Every sunday night this summer we have been having a hang out time after our youth service. We have done movie nights, Bon-Fires, we played Kickball, and so on and so forth. Last night we had a BBQ and just hung out at the church. My wife and I received a mini-grill as a wedding present and we used it for the first time last night. Worked great. Will definitely be used again. :o) If you are a youth pastor and you don't have a mini-grill you should run out and buy it right now. It's an amazing tool and you can prepare various meat products wherever you want. What could be better.
Last night I was just reminded about the simplicity of fellowship and how great it is for any ministry. To prepare for this hangout all I had to do was spend about 15 minutes in the supermarket, and 5 minutes assembling the grill. Wham-o instant hangout. It was great to see our students just hanging out having a good time. We had basket-ball, skateboarding, people riding bikes around the parking lot, a game of foursquare and of course food. It was great and most of it was spontaeous people just wanting to hang out.
This summer has really been a great time for me to get back to the basicis with ministry. We have been preaching chapter by chapter through 1 Corinthians, if you want to read my notes they are here http://1corinthianssermons.blogspot.com/. Which has really simplified my life, so that instead of being clever and pulling together passages from all over the Bible I can just go through it as the book was written. It's been great. ANd the hangouts have been so easy and inexpensive and had great results. So far it's been a great summer
