were just passing over as we began our night! At first, they were in the distance, no rain on us, but in just a couple of minutes they were upon us. We stood under the church walkway cover and watched the beautiful lightning. It was really exciting.

Just a few minutes later the rain stopped and the teens began to arrive. We started out in our former meeting place, one of our three modular buildings, but there were nearly 75 people in there and it was starting to get really hot again. Incredibly, the soccer field dried out in a matter of minutes and we moved out there where we played some games and even had our prayer meeting on the picnic tables.

As we were just about to finish up our prayer time, the heavens opened again. It rained for about another 30 minutes so we moved back inside for our preaching time. I preached on Gideon. It was really cool as I got the teens a little more involved than I normally do. I had all the girls sit on the floor and the boys made a big circle all around them. I wanted the boys to shout with me and Gideon, "The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon," but it didn't quite work out! :-)

We had a really great night and it was a lot of fine. Rain or shine - We'll be FINE! Praise the Lord!

Hope you all have a wonderful evening!

SYD

Record Breaking Night

2006-05-22T19:22:00.000-07:00

Well praise the Lord. It is so AWESOME how God does things! I won't get into too much detail, but this past Wednesday night was such a blessing from God. I had a really bad day, painful visit to the dentist, and what do you know, we had a great night at church!

I didn't even want to talk to anybody or see anybody or anything, I mean it hurt swallow much less talk or better yet to preach. I just gave the night to God and we had a record breaking night!

88 Teens! 12 more and I am going to have to shave my head!

Well, I will post more later. I hope you like the pic from our Hawaiian night! Did I spell that right? Take care!

SYD!

First Week of Campaign

2006-04-05T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I forgot my camera tonight so I don't have a bunch of pictures for you, but I wanted to go ahead and post anyway to let you know how wonderful God was to us tonight!

I had been feeling rather ill most of the day and had a stomach ache as I prepared to preach tonight. I preached a sermon on leaving Egypt and going to the Promised Land. I talked briefly about salvation especially since we had 5 first time visitors. :-) I was so proud of Jackie, Jeffrey (or Heather,) and Matt. We even had two of the visitors accept Christ as their Savior tonight, Praise Jesus. Isn't HE a wonderful Lord?! God used us in spite of us. :-) I was sick, didn't feel up to preaching, ran late, took to long to do this and that, forgot to give out the candy and gum, and we had a great night anyway!

I am so thankful for Jesus and how HE loves my teens. We had 74 tonight and had a great time of prayer, games, and preaching. Ok, the preaching left something to be desired, but it was either take it easy on the preaching or vomit on somebody! :-) That is gross, sorry!

Next week, I promise I will have my camera ready. Here are some pix from last week! Enjoy!

This one is from our game time and some young ladies doing their best to get to answer the questions. Hannah and Jackie wanted some candy BAD! The next one is from when my two girls rode the bus with me!

Courtney and Amy

Heather, Mrs. Keever, and Randy

Jackie, Kristy, and Amber.

Adam

Here is a picture of one of our faithful youth leaders leading our game time! Great Job Bro. Rick! Thank you!

Here is a picture of me praying. Looks like someone didn't have their head bowed and eyes closed during prayer, but I won't say who since I don't want to embarrass the photographer! :-)

The Photographer!

Great Trip to Michigan (Through Canada)

2006-03-27T13:59:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago, I was privileged to take 19 teenagers to the Teen Spectacular in Gaylord, Michigan. We had a great time. I was especially thrilled to be able to visit Canada for the very first time ever. It was a spectacular 30 second pass by Niagra Falls and then several hours of flat land before re-entering the US in Saginaw, MI I think it was! I did get one good pic of the falls which I have put here for you to try to enjoy with me!

We were able to hear some great preaching and I personally heard from God during two particualar messages. Brother Derrek Hagland, the youth pastor at Grace Baptist church whose event this is, preached a message about Cornelius, a zealous but lost religious man in the book of Acts. He challenged us to not let a lost man have more zeal for right than we who are saved. The Lord really spoke to me about being more sold out for God and for right.

Then Dr. Jack Schaap preached about your relationship with God. I really needed that message. He challenged everyone to examine their lives and identify where they were at in their relationship with Christ and then just move one step closer to Him! It was fantastic. He also said that we in fundamentalism sometimes put out the wrong impression to teens. That being the impression that we will not be proud of them unless they chose to be in full time Christian service. He said that we certainly would love to see that, but we will take them and love them no matter what they chose to do with their lives; we just want to see them please God. He mentioned that God will take anyone, at any level, and will be their Savior and God, but Dr. Schaap also magnified the intimacy that one experiences as their relationship with God grows stonger and closer. I think I am having a little bit of difficulty putting into words a good explanation of exactly what he said. I hope you get the picture. :-)

I want our teens to know that I love them with all of my heart. I want them to know that I will always love them no matter what happens in their lives. I want them to know that I will be thrilled if they will just love God and seek to please Him with whatever they choose to do with their futures. I also want them to know that I think it would be just great if they would give their lives to God to do whatever He please to do with them! Whatever the case, I want them to know the joy that there is in knowing Him!

Dr. Jon Jenkins closed out the event on Saturday afternoon with a good message. I have to be honest: I don't remember what he preached on. I was so consumed with the two messages that God used to deal with me, that I didn't hear much of any of the others. I like to hear Eddie Lapina preach, but when he preached on Friday, I was not listening at all. I was too eat up with the first message. To give myself a chance to hear from God again, I have purchased the DVD set of sermons that I missed! :-) Praise God!

Oh, I forgot to mention, the ice cream machine at the restaurant we ate at was broken! SEE!

I am excited about what God on our trip. Our teens were helped and I was helped. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with them. Even the time that I had to spend waiting to use the bathroom because my wife put tooth paste on our toilet seat and filled our shower with ice! We had a good time and I look forward to our next trip in July!

Thank God for teenagers, Amen!
Thank God for Jesus!

Bro. Keever

P.S. I ate a giant yellow gumball at one of the rest stops. Here is a picture of that mistake!

BELOW: See some miscellaneous pix from the trip. Hope you enjoy looking at these as much I enjoyed taking them!

Movin' On Up

2006-03-02T13:34:00.000-08:00

Well we're movin' on up! I guess it has been about a month now since I have reported on our Wednesday TNT Club meeting. Things have been very busy with our teen trip to Gaylord, MI for the Teen Spectacular at Grace Baptist Church. (I will post after this with information from that trip.)

This past month of February has been ground breaking for us! Let me tell you about it. :-)

About a month or so ago, we were meeting in our normal location, our second (middle) modular building. We had been splitting up the Jr. and Sr. High Teens because the group was topping 50 or 60 for several weeks. It was just too much for our present space. Usually, the Jr. High group had about 40 and the Sr. High around 20 or so. So, this is what happened. I dismissed the Jr. High and their leaders to leave or assembly in building 2 to go over to 3 for their game time, prayer time, and preaching. After a few moments, I decided to go over to talk with the Jr. Highers for a second about something. When I got over there, they were getting ready to play some games and their preacher wasn't in there, but the other leaders were. After just a couple of minutes, our pastor came into the room. He had several of our church's adults with him and I was a bit confussed. :-)

Bro. Rick, a Jr. High leader, had gone to the church auditorium to ask our pastor if the teens could use it since their were so many of them, and our pastor agree to switch places. The next day he told me that we were going to move the teens out of building 2 and into the main auditorium. I think it was just two weeks after we made the switch and we had 82 teens in the auditorium! That is right, 82! Praise God! We had no promotion, no prize, no push, no candy, no pizza, nothing! Just a bunch of teens who enjoy church. Just a bunch of uplifting Christ and letting HIM draw men to HIM. We have been in the auditorium ever since and have been averaging around 65 or so!

Stay "tooned" for a blog post updating you on the trip to "Colderville" (Gaylord) Michigan. I also have some neat pix!

Take care and God bless you. Pray for TNT Teens and our community of reachable teens!

Bro. Kevin

Baseball Classics & Souls

2006-02-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

Well, praise the Lord. Here are two reason to be thankful to God today.
1. We saw 5 teens receive Christ as their Savior on Wednesday night.
2. There are only 9 days left before the batteries report to Spring Training.

I posted a little tid bit from the classic raido show routine "Who's on First?" in one of my more recent blog posts and I realized that some who read this may not have known what I was talking about so here is some help. I have posted the script from the show for your enjoyment.

C Ya Soon!
SYD

Integrative Arts 10
"Who's on First"
(Lou Costello is considering becoming a ballplayer. Bud Abbott wants to make sure he knows what he's getting into.)

Abbott: Strange as it may seem, they give ball players nowadays very peculiar names.
Costello: Funny names?
Abbott: Nicknames, nicknames. Now, on the St. Louis team we have Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third--
Costello: That's what I want to find out. I want you to tell me the names of the fellows on the St. Louis team.
Abbott: I'm telling you. Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third--
Costello: You know the fellows' names?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: Well, then who's playing first?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: I mean the fellow's name on first base.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The fellow playin' first base.
Abbott: Who.
Costello: The guy on first base.
Abbott: Who is on first.
Costello: Well, what are you askin' me for?
Abbott: I'm not asking you--I'm telling you. Who is on first.
Costello: I'm asking you--who's on first?
Abbott: That's the man's name.
Costello: That's who's name?
Abbott: Yes.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Costello: When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?
Abbott: Every dollar of it. And why not, the man's entitled to it.
Costello: Who is?
Abbott: Yes.
Costello: So who gets it?
Abbott: Why shouldn't he? Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it.
Costello: Who's wife?
Abbott: Yes. After all, the man earns it.
Costello: Who does?
Abbott: Absolutely.
Costello: Well, all I'm trying to find out is what's the guy's name on first base?
Abbott: Oh, no, no. What is on second base.
Costello: I'm not asking you who's on second.
Abbott: Who's on first!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Costello: St. Louis has a good outfield?
Abbott: Oh, absolutely.
Costello: The left fielder's name?
Abbott: Why.
Costello: I don't know, I just thought I'd ask.
Abbott: Well, I just thought I'd tell you.
Costello: Then tell me who's playing left field?
Abbott: Who's playing first.
Costello: Stay out of the infield! The left fielder's name?
Abbott: Why.
Costello: Because.
Abbott: Oh, he's center field.
Costello: Wait a minute. You got a pitcher on this team?
Abbott: Wouldn't this be a fine team w i t h o u t a pitcher?
Costello: Tell me the pitcher's name.
Abbott: Tomorrow.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Costello: Now, when the guy at bat bunts the ball--me being a good catcher--I want to throw the guy out at first base, so I pick up the ball and throw it to who?
Abbott: Now, that's he first thing you've said right.
Costello: I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!
Abbott: Don't get excited. Take it easy.
Costello: I throw the ball to first base, whoever it is grabs the ball, so the guy runs to second. Who picks up the ball and throws it to what. What throws it to I don't know. I don't know throws it back to tomorrow--a triple play.
Abbott: Yeah, it could be.
Costello: Another guy gets up and it's a long ball to center.
Abbott: Because.
Costello: Why? I don't know. And I don't care.
Abbott: What was that?
Costello: I said, I DON'T CARE!Abbott: Oh, that's our shortstop!

Could Chew Chew Train?

2006-01-20T04:04:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I wanted to post a quick note to let everyone know about this week's TNT service. We had a great night with Pastor Marty preaching for us again. He preached on "What To Do When Someone Talks Smack About You." The teens thought it was pretty funny that he used that title and it was a good message. I don't have my Bible in front of me now so lets see if I can remember all the points.
1. Consider the Source.
2. Consider the Situation.
3. Consider the Solution.
4. Consider the Savior.
Ok. I think I missed one. It was a great challenge for the young people to think about what Jesus did when He was lied about and talked about. It was a needed message. Since Pastor Marty preached in TNT Club this week, I got to preach in our school chapel on Thursday. I preached on "Duh! What Were You Thinking." I talked about the verse in Proverbs that teaches us that what we think about is what we are and I also challenged the students to have a thought life based on Phil. 4:8.

As Pastor Marty has mentioned, we gave him his birthday present this week. His day was actually Sunday, but we waited until Wednesday to present him with his Coke Train. You can read more about it on his blog at www.pastormartyspulpit.blogspot.com.

We had a great service and look forward to next week. We are gearing up for the start of a new ministry that I'll tell more about soon and for two activities in February. We are going to Michigan for a youth conference and we are going snow tubeing...if Pastor Marty's Florida winter doesn't melt all of our snow as it is certainly trying to do. :-)

Praise the Lord for 58 people in our mid-week teen meeting. I am excited about preaching next week. I know God is doing great things with our teens and can't wait to see how He uses each one of our young people. I spent about 4 hours today with one of our teens and it was a nice time of fellowship and getting to know him.

BTW: Our school's basketball team, the Sabers, won tonight. GREAT JOB FELLAS. :-)

See you next week.

SYD

Who's On First?

2006-01-14T22:34:00.000-08:00

That's the guy's name. When he picks up his pay check, who gets the money? Every dollar of it! Oh, man that is funny. I found this picture of a very handsome young man trying out for a spot on an amateur baseball team in Charlotte, NC about 11 months ago so I thought I'd post here for ya'll to enjoy! Boy, did God know what He was doing when he made me 0 for 11 with only one chance to even get on base due to a HBP! I got to score that day, but that was my only game that I got on base. If you can't hit, you sit. Praise the Lord for Fords Bush and our softball team. Now I have the honor and privilege to serve my Savior and play the game He gave us to enjoy. What? You didn't know baseball was in the Bible? Genesis 1:1 says, "In the Big Inning...!" God loves baseball!

If you have been able to make it past my first paragraph, you should know that this is just a short praise report from Wednesday night. Once again the Lord blessed us mightily this week. He allowed us to have 68 people in our Wednesday night TNT Club meeting. Praise the Lord. I will say a little more about our upcoming events in another blogspot, but I just wanted to briefly share that praise with you. Keep up the good work and the prayers. God is going to do even greater things with our teens and I can't wait to see it. I am proud of our young people and their faithfulness.

Praise the Lord!
SYD
"Who"

BIG Night in TNT Club

2005-12-22T15:57:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. In case you missed it, we had a Christmas party in our TNT Club last night and it went very well. We had a gift exchange and I am sorry to say that everyone didn't participate. There were all kinds of excuses, but that was okay, we just let the ones who actually brought a gift participate in the exchange. :-) One teen said, "I couldn't go shopping yesterday." My response was sorta sarcastic, sorry about that Bobby, but I said, "Well, it's not like we've been announcing this party for the last 3 weeks." :-) It was ok though, he still had fun! It was pretty exciting since I told them all to just get something small for a couple bucks, but no one listened. They brought in some really nice gifts. One young man got a REALLY nice wooden chess set. :-)

We also had some great treats and soda. Some of our workers brought cupcakes, some brought cookies, and some brought candy. It was really great. I have the best youth leaders in the whole wide world and wouldn't trade them for million bucks. Thank goodness for folks who love teens. :-) We also gave each teen a Christmas ornament with candy inside of it. That was fun.
My sermon was not really a Christmas sermon, but it was the one that the Lord laid on my heart as I prepared for this week's message. I preached a message from 2 Chron. 6:1 where Solomon said that the Lord hath said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. We have some teens that are in thick darkness right now and it is an encouragement to me to know that God is with them there. He has not left them or forsaken them, He is there. I just tried to encourage them that God loves them and He is there for them. Wow, that is a wonderful thought. God is in the thick darkness. :-) Praise His Name.

I don't have all of the attendance figures with me now, but I think that we had more last night than we have had since I have been here. I know that we have been close to 60 on several occations, but I can't remember if we have had that many yet. Well, last night we had exactly 60 teens. It was very exciting. We usually split the JR and SR High but didn't last night for the sake of the party. Wow was that room crowded. We will split next week. I have a great youth leader named Rick who teaches the JR High when we do split and I know that it is better for all of them when they can get into smaller, more concentrated groups. The JR High leadership team is also very well equiped for their job and it is a blessing to see them work with their teens. I can't wait until next week. :-)

We also had some teens trust Christ last night. I was only aware of two, but my wife let me know about another young lady that I didn't know had accepted Christ. Praise the Lord. I can't wait to talk with those 3 precious young people more about their decision to receive Christ. Looks like we'll be needin' to warm up the pool again for some baptisms. It is probably frozen solid by now...HA!!! :-) Well, that is my report on how good God was to us yesterday. I hope to see you at TNT Club next week.

Bro. Kevin

New Pix of my Children

2005-12-08T19:12:00.000-08:00

I thought ya'll would like to see these new pix of our kids. :-)
Hope you like them. First is Chip, then Katie, and then Kylei. Chip is 2, Katie is 4, and Kylei is 6.

Bro. Kevin

Super Superbowl - I Love to Limbo

2005-11-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

Wow. As Pastor Marty has mentioned, our youth group and several of our teen's friends, went to Albany last night for the annual Word of Life SuperBowl. A gentleman by the name of Rick (his last name escapes me right now) preached and it was very, very good. I am still looking through our 27 decision slips. I was very encouraged that our workers were able to deal with the teens on a very personal basis and it wasn't just "raise your hand if you prayed, viola, you are saved." I personally got to deal with 3 young men, two of which were first time visitors to our group and they both got saved. The other young man was dealing with the assurance of his salvation. It was great.

After we watched the Albany River Rats hockey team get beat 4-6 by the Hershey Bears (I think) we all gathered on one side of the Pepsi Arena for the message. After the message and up to midnight, we played some games on the ice and some in the stands. It was a lot of fun. You can see in this picture a good shot of a fight. This is not the game we went to, but you can see how great hockey is to watch. Also, in this picture you can see the jumbo-tron scoreboard. One of the most exciting things for me at this Superbowl was the fact that I got on the jumbo-tron for the first time in my life. I have been to about 5 Braves Games in Atlanta, 1 in Houston, 1 in New York City, 2 or 3 Charlotte Hornests Games, 2 Texas Rangers games, 1 Dallas Mavericks game, 1 Colorado Rockies (vs. Mets) game, 1 or 2 Corpus Christi Ice Rays games, and I don't even know how many minor league baseball games between Charlotte, Kannapolis, and Shreveport and I have NEVER been on the jumbo-tron scoreboard for any reason. Well, Friday night that all changed while I was doing the motions to the song "YMCA" using my thundersticks. I was up there in living color, Braves jersey and all. It was GREAT.

After 12a, we drove to Guptill's Area which is the largest roller skating rink in the world, and skated until 3a. WOW, that place is nice. It is 55 years old and it is just fantastic. You can check it out at http://www.guptillsarena.com/ if you'd like. That is where we had pizza and soda which was great. I haven't rollerskated in a very long time and I had a lot of fun. Did the Limbo twice and only knocked the bar down on the first try. I was so pumped that I didn't fall even once. WOW was that fun.

Then about 3a we drove to a bowling alley in Schenectady, I think. It was called Boulavard Bowl. We had a great time and I bowled a high of...are you ready???...............137. I love to bowl, but ain't to good. I also won a prize because 2 or 3 of our guys carried me up to the main desk. That was very fun. They also gave a prize for the couple who could bowl a strike while holding hands...me and miss Lois didn't do too good on that one.

Then at 6a, we drove home. It was so much fun. I look forward to going again next fall and taking even more teens. We won second place for taking the most this year, we had over 90 with everyone we took so we shouldn't have to take too many more to win next year. The first place church had just over 100. My goal this year was 150, but since I just got her about four months ago, I hadn't had as much time to plan and promote this as I would have liked. That is ok though. We did just fine. Now I have 12 months to get ready for our next one. I wanted to win the nice brown, wooden bowling pin that they give away, but that went to the church with the biggest increase from last year. I am going to have take the entire city of Fort Plain to get that one next year. What a great time we had. Praise the Lord for a safe and productive activity. Everyone had fun and I believe God was uplifted and honored in the whole thing. I really believe that if we can uplift Him through our youth ministry here in the Bush, as He has told us to do, then He will do as He promised and draw men (teenagers) to Him. That is my goal for our youth ministry...that my teens and the lost teens in our area, be drawn to Christ.

I appreciate all of your prayers for me, my family, my preacher, our church, and our ministry here.

God Bless Ya'll.

Super Youth Dude. DA DA

P.S. I forgot to tell you the prize I got for coming in Second in the attendance contest...I'll post a pic if I can. It was a blue velvet looking hat that looks like it belongs on the head of Snoop Doggy Dog or one of his pimp buddies. I am thankful for it though because it will make for some great pix and even a recyclable prize to give away myself.

What's The Deal?

2005-11-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'm not complaining, I just don't get it. I mean what is the deal? It is NOVEMBER 9th and it is warm outside. I should be seeing ICEBERGS floating down the Mohawk River and instead I have birds churping and beads of sweat on my face. No the birds aren't churping on my face, but they should all be in Florida right now. I have been trying to explain to my daughter Katie why we don't have snow yet. You see, I told my children that we would have a lot more snow in NY than we did in NC. It was nice to see some a few weeks ago, but it didn't stick. My pastor seems to be getting the answer to his prayer for a mild winter. He asked God to swap our winter with FL's winter. Watch out Tampa Bay, the blizzard is headed your way.

Really though, it has been nice not having to worry about fuel oil so much and snow boots. I know I will need some boots, but all I need now is a swim suit since we have had April showers to bring May flowers a little earlier than I thought. I hasn't stopped raining in about a month and tonight on my way to church, I pulled my van up to my front door for my wife, and you know what, I almost couldn't get it out of the yard because it was so soggy. Praise God though. The rain was refreshing today as it did cool things down. Yesterday after our boys PE class outside, we were sweating like dogs so the rain was nice.

Thank you Lord for saving us some kerosene for when (if) winter really comes. Oh, hey ya'll, Praise the Lord, we had several visitors out tonight at TNT Club and two weeks ago, we had two young men saved. Last week, one of our newer teen girls was visited and her mom's friend accepted Christ. Please pray for Adam, Kevin, and Nate to come to church this week. :-)

Hey, Superbowl is FRIDAY. I'll introduce you to my good friend, The PIN EATER!!!

Have a great week and remember, Ps. 16:5 and Lam. 3:24.

SYD

Snow and Go!

2005-10-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

Praise the Lord for the great meeting we had in our TNT Club this past week. On Wednesday night we did something a little different. I gave the night to our youth leaders. What a great job they did. We had our games indoors as we will likely be doing from now on do to the colder weather and darkness. :-) We had about 52 teens out with several new young people. I decided to take everyone's picture individually since I am putting together a photo teen directory. We have a church directory already, but I am putting one together with just the teens in it and their pictures will make it that much better. I think it will help us get to know each other better. :-) We also switched up our preaching and prayer time. We usually have prayer after the preaching and just before dismissal, but we had a special speaker and I wanted to give him the end of the night.

It was one of our own teens who has been called by God to be preacher. He has preached a few times before, but not since I have been here and he did a great job. He preached on role models and used Daniel, Jesus, Moses, and Noah. He preached on how Noah walked with God. He talked about Daniel's resolve and it was so good. I don't have all the notes in front of me just now, but it was a good message. I remember that he was very caring about the teens. He has told me that he believes God wants him to be a youth pastor so it is very encouraging to see his love for young people even at his young age. I think he is 17. All of our leaders did a great job and I know that I would have no ministry if it weren't for them. :-) Thanks Ya'll!!!!

Hey, it snowed today. This is the first snow that we have seen this year and it was great. :-) They are calling for 4-7 inches overnight, but I do not believe God is going to let that happen. Our pastor has been praying for a mild winter and it is still fall and it is snowing. I believe God is going to answer his prayer and that this snow will not cause us any problems for school tomorrow or church tomorrow night. It is basically just raining now and there is a very slight accumulation on the ground. Not even an inch. :-) My kids were PUMPED though as was my wife. :-) We'll see what happens. I may get my first white Christmas since I was six years old. :-)

Tomorrow night I will post a report of our last World Series night and who won the Stinkees Tickets....I mean Yankees!

SYD

I Love Cake, Baby Showers, and Teenagers!

2005-10-13T18:54:00.000-07:00

Boy, I love cake! I was so happy that today our school, Victory Christian Academy, honored our seniors and even provided them with their very own cake. The girls got cakes shapped like volleyballs with our school colors on them, and our soccer player senior got a cake with a soccer player taking a shot on the goal. They were really neat...and delicious. I only got to try the soccer cake, but they were all made by the same person and it was so moist and soft and they used buttercreme frosting, my favorite. :-) I had to be careful though, diabetes forbids me from having to much sugar. I am praying for God to heal me of that disease...and eating less sugar. Anyway, I love cake. I love celebrations. I love parties and really any other time that I get to have cake. I love taking my wife to baby showers because she always brings me some of the cake. Baby showers almost always have great cake. Thank goodness for celebrations of new birth...which brings me to the main point of this post.

Rejoicing over new birth. Praise God!

The Bible tells us in Luke 15:10, "Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." Well, I am happy to report that one week ago during our youth meeting on Wednesday night, the angels in heaven had a party. They had a baby shower for QUADRUPLETS. We had four precious young people come to know Christ.

I was a little suprised because we had four teens visiting that night and I wanted to be sure and talk to them about salvation before the night was over, but I was pleseantly suprised to fing that three of those four were already born again. The one that was not, did accept Christ, but three others who were not first time visitors also accepted Christ. Those other three had been visiting for a few weeks and it was so awesome to see the seed that was plante in those previous weeks, come to fruition last week as those precious teens accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior!

I can just imagine the "It's a Boy " cake that the bakers in Glory had to get ready last week. I would love to have seen the one "It's a Girl" cake and share with those angels as they drank punch and had little sweet mints with their cake. I can just imagine the party and celebration in rejoicing that was taking place. Man, I am so glad Jesus saves people and that God has allowed me the awesome priveledge to work with teenagers. I love them so much. Teens, I love you and am so very proud of you. :-)

We had a great croud last night of about 45 teens. The stinking public school soccer games, (GO FORT PLAIN; GO CANAJO; WHADAYA SAY LITTLE FALLS; HURRY UP HERKIMER!) are killing our crowd, but God still saw fit to fill our room up with over 45 young people, praise HIM for it. We had more visitors during our second World Series week than during our first and we are praying for over 50 next Wednesday.

Praise God for Jesus, Amen! Praise God for Cake, Hallelujah! Praise God for Teenagers, Glory! Glory to HIS name!

SYD

(BTW: The cakes pictured with this post are not the cakes we had at school today, but I wanted you to get an idea of what I was talking about so I included these pix. Don't get hungry looking at them like I did!)

Talk About Being Resolved

2005-10-01T00:14:00.000-07:00

The other day I was sitting in McDonald's having a breakfast biscuit and reading the USA Today when I saw this amazing story. The story of a football player with no legs. What? That is right and here is the picture to prove it. I can't remember exactly where I found this picture, but it is the same one that was in the paper I was reading. You can find the entire story on several web sites and/or by searching Google for "no legs football player" or Bobby Martin football player.

Can you imagine a football player with no legs? I was just in awe when I was reading the story. Here is a kid that was ruled ineligible to play by a referee with what appears to me to be little or no common sense. He said Bobby violated an equipment requirement because he had no shoes on. HELLO! He has no feet. I can't remember what group or board or commission overruled that decision, but Bobby was eventually allowed to play. I think the story said he was a nose tackle. He plays on the kick return team and boy, I bet he can tackle hard. He is between 3 and 4 feet tall so he just hits his target in the legs and down they go. He won't use a wheel chair, but has trained himself to walk on his hands using his arms as legs. He must be super strong. He must be RESOLVED. What an amazing story. I just wander where this kid is going to go in life. If he can make it onto his school's football team and be successful at it, I am sure he can do whatever he chooses to do in life and do it well. It would be great if he is a Christian and will use his incredible resolve for Christ. Tim Lee would be proud. :-)

This story reminds me of Jim Abbott. He was a Major League Baseball pitcher who only had one hand. He was missing his right hand, but instead of allowing that fact to hold him back, he was RESOLVED to make it to the major league level. He was a pitcher for the California Angels and I think for some other teams as well. He would simply use his right arm to hold his glove while he pitched with his left hand and after delivering the pitch, he would just stick his throwing hand in his glove to field the ball. If the ball was hit back to him, he could quickly switch the glove to his right arm and throw the runner out at first using his left hand. Wow. What a great story!

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we as Christians could get so consumed with accomplishing our goals and dreams that we would be sold out and RESOLVED for Christ. Here are two individuals that were just eat up with sports. They dreamed of doing something and didn't let a physical restriction get in their way. How sad that so many Christians won't serve Christ and stand for right just because they don't think they can. They don't think they can make the sacrifice to stand out. Boy, Bobby Martin stands out. People talk about him and maybe even make fun of him, but he is out there doing what he set out to do while those who laugh are doing what? Sitting in the stands. People made fun of Jim Abbott for really thinking that he could be a major league pitcher, but who made it? He did. While others were still dreaming about playing Major League Baseball, he was doing it. While they were hoping and regretting, he was making the big bucks. We should be SO RESOLVED that we don't let ANYTHING stop us from reaching our goals for Christ. It is a shame that these two men can be so sold out for a leisure activity with NO eternal significance, but we can't get young people to be sold out or resolved to do something significant for Jesus. Lets be RESOLVED!

Lets be resolved! Lets be resolved to surrender to God's will for our lives. Lets be resolved to stand for truth, convictions, and country. Lets be resolved to serve the Lord with all our heart, all our soul, and all our might. :-) Lets not let the world and some sports heros out do us. Lets out do them. :-)

I AM RESOLVED!

SYD

Guest Speaker @ TNT

2005-09-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

Several Wednesday nights ago we had our very first guest preacher in TNT club. If you missed it, you missed a great message. Many of our teens who attend TNT club don't get to attend on Sundays for various reasons and because of this, they have never met our preacher, Pastor Marty Braemer. He preached a wonderful message to us on that Wednesday night. It was a blessing to me and it obviously touched some teens who needed to hear from God.

The message he preached dealt with our Teen's theme for this year. I am RESOLVED. He assigned to each letter of the word "resolved" a term and challenged us to do something with each area. Here is the sermon in a nut shell.

R - Ready
E - Excited
S - Stand and Seperation
O - Overcome
L - Loyalty
V - Vital
E - Earnest (to be decidedly committed)
D - Devoted

I was very happy to have my preacher in our TNT Club. He will be joining us every so often, maybe about once every six weeks or so. Due to our upcoming fall campain, The TNT World Series, he will not be joining us in October, but will be with us again after the first of November. We're giving away 4 tix to the Yankees home opener next spring at the end of October so it should be a "ton a fun!"

See you Wednesday!

SYD

God's Favorite Sport

2005-09-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Obviously, Baseball is God's favorite sport. The very first verse in the Bible makes reference to a "Big Inning" which is so very important in winning a baseball game. Well, tonight we had a big inning and saw 5 home runs hit as that many precious souls accepted Christ as their personal savior. I was thrilled to be able to go soul winning with two of our fine young men and the 3 of us were so glad that one of our friend's mother came to know Christ tonight. We visited the home of a young lady who comes to church almost every Wednesday night for our TNT Club meeting and while we visited there, we were able to talk with her mom about Christ. How wonderful is the Lord!

Speaking of BASEBALL....Don't forget about our TNT Club WORLD SERIES coming up in just a few weeks. Bro. Kevin's Braves will face the worker's Yankees as week seek to have a big month with many new teens coming and more teens coming to Christ. Lets hit a Grand Slam for Jesus and get a bunch of rookies signed up to Join HIS team.

Look for another post tomorrow about our speacial speaker from a few weeks ago, and I look forward to seeing you on Wednesday night. :-)

SYD
Go Braves

No Sleeping In Church

2005-08-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

Just a warning to those of you who like to sleep in church. This could happen to you. You came to this blog to get a glempse into the mind of Super Youth Dude. Well, just so ya'll know...I think this is very funny. :-) See you at soul winnin' tonight.

SYD

The Valley of Death

2005-08-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

Did you get overwhelmed reading that last long post? Well here is one to lighten the mood. I thought I'd post this picture for ya'll to enjoy with me. It is called The Valley of Death from Psalm 23 which is obviously this cat's favorite part of scripture...though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear not (no evil.) I laughed out loud when I saw this picture. I hope you like it too.

Take care.

SYD

Finally, Here It Is!

2005-08-27T22:37:00.000-07:00

Want to spread some juicy gossip? Just call phone man. He will save you from the dreadful shame of not having anyone to call with your juicy story about something that has nothing to do with YOU anyway. Da Da Da Dummmmm.....Phone Man.....Arch enemy of Totally New Teens who don't spread strife by gossiping over the phone.

I have posted a couple of times that I was going to post on the subject of gossip. Well, I have been thinking about it again today so I decided to go ahead with it this morning. I know it is late and I should be in bed, but I just can't sleep tonight. I have been trying out some different Bible programs and it has been a lot of fun and I am just not sleepy. Do you ever have that happen to you. You want to go to bed but just can't? Anyway, on to the subject at hand.

I read a verse a few weeks ago that I have seen before, but it just didn't jump out at me the way it did this time. That verse was Proverbs 26:20 - Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth. That really got to me. I have been in a few churches in my short life where there was so much strife between Christians and brothers in Christ. Most of you, if not all of you, have been in a church where there was some kind of strife. Why is this? Because people spend to much time telling tales and not praying prayers and bearing one another's burdens. To much talk and not enough walk. There are churches all over the place who have strife on the staff, strife among members, strife among friends, and on and on it goes because we talk about each other way to much. The Bible clearly tells us in the above verse how to eliminate the strife in our churches and in our lives. Stop talking about each other. I learned a very valuable and lifelong lesson from a dear friend of mine who is a retired pastor. He taught me how strife among the brethren so badly DESTROYS the work of the Lord. He is likely the wisest pastor I've ever been around and he stressed to me the importance of removing the wood so that the fire will go out in this area of delivering (gossip) and the result of it which is always strife. A fire can't burn without wood or fuel; strife can't spread or even survive without talebearers or gossip. It is a Biblical principle and it is oh so very true (like ALL Biblical principles by the way.)

What causes strife in church or a home or a friendship or a workplace? Well, it is very clear to me in scripture that TALEBEARERS cause strife. Gossip causes strife. What did the verse say? No wood = No fire, right? Also, No talebearer = No strife! This means that when a church stops talking about each other and starts loving each other, then the ministry can be effective and the strife will cease and the work of God will get done. I am absolutely heart broken to think about all the time that is spent talking about people who need help as oppossed to actually praying for that person or actually helping them. I know that sometimes we have to talk about a situation with someone else so that everything will be on the level and there won't be any suprises or to make sure that the proper authorities are on the same page regarding a situation, but a wise person once said, "If you are not part of the problem or the solution, don't talk about it. It's none of your business."

Folks, God is very clear on Gossip and other such unproductive gibberish. Matthew 12:36 - But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. Don't believe me? Well, God wrote that verse not me. This verse is very convicting to me. I must keep my mouth as the wise man in Proverbs. The wise man doesn't speak every single thing that comes to his mind. He keeps it in the Bible tells us in Proverbs. Are your words idle words or productive words?

I won't make this much longer. :-)

I just want everyone to know that I feel very strongly on the subject and that I am committing my mouth to Jesus Christ that HE might receive the glory for what I say and what I talk about. I waste too much time talking about the wonderful Atlanta Braves. I know that I should talk about spiritual things more, but don't be fooled...baseball is in the Bible. Genesis 1:1 "In the BIG INNING..." God wants us to have BIG INNINGS in which we score a lot of runs for Him. Baseball is spiritual. Seriously, God is very plain about GOSSIP. IT CAUSES STRIFE. "Where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth." One of my teens recently told me how bothered he was by people who gossip. I understand his concern...gossip causes strife and that is evident even to a young teen boy who mentioned to me how much it bothered him.

Lets talk about Jesus, the King of kings is HE, Lets talk about Jesus more and more.
Why do we have strife in our lives, in our churches. We tale bear. We talk to much. Lets uplift people and bear one another's burdens instead of talking about other's burdens. Lets pray together with those we would otherwise talk about. I bet we would talk about each other less if we would spend a few moments praying with the person we were going to gossip about. Boy that would be something huh? :-)

Hey God bless ya'll. I may make a sermon out of this gossip stuff that I've been thinking about sooner or later. If I do, I'll post it.

Take care everyone.

Super Youth Dude. Now "hang up" up and away. :-)

Final Fun Night

2005-08-27T09:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday evening we held our last Friday Fun Night for this Awesome August. Our first was a night of team games in which pairs of teens were tied together for 3 legged kickball, egg toss, and then a trash can pillow fight. We closed that night out with smores and hot dogs cooked on a way to HUGE bonfire. Our second week we had mystery ride which took us to the mall where we had a scavenger hunt using clues and answers based on the stores in the mall. That was fun. Then last week for our third fun night, we went to play miniature golf at a course owned by a couple who also owns an Italian bistro next door. After golfing we ate at their restaurant and it was great. Now for our last one:

We all met at the church where we split up into 5 groups. Each group had a leader to drive for them and we set out to play the game "Wrong Number." If you've never played it, let me give you a hint: It works better where there are more phones. The last time I played it we had many stops that had multiple pay phones. Yesterday we had under 10 phones total. No single place had more that one phone. It was a challenge, but you know what, WE HAD A BLAST ANYWAY. We all met at Mace's Place for Ice Cream and snacks and because we were so far ahead of schedule we decided to continue the HUNT. One of our workers, the very intuitive Mrs. May, came up with several scavenger hunt items that would not require anymore phone calls. They were:
1. Get a store employee's signature.
2. Get ten different types of flowers (Don't Steal Them.)
3. Get $0.10 worth of gas and get a receipt.
4. Get a lady with lip stick on to kiss the paper your list is on.
5. Get church member's signature (someone not on the activity.)
6. Get a pregnant lady's signature.
I think there were seven things, but for the life of me I can not remember what the other one was. We all had a lot of fun and it was certainly a great time for everyone.

For those who were unable to make it this week for some reason or another: We sure missed ya'll. For those who chose not to come this week because you'd rather got to the fair or some event other than your youth groups' own activity: We sure missed ya'll too. :-)

Our next teen event, of course, will be our regular TNT Club meeting this coming Wednesday night; Same youth time, same youth channel. Also coming up this week: We are having a youth meeting with Evangelist Joe Aldridge on Saturday, September 3rd at 6pm. Be sure to be there for that meeting as we have a skit planned, great music, and some great preaching.

Have a great week everybody and I'll see you in church tomorrow.

Super Youth Dude

Tonight's Report and SuperBowl News

2005-08-24T19:58:00.000-07:00

We had a great night tonight with about 45 teens out at our TNT Club. I was happy to see each and every teen tonight. A special thanks to all the workers who helped out tonight.

Congratulations to the teens who memorized our verse Nehemiah 6:3 for tonight. Don't eat all that chocolate at once. :-)

Look for news this coming week about our upcoming TNT World Series at the end of which we'll be giving away 4 tickets to see the "Balco" Yankees play in NYC. I am going to try to get opening day tix if that is at all possible since those are so exciting. We'll see how that goes.

Ok, the annual SUPERBOWL in Albany is going to be on November 11th. We are working on some fundraisers to help cut the cost down signifiantly so you should help us out by bringing in as many soda bottles as you can for refunds. It is going to be an exciting all night activity. :-)

I'll post more information and make announcements as I find out more about all the details.

God bless, ya'll and I am going to post more sermons on here or parts of them at least so let me get a cyber amen. :-)

Kaplain Keever (aka: Super Youth Dude)

What is Gossip?

2005-08-22T03:59:00.000-07:00

Dictionary.com defines gossip as:
Rumor or talk of a personal, sensational nature.
A person who habitually spreads private rumors or facts.
Trivial, chatty talk or writing.

The Bible talks about talebearers in the book of Proverbs. What is the definition of a talebearer? According to our dictionary it is this:
One who spreads malicious stories or gossip.

However there is a little more to it than that. I have looked at much scripture and it's word's meanings regarding talebearers. Tonight, after soul winning and the Braves game, I am going to come back to our blog and post a sermon I have been working on regarding this sin of Gossip. There is more to it than most of us realize and there is much more harm it it than most understand. We'll get into it tonight.

Bro. Kevin

Golf at the Bistro

2005-08-22T03:35:00.000-07:00

Good Monday morning everyone. :-)

We had our third Friday Fun Night this weekend and it was a blast. We played miniature golf, some of us played about 36 holes, at an Italian Bistro in Gloversville. The owners of the Bistro, Anthony and Lori, also own a bowling alley and a miniature golf course next to the restaurant. We played golf and then ate pizza and wings on the bistro's very fancy patio. The patio is covered with a small tent like material, but is almost like being inside because it has a beautiful rock fireplace. We were able to feed everyone with about 250 wings and 6 large pizzas and man were they good. One of our brand new teens said, "This is the best activity ever!" I was so excited to hear her say that especially since she is brand new to our group and has been on 3 total activities. :-) Now I have to out do it this Friday. I am quickly learning that New York pizzeria owners know a little more about pizza making than the average Charlotte 16 year old slinging pies at Little Caesar’s. :-)

Coming up this Friday we are going to play a very fun scavenger hunt type game called Wrong Number. If you have never played it, look forward to my report on it. We are going to have a great time.

Please remember to keep up with your Devo guides. We only have about 8 or 9 days until we'll be turning those in and sending in our report. I know you have been trying to keep up with them so hang in there and press on. It is so exciting to get closer to God and to know that He is with you. Please don't get discouraged if you haven't done it every day. Just do it today and know that I am pulling for you. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know. Starting next week, we are going to start having you bring your Devo guides in weekly so we can help each other stay on track with them. I know it will help. Don't for get your memory verse this week, Nehemiah 6:3.

Everyone did a great job last Wednesday Night. I am so proud of you all.

Please remember to pray for our teens that have been out. If we will bear one another's burdens and pray for each other, we will make a difference in someone's life.

I will be posting again tonight after visitation and soul winning. The post tonight will be a sermon I am working on covering the subject of (dum da da dum daaaaaa) GOSSIP. Just remember this: don't put wood on the fire and GUESS WHAT WILL HAPPEN? The fire will GO OUT. Praise God.

Later ya'll.

Super Youth Dude.

Two New Posts

2005-08-21T05:58:00.000-07:00

I am working on two new post which I will most likely post late tonight. The first is a great report of our third Friday Fun Night which will be very fun to write. :-) The second is a sermon idea that I have been working on for our Wednesday Night TNT Club. The topic is What is Wrong With Gossip. I thought of some more blunt titles such as Shut Your Mouth and Why You Should Shut Up, but I decided it would be better to simply teach on why we all should not gossip using some very strong scriptures on the subject.

Look for these two new and excited posts late tonight or on Monday Morning. God Bless and I'll see you at church.

Super Youth Dude.

Bro. Keever

Exciting Friday Night

2005-08-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

We just held our second Friday Fun Night yesterday evening and boy was it a blast. We took a mystery ride on which all of the windows of our vans were blacked out with trash bags and "duck" tape. We drove about 30 minutes to the mall over in Rotterdam, NY where we broke up into groups of five with one adult per group. We then embarked ona scavenger hunt throughout the mall.

Each group was given a set of clues that helped them find a store and then they had a clue to get some sort of visual piece of information from each store. Lois and I waited at the "base" which was a neat little over look on the fountain at the center of the mall. Each team was given two clues at time and sent to find the answers to their clues. It was a lot of fun and a very valuable learning experience. What did I learn? Get to the mall sooner. We kept about 3 or 4 restaurants open 25 minutes past closing time to serve us food. I am sure they didn't mind the extra money coming in, but I made sure to thank each of their managers for accomodating us. We got home around 10:30pm. :-( Next time, I'll just be sure to tell the parents and the teen's rides that it will be a little later than 9pm. Boy was that embarrassing. You live and you learn.

It was fun and the teens enjoyed it. Wednesday night I preached a message from Matthew 1 on how God uses those of us that are not the ones that everyone expects to be used. He put Tamar, Rachab, Ruth, and Bathsheba in the linage of Christ. He used outcasts and hurt people to bring us the Savior. I expressed as best I could to the young people how much God loves them and wants to have a close relationship with each of them. We sang "I am Resolved" and it was a great service.

Please pray for two sisters in our TNT Club. They are both going to Grace Baptist College this week. One is a worker in our ministry and the younger just graduated from our school, Victory Christian Academy. We will miss you Jessica and Erin. :-)

Well, this is my first attempt at a blog and it seems to be going ok so far. I'll keep it up and see if it works out for some positive responses much unlike my old reporting place. :-)

God bless ya'll and thank you for checking out our TNT Blog.

Kevin

2005-08-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Kevin and Lois Keever (This is our first go at this so it is a sort of test. Next time I'll post a picture of the entire family.) :-)