Another great Turkey Bowl this year. Following is this year’s champion as well as our other teams.
2009 Co-Champions
Both the Green & Orange Teams ended with 2-1 records and played to a tie on the championship round.
This year’s teams:
Archive for the ‘HSM’ Category
BIG WEEKEND
November 25, 2009
Middle School Left-Over Bowl on Saturday morning from 10:00-12:00!
Don’t miss any of it!!!
HS Turkey Bowl XVI Week 3 Promo Video
November 23, 2009Hey all, the week 3 Turkey Bowl promo video is up. Now you can watch all three again as you prepare for this Friday’s 16th annual Turkey Bowl!
TB Videos
November 16, 2009The first two weeks of Turkey Bowl promo videos is up on the website – www.aucyouth.net. Week 3 will go up on Sunday or Monday next week.
Don’t Miss the HS RIOT on Friday Night!
October 28, 2009
Don’t miss our RIOT this Friday night from 7:30-10:30.
Music, air hockey, pool, foosball, video games (including the new Wii Resort), friends, and hanging-out.
A festive Fall menu will be in place including: hot dogs with or without chili and cheese and onions, fries, apple cider, and dirt.
HS Summer Mission Trip
October 27, 2009“If we’re not careful, eventually our comfort zones become cocoons and then coffins.” – Jon Achuff
Monday Musings
October 26, 2009Sunday Sports. It was a good day for me yesterday – both the Steelers and Yankees won. Makes Rich happy. Speaking of the Yankees . . .
World Series Time. The baseball season is winding to a close with what I think is going to be an epic series. Looking forward to the Phillies & Yankees. Our home is evenly divided so it should be fun. At breakfast this morning, Dean said, “This is great! We can start talking trash at each other now.” Not sure how it will play out in the series. Phillies are hitting much better than the Yankees right now, despite the Yankees having a string line-up, in my opinion. Starting pitching looks pretty evenly matched. Bullpen – I think the Yankees are stronger, at least on paper, but the game isn’t played on paper, now is it? I think the Phillies have the edge, in all honesty. The invincible Yankees have stopped hitting this post-season and you can’t win if you don’t hit at least a little. I don’t know. Looking forward to it. I’m ready. Let the dance begin. :)
Love. I’ve got to tell you, nothing warms my heart the way watching you all demonstrate real love does. I loved watching what you all did for Jack yesterday with his birthday. The roars at UG in the morning when his birthday was announced, and the party and gifts last night. You guys rock! The sacrifice in time and money to show love back to a leader who you all know loves you so much – amazing and awesome. I love watching it! It makes my day. I’m so glad to have a front-row seat to watch the Holy Spirit’s continual transformation of so many of you.
Jack. Speaking of Jack, even though I know he’ll never see this (he still doesn’t own an answering machine nor will he take a free one!), his dedication, love and commitment to our high school students and this ministry is unreal! I hope that we all realize that. Take a moment to thank God today for Jack and his love for us.
Lessons From Saul & David. I’ve been reading through 1st Samuel in my devotions and right now I’m reading about Saul and David and the relationship that they found themselves in. Quite interesting. Over the next few weeks I’ll share some insights from their lives. I’ll begin with a simple one today. JEALOUSY WILL EAT YOU ALIVE. This is so apparent in the life of Saul. He starts off loving David and then being grateful for David. But as soon as David gets some credit for something (which Saul empowered and enabled him to accomplish by giving him permission to go fight Goliath), Saul allows jealousy to creep up in his life. His subsequent and constant attempts to kill David become the theme of the following chapters. The jealousy eats at him and eventually devours him. It is all-consuming in his life. And the same will happen to us if we allow it to even creep in a little bit. It’ll take over and consume you.
Great Follow-Up to Elevation Message
October 22, 2009Read this yesterday and it is such a good follow-up to Sunday’s Elevation message, “The Many Faces of Mr. Potato Head.”
Asking “Is It True?”
by Jon Achuff
This is going to come as a shock for many of you, but I wasn’t popular in high school.
I know, I know, given the unibrow, constant braces, and tap dancing lessons, you would think that I would have been homecoming king. But that wasn’t the case. I was a bit of a loser. And by “bit” I mean “big” and by “big” I mean “wicked big.”
I just wasn’t popular and although I’ve committed to raising my own kids as dorks, I was taken aback when my daughter confessed something the other night at dinner.
L.E. is in kindergarten. After three years at a small local church preschool program, she’s started her journey through the public education system. And last week at dinner she told us, “Mary told Janice that I was a big, fat loser.”
She just threw that sentence out on the kitchen table in between forced bites of vegetables. And it sat there for a second, with my wife and I not knowing quite what to do. With big blue eyes, L.E. looked back and forth at as, silently asking a loud question …
“Is it true?”
She didn’t use those words, but that was at the heart of her confession. Someone had called her a big fat loser so she asked the people who have known her the longest, “Is it true?”
Am I big?
Am I fat?
Am I a loser?
Although my wife and I tried our best to talk through the situation with her and assure her it was not true, 10 minutes after we had conversationally left the subject, L.E. burst into tears at the table. She wouldn’t talk about it. When we asked her what was wrong she laughed it off and hid her face in her milk glass, desperate to hold it all together, but the question “Is it true?” kept pushing tears out.
That’s a tough question and I wish it was one that we all left in childhood.
But it’s not, is it?
If I’m being honest, I ask myself “Is it true?” sometimes when I get a negative comment on this site or a hateful email. Someone tells me I’m a horrible writer or a horrible Christian or a horrible anything, and I start to wonder, “Is it true?”
Have you ever asked yourself that question?
Has someone ever told you that you were fat? Or untalented? Or unqualified? Or hopeless? Did a divorce try to tell you that you were broken, a job loss tell you that you were worthless or a parent that you were less than the child they hoped for?
Have you ever found yourself asking the question, “Is it true?”
We all do at some point and the challenge is that we often try to find the answer to that question in the wrong place.
When I feel wounded or hurt, I often feel tempted to ask Google Analytics, a web traffic tool, if I’m any good. I want to open up my statistics and look at all the pageviews and say, “See, that’s not true. I’m not worthless, look at all the countries that have read this site.”
And maybe if you don’t have a blog, you go somewhere else for the answer to the question, “Is it true?”
Maybe you go to a memory, and try to relive a time in your life when you felt popular or loved.
Maybe you ask a new car or a new pair of shoes or a new anything your question.
Am I old? Is that true sports car?
Am I ugly? Is that true new outfit?
Am I dumb? Is that true new laptop?
And we ask and ask and ask, but regardless of the answer, regardless of if our loved ones provide a temporary salve to a question that hinges on our true identity, something gnaws at us.
The only thing I think we can do in that moment is ask the only one who really knows the answer to the question, “Is it true?” And that’s God.
He, unlike your friend, unlike your boss, unlike that shiny new toy you purchased to try to beat back the feelings of inadequacy, He knit you in the womb. He knows you like no other and He loves answering questions like, “Is it true?” and “Who am I?”
The Bible is riddled with verses where God gives us glimpses of who we are, but one has stuck out to me over the years. I’ve written about it before and I’ll write about it again because I heart this verse. It’s Isaiah 30:18. The first half of the verse says,
“Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion.”
I love that idea, because it loudly answers, “Is it true that I am unloved” by saying, “No, God rises to show you compassion. He longs to be gracious. He gets up in the morning with compassion in His big God heart for small feeling you.”
I don’t know what in your life might have caused you to ask the question, “Is it true?” but I hope today, that you’ll think about a new way to answer it.
Regardless of why you’re asking that question, the answer might be:
“No, it’s not true. You are not that word, that thing, that label someone or even yourself is asking you to wear. Showing you compassion is the reason God gets up in the morning. That is what’s true.”
What have you been asking “Is it true?” about lately?
Sobering Thought
October 21, 2009I’ve just started reading Francis Chan’s latest book, Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit. Chapter One hits with a question that is a sobering. Take a look at these words and allow them to sink in a few minutes.
And this is the question I just can’t get around: If It’s true that the Spirit of God dwells in us [Romans 8:9 -- You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ] and that our bodies are the Holy Spirit’s temple [1st Corinthians 6:19-20 -- Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.], then shouldn’t there be a huge difference between the person who has the Spirit of God living inside of him or her and the person who does not?
This may be a silly illustration, but if I told you I had an encounter with God where He entered my body and gave me a supernatural ability to play basketball, wouldn’t you expect to see an amazing improvement in my jump shot, my defense, and my speed on the court? After all, this is God we’re talking about. And if you saw no change in my athleticism, wouldn’t you question the validity of my “encounter”?
Elevation Video
October 19, 2009In case you missed the “Many Faces of Mr. Potato Head” bumper video for our new series yesterday morning at Elevation, or in case you just want to watch it again to get another laugh, you can view it on our website.
