REEL Joy - Week One Recap

Week One of REEL Joy is officially in the books. Thank you so very much for your prayers and thoughts for our time together. It was a good night.

Some of the things that the youth group staff at Church of the Redeemer have been praying for, the very things we invited you to pray for as well, began to unfold.

- More than half of our youth invited at least one friend to attend REEL Joy and one of these invited friends actually attended!

- There was not only an absence of violence, but a remarkable absence of any hostility for the most part. The youth respected our adult leadership - at some point I remember asking the nearly 30 kids to quiet down for a moment and....they did! The youth also respected each other to the point that I don't remember hearing a single back and forth name calling incident all night. Frankly, this is the Lord at work.

- 10 new youth attended and 2 youth who haven't been to youth group in months also came. I was particularly blessed to see God bring two of my new neighbors, Daicia and Jamilah, high school aged African American girls. The last time an African American girl has attended our YG regularly was back in 2005 and I've hoped for this to change as our youth group strives to be a place where youth of ALL sorts from our neighborhood can come and grow into disciples of Jesus. Daicia and Jamilah had a great time and will be inviting their friend Cassidy to come next week.

- The service and support from adults at Church of the Redeemer was overwhelming. 2 brought snacks and 8-9 others came to give rides, lead small groups and otherwise invest in the lives of the youth in our neighborhood.

- The youth group staff team and I had a great meeting the night before REEL Joy day one. The Lord calmed some of my anxieties through this time and brought a lot of excitement and hope. I'm really grateful for my YG ministry partners Stacie, Casey, Eddie, Heather and Mark.

- The actual content/teaching times went fairly well. We got the youth brainstorming about heroism and performed a fun, impromptu skit about Daniel and the Lion's den. The youth then brainstormed their own heroic characters and plots in small groups and had some really great ideas - everything ranging from super heroes like "Spongelicious BobPants" and "Afro-Man," to more everyday heroes like "mom who made a mistake growing up and wants to give a hard word of advice to a teenager to keep her on the right path" and "small kid at school stands up to the school bully because it's the right thing to do."

- Our regular youth did a great job of loving as Jesus would. They welcomed in and initiated with new youth, they volunteered to serve and help out with great willingness and our student leaders did a great job leading various aspects of the night.

- Finally, several parents (one who attended the event and a few who didn't) made remarks to me that their kids had a great time at REEL Joy. This is really exciting! I'm hopeful that as we minister to youth God will also give us more opportunities to minister to whole families as well.

Please join me in giving thanks to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name."

A few more prayer requests for next week:
- pray that all the youth who came would return and that few more youth who would next week.
- pray for the Lord to fill the adults leaders with the Holy Spirit and strengthen us for the weeks ahead.
- pray for 3 new girls who were really shy/quiet and 2 new boys (both on the younger side) who struggled with behavior a bit
- Street Lamp Studios will be taking the youths' characters to create basic plot outlines. Pray that they'd come up with some good stuff and that the youth would have good attitudes when they hear the results.
- continue to pray for the youth to know Lord
- pray against the work of the enemy and for the Lord's protection

Blessings,
Elliot