With the grossly inflated gasoline prices, here is one man who is truly "sticking it to the man." Imagine....100 miles on 4 oz. of water!!
Revolutionary!
Brilliant!
How Well Does The World See Jesus?
Had a great morning preaching on Sunday.
If you would like to hear my message you may do so by clicking here. There is also an accompanying outline and powerpoint to go along with it. Feel free to download them as well.
This message is also available as a Podcast in iTunes.
Enjoy. I welcome your feedback.
Body of Christ
I am preaching this Sunday on the Body of Christ, the Church. It has been a great study and I look forward to presenting it.
We as the Church are God's representation of Christ on earth today. We must not think of the church as a place, location or building, but rather as people. Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it well when he said, "The Church is nothing but a section of humanity in which Christ has really taken form."
Throughout history God has made Himself known and seen through the indwelling of temples. Today He chooses to indwell us and be made known through us. Philip Yancy in his book, Disappointment with God, put it this way:
"Three temples appear in the Bible, and, taken together, they illustrate a progression: God revealed himself first as Father, then as Son, and finally as Holy Spirit. The first temple was a magnificent structure built by Solomon and rebuilt by Herod. The second was a 'temple' of Jesus' body ('Destroy it,' he said, 'and I will raise it again in three days'). And now a third temple has taken shape, fashioned out of individual human beings."
If we have God's Spirit living within us, then He should be very visible to the world around us. If we, the Church, are the representation of Christ on earth today, we must continually be asking ourselves...How well does the world see Jesus?
Proud Youth Pastor
Three of my students landed in the weekly YS Update newsletter this week! Rachel, Bobbi and Shannon your moment of fame has come! I hope you will always remember me!
Faith & Truth
It seems the faith of of our President has some quite upset. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, is accusing President Bush of using language of faith that is "over the top." She says, "The absolute truth is what makes Bush so worrying to some of us."
Read the CNN article here.
I applaud our President for his faith and strong convictions. Is he a perfect man, a perfect president? No. I do admire him though for his strong stand in the face of great opposition.
May we all stand for truth and not be afraid to live out our faith. May we also find ourselves in the company of those who have gone before us. See Hebrews 11.
Middle School Ministry
I get asked quite often why I do middle school ministry. I have a new answer. What other group of people can you hang out with that enjoys things like running straight through bushes?!
I caught my guys doing this at the JH RIOT and had to get some footage!
Record Breaking RIOT
Ok, so by now you are probably wondering what the deal is with the Photo In Need Of A Caption. The picture was taken just before we attempted set a new world record! No it was not a record to see how many people can line up at one time to use a porta potty. It was to set the world record of how many people can fit into a porta potty!
The Guiness Book of World Records will soon have a new entry! An entry of how many people can successfully be crammed into one porta potty! The record has never been attempted so we didn't actually break a record, we set one! We set that record at 25 people! Yes that is right...25 people in one porta potty! Looks comfy huh?
The requirements of seeting a record are you must video tape what you are attempting, it must be published in a newspaper, and it must be verified by either a pastor, policeman, judge, or mayor. We fullfilled all the requirements and the feat has been submitted!
We also attempted to break a standing record but sadly were unsuccessful. We tried to break the record of how many people can sit in one chair. The record, set in Australia, is 508 people! We had 550 so tried to break it. Unfortunately we were unable. It was just too hard to get that many middle schoolers to sit on each other's laps for one minute. We had fun trying though!
It was a great a time at the RIOT this year! If you want to see more, click here.
Photo In Need Of A Caption
I will explain this photo, which I took today at the Junior High RIOT, in my next post, but in the meantime it is screaming for a good caption. Get your creative juices flowing and share some good caption ideas in comment section of this post.
Junior High RIOT
Tomorrow I am taking our Middle School students to the Junior High RIOT.
The RIOT is a gathering of hundreds of middle school students from all around the region, held at Corban College in Salem. It's pretty much 24 hours of controled chaos, and oh so much fun! It is truly the essence of Middle School ministry! We will even be trying to break multiple Guiness Book of World Records!
This year's line up will feature Craig & Jake Live, Jason Harwell, and worship band Not Us, featuring my friends Aaron Geist and Justin Ubel. Oh and if that's not enough, this guy is going to be there...
I love youth ministry!
Think On This
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
- Henri Nouwen
Testify
Last night at Second Wednesday Worship our focus was on what God has done. We spent the night in worship of God specifcially focused on the testimony of God. We thanked Him for all He has done, is doing, and that which He plans to do in and through our lives.
Throughout the room we had different stations in which students were invited to go and list on paper what God has done and what He is doing in different areas of their life. They then spent time in prayer thanking Him for these things before they moved on to the next station. What a blessing to read all that God has done and is doing. Here is some of what was recorded.
Church
•Growth in numbers and spiritual growth
•Revealing gifts to everyone and the obedience for people to use them
•Giving our body passion to serve Him and love
•He has grown our hearts for His mission - to reach the world
•Matured our hearts and brought people closer to You
School
•Making people stop doing things that are against His will
•Growing people in knowledge and relationship with Him
•I see and meet more and more people who are Christians and loving God who aren't afraid to share the truth with friends
Work
•Better attitude at work, able to talk to those around me about God
•Stay connected to Him during work (when I think I am in control)
Family/Home
•He has made Himself known in each one of us. I pray He continues to grow in each of us more and more each day.
•My family has been able to more openly talk to each other about their faith.
•He has brought us through multiple deaths, different moves, illnesses, accidents, and He has been faithful in all. He is good.
•He has provided for all our needs, even in my doubt.
•Helped us make decisions and we grow closer to the Lord together even if we are apart.
Personal Life/Friends Lives
•Family stop doing harsh things to themselves and cutting their life shorter.
•Friends stop hurting themselves
•He's giving me boldness to share about Him with others.
•Showing me friendships that pull me to God and that I can "pull" to God
•Showing me friends who I can openly talk to about my faith and help me grow stronger with them in the Lord.
It is the very work of God, the story of God in our lives, that demonstrates the fact that His love endures forever. The words of Psalm 136:1-4 (as well as the rest of 136) are beautiful reminders of that.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
Beach Retreat
This last weekend we had our annual high school beach retreat. I love the beach!
We were at Winema Christian Camp which is literally right on the beach. We had great times of worship together and incredible times of discussion and listenting to God, as well as lots of fun play time on the beach!
Jon Knapp was our speaker and spoke on the need to blur the lines of our life. We discussed how we need to make Jesus a part of every area of our life, not just the segments of life that we allow Him to be a part of. It was great seeing students come to grips with the fact that they need to cease having such segmented lives, and instead blur the lines of those areas of their lives, so that Jesus is a part of them all.
It was a great weekend. The unfortunate aspect of it all is I came home real sick! I spent the better part of 30 hours in bed once I got home. Not sure what happened, but it was not fun. I think I'm on the mend now.
If you want to see the pictures click here. Just make sure you are comfortable, you might even want to grab a drink, there are lots of them! You will feel like you were there!
Even Benny enjoyed the beach...maybe too much! Yum!
Think On This
When I was 10, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am 50, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.
- C.S. Lewis
Life With Passion
The big thought at The Core this last Saturday was Passion. The thought that struck me the most was, when we are passionate about the message of Jesus, and passionate about people we are going to be unstoppable!
In Matthew 11:12, we see Jesus speaking to a crowd about John. About him He said, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing..." It is my desire for my life, and ministry, that I live a life of such passion. A life that that makes the Gospel of Jesus irresistible to the world around.
At the seminar Chap Clark discussed how A passionate youth ministry becomes unstoppable when it connects itself to the unstoppable Kingdom of God. Values of the Kingdom that we must embrace are:
•Truth and Justice
•Grace and Mercy
•Sharing and Demonstrating, Christ's love for the world
Imagine if we lived our lives with such a passion.
What if we had even half the passion of this guy...
Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you
just sit there.
-Will Rogers
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