E.P.I.C. Student Ministry Update- Feb 2012

IMAG0109.jpg, a photo by gkhamilton on Flickr.

A homeless man on Burnside receives one of many care packages from our high school students.


Someone asked during Sunday’s E.P.I.C. Super Bowl party why so many months have gone by without a student ministry update here on BlogSpot. Was it Lena’s birth on 9-10-11? The frenetic juggling of new fatherhood, ministry, day jobs, volunteer ops, WPC Alumni President stuff, and the credentialing process? My love of sentence fragments? Yes, yes, and yes.

Blocking Facebook for the past few weeks didn’t free up as much as time as I had hoped, although my head is almost above water. But enough about me… this is about our amazing Aloha Church of God students. Sit back and let these pictures wash over you:


Our annual boating/camping weekend at Yale Lake, Washington—Ben led morning devotions on Day 2




Hiking the Ramona Falls Loop in the Mount Hood Wilderness Area




Shaving cream fight!!



Floating the Nehalem River and engaging in horseplay at Tom’s and Wendy’s property outside of Vernonia



Ultimate Frisbee



"Soul Surfer" party night at our house



Allen and Eleanor helping with the fishing booth while Garth Brooks and Lena, his delicious little strawberry, tour our church's "Trunk or Treat" displays on Halloween night



Crafting shaving cream Afros and pelting them with Cheetos during “Cheeto Head”



Several rounds of hanging out at DQ with some of our Wednesday night E.P.I.C. students


Will, Eleanor, and Wendy serving our church family during “Coffee Talk”


Winter Jam 2011 with Kutless, Red, Newsboys, Fireflight, Matthew West, KJ-52, For King & Country, Patrick Ryan Clark, and more @ The Memorial Coliseum -- See the bottom of this post for a video from Red’s fiery opening performance.


Our all-night E.P.I.C. post-Christmas party-- Amazingly, we were still having PlayStation 3 dance-offs into the next afternoon! See the bottom of this post for a video clip.



And the meat of it all: The teachings! These past few months, our E.P.I.C. Wednesday night sessions have launched these series: “Made to Make a Difference” (social justice/ action), “Crazy Love” (radical transformation), and our current “Soul Surfer” teaching series, based on world champion teenage surfer Bethany Hamilton's inspirational comeback following a brutal shark attack, which faces discovering God’s purposes while coping with trauma, crisis, and tragedy.



For those of you who prefer to gawk at those newfangled moving talkie pictures they have nowadays, here are a couple videos from this past fall:


Video: [Click the "play" arrow above] Red kicks off Winter Jam 2011 with an pyrotechnic-filled run through of “Faceless”




Video: [Click the "Play" arrow above] Eleanor and Kenny bust a move during “Everybody Dance,” as the remnants from the previous evening’s all-night E.P.I.C. post-Christmas party cheer them on.