Club Update

What do you call 100 kids running around with plastic sheets tied around their necks like capes?  Superhero Club.  For this club we told all of our kids to dress up like their favorite superhero, or perhaps create their own superhero.  We provided the capes for kids who didn't dress up - not one was wasted!  You've never truly seen a crazy superhero until you see what a junior high kid can think up...

Once we started club we split the kids into four groups to play some superhero competitions.  The groups were the Avengers, the Justice League, Super Friends, and the X-Men.  The most intense competition was our edition of Family Feud: Superheroes, where the kids had try and guess the survey answers for Best Superheroes, Best Superhero Powers, Most Effective Batman Gadgets, and Superman's #1 Power.

The talk portion of club was a little different for me because I wasn't the one who delivered the talk!  One of our leaders stepped up and gave a talk about how Jesus knows us better than anybody.  She talked about how Jesus approached Philip and Nathanael and called them as disciples.  In that story, Jesus talked to Nathanael and told him everything that he had done earlier that day before Philip had called him to come and see Jesus.  Jesus showed Nathanael that He knew him even though He had never met him.  Nathanael responded by proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God and King of Israel.    

It was such a great talk because it hits home for everybody.  Everyone wants to be known.  We all want to be popular, respected, and loved.  The sad thing is that most of us attempt to appease those feelings through worldly things that ultimately leave us feeling empty inside.  But that is not what Jesus offers us.  He offers us love that is unending and love that is from somebody that truly knows us better than we even know ourselves.  He cares for us, teaches us, and loves us.  And when you respond by faith to the fact that He died for you by placing Him at the center of your life, you can truly feel His everlasting love and grace.

The greatest thing about WyldLife is that it is a ministry based on relationships.  We try to know these kids.  We spend time with them, talk to them, attempt to lead them.  But we will never be able to love these kids like Jesus does.  And that's why we point them in His direction!

Please continue to pray that kids in Lake Highlands and all across the world will get to know Jesus.

-Brody

Breakfast Club

With all of the crazy weather that Dallas has been having for the past two weeks, we finally got to have our first WyldLife club of the semester.  The theme was Breakfast Club, so the kids came dressed in pajama pants and house shoes.  Everything we did at club had to do with breakfast!  I even had a few kids ask me if we were going to watch The Breakfast Club...  That made me laugh.

Anyway, we had breakfast/morning themed music, games, and skits.  Kids competed in a blindfolded pillow fighting tournament, a challenge to see who could drink a blended up McDonald's Big Breakfast Combo the fastest (7th grade girls won...), and a few other crazy games.  We also pulled out the classic skit where you have a single glass of water, a tooth brush, and tooth paste, and have 5 leaders walk up and brush their teeth with the toothbrush and tooth paste provided, one after the other, with the last person drinking the leftover toothpaste/water in the cup.  The kids liked it.  I was really disappointed I didn't get to take part in that...

The talk that I shared with all of my junior high friends was about how you have to have faith to follow Jesus, but that having faith in Him means that you follow Him on a daily basis.  I read from Matthew the story of the Roman centurion who showed his great faith in Jesus by believing that Jesus could heal his ailing servant by merely uttering the words that he would be healed.  Then, I showed them the clip from Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade where Indiana proves his faith by stepping out into the canyon that separates him from the Holy Grail.

I explained to the kids that in order to be saved it is necessary to believe in Jesus, but that having a relationship with Jesus isn't solely about going to heaven.  In order to experience life to the full in a relationship with Jesus, they will have to choose to follow Jesus on a daily basis.  Learning how to follow Jesus with decisions in life is something that everybody needs help with, but choosing to start following Jesus daily only requires faith.  If you have faith in Jesus and trust that His way will lead you to life, then He will guide you in the right direction along the way.

Recently, I've felt compelled to share bold truth with our kids.  In a ministry aimed toward non-believers, we tend to water things down a bit so we don't seem too intimidating and scare kids away. However, with this club's message I decided to forgo the water and give it to them straight.  Judging from the response I got after club, the talk seemed to be received well.

Thanks for reading!

Please pray that all of these kids will choose to follow Jesus daily.

Until next club,

 Brody

The New Year

Lake Highlands WyldLife kicked off the New Year with our annual Bus Tour.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Bus Tour, it’s an all night event where we take kids to various places throughout the night on school buses.  Last Saturday, we took 135 kids to a Mavericks game, had an all-area club (with over 400 kids), had a huge snowball fight, went to Main Event, and finished everything off with donuts and a movie that morning.  Everyone had a blast, including the leaders.  It’s always funny to read about kids’ reactions to an event from their Facebook statuses. My favorite was “Bus Tour 2011 = amazing.”

The best part about Bus Tour is that it’s twelve straight hours of leaders getting to hang out with kids.  Sharing experiences like these together tends to start great friendships between kids and their leaders.  Towards the end of the all-area WyldLife Club, we had a staff member give a talk that explained the Gospel to kids.  The talk was centered on Jesus’ interaction with Zacchaeus, a tax collector from Jericho.  When I asked a guy in my group what he thought about the talk, he said, “It was really cool to hear that story from a different perspective.”  The speaker focused on what it may have been like to be Zacchaeus, what he might have gone through before his encounter with Jesus, and what he might have been like afterward.  The fact that one kid understood what Zacchaeus went through and that Jesus had reached out to him and knew his name is huge.  With junior high kids it’s always hard to figure out whether they’re actually tracking throughout a talk or not.  I have confidence that the kid in my group wasn’t the only one who understood that Jesus knows everybody’s name and wants to have a relationship with them.

So not only is Bus Tour a time for kids to have fun and an opportunity for leaders to get to know their grade of kids better, it’s also a time for kids to meet Jesus.

With the beginning of a new school semester comes the beginning of a new semester of WyldLife.  The spring is always a fun time for our junior high ministry.  Our club night switches from Fridays to Tuesdays, and we also throw in a few fun events for the kids throughout the semester.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read all about our Bus Tour and the beginning of the semester.  I would really appreciate your prayers throughout the spring.  One of my biggest prayers for us to find more leaders.  We are always in need of solid men and women of Christ that are willing to sacrifice their time to share Jesus with junior high kids.  If you are interested in serving, or perhaps know somebody who would be, please contact me at brody.lyons@gmail.com.  We're always looking for more help!

Blessings,

Brody

Playing Catch Up

It’s been a while since my last post.  We’ve had two clubs on back to back Fridays since then, so it’s been a little crazy!  I’ll try to fill you in.

On Friday, October 29 we had our WyldLife Halloween Party at Lake Highlands United Methodist.  With a bunch of carnival games, lots of popcorn, a huge inflatable slide, a bounce house, and “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” playing all night, the idea of boredom was out of the question.

After we closed down all of the games and inflatables, we brought everybody into the gym for a very important talk concerning sin.  Kids were told about how sin is what separates them from God and makes them selfish.  I talked about the fact that we all have sin and we all have turned our back on God and that there is absolutely nothing we can do to fix our condition.

When I had finished explaining what sin was, why we had it, and what the consequences were because of it, I told everyone that there actually was a cure for it – that God did something involving Jesus that got rid of all our sin.  Even though I was going to explain to everyone what that cure was next Friday at club, I invited kids up to the front to talk with me if they didn’t want to wait an entire week.  After I finished praying, about twenty kids slowly came up to the front, one by one, asking me “What is the cure?”

Seeing that many kids walk up after the talk blew me away.  It was very exciting to see the Spirit working through these kids that night and it definitely capped off everything in a way that could not be equaled.  After we took into account which kids came up, we split them up with their leaders so they could have the Gospel explained to them by somebody they knew personally.  I got the privilege to go with eight 7^th grade boys and their leader.  It was a lot of fun listening to that conversation and hearing all the questions these boys had.

After the night was over, I found out that one of the last kids to leave had accepted Christ for the first time.  How exciting that was!!  This was a kid that I had been talking with at lunch at school every time I visited.  I had invited him to club since the beginning of the year, but had never seen him show up.  Finally, he made it to a club and accepted Christ that night!  It’s been a blast following up with him and talking about what it means to believe in Christ.

All of the fun we had that night with games and bounce houses paled in comparison to the fact that a kid accepted Christ that night.  His story made everything that much better.

Friday, November 5 was the night of our last club.  We hosted our annual “Girls vs. Guys” club, which consists of girls and guys competing to win games involving athletic ability, teamwork, discipline, knowledge, and cleverness.

After we had awarded points for the first five challenges, the guys went into the WyldLife Jeopardy Challenge ahead by one point.  The guys dominated in the early rounds, sticking to categories focused on the Texas Rangers and Football.  Eventually, the girls took control and turned the momentum of the game towards categories in which they knew best: Make Up and Shopping.  The final question came down to a controversial call in which the guys thought they had buzzed in first.  The guys shouted out the answer to the question with confidence and passion: “Who is JOSH HAMILTON?!”  Unfortunately, the girls had buzzed in first and repeated the guys’ answer and came away with the win and a point to tie the competition at 3-3.

The tiebreaker was a challenge requiring rhythm and discipline.  Each team was to follow their team leader in order to create a clapping sequence.  The team with the most clear and concise clapping would win.  The girls set the standard incredibly high from the start, but the guys showed undeniable determination and pulled out the victory.  It was a shocker.  The guys earned bragging rights for the next year.

When we finished the competition we held a small graduation ceremony for our entire freshman class since this was their last WyldLife Club EVER!  We gave them a diploma congratulating them for making it this far and told them that we would be seeing them on Mondays from now on.

The last part of the night was the most exciting.  I got to tell kids about the Gift of Jesus Christ.  After last week’s talk that basically left kids hanging on the fact that they were separated from God by sin and that there was absolutely nothing they could do about it, I got to explain to them what the Gift of Jesus Christ is.  I told them about Christ being betrayed and put on the cross for us.  I explained that Christ not only died, but that in his death he carried the burden of our sin so we didn’t have to, and that what he did for us enables us to have a relationship with the God of the Universe.

It was a very sweet night for me because I got to deliver a message to a group of kids that I had been investing in for quite a while.  After I had concluded the message and prayed for everyone I welcomed a host of boys approaching me filled with smiles and laughter.  Handshakes and hugs replaced the usual punch in the arm, and the phrase “See you at Campaigners,” was uttered by practically everyone.  Campaigners is our weekly Bible study for kids who want to know more about Jesus.

It was a night I’ll never forget and reminded me why I do what I do. 

Club Update

Hey Friends!

Last Friday night we had WyldLife Club IN THE DARK!  Most of our club was with the lights off and kids running around with glow sticks around their necks - talk about a junior high kid's dream...

We started off singing "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz -  Possibly the greatest song of all time to sing at a WyldLife club.  I've never heard kids sing that loudly before!

Our game that we played for the night was to see how fast kids could unfold a t-shirt and put it on.  What made these t-shirts hard to unfold was that they were frozen!  We had six teams of three that competed.  Ironically, the 7th grade girls ended up winning... They beat everyone, including the freshman boys.

If you've never seen a frozen t-shirt being unfolded by three junior high kids, then take a look at this.

When we finished all of our games, skits, and songs, I told a short story of the time my brother and I went to Atlanta, TX to stay with my grandmother while my newly married mom and step-dad went on their honeymoon.  There's not much to do when you're in "the-middle-of-nowhere" East Texas, so we spent the majority of the time eating, sleeping, and watching movies.  We basically didn't move for an entire week!

That transitioned me into telling kids about a man who didn't move for 38 years -- the invalid by the pool in the Book of John.  I talked about how he probably thought, "If only I could get into that pool, I would be healed and everything would be okay!"  I related that to the fact that we all have things we think would solve our problems - the 'if onlys.'  "If only I had this, or did this, my life would be great - my life would be full!"  But ultimately, when all of that stuff is gone, we're left just as empty as we were before we had all of it.

To illustrate my point to everybody, I had a plastic pitcher with a hole in the bottom of it.  I poured water into it to represent all of the stuff that we try to fill our lives with - like starting for the football team, having a bunch of friends, having a bunch of cool stuff.  But after it was all said and done, the water came out of the hole in the bottom and the pitcher was empty.  I explained to them that even though those things bring us temporary happiness they will not fill us up constantly.  So to show them what it was like to have a relationship with Jesus, I brought out a hose and filled up the pitcher.  Not only was the pitcher full, but it overflowed!

I feel like that illustration truly represents what Christ offers us - Not only a full life, but one that overflows with his love!

John 10:10 says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

Thanks for taking the time to read my post!  Hopefully it not only told you about our last club, but maybe gave you some encouragement for filling your life with Christ!

Here are some more pictures from club.

If you are ever interested in giving to Lake Highlands YoungLife, please visit our giving website at https://giving.younglife.org/dp/register/controller.cfm - It's really easy!  All you have to do is register and specify that you would like to give to "Lake Highlands YoungLife." 

Any questions?  Please give me a call!  My office number is (214) 373-4553.

More Pictures!

Here are some more pictures from our last club, which was on Friday, October 1.

 

 The Sleeping Bag Pass

The 7th Graders needed a little help...

Club last Friday!

On Friday, October 1, we had our annual Battle of the Classes Club for WyldLife.  All that means is our 7th, 8th, and 9th graders compete against each other in various games and score points for their grade.  Whichever team earns the most points from the games throughout the night wins the entire competition and earns bragging rights for the rest of the year. 

The night started out strong - we had well over 300 kids there.  The 8th grade won the first points of the night since they brought the most kids to club (about 120). 

The next competition was to see who could sing the song "Smile" the best.  Each grade was judged on their style, lyric accuracy, volume, and heart.  Here's a short video so you can see how they did!

 

For the next two games we moved into the gym.  

The first game we played was called "The Starburst Challenge."  We spread out all three teams around the gym - the objective was to eat all of the color of Starburst that their grade was assigned, e.g., 7th-Red, 8th-Orange, 9th-Pink.  We dumped about 2,000 pieces of Starburst on a giant tarp and just let the kids get after it!   

The next game was our yearly edition of "Sleeping Bag Pass."  Basically we have the smallest kid in each grade in a sleeping bag being passed down a huge line of kids sitting down.  The first kid to be passed down the line and back wins!

Our last game of the night was what we like to call "Speed Dressing."  Three kids compete against each other by getting dressed as fast as they can - except they have to keep a balloon in the air throughout the time they are getting dressed.  If that doesn't really make sense to you then take a look at the video below!

We ended the night with a short talk about how Jesus loves you "No matter what."  We wanted kids to know that Jesus loves us even though we may mess up a lot - he cares about us and loves us despite all of our baggage!

It seemed like all of the kids had a lot of fun.  The 8th grade class won the competition, so they will be the defending champions next year and have a chance to repeat as freshman.

I hope all of you enjoyed this little update.  Please keep praying for Lake Highlands WyldLife, that God will continue to provide us with lost kids and allow us to tell them about Jesus.

-Brody