2024-2025 Interns

With April coming to a close there is only one month left before the internship is wrapped up. we just finished up easter and man was it jam packed. We had about 600 kids over all of our services. Not only was it easter but we also tested out our new service times. This Challenged me in a few ways like with the shortened time between services. This was challenging because with less time it is harder to connect with the team and prepare for the next service. It did push us to grow as a team I am excited to see how the team and I continue to adapt to prepare for the fall when the service times stay in the fall. I am so excited to see how the internship wraps up over this next month.

The month of march has come and gone. I want to talk about our dream team. They serve every week. They run the ministry and we assist them seeing their heart grow for the ministry. Some of them have been serving for longer than I have been alive and some of them have only been serving for a couple months. With that, the community we have developed is amazing. So much so that we love to look for ways to have great fellowship time. On March 16th we had our "Pizza and Pins" event where we invited our dream team to join us for some fellowship time. We spent the night bowling, eating pizza, and celebrating what God has done in and through them. The night was a lot of fun. We shared laughs, swapped stories, and encouraged each other in our attempts at bowling.

For the last two weekends in march my supervisor was out of town. This gave me a great opportunity to run the Kids ministry on my own. This challenged me to think on my feet and to jump into the puddle rather than go around it. I am grateful for the great opportunity to grow in my leadership and with my team.

We are wrapping up February and it has been a crazy month. the second weekend we had our 7th annual Preach Off, the Preach Off is a Super Bowl special it is one of our most attended services it even rivals Easter. It is competitive preaching which is very unique there isn't much else like it it is one way the CedarCreek as a church reaches out to people that aren't as comfortable at church and brings them in. it was so cool to see all the new families and welcome them in. I also just got back from a trip to Arizona while I was down there I visited Purpose Church which is a church that CedarCreek helped plant a few years ago that has been growing like crazy, while there I took a look at their kids area and it was so cool to see how they worked with what they had had and was very inspiring.

Wow we are already through the first month of 2025 this month went zooming by from coming out of the holiday season. The first few weeks were a little crazy, one thing I realized was how much our dream team loves these kids we had a few of our dream team out because some of them were sick or traveling. But the dream team that showed up showed up fully and loved each and every one of the kids that were brought into their rooms. Even when the kids are running around being crazy, they were not swayed. It's so cool to see the heart they have for Kid’s ministry and leading the next generation.    

We also just wrapped up on our internship retreat which was a 24 hour event where we spent time in prayer and in solitude. It was a very unique experience; I’ve never spent so much time in solitude. While in solitude I read through the book of James, I wrote letters to my fellow interns, and I wrote out 40 things I’m thankful for. It was a very refreshing experience and I’m so glad I was able to do this. 

Merry Christmas! We just finished our 9 Christmas services. They were such a blast, but it was a marathon, and I loved it. It was so cool to see so many different people walk through our doors. If you’re standing in our lobby, you might see a family that has been coming every week and next to them you might see someone who has never even set foot in a church before. I love being able to welcome these families in and teach these kids the story of Christmas. With so many new families I hope they all felt the impact God can have and that I will see them again in the new year! We also had some team that hadn’t served in a while come and serve. A volunteer on our team also made some fun t-shirts for us all to wear, which added to the holiday cheer.  

I hope you have a Happy New Year! 

Wow we are already through the month of November. This month was crazy in kids ministry in the first 3 weeks of our November series we served almost 1000 kids, that’s crazy. It had its challenges, but it was so cool to see that many kids with us. It was amazing to see our dream team step in to make it all happen. We also visited some other campuses this month. It was cool to see other ways that some campuses operate. It allowed me to understand that each campus has its own challenges and its own strengths, what works at Perrysburg might not work at West Toledo or Oregon. That has reminded me to keep an open mind when working with other campuses. 

This month has been very eventful. It was mostly spent planning and preparing for our Halloweekend event and our "At The Movies" series for that I was entrusted to build a design piece Which is something that was very challenging for me. I was given an Idea and told to make it a reality. So I talked it through my fellow staff members and turned into a reality. This pushed me to grow it ways I haven't really thought about before. During our Halloweekend 9:00 service I was Picked out to have slime dumped on me for our October invite challenge. This really caught me off guar as I had not been in our elementary space too much recently so when I stepped in there for a few minutes the saw me and picked me for that. It reminded me that even though I hadn't been back there that much I'm still making an impact

For the month of September, I had the opportunity to start training some people to host in our elementary room. This is one of the things that I did before I started the internship. It is so cool to see other group leaders step in to new roles. I am so excited to continue to grow these leaders.  

Another opportunity I had was to step back in to teaching our elementary large program. Which is an amazing opportunity to teach the kids. Teaching them was simultaneously such an amazing opportunity and made me very nervous. Being trusted with the responsibility of teaching the kids about God made me feel incredible. 

The last weekend of September I led a group of guys down to “Man Camp” which is a weekend camping event, hosted by CrossRoads church. The event is focused all around guys being guys. With this being my second year going to Man Camp I was asked to lead the group I was with. It was such an honor to be trusted with this as I am one of the youngest guys in our group, but they were willing to let me guide them through this weekend. The sessions are so unique, the way they communicate is something that you don’t expect from a church. After one of the sessions, you go into “solitude time” where you are not supposed to talk to anyone you just go find a spot to yourself and talk with God. It was such a surreal thing to see 3000 guys get up and walk away without saying a word. It was a weekend that I will never forget. Thank you to the guys that went with me and let me lead them. 

This August I stepped into the CedarCreek internship program. These first few weeks have been great. My first week, I was welcomed by everyone, and they are all super nice. I grew up around CedarCreek, so I was already familiar with a lot of them. On the weekends I have already been challenged in ways that allow me to grow and push me out of my comfort zone. I volunteered in kids ministry for 9 years before I started the internship. I spent most of that time in the elementary area teaching kids. But since I started the internship, I have been asked to step into new areas. I was expecting this to happen, and I greeted it with open arms, but it was more challenging than I thought. It is a great spot for me to grow into. I look forward to continuing to grow in this area.  

It has also been great getting to know my fellow interns as well. I think that with us all being in different stages of life, I think we will learn a lot from one another. I am really excited for this journey and can’t wait to share it with you