A Transformation

Over the last couple of months we have been doing a lot of work in the Youth Room/Fellowship Hall. We are still in the process of remodeling but on of the biggest jobs was painting the whole entire room. It took us probably 2 weeks to paint the room, but the painting is complete and now we are just waiting to do some other work in there. New Carpet, New drop ceiling, sound equipment, and new video equipment are in the works for the end of the process. As I was sitting in my office one day I thought to myself "wow I can't wait for this room to totally be done." Its been great seeing the transformation that is going on in the room. I was hoping to post a couple pictures but haven't taken any yet, just to give you an idea of the transformation that is taking place in the youth room. After all said and done though, as the students come back into that room(hopefully by the beginning of the year), I hope that as much transformation that went on in that room while we were remodeling it, more transformation will go on in our students lives as God continues to move amongst our students. Romans 12:2 says "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." I am praying that our students when they walk into a new room, will forget about the world and let God do some transforming in their lives, just like we transformed the youth room. So many times we as human beings live life according to the patterns of this world, instead of living a life according to God's will in our lives. Its time we start letting transformation take place instead of staying in the same place and letting our live be patterned after this world. I ask that you pray for the students of Consumed Student Ministries that their lives will be transformed by the renewing of their minds!!

Youth Convention

This past weekend we took 26 Students down to Youth Convention in Greenwood, IN. It was a great weekend and I believe that the students of Consumed Student Ministries were touched by God. Planetshakers was there leading worship the whole weekend, and they ushered in the presence of the Lord. Kendal was the first speaker on Friday night and did in awesome job preaching a sermon entitled..."Do You Believe the Message?" Talk to students about truly believing in the message of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us. Saturday morning service was awesome! The pastor's wife from Planetshakers, also the lead singer, gave an awesome message talking about identity and putting all your trust in the Lord. After the morning service we took all the kids to the mall and had a great afternoon of shopping!! The girls were really excited to spend some time at the mall!! Not so much for the guys, but they had fun just hanging out. It was a great weekend with all the students!!! I know that they are already excited for next year!

A Challenge or an Opportunity?

Consumed Student Ministries is taking on the One Month Bible Challenge. We started on October 1st and already I have had students coming up to me telling me they have had many people ask why they are carrying around there Bibles. What an opportunity to start a conversation about Jesus. I hope that the students here @ Consumed will continue this challenge of carrying there bibles wherever they go throughout the month. I'll have to give them some grace because I (Pastor Phil) even forgot his going into the volleyball game on Monday night! It was in my car, just forgot to grab it when I got out! Oops! So students you get one strike for free!! :)

As I'm sitting here writing this blog I think to myself is this really a challenge or is this an opportunity? I can see how it is a challenge, but I also see the opportunity to carry around my bible and through this God will provide opportunities to share about Him. I'm gonna look at this challenge differently and say its an opportunity! I get the opportunity every day to take my Bible with me wherever I go. I don't want to miss the opportunities God gives me, and so from here on out each and every single day, I'm gonna take the opportunity to carry around my Bible and not do it as a challenge but just say yes to the opportunity the Lord has given me!

I hope that you may jump at this opportunity as well and through this many doors will be opened to share about the good news of Jesus Christ to the lost, the hurting, and the broken hearted. Lets not keep the love of Jesus to ourselves!

Pryor and the Buckeyes top Miami!!

What a Saturday afternoon in the Culham household and in many houesholds of buckeye fans! The Bucks took it to Miami on Saturday afternoon in a packed house of 105,000 people at the Horseshoe! A great test for the buckeyes to start the season and well there #2 ranking was proven as they took care of business. I am a loyal buckeyes fan and when they are on tv you may as well not ask me, (Pastor Phil) to do a whole lot that day!! I love watching the buckeyes on TV and will take time out of my day to do so. But as much as I love my buckeyes, I do love spending time with my best friend, Jesus. He's an awesome best friend who has always been there for me. He has never failed me and I know that He never will. Can I say that about my buckeyes? I would like to hope I could but in reality my buckeyes could fail me from time to time. They may never win every game, but Jesus will win every battle He ever faces. So many times we are so loyal to our teams but where is our loyalty to our best friend, Jesus? He should have more of our time than any of our teams should get from us. But because of a busy lifestyle we forget to spend that time with Him, and our focus becomes more on our teams than on Him. My encouragement and challenge to each one is to spend more time with Jesus! We can all cheer on our teams and spend time watching them, but more than that I believe God wants more of our time than they do!! So don't forget each and every single day to spend time with the Lord reading your Bible, talking to Him through prayer, and just worshipping Him with your life!

Go BUCKS!

Status Vs. Service

When we look at the world we see so many people trying to climb the ladder in their respective careers. Wanting to get to that CEO position or to whatever it may be and we wonder why do you want to get there? Of course the simple answer that comes to my mind is, "lots of money!" Money to buy that big house, that nice car, have all the fancy suits and nice clothes, go out to eat at nice restaurants...whatever it may be we do it because we want those things. Why do we want those things though? Simple answer...to gain that social status of high class. We work and strive towards those things to gain the acceptance of our social status in this world. We want to be well known.

In Luke 14:7-11 Jesus talks about Social Status. He says dont go to the high seat but go to the low seat first so that you aren't embarrassed when someone of higher class may come in and steal that seat you wanted to be at. "But sit in the low seat so that when the hose comes he will say to you, "Friend, move up to a better place." ...For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted." So rather than aiming for prestige let us look for a place to serve.

Than in Luke 14:12-14 he tells us to invite those who are crippled, lame, blind, poor instead of our family and friends who can repay us. So many times we only invite certain people into our little circles because if we are associated with anybody of the low class or someone who has a bad name than we get a bad name, and well we don't want that. God's kingdom is open to anyone though, so isn't that how we should be when inviting other people to join us. We need to be open to all people not just those of high social status but even those of low, because God cares about them too and so should we.

So my question to you is Social Status or Service? Which will you choose?

A New School Year

Well another School year has started here in Indiana and here at Consumed Student Ministries, we are EXCITED for what God is going to do through our students. This summer was a great summer for CSM with some of our students experiencing God through the Great Awakening in Kokomo, and other getting a touch from the Lord at Youth Camp. God has challenged our students to be better witnesses for Him and to reach out and Love the unlovable. Tomorrow we are having the 2nd Annual Back To School Cookout and are praying that through this we can reach many students for the kingdom of God. On the side of this blog you can see the upcoming events for CSM and I promise I will be keeping this all up to date throughout the school year. I have been terrible at this in previous months but am making a commitment to keep up with this blogging thing and keeping all the students and parents up to date with monthly events that we will be having. The leadership team and I are excited for what God's going to do in our students this school year and we pray that there be a huge IMPACT on the school districts that our students attend.

Pastor Phil

Dealing with the Big "T"

Tonight at Consumed Student Ministries we are going to start a new series called, "Dealing with the Big 'T'". This series talks about TEMPTATION. We are going to take a look at what the bible says about Temptation over the next 3 weeks and my prayer is that the students eyes will be opened to what temptation looks like and how to deal with temptation, as we all know that we are all faced with temptation each and every single day of our lives. If you are in 6th-12th grade please come out and join us @ 7pm on Wednesday nights and here how you can overcome temptation.

Wasted Time

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to preach a sermon that I entitled, "Worry, Worry, Worry, Worry...and Worry". As you can tell by the sermon is was about worry! When I woke up on Sunday I really didn't know what I was preaching. I had a couple of sermons that I pretty much had together, but I just didn't feel right about preaching either of them. As I look at both sermons on Sunday morning at about 5:45am I said to myself, "I can't do either of these." This isn't it. So I started talking to the Lord. I was worried not about the Sermon when I woke up but, it was Youth Sunday so I needed to get everyone there t-shirts in time, the youth band was playing..I was worried the old people wouldn't like the loudness, I had to get all the ushers together and at first didn't have enough, and it was a morning full of worry. Than I didn't know what I was gonna speak. I turned to Matthew chapter 6 and it talked about worry. I read it and thought to myself there is no need to worry about all of this. The Lord has my back and He will make sure its all in order. I started to think about how in our lives we tend to worry about so much, and thru my thinking a sermon was birthed and I preached on worry.

As apart of my sermon and while I was studying and reading some footnotes in my study bible it talked about the difference in planning vs. worrying. You know how we tend to plan out the next day or try to plan out our future, which sometimes or most times leads us into worrying about everything going as planned...well in the note it says, Planning is time well spent, but worrying is time wasted. I loved that line. We waste time worrying about things that God has under control. We worry ourselves sick, and sometimes because we are worried sick, we make other people worried sick about us. God is in control. He is the provider of everything we need and if we think we need it now, kind of like the JG Wentworth commercial, "Its my money and I NEED IT NOW!" If we truly needed at that very moment I know by faith that God would provide. But too often we leave the faith out of it, don't want it to happen in God's timing and we shout, I NEED IT NOW, and than we worry, worry, worry because it hasn't come yet. We need to learn to trust in the Lord and to not worry. One of the most well known couple verses int he Bible, Proverbs 3:5&6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart; lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight."

Its time to stop worrying about so much and place it in God's hands, because if we don't we will worry ourselves so much that we will miss opportunities to minister and build God's kingdom. Have a blessed day everyone, and Remember, "don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." (matt. 6:34)

Its Been A Long Time

Well it has been a long time since I have blogged. I was on a good track in January, and than I really don't know what happened. I just lost my train of thought during the days and forgot to blog I guess. No excuses really. Anyways just wanted to leave a small post today to get myself started again. News from Consumed Student Ministries...we are doing really well in our youth group. Our students are continuing to respond to the Lord and it has been great to see some of them really move forward in their relationship with Him. Want to give a shout out of Congrats to Patrick Forgey(guitar solo and keyboard solo) and Ashley Fawcett(keyboard solo) as both of them have qualified for National Fine Arts this year!!! Great Job! Also want to congratulate Lauren Weil and Shyanne Reynoso who also participated and both received good scores for the Female Vocal Solos. They did a great job and even though they did not qualify we were pleased with how they performed and know in the future they will be singing at National Fine Arts!

It is crazy that May is almost here. We are looking forward to a fun and eventful summer for Consumed Student Ministries. We are in the process of planning many different things for our students to keep them active this summer and give them a chance to reach out to their friends and to the communities in which they live and make a difference for the kingdom of God! Keep checking the blog for upcoming events on the side as well as small devotionals as I will start to post more on a regular basis! Have a wonderful day today!

A Wonderful Night with the Lord

Sitting in my office this morning reflecting on the service last night and I just thought to myself, what a wonderful night last night. Service last night @ Consumed Student Ministries was great! It started out a little slow but its great when the Holy Spirit shows up and you just feel the presence in the room. During the worship part of the service I stayed towards the back of the room to observe our students worshipping. Through some of the worship time there was a lot of chatter going on and not many people singing or praising the Lord. It started to bug me a little bit, kind of took me out of focus on what God was wanting to do. Then our worship team played a song called, "All for Love" and a line in the chorus says, "Everything I need is You" talking about Jesus. Everything, I mean EVERYTHING that I need is my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As they played that song, I refocused myself to where I got to thinking, how many of these students really can sing from the bottom of their heart, "Everything I need is You". I knew that some of our students were hurting on the inside or struggling with something and they were looking for somewhere to turn to but didn't know where, and I simply reminded them as we finished that song, that when they are hurting and struggling and in search of someone to come along side of them, remember He is all that you need. He is the creator of your life, and if you can trust in Him and accept Him as your personal Lord and Savior, He is and will be your Best Friend! The rest of the service was great as the students focused in on the message I had prepared on Living in God's will...and I believe and continue to hope that our students grab hold of what God has in store for their lives and as they live their life, they will seek the Lord for where he wants them to go, and continue to make the right decisions. I love our students @ Consumed Student Ministries and as their Pastor I truly and thankful for the opportunity that God has put in front of me to minister and to challenge them. Remember students to pray, read the Word, and watch for Road Signs!

I Can't See

Yesterday I had the opportunity to preach for our Sunday Morning service as Pastor Andy is gone on vacation. The title of this blog was the title of my sermon. You see a lot of us don't believe because "We Can't See". We think it can only be true if I could see it. God can only be real if I could see him. But you see there's something called faith that leads me to believe in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I talked about 3 things Faith could do for us.

1. Faith can see Miracles
2. Faith can make Impossible not a word
3. Faith can provide a hope that never ends

This sermon idea came to me as I was driving down to Indianapolis early early early on a Friday morning, and it was from a song titled "What Faith Can Do" by Kutless. This song touched me as I know some people in service were touched yesterday. You see we sometimes just need a little bit of faith in our lives to believe something that is impossible, or to actually realize the miracle that just happened, or faith that even though I'm going through the rough times in life I always have a hope in my God and Savior that will never end. There is so much that faith can do for us, but too often enough we leave out the faith factor because we limit God's capabilities of what he can do.

____________________________________________________________________

Now, this coming Wednesday night, Consumed Student Ministries will be continuing its series titled "Does God Really Care What I Do?" This weeks message is titled, "Living in God's Will". It is taken from Romans 12:2. Students I hope to see you there as we continue to realize that God really does care for us and has a plan and a special purpose for each of our lives! We will see you Wednesday @ 7pm in the Youth Room, right here at First Assembly!

On a third note...last night we took a group of students over to see the movie "To Save A Life". Wow, what a great movie! You could see some watery eyes after the movie from our students, not because of it being a really sad movie, even though there are some parts in there that are sad, but I believe because they realized some things, and thought of some people in their own schools who were going through the same kinds of things as the people in the movie. I hope and pray that these students will hold on to what they learned last night and we will see God's work being done in our schools in Cass County and the Surrounding counties of Indiana and across America. There is more to life than having everything this world has to offer, we just have to step back and realize it.

Other Events coming up, check on the side of the blog in the Upcoming Events section!! Have a blessed day today and know that God loves you!

To Save A Life

This weekend a new film reaches theaters called "To Save A Life". If anyone from Consumed Student Ministries is interested in going on Sunday Night to see this film we will be leaving from the church @ 5pm and returning around 9pm. From viewing the trailer and watching some other clips this movie looks great for teenagers to see in how they can impact someone to save a life and give them an opportunity to tell them about Christ. This movie tells a story of the journey of a super-popular-talented-have-it-all teenager named Jake, who life is changed when he realizes who Jesus is. This movie shows the impact of the gospel on the life of one teenager in a powerful way. God gets deep into Jakes heart through tragedy and heartbreak. I am excited to view this film with some of the students and afterwards see how they were impacted and how they can go out and impact other students at their schools! I believe this will challenge the students to be a witness for Jesus Christ. It's time for Consumed Student Ministries to truly be Consumed by the Call of God!

It's Monday

Well another week gone by and now the start of a new week! It's Monday morning and I'm sitting in my office at my desk, and thought to myself, I need to blog! I'm really trying to stay up to date with this thing this year! I've facebooked?sp all my students to remind them that Consumed Student Ministries is meeting this week, met with a great leader of mine in Kevin Mast, and have started preparing for my sermon on Wednesday! Its been a very productive morning so far! It's been a while since we have met as a group for service and I am excited for this coming Wednesday. I believe some of our students are excited too. They have been texting me and letting me know on Sunday mornings that they are missing Wednesday night services! So here we go. I'm starting a new Series called " Does God Really Care What I do?" So the preparation starts today and I'm believing that God is going to touch some student's lives on Wednesday night.

This past weekend was a good weekend, well except that the Bengals lost to the Jets. Friday night I traveled with the Logansport Boys Basketball team to Western, where the JV and Varsity both came away with wins. I love traveling with the team and praying with them before there games. Just talking to the guys and hanging out with them in an environment that they love and so do i (sports environment), is just awesome. I love getting to know these men and am praying for a great season, but also for them to learn how to trust God in their lives. Saturday night the Boys played host to Harrison(West Lafayette) and the JV and Varsity came away with 2 more wins. It was a great weekend for Logansport Boys Basketball.

I hope everyone has a great week this week, and just like I'm praying for these boys to learn to trust in God, I hope that all of you as well who read this will continue to put your trust in the Lord and know that He will never leave you nor forsake you!

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW!

Snowy Greetings from Indiana!

Well I woke up this morning and it was snowing in Logansport. As I sit at my desk 4 hours later at 10:00am...i hate to say it, but its still snowing and snowing harder and harder!! I'm not a big fan of snow. I lived half of my life in northern Iowa where it snowed all the time in the winter and on top of it I lived in the country which made for a lot of blowing and drifting of that snow! So the reason I really don't like snow, well I'm tired of it! Too many years of too much snow! The only good thing, I guess it gives me a reason to blog!! Nothing to do outside so while I sit in my office and I may as well let people know what's going on in Logansport, IN. Sorry don't have my camera otherwise I'd take a picture and let you see!!

Just to let all the Consumed students know, I will be starting a series next Wednesday night entitled, "Does God Really Care What I Do?" I am excited to start this series and I am praying that our students will see that they are cared about by the God that they serve and that he has a purpose and a plan for every single one of them. There is one path to go down in life and if we choose the path that God has for us we will see that God does really care what we do!

Christmas Vacation

It's already the new year obviously but I thought I would recap a little bit of the Culham Christmas Vacation. We started out to Minnesota at 3:00AM EST Monday morning! Yes very early! But we got on the road early so we could get to Minnesota earlier. On the way we stopped in Mason City, IA, which is where I(Phil) used to live. My parents where there visiting some friends from the church where they use to Pastor at. We met at Cabin Coffee in town for a quick cup of coffee. After that it was the last final stretch to Minnesota. We got to Fulda in good time, getting there around 2:00PM CST. So with the stop in Mason City it took about 12 hrs total to get there.

While in Minnesota we had a wonderful time with Steph's family. It was great to be able to see her mom again! We were also able to spend time with her dad as he was down from Warroad, MN. (If you ever want to go somewhere that's REALLY cold, go to Warroad in the winter!!) On top of spending a lot of time with her family we even found some time to work out! In the process of eating all the cookies we tried to run off some in the morning hours to help us in the afternoon hours!! LOL Fulda has a new little fitness center attached the the chiropractor's office so we got a week membership there which was great! (Steph really liked that) Christmas Day was spent at the Koopman Christmas. Her Dad's side. Had a wonderful time with all of them, and than that night we went back to her mom's and had Christmas there! Lots of Christmas in one day! It was GREAT! The biggest news of the Christmas season in Minnesota though was the SNOW STORM! Fulda got pounded with snow, and while we were there it probably snowed 16+ inches! I remembered why i didn't like Minnesota!! But being in Fulda, a really small town, we were still able to drive around town to see family!

On Saturday we headed down to Des Moines to see my family. We didn't know if we would be able to make it there or not, but we braved the elements and for about 65 miles i wondered why we did but once we got past the slush and snow covered roads it was clear sailing and very glad we attempted! We were able to get to Des Moines for supper and to spend the evening with my family. My parents had booked a room at a hotel and so Steph and I stayed there. They had a pool so the whole family came to the hotel to swim after we ate supper and opened up presents. My nephews Joe and Jake had a blast swimming! They are both getting so big! The next morning we all met for breakfast and than we all headed home.

The drive home was not that bad, but I did not like leaving the snowy tundra of Minnesota to come back and drive on snow covered roads in Indiana!! But we made it home safe, had a wonderful time with our families, and glad we were able to make the trip! Below are a few pictures from our trip!

The Start of A New Year

Well it's the start of a new year! I'm anxious for what this year has in store and would love to know everything that is going to happen, but I guess I will just have to wait and see what the Lord brings this year! This Wednesday we are having a combined service with our students and our adults, and so next week Consumed Student Ministries will start meeting again! Over the holiday season I thought a lot about what I would like to see happen and I am praying that God does a mighty work in our students. I believe this year is going to be a good year for my wife Steph and I, my family, LFA, and Consumed Student Ministries.

Along with all of that, I am hoping my blogging will pick up here at the beginning of the year. It may look a little bit different over the next couple of months but we will have to wait and see how that goes!! LOL

Trust in the Lord with all your heart this year and know that if you can do that, He will bless you!! Let this be a blessed year for you!