The Extravaganza... We do it for Jesus.

A bunch of hilarious, weird, amazing, inspiring people gathered in the St. Michael's youthroom for the Prayer and Action Extravaganza on Sunday night. I think we might have beaten the record for most obnoxious people in one room at the same time. (In a good way!) On one side of the room, you've got Kyle, who strikes up random coversations about poop ("the call of duty"). Then you've got Chris, who adds "Get it? Prayer and Action? Like prayer and then action!" to every conversation. Then you've got a whole group of high schoolers playing some noodle ball, smacking a wiffle ball with pool noodles. And finally you've got a group throwing Nerf darts at the windows, then tracing the outlines to make pictures.

Yeah, we're obnoxious. But that's what youth ministry is all about -- acting like complete fools for Jesus. All those Nerf darts we threw? We threw them for Jesus. Every time we smacked that ball with the noodles? That was for Jesus. Every time Chris found a way to incorporate Prayer and Action into a coversation? He did that for Jesus. And, somehow, everytime Kyle talked about poop... That was for Jesus too.

This is idea of doing everything in the name of the Lord is what Prayer & Action is all about. Through painting houses, pulling weeds, getting to know the hearts of the people we're working for, or even squirting eachother with water guns for a week, we learned how to incorprate Jesus into all of that. It's all for Him.

Bringing everyone from Prayer and Action back together -- all the seminarians, leaders, youth ministers, priests, singers, and students -- just brought all of those amazing memories and feelings back. It reminded me that it really is all for Him. And especially as the youth of our Diocese, we might think that we're just the teenagers who everyone sees as obnoxious (which, I guess, is partially true), but we play such a huge role in the church. We are the future of the church, insane, I know. "Let no one have contempt for your youth, but set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity." (1 Timothy 5:12).

So let's keep rocking this world. In everything we do. Through Prayer AND Action.

Live the Fourth

I had heard stories about how fantastic Kairos was, how I had to go, and how my life would be changed forever. I'm not gonna lie. I was a little skeptical. Really? One weekend at a retreat was going to change my life? Must be some retreat........

But it was. No doubt about it. Everything I experienced actually exceeded the great comments I had previously heard about it. I actually am a changed person -- the new and improved Jordan McEntee. :]

So what did I really get out of those three days away from society? Everything. Well, I can't tell you a whole lot because I don't want to spoil any surprises for you if you go on Kairos. But here's a few of the big ideas that I've brought home with me:

1) While setting specific time aside to form my relationship with God is important, what is even more crucial is incorporating prayer into EVERY SINGLE that I do. It's not about one experience. My whole life is my "God Moment."

2) Little things have BIG impacts. Just saying hi to someone, or waving to someone, or even just smiling at someone could be the difference. Make someone's day by doing something small! That's something that I've been trying realy hard to work on since Kairos.

3) SHMILY. This one stands for "See How Much I Love You." It's so easy to show people that we love them and that we care about them, whether it be through prayer, doing a favor for them, smiling at them, writing them a little happy note, or just being with them. And SHMILYs are a cycle! You get one, and you share it. Over, and over, and over, and over again. The circle of life, baby.

The weekend was full of spiritual, inspiring, deep, conversations. But, of course, you can't put 28 high school kids together with hilarious youth ministers and not expect to have some hysterically funny moments. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the retreat:

"Smiles are infectious!" -Greg Alba

"There's a cloud of witnesses praying for you ALL the time, sending you a billion SHMILYs through prayer channels." -Joe Passantino

"Do you really think you're a better artist than God?" -Joe Turner

"We're all HIS. It's beautiful, just beautiful!" -Kyle Kuckelman

"If you could see yourself the way God sees you, you would believe that you are AMAZING." -Chelsea Schmidt

"No matter what you've done, He would die on that cross again, just for you. Only you." -Mitchell Cardin

"I think God chooses a few people to support the rest, and it is a mystery tome how the whole prayer things works, all I know is that it does. I would be NOWHERE if people hadn't prayed for me. I know that the sacrifices my friends and family made for me are all that sustain me sometimes, especially when prayer is difficult." -Jared Michael Cheek (retold by Rick Cheek)

"He might not get you to YOUR ideal situation, but THE ideal situation." -Jennifer Summers

"The sure sign that God is active in your life is that you will be led where you did not plan to go." -Brent Rempe

"You're the prized posession on God's shelf, a picture on his refridgerator." -Maggie Crabtree

Instead of root them on... "Pray them on." -Rick Cheek


Doesn't this just make you want to go sign your papers and head off to Kairos right now?? Me too. All I can say is that it really was a life changing experience -- and not one that's only going to last a few weeks. I met so many fannnnntastic people who are really going to hold me accountable in my faith, and I will do the same for them. We're all in it together, because the rest of our lives are God's time, KAIROS.

Wait, God sees my crumbled soul as crisp, clean and pure? Dang, He's Cool.

The suspense was building. Flock in general is stinkin' awesome, but when Sara posts "So, FLOCK tonight will potentially have multiple special guests....holla!!" on the Flock Rocks facebook page, you know it's gonna have an extra side of EPIC.

Now I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat, wondering who in the world these special guests might be! ... (Drum roll, please) ... Michael Sheerin and Andrew Rockers! Woohoo! For anyone who doesn't know these two fabulous men of God, here's a quick intro -- Michael is Sara's fiance who plays the guitar, sings songs about smoking meat, gives really good advice about sales techniques, cracks the best jokes ever, and is one of the coolest guys I've ever met. And Andrew is an amazing seminarian from the Diocese of Salina, was involved in changing our lives at Prayer and Action, eats weird sandwiches, rocks (just like his last name, Rockers), and has the coolest beard I've ever seen.

So tonight's Flock kinduh rocked (and by kinduh, I mean that it totally, completely, absolutely, undoubtedly rocked). Michael got up there and pretty much spilled his heart. He told us his story, and gave us one of the best analogies ever (similar to Aaron's dollar bill analogy). A piece of paper. That paper is our souls. Every time we sin against our Lord, we put a crease in that paper. Eventually, that paper ends up all wrinkled and crumbled up, and maybe even in a trashcan. But guess what? God sees our souls through eyes of LOVE as clean, crisp, pure pieces of paper. It's crazy. One thing Michael pointed out that is so true: God sees us as a new, crisp sheet of paper, but sometimes it's more difficult for us to see ourselves that way. We know what we've done, and we'll always remember those folds and wrinkles we put in that paper. But Our God is a loving, merciful and forgiving God.

But Our God gives us free will because he wants us to make our own decisions. Wow, that's a lot of freedom. But that's also a lot of responsibility. Because freedom is desiring and choosing the best thing.

So it was a great night of learning about God's forgivenessand unconditional love, with some QPT (Quality Prayer Time) in the church. Which was also some quality chatting time with Michael. Dang, he's cool. (You've got yourself a keeper, Sara!) We talked about smiling, joy, surrounding yourself with people who are going to build you up in your faith, my dorky fun little brother, love, responsibility and life. Quite the conversation. And a few of my favorite things he said:

"In life, see the opportunities. In love, see the reality."
Mike: "How many times do you smile in a day?"
Me: "Uhh like thousands of times... Probably too many... I would die if I couldn't smile!"
Mike: "Haha. Never lose that sense of joy. And show everybody why you smile so much."

"In college, pray every single day. And if anyone questions you, don't let that make you question yourself."



For seminarians, paper souls, forgiveness and smiling... GOD IS GREAT. :]] 

Glory. Beauty. Party.... The New SMA Youth Room.

It is officially done. The walls are painted beautifully with orange, green, and blue paint... Three flat screen TVs hang on the walls, perfected with a ridiculous sound system and sweet hook-ups to the internet... The couches match the walls, and are angled just right in the corner of the room... The microwave, refridgerator and bar area, open dance floor, comfy seats and loud speakers are screaming, "Flock party! Super Bowl party! Dance party! Any kind of party! Pleaseeeeee."

And party is exactly what we will do. Party of Praise. Thank you, Jesus, for this beautiful room that you have blessed us with, the future amazing experiences we will have in this room, and for all the awesome people who made this room possible. Amen.

Well, speaking of awesome experiences in the new room.... Last night definitely made the list. The first AP FLOCK took place on the new couches with the TV in the corner. Awww yeah. And the TV was first officially used to watch a behind the scenes look at Matt Maher's new song "Turn Around" (from his new album The Love In Between, which comes out on September 20th). How perfect.

In Matt's video, he talks about repentance. About how when one guitar string breaks, it affects the whole guitar. About how one decision can affect your whole life, and the lives of those around you. Probably my favorite quote from the whole movie was "Repentance isn't just saying your sorry. It means finding a new direction." I mean, how true is that? I know I do it all the time... "Lord, I know I haven't spent enough time in prayer with you this week. I'm sorry." No! I should be saying, "God, I need your help. I need to turn this around and make time to talk with you and build my relationship with you." It takes that extra effort to use a few minutes that I would be on Facebook to tell God about my day. It takes that extra effort to go sit with the kid who's sitting all alone at lunch. It takes that extra effort to say no to something even though you know it's better for you in the long run. It's all about those extra efforts.

For new shnazzy youth rooms, for great conversations, and for Matt Maher... GOD IS GREAT.

"We're family now." Prayer and Action KC.

Well, ladies and gentlemen. Prayer and Action has done it again (and by it, I mean screamed in my face to wake me up to how I should be living my life). After six days of painting houses, meeting new people, climbing ladders, acting like complete freaks, eating PB&J sandwiches, trying to sing, dancing like fools, and letting people know what's on our hearts, I think it's safe to say that every single person on P&A was changed in one way or another.

It was such a blessing to have the opportunity of serving those who needed our help in Emporia, and we got pretty stinkin' tight with our homeowers. In fact, Maria even made us a mexican fiesta lunch to show her appreciation. And Orville was probably the cutest, sweetest old man I've ever met. I know that I'll never forget either of them, because like Maria said, "We're family now."

But along with all the work we did around Emporia, we got to listen to some amazing talks from the P&A staff. So I'm going to give a little run-down of some of the things that I really took away from each of these powerful presentations.

Day 1. (Seminarian) Dan's talk about the Trinity:
This whole talk was amazing. The main idea was that the Trinity is a big triangle of Love among the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I attempted to re-create Dan's diagram of where we are in the Trinity, so that is the (badly drawn, sorry) picture below. The arrows are the love going from one to the other, which are all God, because God is Love. Then the little smiley face in the middle is us. Something he said that really stuck out to me was that "Prayer is us listening in on what the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are saying about us." I mean, how cool is that?

Day 2. Susan's talk about Social Justice:
I also really enjoyed this talk because she made it super relatable to all of us. Susan explained social justice as being like the Google Earth app for the iPad or iPhone; When you see the whole world, it looks really pretty with cool colors and stuff... But then we all get focused on ourselves and are like, "Hey, I'm going to find my house!" So we zoom in so far that the colors fade and it gets ugly. That's how we're NOT supposed to live -- focused on ourselves. We are called to the seven themes of the Catholic Social Teaching: 1. Life and dignity of the human person. 2. Call to family, community, and participation. 3. Rights and responsibilities. 4. Option for the poor and vulnerable. 5. The diginity of work and the rights of workers. 6. Solidarity. and 7. Care for God's creation... And something I really took away from this was how she said that when we think of justice, we think of like fighting evil. And that's exactly right. We're fighting Satan, and kicking him straight in the nuts. (Click here to see Chris Walters' blog post "Straight in the nuts." It's epic.)

Day 3. (Seminarian) Dave's talk about Chastity.
This was one of my favorite chastity talks that I've ever heard. It wasn't your typical "abstinence and modesty!" talking that you always hear. It was more of the other side, the guys' perspective. And Dave's two main focus points were Beauty and Love. With beauty, he discussed society's ridiculous distortions of how people (particularly women) are supposed to look to be beautiful. But every human being is a temple for God and, therefore, every single human being is beautiful and created exactly in God's image and likeness. This leads to the broad topic of love. But I really like how Dave stressed how women bring out the best or worst in men, and we should be the best version of ourselves to encourage guys to be the best version of themselves. We talked about how God loves us more than any other human ever could, and how He will NEVER let us down. Because God IS Love. Powerful stuff, I tell ya.

Day 4. Caleb and Karlie's talk about Reconciliation.
Both of these amazing young people really stressed how important the sacrament of Reconciliation is in growing in our faith. They both talked about God's never ending mercy and forgiveness, and how he will always bring us back to him if we seek his forgiveness through confession. No matter what we've done, no matter where we've been, we will ALWAYS be his beloved children. Karlie talked about how even when others around us are falling, if we seek God's forgiveness, He will never let us fall (Psalm 91). God's love and mercy are uncomparable to anyone or anything else. He is that awesome.

Day 5. (Seminarian) Matt's talk about the Eucharist.
I've got to say, if I had to pick one thing that really stuck with me this week, it was the importance of the most holy Eucharist. Matt explained how the Sacrifice of the Altar is the living re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Cross. It's kind of a lot to take in at first, but once I understood this connection, the gift of recieving Christ's body and blood becomes so much more intense and awesome. He talked about how the Eucharist is way greater than any martyr, because Christ's sacrifice for man in the mass triumps over any man's sacrifice for Him. That was stinkin' amazing to me. I later talked with Dave about the Eucharist, and the way he described the importance of the Eucharist to the Catholic Church was so eye-opening, as well. He said, "To physically have the Love of your life, Jesus Christ, inside of you is the most intense connection you can possibly have with Him. And no other church has that deep, physical connection." Wow, Jesus rocks.

And finally, Day 6. (Seminarian) Jeff's talk about how to take this stuff home to our communities. 
It's pretty obvious that everything we learned can totally change our lives, but if we don't know how to bring it all back with us, it's not too helpful. So Jeff had four main ways that we can bring this stuff back and keep our Jesus fires burning strong. 1. Pray the Rosary daily. 2. Daily Adoration (if available) or silent prayer. 3. Night prayer (Liturgy of the Hours) and the Salve Regina. 4. Pick a Saint and connect with them, learn about them, pray through them. All the things Jeff said are pretty reasonable, we just have to keep up with this faith we grew at P&A. We can totally do it, with eachother's help, of course.

We are like a family now. The Prayer & Action KC family. It's our job to help eachother through the rough times, to remind eachother of what we learned, to love eachother, and to pick eachother back up when we fall down. -- "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:12-13)

Justin Bieber vs. Jesus

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love kids. Little people are my favorite because they are like the Energizer bunny - They never run out of juice. And for this reason, I absolutely love Get Real at VBS. 5th and 6th graders are old enough to have a somewhat intellectual discussion, but at the same time, they are probably the funniest creatures on this earth. So I thought I would share just a few of the hilarious comments that came out of their mouths, and a couple other funnies from the red team.

Me: "If you were able to meet one famous person, dead or alive, who would you pick and why?"
VBS kiddo: "Umm, probably Jesus. Or Justin Bieber... They're both pretty important."
(Glad to see we've got our priorities straight!)

Extremely talkative red team child: "Guess what? Last night I had a dream that I was on the elevator up to heaven! And I got to the top and I was like, 'I'm here to see Jesus!' and this old cranky lady told me 'Go sit in the waiting room like everybody else!'"

Me: "Okay guys, so on this sheet you're going to rate these jobs from 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst. Believe me, none of them are too great."
Oliver Davis: "A live-in babysitter for a family with 8 kids?? That's not too bad! That's like what Sara Batenhorst has to deal with every time she babysits my family!"

Kid: "Why does our group always have to split in half for service projects?"
Me: "Beacause we're the awkward seventh group. They don't know what to do with us."
Jack: "We should have called our group 'The Leftovers!'"

Oliver, Dillon and Joe having a different dress-up theme everyday... One day I come home from VBS to find my brother and my cousin in my room, wearing my dresses and heels. The first thing that came out of their mouths were "We look like girls with short hair!" Not okay... definitely not a good theme day, but hilarious nonetheless.

Doing the Boogaloo and teaching the kids the Istanbul, not Constantinople dance...

But I don't think any of us will EVER forget the epic last day including a the amazing "House on Fire!" skit, a water balloon toss (which we turned into an all-out water balloon fight... to get some sweet revenge on the kids who caused us problems throughout the week), and the fire truck showing up and completely soaking every kid from head to toe. I think we were all a little sad to see our crazy youngsters go... But there's always next summer!

For kids who never run out of energy, who deck themselves out in their team color every day, who compare Jesus to teenage pop stars, who love God, and who never stop making me laugh... GOD IS GREAT. :]

GOD EQUALS LOVE ... The light bulb moment.

You know those times when you go around in circles trying to figure something out? When you think it's so complicated and there's so much to comprehend? That was my group at FLOCK, trying to pull out the meaning of 1 John 4:7-21. There are so many different aspects of love that are discussed in those verses, but just a few main ideas that we found were:

LAY IT DOWN FOR OTHERS: And yes, by "it" we mean your life. Defenitely a crazy thing to think about. But if you truly love someone, you want to put their needs before your own, even if it means giving your life.

DON'T TALK LOVE, DO LOVE: Pretty much "walkin' the walk" and not just "talkin' the talk." You can't say you love someone if your actions aren't going to back it up. Show them you love them, don't just say it. After all, actions do speak louder than words.

LOVE > WORLDY STUFF: Loving someone is way more important than the little things in life that really don't matter. Who cares what somebody thinks about you if you're doing what you love, or showing someone you love them. Love pretty much trumps all else.

And after trying to connect all these points... We had our light bulb moment. GOD EQUALS LOVE. That's when it all clicked for me... God equals love. And God knows all things. God is never wrong. Everything he wills to be done, is done. He never fails. So since God is love, that means that LOVE NEVER FAILS.

Love.
Never.
Fails.

It's such a simple concept that is so easy to complicate. If we can just live and love knowing that God has everything under control (I mean, it's God... He knows whats up), everything will turn out exactly how He has it planned. And, as I learned from Veggie Tales back in the day, "God's way is the best way."

GOD EQUALS LOVE.