You have to love the Vegas summer. You have to at least endure and survive the Vegas summer. As the heat starts to pour in what plans are you putting in place to survive? Are you getting the pool ready, the boat for the lake, the kiddy pool to soak in, planning your trip out of the desert, or getting ready to enjoy your super cool air-conditioner. The summer heat is something you know is coming and can do some things to get ready. I started working on some outdoor projects in February so I wouldn’t have to try to do them in the summer heat. It helps to survive it when you are prepared for what is coming.

As a parent you have the opportunity to prepare your kids for those hard to deal with situations of life. They see what you do and respond based on what they see. They also will listen to you as you give them advice. Well, they will listen at least some of the time. Think back about some of the tough times you have faced in your life. What do you wish you had known before they started? What advice could someone have given you to help you through those times?

Just like we know the summer is coming, or here, we can know that life will have difficult times. Help your kids be ready to face them and begin to give them advice on how to handle those situations. Share stories of what you have been through and how you made it. Let them know what you wish you had known. As you do you will help launch them through these times in the best way possible.

Enjoy the heat with your family.

Daniel Carnahan

Summerlin Kidz

A couple of weekends ago we had a guest speaker in Element.  His name is Drew Stevens.  Drew is a dad who lives in Anthem with his wife and kids.  Last September, his middle child Josh, was killed in a tragic accident.  Josh was 12.  When Drew came to speak to our junior high kids, he talked about how much he loved his son.  Tears flowed and God’s truth was spoken.  Drew talked about the love of God as he led our kids in a time of mourning and celebration as he told us his story.  

Junior high kids, as you may know, are indestructible.  Correction.  They think they are indestructible!  Drew talked about how fragile life is.  That hit hard.  It takes a lot for a junior high kid to “feel” that principle.  He talked about how people need God – not some time in the future, but right NOW.  He cried and kids cried with him as he talked about Josh.  It was powerful and packed with lessons that marked kids.

Unforgettable. 

Tony Schwartz / Element Team Leader

Well the school year is almost over, and what an exciting year its been! From the South West Campus launch, Jamie Tworkowski coming to visit central, the launch of Freedom, and getting to see over 1,000 people get baptized in one weekend! So much life change has happened in just one year.

Its been really amazing to get to be on the front lines of all of this and we’re looking forward to keeping this train moving forward. I, for one, am excited for what God is going to do next at Central.

Please keep our teams in your prayers, because we have a lot of work to do to get ready for this new school year coming up and also with summer camps and mission trips. Thank you all so much for your support and thanks for bringing your kids! It is such a blessing to be able to partner with you in discipling your children and students. So thank you again!

Hope you all have a fantastic and safe summer!

Tiffany Becerra

South West Students – Worship and Tech Intern

My oldest daughter smiles from ear to ear as she states, “When I grow up I want to be a dentist!” I love to listen to her dreams of how she will hand out tootsie roll pops to all of her patients “if they are brave.”  She has even entered negations with her toddler sister on how she too can work in her office.  She has a dream. While this dream may change from a dentist to a librarian to a veterinarian – she has a passion.  Even at her young age she has the drive to want to do something special…something that will make a difference.  While teeth, books, and animals are worlds apart, they are connected by a childhood innocence that desires to be heard.  What does your child want to be when they grow up (at least for this week ☺)?  Have you been listening to their dreaming?  Encouraging their passion?

Kim Trethewey

Central Kidz

The last few months my heart has been burden to understand the heart pains of our students. To understand an inch of their lives and their trials can be a great challenge, but something I seek to know for the sake of empathy and to teach copping tools so to rely on the Lords strength in the midst of these insanities. A text which describes my inner thoughts better than I could articulate:

“The greatest obstacle, indeed, the only obstacle, is that we are not free from passions and lusts, that we do not try to follow the perfect way of the saints. Thus when we encounter some slight difficulty, we are too easily dejected and turn to human consolations. If we tried, however, to stand as brave men in battle, the help of the Lord from heaven would surely sustain us. For He Who gives us the opportunity of fighting for victory, is ready to help those who carry on and trust in His grace.”

-Thomas A Kempis (Imitations of Christ)

I encounter such realties in student’s life on a regular basis, realities as difficulties which they need to be coached towards Christ’s sustenance that is trusting in His Grace.

With this a question, I present a challenge! Ask yourself how do we as adults need to urge these students to an attitude and actions that seek the Lord as their sustainer?

Finally I leave you with an illustration, image the various difficulties in these students lives and prayerful consider a plan of action that will lead them to Christ’s sustenance!

Such picture is painted in my head:

A great force coming against, a young women. A force of wind and rain. With hands fisted and gripped tightly into balls of furry that adorns her arms. Arms as strong and determined as a young tree sapling during its first winter. A grip and strength that can not be persuaded. Her face pinched with determination as rain singes the skin, a simply reminder of the deep intense fight rampant in her soul. As the fear is cut with the slight peering of her glare, her eyes remain open for only the most pertinent moments. Moments that call for her attention to discover the next step that is a simple inch, but an inch that could begin a new downfall. Stand firm, stand in truth, stand in purity. Breath is deep, while exhaling seems easy and full. Full of release and surrender, a chance to let go, a moment of release. Mind racing. A stomach full of tears. Gasps for hope. What’s next, how much more, questions that race with anxiety. An inch, just one to discover a firm, true, and pure gift. Determination marks each move. The rain’s pain has lessen, still gripping, still in anticipation, but a change, innocence. Simply a peace known as hope. Hope with the name of grace.

Naomi Koenig

Resonate Team

p.s. Share some moments of celebration how you have seen students rely on the Lord!

“But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8).  This is an incredible passage of Scripture that actively displays God’s love for us.  Essentially what it’s saying is that God didn’t wait for us to come looking for Him.  Rather, He took the initiative and entered our world to relationally connect with us.  In response, God calls us to begin that relationship with Him through faith in Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins, His burial, and His resurrection from the dead (Romans 10:9-11).

Once we have done this, God calls us to learn to be like Him and do the things He does.  “Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children” (Ephesians 5:1).  One way we can do that as parents is by finding ways to enter into our kids’ worlds.  Sometimes we think that building relationships with our kids primarily means eating dinner with them a few times a week and having a conversation with them here and there.

Don’t get me wrong, I think those are very good practices.  However, I believe a foundational building block to having a healthy relationship with our kids means doing for them what God did for us.  It means that we must learn to enter into their world and start connecting with them there.  For your kids in particular, this might mean you start playing board games or video games with them regularly.  Perhaps your kids hate those activities but love dress up or playing with action figures, so do it with them.

One of my daughters loves riding her scooter, so I bought one too.  Sometimes I catch people staring at me as I ride by with my girls and I begin to feel a little awkward about it.  In the same way, you may feel a little foolish doing some of the activities with your kids that they love, but the question to ask yourself is, “What am I willing to sacrifice to have a healthy relationship with my kids?”  Since our Heavenly Father was willing to sacrifice the life of His only Son to connect with us, I think we can risk looking foolish at times to be close with our kids, don’t you?

Kurt Pflegl
Central Kidz – Elementary

Last week in Student Ministries we did a special night of Baptism through our Small Group houses. Over 30 students came to be Baptized from Junior High and High School at all Central campuses. I had the personal honor of baptizing 3 students that night. As we prepared for the night and students began talking about the desire to get baptized- an incredible story and picture of how the church should work came out. The story intertwines the lives of 4 different students. One student- a Christ follower since a very young age- invited at friend to Church with him 3 years ago. That friend gave his life to Christ a couple of years ago, and decided to be baptized this night. This friend also invited 2 others to church-1) another friend a year ago- and that friend has since become a Christ follower and 2) his younger brother- who has also since become a Christ follower. On this special baptism night- all three people were baptized! After the night was over I could do nothing more but simply reflect at students reaching their friends and families with the love of Christ. That is how the Church should work. People reaching people.

Frank Tappe

Element Team

Ever have one of those moments where you think to yourself, wow that’s not what I was expecting. You think there is no way that is what was supposed to happen. God must not be thinking straight, cause there is no way he can make sense out of this. I feel like life is like that more often then it’s not. As I was thinking about how often I am surprised by things that happen in life; I started thinking about the Bible. About how many characters had to think to themselves, God what were you thinking? I thought of Mary, what she must have thought when God “calmly” explained to her that she would have her first child at 14, out of wedlock, in a tiny little barn. I am sure that her first thought might have been something like, what. How when Moses was taken from the glory of being a Prince of Egypt to find out he was a slave and then found a bush burning in the middle of no where that was talking to him, the idea ‘um the gods must be crazy’ probably crossed his mind. However, somewhere between the huh and the what’s God had a miraculous plan. One that brought the Israelites out of Egypt and brought the Savior to the world. The thing is God is always thinking and since His thinking is perfect, His plans always work for His good.

In life, there will be so many times when we think to ourselves, God what are you thinking? A kid runs away, a spouse walks out on you, someone dies or gets ill. Someone loses a job, just when all the bills are due. It’s not easy to understand the plans of God, but there is one thing that can comfort you. God does have a plan. He has an answer, even if you don’t know it yet. God’s plans are intricate, like taking Moses on the journey through the desert, they are complicated, like Mary having a baby with no husband, but God’s plans are also perfect. So no matter what you don’t understand or what you can’t comprehend, the one that can comprehend and understand them is there. He is not far from you and even though it doesn’t seem like it, He is in control. I know its not easy now and it may not even be easy in the future but God does have a plan. And his plans will succeed.

As time goes on know that God is in control and he knows how it is going to end. He is not only thinking about your future, but He is part of the plans for it. His plans for it are true, even if you are thinking there is no way this is what is supposed to happen. When you come out of the trial that you are facing right now, you will see how the plan God had in the beginning made sense even until the end. As with Moses and Mary, His plans never fail. At the very least, rest easy knowing that God knows what He is thinking. 

Rebekah Zaborek

Central Kidz: Fun Factory