Blog Ghost town

That's basically what it has been for me, since the holidays started. I apologize to my faithful viewers (ha ha), but I hope to get back on track after the new year. I must admit, I have slipped a bit on the "watching what I eat thing", but I plan on hitting the gym hard again....next week!! :)

Keepin it Real,
Bholda

AMP'd Rewind

I can't believe last night was the last AMP'd of 2007!! Time has surely flown by but it has been an awesome ride for sure. We have seen students accept Christ, get focused, finally realize who they are in Christ, and we saw tremendous growth in our ministry. God is so AWESOME!!! I have no doubt that God is in control, but there are moments that I go "uhhh, now are you sure you wanna use me to reach these students, God?" And then He always reminds me that it's Him not me anyway!! I have had a blast this year and I have learned so much about Jesus, myself, and ministry. I'm excited about 2008 and looking forward to what God has in store for us.
Wil and the Marathon North Band did a great job leading worship and the students responded well. I spoke on the "Ultimate Gift" and took it from the angle that we are actually the Ultimate Gift we can give Jesus. We are the reward for His suffering, and all He wants is a relationship with us. What an amazing Truth!!! I guess that's about it for today, I will hopefully update through the Holidays, but I make no promises!!! :)

Merry Christmas!!

Bholda

The Haps

It's been awhile since my last post, so I thought I would take a moment and catch up right quick. AMP'd on Wednesday was awesome!! Jamie Crumpton led worship for us with our band and he did an incredible job, as always. This week Wil Martin(www.wilmartin.com) is coming in to lead since Steve-o is in Germany visiting his girlfriend. Wil is bringing his band from Marathon North and I'm very excited about those guys leading. This week will be our last AMP'd for 2007 which is crazy!! time flies so fast. It's kinda a bummer since we have lots of momentum right now, and due to the holidays we are taking a couple of weeks off. However, I am really looking forward to 2008, and everything that God has in store for our student ministry and our church. This is gonna be the year we open our student facility, "The Garage" and I know that is going to be such a blessing to have available to reach more students for the Kingdom. This week I'm talking about the greatest gift we could ever give to God. I'm taking a little different angle in that I want to stress to the students that their life is the greatest gift they could ever give God. After all, it was for us that He was born and crucified. I am praying for many salvations this Wednesday night!!
On a lighter note, I will be hitting the gym tonight, as I missed a couple days last week because of my schedule. I am trying to drink more water and watch what I eat as well. I will weigh at the gym tonight and chart my progress, hopefully I've dropped at least a couple of pounds. I guess that's all I've got to say right now, so I will try to post again later this week.

Keepin' it Real,
Bholda

No Vacancy?

I don't know if you've ever just got the urge to go on a little weekend get away, and decided to skip the whole hotel reservation bit and go out on a limb and hope to find an open room at your favorite hotel, just to find signs similar to the one above: NO VACANCY. It is a very disheartening, discouraging and frustrating flash, those rays of neon rejection!! All that makes me think, which is scary I know. Here are some of my thoughts:
So this week I've been thinking a lot about Christmas and my relationship with Jesus and how it all ties in. Because it does all tie in, just in case you forgot!! If it wasn't for His birth, we wouldn't have His death, which led to His resurrection, which ultimately leads to our salvation when we place our faith in Him and Him alone. This time of the year we get so busy with shopping, running around getting last minute things together, office parties, family get togethers, having those ridiculous Christmas card pictures made (sorry if you get one in the mail from me, it wasn't my idea), and whatever else we have going on. We often loss sight of what is really important, and we begin filling our lives with so much junk, there is often times NO VACANCY for Jesus. Which, if the truth be known this is nothing new for Jesus to experience. I mean, when He was born there was NO VACANCY in the inn, so He had to be born in a barn-Luke 2:6-8 then as He is going about His ministry, people including His own family, reject Him-Luke 4:28-30, John 7:1-5 and finally He was buried in a BORROWED tomb outside the city-Matthew 27:59-60. This is not the way it should have been, but the sad part is that it still happens today even with we Christians. We get so absorbed in our agendas, our plans, our lives, that we essentially have NO VACANCY for Jesus. Let's take the time and make the effort to remove the things that are taking up room in our lives and give Jesus His rightful place, the CENTER OF OUR LIVES!!!

Keepin' it Real,
Bholda

AMP'd Rewind and other stuff

AMP'd was crazy great this week!! The energy was incredible and the momentum is building. We are going to meet for the next 2 weeks and then take a break for Christmas\New Year's and then crank back up for 2008!! The band did mostly Christmas music, but probably not a way you've heard before, they pretty much rocked the songs out!!

Here is the set list:
Angels we have heard on high
Deck the halls
We wish you a merry Christmas
Walk by Faith-Jeremy Camp
12 days of Christmas

We finished up our series "Are you a player" with a message called "Faith Trifecta". The whole idea is that faith is made up of 3 things:
1. Trust-Heb. 11:1
2. Risk-Matt. 8:5-6, 10
3. Action-Matt. 14:29
Just these things alone aren't faith, but when we combine all 3 we have true faith. I did a couple of illustrations that i think really connected with the students, so i'm excited that they got it!
On another note, we played our second church league basketball game last night, and we came away with the much needed "w". It's fun to just get to play basketball every week, it kinda takes me back to my high school days, except i'm like 10x's slower than i used to be!! This afternoon i am coaching our 18 and under boys team, and then going to Crystal's work Christmas party, so it's a pretty busy Saturday. Well, i guess that's about it for now, have a great weekend!!

Keepin it Real,
Bholda

Update from the Upstate

Well, I hit the gym hard last night, and I'm really tired and sore, but that's the norm when you work out I suppose. Tomorrow is my fitness evaluation which should be interesting. I felt like I did pretty well yesterday with watching what I ate. I had a grilled chicken salad with lite vinaigrette dressing at lunch and for dinner I had Italian chicken with a small salad, and I drank water (which I hate!!). I bought some of those flavor packets to put into my water, so maybe that will help me drink the required amount of H2O everyday.
On a non-fitness note, tonight is AMP'd and I am pumped about that. We lost a little momentum at Halloween, but over the last couple of weeks have seen the momentum pick back up. Last week we had 15 first time students, which was AWESOME!!! Tonight is our last message in the "Are you a player" series, and tonight I'm talking about faith. I have a couple of cool illustrations which I'm looking forward to the reactions from the students, it should be fun. We have 2 more weeks after tonight until Christmas break, so I want to make the most of the opportunities to reach students. I'm sure I will post the AMP'd rewind at some point tomorrow. Until then, I'm gonna try to choke down 64 oz. of water!!!

Keepin' it Real,
Bholda