8 Crazy weeks

Wow, so it's been quite some time since I've blogged so I have lots to say. These past few weeks have been crazy busy, fun and enlightening in so many ways. I'm now in the last week of my internship in CO and to say that this summer has been amazing would be a huge understatement. I've learned a ton about myself, God and ministry that I know will stick with me for a long time. It's really been an extremely positive experience but before I get more deep into some seriously important things, I have some super funny stuff to share.

First of all, I turned 21 about a week ago and Englewood Assembly was so good to me for my birthday. I got cards, an ice cream cake and lots of hugs and well wishes. Oh yeah and they all sung to me during service which made me feel great. It was hard being away from my family n friends but my family here made it a great day. Most 21 years old do the regular things like get a beer or go to a casino but for me, I was just happy to drive the church van which brought another funny experience last week. I was taking a few of the youths to subway about 5 minutes away from the church and all of a sudden I ran out of gas. haha. It was super funny to me because TJ, my boss at the church had just given me the keys a few minutes before. So he gets there and I joke with him about not telling me that the van had no gas and he says "Dude, I just drive man, I don't know." I can honestly tell you that TJ is bar none one of the funniest guys I've ever met. TJ, myself and the rest of the staff here crack up all day in the office about the most random things. It makes the days so much fun.

Another funny thing that is funny but also needs to go on your prayer list haha, is I'm leading a youth camping trip tomorrow in the mountains. Wait for it, here comes the funny part....I know nothing about the mountains or camping. LOLZ! No worries though because luckily we have some other staff guys joining us on the trip that will make sure we don't die or anything. I'm so excited for this trip because some of the youth that are going haven't really been connected with the youth this summer so it's awesome that they want to come and be with us. It's going to be awesome. This week is going to be awesome in the sense that there will be tons of fun, food (a couple of barq's and a huge potluck) and just really a ton of time to just be with these kids that I have grown so close to this summer. On the other side, its sad because I have to leave to the Midwest Sunday. I'm going to miss everything about Colorado. It's been a straight up blast! So many memories and good times, so that brings me to the serious part of this post.

Leaving on Sunday has brought on a lot of questions in my mind. It's very clear to me that Colorado is a place that I can come to when school is over and be very happy but at the end of the day, I know that it has to be a God thing and I can't selfishly jump into a cross-country move without God's full blessing and it has to line up with His will for my life. SO right now, thing that I'm working out with God are whether or not if this is what He has for me? Whether it is or not, my desire is to be connected to this body of believers in some way. Man the doors that God is opening in the city of Englewood is like crazy cool. TJ, Brandon, the kids pastor at EA and myself all have been hanging out at the high school with the football team. TJ and Brandon are coaches and I just hang out and attempt to lift weights and get to know the players as much as possible. Think about that, 3 church dudes, just hanging at the high school, being positive influences to tons of young men. That doesn't happen everyday. There are so many other things that EA has been blessed with as far as the community goes, its crazy legit.

I love it here but I know that the Lord has so great things for me in IL this next year with school and everything, its going to be great but pray for me for clarity for the Lord as far as the next step after that and also for me to be obedient with whatever He says. I feel like the Lord has truly been preaching patience in my life in every area. I have the tendency to want things to unfold quickly and sometimes it becomes easy and convenient to take things into my own hands. My heart to wait upon to the Lord for complete direction of my life. This is a very exciting time in my life and I'm pumped to see what God has planned for my life in the next couple years. It's gonna be amazing! Blessings to you all and until next time...

Blessings
Joe
2 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Currently Listening To-
I Heart Revolution-Hillsong United

Currently Reading-
John Maxwell Leadership Bible

Expectancy

"A spirit of expectancy is the breeding place for miracles"

The above mentioned quote is something that one of my dearest friends, Nina Daniels spoke over a camp of about 1000 a few years ago that I was on staff at. Nina, was leading worship with a team from Rockford Masters Commission and when she spoke those words on the stage as we all were entering into a time of worship that week, in my mind, I was like "Whoa, that is straight up profound." It's not even profound because of the words but really I see it to be powerful because of the truth that is behind it. Think about it, when you think about miracles, you think about the impossible happening. Jesus performed so many miracles in the bible especially in the gospels and in so many cases, the people who he healed or delivered were brought to Jesus by someone else or they came to Jesus by themselves, knowing who Jesus was and expecting Him to move and make something happen. People followed Jesus by the masses because they knew that He could move the mountains, they knew and believed in his power. The spirit of expectancy was evident in Jesus's followers from the bible. It was crazy the things that Jesus did. Walking on water, healing the blind, etc.

I'm kind of on expectancy kick because of a few things. Number 1, is that I'm about half way through my internship and as I was spending sometime with the Lord today, I marveled at the many things that He has already done, but I felt as if I need to expect Him to do so much more in my life and the lives of the teens that I'm working with for the remainder of the summer. Seriously, the things that have been happening around me have been amazing in every way. People are getting called to Englewood and Englewood Assembly because of the serious move of the Holy Spirit that has hit this church over the past few weeks and months. There are kids in my youth group who I know are in completely different places in their lives than they were days ago, weeks ago, months ago. God is so good. Crazy. Earlier, I read a blog post from my buddy, Jordan and he was talking about how he wanted people to pray about the youth service that he was leading at the church that I serve at when I'm at school on July 11th. His words were this "I know something crazy awesome is going to happen at Fusion Vandalia on July 11th" Jordan is expecting God to move in radical way. I close with this. Are you expecting God to move in your life? To change the hearts of your friends? To help you get that new job? There is power in expecting the Lord to work in you. In my life and for the rest of the summer here is my prayer and I hope that it can be a prayer for you life as well.

"God, you are good and I know that whatever you have for me is your will. I'm expecting you to do what you want and have your way in me, my friends, family and whoever else you place in my life. Show me Your ways and that I may walk in them each and every day."

Bless you guys and I love the 4 people who read this on a consistent basis. Until next time.

Blessings
Joe
Isiah 30:18

Currently Listening to:
The I Heart Revolution-Hillsong

Currently Reading:
Communicating for Change:Andy Stanley

Run Joe Run!

WOW! My life has been incredibly busy since my last post. Friday was a great day as myself and many other members from the church went to Aurora which is a community about 15 minutes away from Englewood to move in the Garza's. Alfred, Christine and their four kids are re-locating to Colorado from Illinois. I've known them for many years now since they attended Living Water Church in Da Brook when I was a member there. It's pretty cool to be able to hang with them all while I'm here this summer. Good people for sure. After we got done moving their many trucks of stuff, into their house/garage, myself and some of the youths went to see Toy Story 3. I have to say, the movie is probably the best movie I have seen this year. That's saying a lot since I saw the A-Team last week. The A-Team was pretty amazing but Toy Story 3 had such a great story (no pun intended). My favorite part had to be Buzz LightYear en espanol/"You got a friend in Me" en espanol. CLASSIC! After the movie, myself and my youth boys and gals went back to the church for some pizza and hide and seek. It was a super long day but tons of fun non the less.

Saturday was another long day as we had a great church wide work day at the church. It started at about 8:30am and we got lots of things done, including laying down carpet in the youth room, which is next to the church. The youth room is now closer to being ready for the youth to meet in there for the rest of the summer and beyond. This is huge because now the youth meets in the main sanctuary on the Wednesdays but in the fall, the adult bible study on Wednesdays will start up again, leaving the youth with nowhere to meet. I'm so excited to finish the youth room. Put some game systems in, posters, t.v.'s, everything youth will be in that room (hopefully). The work day was super tiring and right after that I had to be back at the church for worship practice. At about 9pm, my energy level was at about 0 so I crashed pretty hard. It felt good. Sunday was of course Father's Day and it was kind of sad for me because it was the second straight year that I wasn't with my dad for Father's Day. I got to talk to him briefly but it still wasn't that legit. My parents divorced when I was pretty young but my dad has been in my life despite this which is cool. As Pastor TJ, talked about in his message, being a dad is tough stuff. A lot is expected from dads, sometimes more-so with dads than moms. I truly appreciate my dad and the influence that he has had on my life.

To honor the dads of Englewood Assembly we had a picnic at a park near the church. I can't tell you how much fun it was. My friend Kim, how is the Englewood Assembly grill master and myself, discovered a few weeks ago at one of his family barq's that we are basically unbeatable at Bacci Ball so Sunday was a perfect day to continue our dominance. We went 10-1 on the day which is pretty impressive especially considering the fact that we played all of our opponents either 2 or 3 games in a row. Yeah, we are da champs. Volleyball, Basketball and Football was also played. We won't talk about those. haha. I also met a ton of new youth kids that hopefully will be at youth tommorrow. I'm pretty excited about that as the group has really grown a lot since I have been here which is cool. It also worries me a bit because I'm not really sure what's going to happen when I leave in 6 weeks as far as the youth group goes. I honestly devote abotu 90-95 percent to all things youth at the the moment. It's really clear to me that no one else here has that type of time and energy. It's not that they don't want to, its just the fact that school, other jobs, family, etc. really limits the things that can and will be done when I leave. That worries me a ton but at the same time, as I have told some of the kids this morning, I know that their Jer 29:11 goes way beyond my time here and so does this youth group so I know that God has a plan for them and the youth of this church and this city. It surely doesn't stop on August 1st. So the direction of the youth group from the name to the week to week activities has really been on my heart the past couple of days because I'm starting to really care about all these kids and I believe whole-heartedly that without a youth group and a solid youth/leader or pastor, these kids and any teen for that reason will miss out on some serious good times, times of teaching, times of worship and ultimately times of worship as well. God is always good and always faithful so I know He will work in whatever way he sees fit as far as the youth of EA goes. Glory to God. The youth in the church are love doing things, whether its spiritual, fun, or whatever cause for so long, they were bored so I just hope I can spend as much time pouring into their lives as possible, starting with this weekend as we are going camping in the mountains. So pumped about that!

Lastly, I'm really excited about getting back to 24 fitness. I finally got my IPOD fixed last week and made an amazing play list called "Workin on my fitness" complete with everything from "Amazing" by Kanye West to "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor. I need music to run to more than I need during my weights workouts because running in silence is pretty terrible. Later today will be interested because I haven't ran since school got out. Yep that was a month ago. I actually hate running but i hate sweating like a pig more so somethings got to give. Yesterday, I got my 24 hour fitness membership card after waiting for 2 weeks so I figured that might be a sign that I need to get my act together, so hopefully I will see someone I know on my run so they can say "RUN JOE RUN" well maybe not but it was a good thought I guess. Well, time to start getting ready for youth group tommorrow. Prayin for tons of youth to come. You can pray too! Until next time, love you all!

Blessings
Joe
Philippians 4:13

You can't fight fate!

As I'm writing this blog post, I am fighting back tears as the Lakers have just won their 16th NBA championship. Oh they won last year as well. HAHA! I love the lakers and my main man Kobe so today is a pretty awesome day. Boston played well and almost won but at the end, they learned a valuable lesson....YOU CAN'T FIGHT FATE! This past week has been a great one for as I've now been in Colorado for 3 whole weeks. They have flown by. Tommorrow is Friday? Seriously? I've been having a blast. I spend just about every day hanging with the youth at Englewood Assembly. They truly crack me up. Jody and TJ, are even funnier than the youth so needless to say, I have been laughing up a storm with some amazing people.
God has really been doing some cool stuff in the church and specifically with the youth and myself. This Tuesday was the start ofi the youth internship that I am leading here at the church. It's a time where we study God's word, pray, serve the church and the community and of course have lots of fun as well. Right now, we are studying the book of Ephesians and today we talked through the first chapter and it was cool to see that some of the teens that were with me actually understood what Paul was speaking to the Ephesus church. The fact that we were choosen by God to live out a certain purpose for him still amazes me at times. Ephesians is a legit book in the new testament and its a book that has one of my favorite verses that the Lord has been working on me with and that's Ephesians 4:29 "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." I have to remember this like all the time because of my ability to be mean and say things that don't need to be said. Thank goodness the Lord is gracious and compassionate cause there are times when I'm not and I have to say to myself "Ephesians 4:29" haha. I fail a lot but its all good, God still loves me. Praise God! I'm pumped to dive into chapters 2 and 3 next week. I'm also pumped to see how God changes some lives through the internship and the many different experiences that my group has.
Wednesday was great because the group of youth interns and myself sat in the senior service at EA and man was it awesome to witness. The seniors in are church are super spiritual and are straight up pray warriors. As I told the teens, they are full of wisdom and Sister Barbara brought the word for realz! It was really cool. We also had a pray walk around Flood Middle School which is a big closed down school building that might be the future home of EA. I thought it would cool to pray over the building and claim it for God's purposes if its his will. It was good for sure. Youth group was great as we had so many new faces that came. I was really encouraged by the turnout and I hope to see more people show up next week. I had 3 brave youth souls compete in the happy meal challenge which tests a persons ability to drink a disgusting cheeseburger, fries and Hi-C orange drink all blended together to become an appetizing protein drink. It was nasty. My man Steven destroyed his personal drink and then finished off the other 2 competitors drinks as well. Needless to say, his stomach was hurting like something fierce later. We ended the night by playing some awesome basketball outside of the church. I was on fire all night but TJ says that it was a fluke. By the end of the summer and everyone else in Englewood will respect my game. That is da truth! This weekend will be fun as tommorrow some of the youth and I are going to see Toy Story 3. Saturday there is a big work day at the church and Sunday is the father's day picnic. That reminds me, gotta get my dad a gift. Oh shoot! lol. Well, I guess that's all for now. Time to order my lakers championship shirt and call it a night. Until next time...Love you all.

Blessings
Joe
I Thessalonians 5:16-17

Crazy Week

So, it's crazy to think that I've already been in Colorado for a week now but i have and its so far been amazing. I've done all kinds of sweet stuff. Swimming, basketball, buffalo wild wings, Chipotle, hilarious moments of laughter. The coolest part is that it's all involved youth. The kids that I have in the youth group that I'm working with this summer are all awesome. It's been a blast hanging out with them all and getting to know them. Hanging with young people allows me to be a kid and really not have a whole lot of worries when I'm with them. It's like super legit!

This week has been crazy in the sense that I feel that it's been going by really fast. It started with a nice 4:50am wake-up call to go pray at H.O.P.E. which is the prayer house here in Englewood. I don't care what it's for, waking up that early in the day is not fun at all but meeting with the Lord is worth it. I was telling Jody, one of the other interns here at Englewood Assembly this morning that a few months before I came out here to CO that I started to wake up like 5 or 6 in the morning to run and get some devotional time in before class and I thought that it would be something I could keep going for the summer. Well, so far, not so good. I hate mornings with a passion and despite my honest intentions, I haven't been doing good with the workout/devo early morning time. Today was a semi-start as I got up at about 5:45 to go to a small group bible study that Jody is apart of and that was pretty awesome, so maybe I can get my early morning deal going again. A guy can dream, right?

So many cool things have happened since Monday. The lead team from EA met with some other churches in the community and Randy Penn who is the head of the Englewood Chamber of Commerce to talk about how the churches could collectively reach the city of Englewood. That was pretty cool to be apart of. All the churches in this city have the heart to be apart of the community and to be outward focused which is really amazing to me. Love it! I also got to hang out with two of the guys from youth at Buffalo Wild Wings Tuesday to watch the Lakers-Celtics game. We had a great time since the Lakers won and we pounded 50 wings! My stomach was pretty pleased about that. haha.

Last night was the first youth service of the summer and the first service that I was in charge of. It was fun to get to hang with everyone together. I did my message on Potential and I think that the kids were impacted by it which was encouraging. After church we had a crazy basketball game with some of the staff at EA taking on the youth. Pastor TJ, our lead pastor at EA played which increased the level of fun by 100 since his trash talking ability is absolutely hysterical. It was a great first night that was quite different from what normally goes on during Wednesday night youth services. I'm excited to see what God does with over the next couple of weeks. Worship, silly/gross games and some real spiritual growth amongst the students are things that I want to see incorporated into Wednesdays so we will see what happens. Well, time to get to work on some stuff and figure out my plans for Game 4 of the NBA Finals tonight. (No one cares about the Redhawks.) That's all folks for now. Love you all.

Blessings
Joe
Matthew 22:36-40

Potential

Man, what a great week this has been. I'm so happy to be in Colorado. I feel like my summer has finally begun and it feels great. Yesterday was an awesome day as I went through my first staff meeting, helped out at the food pantry, lunch at chipotle (so good!), worked on my first youth service next week and saw the Lakers roll the Celtics at buffalo wild wings with a couple of youth along with TJ, Jody and Ron. Such an awesome day. I have enjoyed every moment of CO thus far because of the great people that I have met and the experiences that I have been apart of. One of my favorite activities has been laughing. I can't even begin to explain how funny the people here are. it's unbelievable. I laugh at literally everything but here, everyone else laughing so I don't feel so dumb. haha.
So basically next week will be the dawning of a new era for the youth at Engelwood First and I say that because until this point, there hasn't been a ton of spiritual development in the youth group gatherings and that is changing because I get to bring the word every week. I'm so excited. I was inspired by the Lord and a message that Pastor Paul gave at Metro last week to talk about potential for my first message here. Think about it, as Christians and humans in general, we all have the potential to do amazing things. Potential very simply is the capability of something becoming an actuality. Maybe that wasn't a simple difinition (haha) but I think you all know what I'm getting at. For Christians and believers we have the potential to do some amazing things for the Lord but there are some things that get in the way. The main 3 things that come to mind to me is sin, our influences whether it be friends, family, entertainment, etc. and lastly ourselves. Adam and Eve, God's first two humans ever. They had the potential to live in God's perfect image, to live amazing lives but what happen? Adam disobey God with the help of Eve and their lives were forever changed and ultimately they didn't live up to their full potential. One error in judgement, ruined their lives. See what happened to Adam and Eve can very well happen to us if we aren't careful. Adam sinned, listened an influence in his life instead of God, and allowed his actions to get into the way of God's plan. This is so applicable to our lives, especially in the lives of teenagers because of the seriousness of peer pressure and the outside influences that are in young peoples lives.
Honestly, this topic has got me thinking about my potential in my life but more specifically about this summer. There is great potential for this summer to be amazing for me and the people that I will be working with but at the same time, I have to be sure to keep sin out of my life as much as possible, be careful with what and who influences my life and also make sure my ways aren't getting in the way of God's way. Serious stuff there folks. Despite the challenges that I might face over the next 8 weeks, I'm very excited to see what God does through because I know I have the potential to do amazing things and you do too. so I close with this challenge, are you living up to your potential? If not, what do you need to change to get there and for God to use you the way he wants to use you. Cool stuff will begin to happen when the performance-potential gap is narrowed in your life and more specifically your relationship with the Lord. Well time to break down this message some more so that's all for now. I will leave you with a funny picture of me "gettin down" at Jered and Jordan's wedding last week. Peace and chicken grease.

Blessings
Joe
Col. 3:1-3



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Currently Listening to-

Colorado! I love this place!

So my summer has finally begun and I say that because I arrived in Colorado today to start my summer with my Englewood Assembly family and I couldn't be more excited. I started my trek west yesterday at about 12pm and got here today at 4pm. Now I know what you might be thinking but NO! I didn't drive for over 28 hours. I drove from Chicago to Kansas City and stayed with my friends Mari and Ephrain and then I left out at about 630am this morning to finish the trip. Since last Friday I have put about 1500 or more miles on my car. Crazy! Well after a long boring trip (except for KC!) I ak finally in Colorado!
Once I got here, I went straight to the church and hung out with Jody, Ruth, Matt and some of the youth for a while and then I headed out to the Moreno's which is where I am staying and I'm sure I will be blogging a lot here as well. Leroy and Mae are seriously some of the nicest people I have ever met. For them to open up their home to me for the summer is awesome. I'm so glad I get to stay here. Youth was fun as the kids got to know me better through asking me lots of questions. Shoe size, favorite thing to do in the summer, what I would do with a million dollars (buy a lambrogini), yep we covered it all. Haha. I love the group. They are awesome kids
Wow, today has been a long but great day. God is gonna do some amazing things in my life and the life of these students this summer. I'm so pumped to be apart of it! Well tommorrow, will be filled with cool stuff like staff meeting, food pantry stuff and hopefully some nba finals action with some of the youth. I'm so excited. Now its time to get some sleep. Peace ya'll!

Blessings
Joe
Jer. 29-11