Smythe Street Students

Hello Parents and Students! 

Wow… I’m super pumped to get back to our regularly scheduled programming! ha ha.. It’s been a few weeks and I have missed MERGE! It seriously is the highlight of my week experiencing God’s Word and presence with our students. 

Merge this week is going to be DELICIOUS…. literally! ha ha.. I am excited about experiencing 40 Days In The Word together as a church family. This Thursday I will be speaking on “The Book.” I will also be launching a new tool for us to get into God’s Word together. I really want to encourage you to be there and text ALL your friends and invite them. 

After Merge this week we will be having an Ice Cream Sundae Bar! Oh YESSS! Complete with all kinds of yummy toppings! Seeing as there is no school on Friday, we will also hang out and perhaps play a group game together! Parents, you can pick your teens/young adults up at 10pm.  

Looking forward to hanging out with everyone! You really are amazing students! See you this Thursday at 7pm! 

Pastor T

It’s been a few weeks since my last update and I apologize.  I was away in Florida on vacation which was AMAZING!  Julie and I enjoyed the rest and chance to eat lots of great food!  ha ha  

As you know Easter is approaching and around SSC that means it gets VERY busy!  Student activities are on hold until April 19th when we will be back with Merge.  

We have had a great couple of weeks at Merge.  I started a series called World War Me and we went through Romans 7 and 8 together with the students.  Last week we did Mini-Merge in the youth lounge.  It’s always fun to try to cram 50 students in a room made to hold 35 comfortably.  However, we had an amazing night and finished it off with a giant Easter Egg Hunt!  

There are a few dates to keep in mind as we head into spring and summer.  I will be posting more details soon but plan to keep these dates open for your students! 

April 19th - Merge is BACK after Easter
April 25th - 28th - Awakening Conference
May 17th - Pacific Life Bible College Tour at MERGE!
June 1st - 3rd: Generations United Conference in Dartmouth, NS
August 7th - 11th: Caton’s Island Camp  

Have a great Easter everyone!   

It’s been another great week around SSC!  God is so good and faithful to us! 

We had a great week last week around the student ministry.  Last Thursday we had a unplugged Merge with worship lead by Joey Greely, Kiersten Amos and myself.  We also had a great time of communion together with students expressing their thoughts and emotions using flipcharts.  It was powerful to see the things that students were receiving and declaring from the Lord during communion and worship. 

We also watched an “I Am Second” video from Lecraie and had some small group time.  It’s great to see student interacting, sharing and praying together in this setting.  

I also want to give a big shout out to the student ministry from Christian Life Center who joined us last Thursday night!  We love these ladies and gents and they are a great part of our extended “family.” 

We also had a great movie/games night last Friday night.  We ate some food, played sardines (this is always an adventure.. ha ha) and watched Mulan.   

I must say I am looking forward to getting away this next week with my lovely wife, Julie.  We are heading to Florida for the week.  There will be no Merge this week due to March Break.  We will return March 15th.  

Have a great week everyone! Keep praying and supporting our students!  

Pastor Tony

Wow!  What a great week!  :-) 

As you know, Easter is coming and with that comes lots of excitement and fun!  Dance teams are practicing their “moves,”  actors and rehearsing their lines, musicians are practicing their music, and well… it’s just a busy time of the year! 

I am excited to see such a great team of students plugged into Easter this year.  We actually have a LOT of brand new students in the youth dance as well as College/Career dance.  I love seeing new faces! 

We had a great Merge service last week!  God just moved so powerfully through the worship and the Word.  Several students emailed me to say just how much the past few weeks has been impacting their life.  I am meeting with several students this week who are saying, “Pastor Tony… I really want to have spiritual momentum in my life and I’m willing to do anything to see God move!”  This is exciting!  

Last week we finished up our Get Back series with a message titled, “Where Did It Fall.” 

We used a passage from Elisha’s life from 2 Kings 6:1-7 (NLT)  It was the story of “The Floating Ax Head” 

We encouraged students to see where they lost their edge and to see where they lost their spiritual momentum.  God will get supernaturally involved when we show him the “where.”  

We have been having a great time in Sunday School as well with our “Custom Built” series.  Students have been taking home passages of scripture to read and several of the students have been sharing what God has been speaking to them on a weekly basis! 

Don’t forget that Friday night we have a special Games/Movie night for the students! We will be meeting at 6pm at the church.  We will play some games, have some snacks, and watch a movie!  We are aiming to be done by 9pm.  :-) 

Have a great week everyone!

Well… It’s been a GREAT 2 weeks!  I am sorry that it’s been 2 weeks since my last update.  I will try to catch you up to speed as to what has been happening.  

At Merge we have been continuing our Get Back series.  

2 weeks ago I spoke on the importance of Embracing Your Place.  

We talked about the body of Christ and that we are ALL a part of that.  God puts everyone of us in our “place!”  By “embracing our place” we become part of a momentum that is bigger than ourselves.  We learned that EACH of us has a part to play and no person’s role is less valuable than another.  Yes, even the student that drives everyone crazy has a reason to be there… they teach the rest of us patience!  ha ha…  

1 Corinthians 12:18 (NLT)   But our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where he wants it.

We also looked at the story of God speaking to Elijah when he told him his time was coming to an end and he needed to go find his replacement.  God sent Elijah on a journey back to the Wilderness of Damascus to find Elisha.  

But what was Elisha doing?  He was in a field plowing with 12 oxen.  Elisha was found “in his place.”  No, it wasn’t a place of importance.  When you think of God picking someone to be the next great prophet of Israel, you wouldn’t think you would find him plowing behind oxen in a field.  Let’s just say that 12 oxen = lots of poo poo.  It was stinky and messy and yet Elisha was faithful not only to be in his place but to also follow Elijah around for 10 years before receiving that double portion anointing he has asked for.  We encouraged students to be faithful and to “plow the field” if necessary and that God will promote in His time.  

We ended the evening with a great prayer/ministry time as we released Ben and Jenna Bourque to follow God’s call on their lives in a “different” field! 

Last week we looked at how we can gain momentum in our lives even when we feel we lack resources or are facing challenges and struggles in our lives.  We looked at the story of the Widow and the Jars of Oil found in 2 Kings 4:1-7.  

I won’t go into all the detail but here are the main points we covered!  

1. Go To God - We often turn to everyone and everything BUT God. 
2. Face Your Situation  Stop using passivity as an excuse for why God is not moving in your life! 
   
   “Before God can give you a miracle you must FOLLOW His instruction!”
3. Check Your Perspective!  What DO you have in your house?  Stop being negative!  Stop listening to the lies of friends and people who have influence over you!  Stop believing some humanistic man made idea about WHO you ARE and BE who God has CALLED you to be in FAITH! Faith is the substance of things not seen. 
   
           “All God needs to work miracles in your life is ALL you have!”
                 ”God can do exceptional things with YOUR exception!”
   
4. Demonstrate Your Faith!  -  Step OUT!  Build an infrastructure where God can MOVE in your life!  
5. Make Your Plan! - You have to be intentional if you want to see spiritual momentum in your life.  

We also started a new series in Middle School Sunday school called “Custom Built.”  This new series talks about the importance of God’s Word in our lives.  It’s like a hammer and it’s like fire.  It shapes us and burns away impurities in our lives!  Your student has been given “Take Home Sheets” to apply what they are learning each week!  We encourage you to go through it with them!   

Last, we had to cancel our Sledding/Skating day this past Saturday due to the weather but we will be doing another event in it’s place on Friday, Feb. 24th at the church.  We will have a movie/games night instead!  

I love seeing our students hungry for God!  Keep praying for them and our student leadership! 

Pastor Tony

Hey Everyone!  

It’s been another great week!  I LOVE our students and am so proud of their desire to seek the Lord and live for God!  

We had a great Merge service last Thursday!  We had a slightly lower attendance as many of our high school students were in exam week.  However, despite that we still had about 50 students show up.  We started our new series called “Get Back.”  Our focus over the next few weeks it to get back our spiritual momentum.  

We had a great time in worship and students were reaching out to God.  Our setlist included: 

Counting On God - Desperation Band
Deep Cries Out - William Matthew (Bethel Church in Redding, CA)
Video: Amena Brown Spoken Word - “You”
My Everything - Chris Quilala (Jesus Culture Awakening Album)
I Need You More - Kim Walker (Jesus Culture)

This past week we looked at the story of Elisha found in 2 Kings 2 - 3.  Elisha had just lost the most important person in his life; his mentor, Elijah.  Elijah had GREAT momentum.  Elisha had to move beyond his loss and create his own momentum and one of his first key assignments was to bring a word to 3 kings who had decided to go to battle without God’s blessing.  They ended up being in the middle of the desert ready to fight but they were on the verge of dying due to no water! Elisha had 4 key things to share with the 3 kings who ultimately had to hear from God in order to get their mojo back!  Here are some of the main points of the evening: 

- You build momentum by successive consecutive victories!

- The beginning of your new momentum is realizing Elijah has left the building and there’s a new thing God wants to do.  You cannot create today’s momentum with yesterday’s memories.  

When it comes to momentum there are 4 keys things to remember:  

1. Don’t Play God When You’ve Got It!
2. Don’t Blame God When It’s Gone!
3. Find Your Music!  (God will often use “natural” things to bring supernatural    momentum)  
4. Dig Some Ditches (Even when there is no sign of rain, dig a ditch in every area of your life to prepare for what God will soon bring!) 

We ended the night at the altar challenging students to answer these questions: 

• Where in your life do you need to dig?  
• Where in your life do you need to find the music again?
• Where in your life do you need to take some ownership and stop blaming God for where you have gotten off track?  
• Where in your life have you thought you had it all together and forgot to keep your eyes focused on Jesus?  

It was a great night and many students said they were challenged and excited to see momentum in their lives once again!  

We also finished off our Middle School Series this past Sunday called, “Accept or Reject.”  We learned that knowing that The Bible, God, Jesus is real, we have a choice as to what we do with that and how we live our lives in response.  We had a great time of prayer at the end and encouraged students to keep digging into God’s Word to know WHAT they believe!  

Thanks again for your support and prayer!  We are looking forward to another great week!  

Pastor Tony

Coming to Middle School this Sunday, Feb. 5th: “Custom Built”

How well do you know your way around the Bible? During Custom Built, we take a ride through our Bible and explore new ways to read it. First, we get an overview of just how God designed it to be so awesome. In the other three weeks, we see how God custom built the Bible to direct our lives.  Join us every Sunday morning in our 11am service after worship in the Youth Lounge!  

Get Back starts this week at Merge!  Join us at 7pm for Part 1 called “Dig Some Ditches!”

Hello Everyone!  

Well, it was an awesome week.  We had a great kickoff to the new year at Merge last week with about 65 students out.  

It was so cool to reconnect with our great “student family” here at SSC.  To be honest, I have missed them and I have missed experiencing God together each week.  I am looking forward to what God will continue to do in our lives as we seek the Lord in 2012! 

At Merge we had a great worship and ministry time. During worship you could sense the presence of God so strong and students were just getting lost in His presence.  During one of songs called “Holy Spirit” I felt God wanted to minister specifically to certain students.  I had the ones that needed prayer lift their hands and it was so powerful to see students ministering to each other, chains being broken, tears flowing down student’s faces as they were being healed and encouraged in the presence of God.  

We showed a message from Banning Liebscher. It was about students realizing that they are called to be leaders in their generation!  In order to be a leader however, there is a cost and students were encouraged to count the cost and surrender areas of their lives to God in order to move forward in 2012.  At the end of the message students wrote out areas of their lives they were going to surrender to God and we put it in our Time Capsule!  We ended the night with excitement and fun with a song from IHOP called Never Gonna Leave Me Dry.  

We have also seen increased numbers of students in our Middle School Sunday school class.  Over the past 2 - 3 weeks we have had over 30 students and many NEW faces as we are in the middle of a series called “Accept or Reject.”  We are challenging students to search for themselves whether God is real, If Jesus IS who He said he is, whether or not the biblical account of Creation is real and if the Holy Spirit is in fact present with us in our day to day lives!  

Please continue to pray with us and believe that we will see a great awakening happen here in Fredericton!  

Promo for The Awakening Conference!  It’s going to be awesome!