Chips and Salsa Anyone?

by Rachel Snyder

Open Café Extended!

If you missed last Monday, you missed a ton of fun…But no worries, the Student Center Café will be open every Monday in November too (back by request!). If you haven’t been there before, come and check it out! We start at 2:30 (right after school) and kick you out around 5:30 (so you can go home and eat with your family). Come and bring your friends! If you’re lucky, we may even bring the hoops down and get the ping pong tables out in the Student Worship Center.

I'm Not Good at This, Really!

By David Lawson

You who are reading this are reading a long-overdue entry. What I mean is that the Student Ministries staff passed on to me, probably over a week ago, the responsibility to write an entry to be posted “within the next day or two.” Well, that didn’t happen. And as I looked at the blog today, I can see that they have graciously taken up the slack.

You see, my failure to write the blog was not due to the usual reasons or excuses. Though I’m busy and have had a lot of responsibilities, meetings, planning, teaching preparation, and family duties over the last week or so, it hasn’t been unlike any other week. (Although acquiring a facebook account has given yet one more thing to do and check. If you were to look at my page, you’d see I haven’t done much there either.) It’s not that I forgot. How could I? I have this rolling pin on my desk that serves as a constant, nagging reminder of the responsibility I’ve been shirking over these past several days. I’m not opposed to writing a blog. Actually, I think it’s a good idea – so that’s not the reason, either.

You see, the real reason is that I have nothing to say. It’s not that I don’t have a lot of thoughts. I do. But I can’t seem to get past questions like, “Why would anyone want to know what I’m thinking?” “People have enough trouble keeping up with their own lives, why should I think they’d want to keep up with mine?”

In fact, if I were to list all the things I’ve thought about and prayed about, things I’m concerned about, dreams I’ve dreamed, grief and sorrow I’ve felt – just this morning, no blog could contain them. However, probably because of my personality and perhaps because of my age, I just don’t care to write them down. I don’t seem to have the blogger mentality. Who knows, maybe this is my breakout moment!

However I do know of some thoughts worth hearing:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
They would outnumber the grains of sand. (Psalm 139:17-18)

And it occurred to me this morning, as I was trying to fulfill my blogging duty, that if we were to blog the love of God, it would be kind of like this:

Could we with ink the ocean fill,

And were the skies of parchment made,

Were every stalk on earth a quill,

And every man a scribe by trade,

To write the love of God above,

Would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll contain the whole,

Though stretched from sky to sky.

From The Love of God, by Fredrick M. Lehman

Grace College

by Ben Framstad

On Tuesday, Nick, Rachel, and I hopped in a tiny Ford Focus at 6:30am and headed for Grace College. Nick was teaching a class for the youth ministry department and Rachel and I were helping. We also had high hopes to chart out the 

remaining school year and dream big about what God might be leading us to in 

High School Ministries. 

When we arrived to Grace, we unloaded our things at the Philemon Center, a house for guests and missionaries, and soon went over to teach the class. 

At one point on Tuesday, we had to go buy food at the grocery store to hold us over for the next couple days. Since we had skipped lunch by accident, we shopped on an empty stomach. We bought some funny stuff. Our favorite impulse buy was 1 and 1/2 pound of american cheese. The guy behind the deli counter was SO arrogant about his cheeses. Nick asked for american cheese and he aggressively asks, "Which kind? Orange or White...Bet you didn't know we had TWO kinds." Then he got fussy about how thin to slice the cheese, so when Nick said "thin" he went overboard and sliced it into a sliver so skinny that it was transparent. We corrected our order but man - the guy cut a lot of cheese! 

...and he had a beard net, which was gross.

Another part of our week included Steph Lawson's volleyball game on Wednesday night. The Grace Lancers played hard and won two games out of the five. Steph was a warrior out there. The game was complete with pep band, half time challenge where anyone could go on court and serve a ball, consession stand, and cheer team. Wow, it was fun :)

Now we're back, tired but refreshed. Praise God!

Greatest Earthly Relationship

by Nick Cleveland

Opportunities come in a variety of ways to us. Today I had the chance to meet 19 great students at Smithville High School. These students are in the Family Planning class taught by Birdie Weckesser. Birdie invited me to share with the class about what premarital counseling entails and what a successful marriage might look like. I had a blast hanging out with these students. It also reminded me of the gravity of what I do every day. There is so much at stake with the coming generations. This generation has a hard time identifying successful relationships and what a calling to introduce them to a relationship with Jesus (the only one who will never fail them).

It also reminded me of the greatest earthly relationship I have…with Vicki. Vicki is a wife who has learned to love me the way I want to receive love. She seeks to connect with me in special ways and enjoy the things I enjoy. I’m not sure my wife enjoys watching the Cleveland Browns at all…but on Monday I know she tuned it because I was there and it was important to me. I am so grateful to God that I can wake up every day next to my best friend and love. My hope is that I could be nearly as great of a husband and friend to my wife as she has been to me! I love you, Vicki. My wife helps me to become a better man of God and follower of Jesus Christ. Thanks, Vicki, I love you!

Open Cafe

by Rachel Snyder

Did you guys know that the SMC is open every Monday in October right after school for what we call Open Café Time til 5:30PM? We had so much fun this week playing games, Wii and eating Bagel Bites…Take a look at these awesome pics! Hope to see you there next Monday!

Pearce Perry

Hey what is up this is Pearce Perry. Today I am job shadowing are awesome youth Pastor Nick Cleveland. I figure while everybody is visiting Peter Kern, who just chopped off his finger, that it would be a good idea to “blog” my day to you guys! So today my mom took me to the church offices and right when I get here Nick says that were going on a hospital visit. So I was like well gezze I get here and right off the back I’m going to the hospital to go pray for this guy. Get in there, Nick does the thing he does. We head back to the church and right away he shows me the offices. Now I’ve been going here for like 3 months and to see how many pastors there are for ONE church you guys have a lot, which is cool and all there just a lot of pastors here. So Ben says that we have to find big boxes for Sunday for the new series “SoWhat about…?” Well see it really hard to find boxes for the sermon. So than they say I have to search the World Wide Web for power point slides and I have to find you ready…….200 of them. That is A LOT! But is that bad actually. Now I have to ask questions to Pastor Nick and I have no clue what I’M going to do after lunch. Well I got to get some homework done. Later

It's good!

by Ben Framstad

So, if you read the last post, you knew I was hoping for an incredible game. Well, we got it - RAD, Nick, Josh, and I saw one of the best Browns games in the last couple of decades. Browns, the underdog (let's be honest - everyone was expecting them to loose), smashed their opponents, the Giants - last year's superbowl champs, and they did it on televised Monday night football. The stadium was packed, loud, and crazy the whole night. Here's some pictures:

Yeah - it was GREAT. Go Brownies!

Cleveland Browns Game

by Ben Framstad

Tonight, I'm going to my first NFL football game ever. It will be the Browns vs. the Giants. I think I already know who will win. It doesn't matter who wins for me, to be honest. I'm just stoaked to go and hang out for the night. I love sitting with sports fans. Everyone's excited to be there and though people don't know each other, you feel a sense of camaraderie among people because everyone's rooting for the team together.

Though I've never been to an NFL game, I've been to a handful of Major and Minor League baseball games. There was this one time when I was sitting in stands just beyond 1st base. You know how you always wish for them to hit a ball into your section, so you can catch it? Well, that was my ambition for that game, as it was for everyone else in my section. You see, the section near 1st base gets a lot of foul balls hit into it. Anyway, my wish came true...sort of.

This one player hit a screamer right into my section - right at ME! I remember seeing the ball go from being really small and far away to steadily and quickly getting bigger and bigger. I ducked (as well as everyone around me) and the ball shot past my head and hit the guy behind me in the butt (he had stood up and turned around to protect himself). The ball rebounded and landed in a group of cub scouts 20-30 feet away. Boy were THEY excited! I was just thankful for my life. My face would have been forever changed had I taken that ball to the head. There was a lady a few rows back that had a panic attack because of that ball. 

So...I guess if the NFL game is anything like that experience, I'll have a good time. 

FALL PARTY!!!!!!

by Clint Gasser

I came with Georgia. we talked with friends and ate. then we listened to Judgement Come. then we went to hear collision. they were cool. then Jeremy Kingsley talked to us about Jesus being our Savior and forgiving our sins. he was awesome. alot of kids got saved. then we hung out with friends and i got to do this.

It's coming!

by Ben Framstad

That's right. It's coming. Student Ministry Weekend that is. Actually, it's already upon us. Later tonight there's going to be a big blow out party at the Student Ministry Center (SMC). We're going to have local bands like "Judgement Come" and "The Collision" there as well as a speaker, Jeremy Kingsley. We're planning to have free time in the mix, too. There are, after all, couches and games and food. We gotta have some of that, don't we.

If you think the excitement ends there, you're wrong. Tomorrow, we are having the whole Sunday morning being geared toward telling what God is doing in student ministries at Wooster Grace. We're having an art show in the Student Worship Center, an open house, Lerch's donuts, a student led church service in the gym, Jeremy Kingsley's speaking again...a lot of stuff if you catch my drift.

Anyway, hope to see you this weekend. It's going to be a blast!

The world would be a better place if...

by Josh Atkins

On our registration cards when someone new comes (thanks Mark), rather than just putting the usual contact info stuff (which we do put on there), we also put other things as well. One of the questions is more of a "Finish the Phrase" and starts out: The World Would be a Better Place If...
Here are some of the responses from my 7th and 8th graders. Each quote is from a different student; unaltered. I've taken the liberty of loosely categorizing them to show that just because students are in 7th and 8th grade, doesn't mean they don't know or don't care about what's going on in the world.



The War: “There were peace”; “There was no war”; "The war in Iraq would end"; "There was no war"; "World peace, and no school"; "There was no war"; “No fighting/no war”; "There was no war"; “There was peace”; “There was no war”; “No war”; “The war was over”; “There were no wars going on”; "There was no war"



Economics: “I was a billionaire”; “There was more money”; “There was no poverty”; “There was no high gas prices”; “Wii’s were cheaper”



Environment: “There were only solar powered cars”; “There was no global warming”; “No one littered”; “People could keep it clean”; “Global warming would stop”; “No pollution or killing”



Religion/Spiritual: “Everyone knew Jesus”; “No sin”; “Everyone knew God”; “Every one could worship any religion any time”; “People believed”; “Everyone were Christian”; “I don’t know…everyone believed in Jesus”; “There wasn’t sin”



Biological: “There wasn’t spiders”; “Praying mantises, sharks, and crickets didn’t exist”



Sociological: “People could put aside racial differences”; “There were no bullies”; “There was no hate”; “Everyone was nice”; “We could all get along”; “People didn’t fight”; “People didn’t shoot other people”; “People were nicer”; “Everyone was treated equally”; “We all got along/were friends. Speak one language. Everyone knows Christ.”



World: “No world hunger”; "No one would be starving"



Politics: “I was president”; “We had a better president”



Health: “You could eat without getting fat”; “No drugs”; “No more smoking”; “No drugs”



Personal: “Everyone loved me”; “People stopped swearing”; “People didn’t overreact”; “Animals could talk”



Did any of these surprise you? They surprised me. So what about you? What do YOU think would make the world a better place?