Category: Youth

When the phrase “March Madness” is mentioned, the first thing most think of is college basketball. When we say this phrase at Rock Island, we are simply verifying that the month has changed from February madness to March madness. I know I have just sold our after school program to each of you!

We are, however, running our own brackets for March. Beginning Sunday at 3:30, we are debuting a highly anticipated air hockey tournament. Thanks to the Clark family we now have an incredible hockey table. In two days, It has already sparked large rivalries. Who is expected to win? Who will be the Cinderella story? Come see!

We are hosting a Valentine’s Day party for youth this Sunday from 3:30 to 5:00. All electronics will be turned off and we will be rocking it old school…board games, charades, and music. Bring your favorite sweet!

What are your plans for lunch today? If your like me, you’ve already begun to make plans. Well… our plans are covered thanks to Chandy Stout and Oklahoma Restaraunt Association.

We had a neighborhood pot luck lunch with garlic shrimp, meatloaf, curried chicken, turkey, braised beef, fry bread, salmon, and too many others to mention.

If you weren’t there, you missed out!

Ron

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top quote after one of the boys dropped the “N” word in a conversation…

Ron, “Would Martin Luther King call someone the ‘n’ word?”

Kid 1, “He’s not my daddy.”

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

Fair enough.

Luke

I learned early in my job that the whole inner-city, working in the heart of the city or the “streets”, as many would say, requires you to get dirty, from time to time. The primary focus of what we do at Cross and Crown and Rock Island is based on and through relationship. Anytime you are in relationship with someone and really pour into the relationship, things are bound to get messy. The more time you invest with an individual generally leads to deeper relationship, which results in the letting down of walls and/or being real with each other. Then things just get messy.

Well, let’s just say this past Tuesday Israel, one of the Rock Island elementary students, and I really broke down some walls and got real with each other. Or, at least, he got real with me.

About fifteen minutes into a rowdy game of soccer with ten or so boys from the neighborhood, Israel and I found ourselves chasing after the soccer ball into the far corner of the backyard. As we were chasing after the ball I realized a couple things. First, Israel plays soccer on a daily basis and is hispanic (you do the math). Secondly, my team is losing, badly. And lastly, I outweigh Israel by 100 lbs. That’s right, I big-body Israel.

So, as Israel stumbles to the ground he puts his hands down in order to brace his fall. Luckily, one of his hands lands securely into a very moist, soft area, which lightens his fall. Not so lucky was the fact that his cushioned fall was because the neighborhood dog had laid a hot one minutes prior to our game. Gripes.

After I got rid of Israel and left him in a poopy mess I carved my way through four or five other little munchkins and scored the winning goal. Not really, but I wanted to. Once I realized the reality of what had happened I helped Israel up, with his clean hand, of course, and I escorted him to the bathroom inside of Rock Island.

As we approached the bathroom door I felt a slap on my back…Uuuuuuuh, surely that was a “good game” slap on the back from one of the other kids who was acknowledging my total dominance of Israel…I turned around only to see Israel smiling ear to ear and asked, “Did you just smear dog poop on my back?”.

“No’, he said as he whipped into the bathroom.

He lied. He smeared poop on the back of my t-shirt. Awesome. The only good news was that it was approaching closing time so I only had to rock the poop shirt for five or ten more minutes before I could go across to Cross and Crowns’ clothing room and change out of my diaper shirt.

See, I told you inner-city work was messy.

When I got home Mackenzie and I debriefed about how each of our days went and I told her she may have had to put up with alot of crap at work today but at least she didn’t get crap put on her at work.

Luke

Before reading this story, click the archives tab to the right and read Finding Jesus posted October 12th.

Here is a response from the girls who were taken out for a shopping spree. “You are nice and your friend are to and your mom and your mom friend. thank you for buying us cloths. We loved all the cloths your mom and moms friend helped us pick out. Thank you for buying us pizza to eat and some cake. It was fun takin pictures even thought I did not take a lot I only took 2 pictures.”

You never know how  simple acts of kindness might change a life forever. Just a small investment into another advances the Kingdom in one more heart. Thank you for acting out your faith! Look for the opportunities the Holy Spirit might show you today.

1 John 3:16-18   “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

Recently a family that is involved with Cross and Crown did something that was pretty respectable. It was also a very cool idea. One of their children was getting ready to celebrate a birthday and so, like most other kids, she wanted to have some sort of a birthday party. But, rather than have a pizza party, a pool party (probably too cold for that I guess, it is October…), sleep over…what other kinds of partys do kids have these days? A Finding Nemo party? You get the idea. Instead of doing a party with the intentions of receiving presents and celebrating a day about her, she wanted to have a party and someone else receive the gifts.

She and her parents contacted me and asked if there were a couple girls from the neighborhood that we were in relationship with that would enjoy going shoppping and out to eat. The following Tuesday at Rock Island during our elementary hang out time I talked to the two best candidates for the party and they overwhelmingly said that they would like to go.

This past Friday I went to the two girls houses and picked them up after school. We then went to Rock Island and anxiously waited for the birthday girl, her mom and ten or so other girls that were apart of the party. When the girls arrived they all piled out of the cars and came to meet and great the two other girls and then they were on their way. They went to the mall to shop for a couple outfits and to eat.

After it was all said and done and I heard all that happened during the party I realized I had witnessed a practical example of the scripture in Luke when Jesus says, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Remember growing up and telling other kids in elementary school, “I’ll invite you to my birthday party if you invite me to yours”? Let’s be real, the biggest threat you could hurl at someone back in the day was, “IM NOT INVITING YOU TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!!!” Basically you invited certain kids to your party not necessarily because you wanted them to have fun, but rather to ensure yourself of a spot at their birthday, for your own good.

That wasn’t this girls intentions. She knows there is not a very good chance she will receive a return on her birthday invitation to these girls. Whether or not she knows it, she did just like the scripture says. She extended an invitation to someone that won’t be able to offer her the same type of invitation. She will not be repaid. Not on earth anyway. Rather, she will be blessed.

Luke

Please pray for one of our youth, Dylan, who had a seizure over the weekend. This was his first episode and was pretty frightening. It appears he doesn’t have any lasting medical problems other than headaches. Thank You.

The school year is in full swing, meaning that Rock Island is taking territory full throttle. Workouts, Xbox, Bible studies, mowing, and meals are weapons in this offensive. One of our greatest weapons is the point trip. Once a month, we take 10-15 of the kids with the highest point count to do something special with Luke and I. Points are earned by cleaning up the building each day, attending workouts and Bible studies, and coming to Sunday worship and family meal.

The point trips allow us to focus in on the kids that are taking full advantage of the relationships and programs that we offer. This is the soil most ready to receive seed. So we sow away! We need your help in this harvest. We are asking for financial sponsors for our monthly trips. Each trip costs around $300. Please prayerfully consider if you or your house church might be the one to say, “We’ve got October covered!”  If interested in sponsorship or if you have questions, please contact us.

I’m not really sure you can classify Rock Island as a youth group. Do a cluster of young people meet in a group at Rock island? Yes. Are we a traditional youth group? No.

Typically, for sake of time and explanation, anytime someone asks Ron or myself what we do or where we work we will explain that we work at Rock Island, a youth center, in downtown Oklahoma City with kids from the neighborhood. Generally we shy away from the term “youth group” because we don’t function like most youth groups people are accustomed to. We don’t meet on Sundays and Wednesdays. We don’t meet at set times (even though we have set times just for some form of organization) each time we get together. We don’t meet, eat, sing, listen to a devotional thought, hangout and then go back home. Nothing wrong with that, that’s how I grew up doing youth group, but that’s not what youth group looks like at Rock Island.

Here’s what “youth group” looks like at Rock Island this summer. Meet 4, sometimes 5, times per week. Carry boxes of food for families that come for assistance for a few hours a day. Mow some lawns in the neighborhood. Play some video games. Have a weekly Bible study (currently in Luke 19). Paint some houses. Pickup donations from other churches in the Okc and Edmond areas. Eat lunch together, EVERYDAY! Go swimming. Watch movies at Rock Island. Workout in the gym. Play basketball. Move families and their furniture, appliance, beds and clothing to new homes. Work in the prayer room at Cross and Crown and pray for people (some of the students translate for other volunteers also, big help!). Unload 15,000 lbs of food cans, produce and drinks at Cross and Crown.

My point is Rock Island does “youth group” a little differently then most, differently then what I was brought up doing. We didn’t originally plan it this way but that’s the nature of where we work and the youth we are in relationship with on a daily basis. Ron and I have learned that in order to actually have an influence in these kids lives, we have to know them, we have to learn about them and we have to be in their business. And, we are. The best way we know how to do that is to spend as much time with them as possible and get into their lives as much as possible. Do Ron and I want to strangle some of the kids sometimes because we are with them constantly on a daily basis? Yessir, but that’s part of the plan. Not strangling them but being with them long enough that they can be real with us and not hold back or put up a front.

This summer has definitely been a great time of relationship building and learning for everyone involved at Rock Island. We’ll see what the rest of the summer has to offer.