Racing to Nowhere Documenting Kids' Pressure to Perform

Great Article. long but good.
if you don't have a lot of time check out the end where it gives ideas on what we can do.

http://fulleryouthinstitute.org/2010/11/racing-to-nowhere/

Are Gagets making us rude?

Check this out. It might make you think twice when you use your cell phone.

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/39965931#39965931

Both Youth Retreats PICS & VIDEOS

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Sr. High YOUTH RETREAT details--check out our facebook for pics & videos

This might be a little long to read but it might be of value to you to ask good questions to your child in regards to what all happened on the youth retreat. This email is to inform you but mainly so you can ask good questions to start quality conversations with your child.

The kids had a blast this weekend. We had great weather even though it was a little cool in the morning for devotions.

As I was driving the bus back to the church I really felt a need to follow up with the parents and let you know about the weekend and some more specific questions to help you get better answers than the general answer, “It was good”. My heart is to help and serve you the parent to help grow your child up into a man/woman of God.

I was sharing with the coaches (that’s what we call our adult volunteers) after a great night of ministry that we are so privileged to be apart of what God is doing in our youth. We see some of the benefits of all the prayers of family, friends, and us and see God move and convict kids hearts to move them closer to Him.

I will try my best to describe a quick synapses of the weekend. Our theme for the weekend was vending machines.
Friday:
We arrived and got settled in.
We played 2 games to help get to know each others names.
Sessions 1=Our speaker (Carmel, from the REACH program at Rosedale Mennonite Missions) spoke on identity. How we sometimes we are like a vending machine. We push A1 to act this way for our friends, E4 to impress our teacher/coach, C5 to be a good child at home, B9 to try and be perfect for God.
Our worship was by Cameron, Regina, Sawyer, Luke.
The rest of the evening was playing tournaments in ping pong, foosball, euchre, carpetball, or eating snacks that everyone brought and hanging out.

Sat:
Morning was a great breakfast and devotions
Session 2=Created for God, We have 2 kinds of sin 1) Original everyone has-selfishness coming from the garden of Eden, Some generational sins. 2)personal sin-sins of choice or you could call them empty wells. Empty wells are things you pursue outside of God. She had us identify our empty wells and abandon them. And that we are made for intimacy with God, dependency on God, and obedience to God.
Worship by Escaping Yesterday
Ask them about game ball & Survival
Any breaks they played tournament games.
Session 3=Talked about forgiveness being an exchange between me and God, confession + repentance= exchange. Some kids came up and confessed about some unforgiveness they held in their heart and some general unconfessed sin they have held secretly in their hearts. I would encourage you to ask them about this in a sensitive manner. Sometimes it’s good to wait for a period of time to talk about it. You could take them out for a special evening just you and them and talk about it or go to a special park, restaurant, ect..
Afterward the kids had an awesome worship time experiencing the freedom in God. One young man was so overwhelmed he was sitting down behind everyone and with tears coming down his eyes he explained to a coach he has never experienced the freedom of God this way in his life. Ask the kids about running out of the lodge while they worshiped.
After that was skits. Ask them about the skits. Ask them what skit they were in and how it went. Ask about some of the other skits.

Sun:
Great brunch and devotions
Ask them about the coaches relays and what they did in the relay.
Session 4=Knowing the absolute truth, what are society’s absolute truth, how to survive when you go home.
The kids divided up into girls and guys. The girls were asked if they would like to sign up for a mentor or be in an accountability group. Most of the girls signed up to have a mentor in their life. Mentor being someone to speak in their life other than their parent. Someone the parent can trust.
The guys talked about forming an accountability group. Three boys were nominated to be the point leaders for the group. A adult male/males will work with this group of boys.
Both things discussed with the boys and girls will be offered to the rest of the youth group.

Overall it was a great weekend to get closer to their Heavenly Father. Thanks for letting you child experience this weekend. Carmel (she works with a number of kids) explained to me that these kids are a great group with open hearts to God. I feel honored to work with such great kids. Kids willing to seek after our God and find Him at Bear Lake Camp in Albion IN. My prayer is they continue to seek Him. Keep encouraging your kids to read The Word daily and find time as a family to talk about His Word together and pray together, not just at the dinner table.

Sincerely,
Scott

Scott Herbert
Youth Pastor
Maple City Chapel
2015 Lincolnway E.
Goshen IN. 46526
(574)533-0327
“Honor all people, Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.” 1 Peter 2:17

Day 3

We had an awesome evening last night. They had a Hawaiian theme for dinner so all the staff dressed up Hawaiian and we ate fried fish and of course rice. I don't think I've heard one complaint yet from the kids. I've heard how much they love it here. After dinner we had a session that Delynn talked about pride. After the talk they did a live reenactment of Jesus being taken to a cross and crucified. So they had the kids follow this drama outside and down a path to a cross. It was very moving. They kids were touched and shared this morning, again in front of everyone, how impacting it was. I've never seen some of the kids really crying out to God like I did last night. It was really awesome!! Today Delynn talked about loving others and a few of the kids are going to share their testimonies. Each of them have written them out and were taught how to share them. I would encourage you, when the kids get back, to ask them about their testimony. I'm sure they would put up a fight but it's good to hear what God has done and is doing. Today also holds more drama practice and kids ministry practice. We will be leaving tomorrow morning early. I will try to write one more time before we go but after that the next time we communicate will be at the church @ 8pm. I will call the phone chain if there are any changes. Please continue to pray for unity, good attitudes (cause its going to get hot & humid), and for the kids to continue to be open to what God has for each one.
Thanks!!
Scott

Day 2

Today has been going great. the weather here is in the 70's for the high and in the 50's for the low all year round. So we have been getting 70+ for highs and in the 60's at night. We had a good Costa Rican breakfast in the morning followed by a great quiet time for 45 min. A few of the kids shared with the whole group in the beginning of the first session about God speaking to them during the quiet time (really cool). The whole group consists of, I think, 4 other youth groups. There is about 90 people here. The session had some great worship and Delynn Hoover the director here spoke again. The rest of the day the kids have been preparing for their outreach.
They are doing more dramas and kids ministry than what they already prepared for. They are doing awesome! They have also been practicing their dance as a group. As I was writing this I could here the music playing and heard a huge cheer at the end. They are having a blast.
As you know we are going to Nicaragua Sat morning. We are going to an island with a huge lake. We will be riding in a bus for 7 hours and getting on a ferry to get to the island.
The kids have been fed very well. Rice and beans are the main part of every meal here because that's what most Costa Ricans eat. So the kids are getting a good taste of the cultural food before we go out on our ministry time.
Thanks for your continued prayers.
Talk to you later.
Scott

Costa Rica (our first day)

We Made It!!!
Everything went really well. We have been busy and everyone is very tired. The kids are going to bed now. They have done a great job traveling all day today. We have a 2 hour time difference. Right now its about 9 and back home its 11.
Our day consists of eating at 7:15, having devotionals and then preparing for our time we have in Nicaragua.
Thanks for all your prayers.
I will try to blog more the next few days.
Scott

Costa Rica / Nicaragua Here We Come!!!

Stay tuned for updates from our mission trip to Costa Rica and Nicaragua. The bus pulled out of the church around 11:15 Tuesday evening. The group should be landing in Costa Rica tomorrow around noon.

How hot is your teen on Facebook

How 'Hot' Is Your Tween On Facebook?

Joan Indiana Rigdon, 04.15.10, 05:00 PM EDT

Racy profiles. Sexting. Cyberbullying. Isn't it time for schools, parents and social-media sites to get extremely specific about Internet safety?

PTAs across the land are holding meetings about Internet safety. School counselors are coaching classrooms on safe social networking, sexting and cyberbullying. Plenty of parents are echoing everything back at home.

MySpace regularly reports how many sex offenders it has kicked off its site (90,000, it claims, as of February 2009). In a 2008 deal with the nation's attorneys general, Facebook agreed to identify and delete "profiles of all registered sex offenders." And several states are passing or mulling over laws that would ban convicted offenders from social-networking sites.

This week, Facebook and its global Safety Advisory Board relaunched Facebook's Safety Center. The new page features a cleaner look plus loads of information specifically targeted at parents, teens, educators and law enforcement. There are plenty of tips for coping with cyberbullying and other problems, like impersonators and unwanted invitations to chat.

We all love information. But let's face it. Brochures and instructionals, whether printed or online, only go so far. They certainly don't ensure meaningful protection for wanna-be adults who are eager to launch or finesse their online personas.

I know this because many of my friends and relatives have kids who are aging into Facebook. It's enlightening--and occasionally disturbing--to see their profiles.

A few months back, one tween, who is Friend of a Friend, made a racy debut on FB. She didn't intend to be racy; she just turned out that way after answering the site's profile questionnaire.

Asked to provide her gender, she checked female. So far, so good. Next, under "Interested In" she was presented with two choices, men or women. She checked men.

Then came a list: Was she interested in friendship, relationships, networking or getting back in touch? As a middle schooler, "relationships" seemed like a good fit, so she checked that.

For good measure, she let her sense of enthusiasm and humor slip through, describing herself as "HOT!" for "boiiiis."

Voilà! By the time her FB profile went live, she was a "HOT!" tween, interested in relationships with men (and boiiiis). And her profile was public, for all the world to see.

Several of her new (adult) Friends collectively gasped. Her parents were alerted. They're quite savvy about real-world threats, but are still mastering the nuances of social networking profiles. (They hadn't seen hers.) Within hours, the profile reemerged--no longer public and with no references to hotness, men or relationships. She's just a regular kid now.

Facebook's new Safety Center might have helped, insofar as it provides links to its primer on privacy settings. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't have any specific information about how to build a safe profile for kids. That may seem like common sense, but for many tweens, teens and even parents, it just isn't.

Isn't it time for schools, parents and social-media sites to get extremely specific about Internet safety, the same way schools already are about sex education?

Even First Lady Michelle Obama worries about this. Just this week, she revealed that in the Obama household, "We talk a lot with [our daughters] about the dangers of Facebook and sort of getting into that social networking kind of gossip mill..."

Most of us, and most of our older kids, know the basics. We're aware that there's such a thing as unsafe online behavior that can lead to kids being spirited away by child molesters or, far more commonly, being lured into inappropriate video or anonymous chat rooms or objectionable sites. But other than not giving away full names, addresses and phone numbers, most kids and their parents don't seem to be aware of just how easy they are to find and what specific behaviors they should avoid.

Even worse, most kids aren't really concerned about privacy.

Back in the mid-1990s, I put together a roundtable discussion about how girls use the Internet. I recruited three middle school-aged girls and three experts. As we talked, one of the girls mentioned that she was mad at a boy she'd met only online and wasn't chatting with him anymore--but that before the fight, she had e-mailed that boy pictures of herself and her little brother. She was reasonably sure he was just a boy, because he was a friend of a real-world friend. But her family had no idea she was transmitting photos of herself or her brother to strangers online.

Maybe it's time for more schools to put together hands-on workshops for parents to give us all a crash course in various social networking sites and how to safely participate--with specific information about what a kid's profile should look like and which privacy settings make sense.

In the meantime, we parents will have to monitor, and even spy. But that's another story to be told after my 8-year-old daughter discovers Facebook. Or sooner, since she's already dabbling with e-mail.

Over to you, readers: What kinds of technology rules and guidelines do you have in your house?