Connections tonight!

Don't forget to come out for Connections! It all starts at 6:30, finishing up at 8:30. There will be dinner, praise music, a short message, and a long small group.

We are in the midst of our study of Philippians, so bring your Bible and we can figure out how to have a chaotic joy.

See you tonight!

Experience God Sunday...express this!

This past Sunday we had an Experience God Sunday. For those of you who don't know...we take the last Sunday of the month off from teaching, combine the two age groups, and try to experience God in a fresh new way. This week was through expressions.

The kids had the opportunity to express how they felt to God via different crafts throughout the youth wing. We had painting (on real canvas!), we had songwriting/poetry (really poetry, but songwriting sounds more manly), we had clay for molding, we had a cool magnet like wall with a ton of words on it and kids could move them around to make sentences (scrabble praise?), and we had a community collage (on a really big canvas!). These were great avenues to experience God in fresh ways!

On top of these options the kids were "required/encouraged" to do two more things. They all wrote a letter to themselves that will be delivered to them in one year. They were to challenge themselves, and write down where they are spiritually...and in one year they will look back and hopefully have changed. The second "required/encouraged" station was a video journal. We asked the kids to answer one question in front of the camera, where we will make a cool montage out of all the answers. The question was "How have you seen God work in the past year?"

It all turned out great! Check out these sweet photos!





















much Love,
johnny

Peace that surpasses

So, I would love to tell you about an answer to prayer. I have routine in my life! I remember when the new year came along and it had been so spontaneous! But now, I have routine. We have Connections every Wednesday. Transit every Thursday. And Crosstalk ever Sunday. That is a lot to plan and prepare! Both Scott and I are both very busy with those two weekly programs. But throw in the bag of chaos some more events.

Events like Guys retreat, and Girls retreat, and Senior Trip, and the Crosswalk Gala, and special Connections...and that is just in High School! The middle school has the Gala, a 30 hour famine, Mission Trip to Vancouver, meetings for that mission trip, and so much more!

It sounds like these "programs" are keeping people busy. They are. But these programs are not the reason I do ministry. And I am pretty sure I can speak for Scott and Brooke as well. We don't feel called to just put on events. We feel called to care for young people. We feel called to build relationships. We feel called to tell young people about a God who loves them and wants to give them a peace that surpasses all understanding. So I hope that these events and programs are avenues that God uses to do just that.

We have been praying for each other as a staff during this "busy" time of ministry. And for me, my prayers have been answered. I have a peace in craziness. And only God can do that.

Read Philippians 4:6-7 today. It will lift you spirit.

much Love,
johnny

Special Connections Tonight!

Tell your friends. Tell your cousins. Tell your parents. Tell your parents' cousins' friends? Maybe not. But do come to Connections tonight! We will have dinner. We will worship God through song. Then we split into our respective Genders and talk about...guy stuff (or if your a girl you would talk about...girl stuff). This doesn't mean we will talk about the typical stuff we talk about when we get together (as in the opposite sex), but we do want to talk about the upcoming opportunities to go to a retreat that is built just for you.

If you are female, you are invited to the girls' mystery retreat! In the end of February (as in the 27th, 28th, and March 1st) you will be headed to who knows where to talk about some lavishing things. The cost is $50, but it covers everything for the whole weekend! (Scholarships available)

If you are male, you are invited to a guys only retreat! In the end of February (as in the 27th, 28th, and March 1st) you will be headed to who knows where to talk about how to "shoot straight" as a man of God. As opposed to shoot crooked...or bad...or bendy. The cost is $50 dollars and it covers everything for the whole weekend! (Scholarships available)

So come tonight at 6:30 where you will hear more about the retreats, and start our discussion on...(finish sentence below)

• If you are a girl finish the sentence above with "the lavishing love of God"
• If you are a guy finish the sentence above with "what it means to be a totally awesome super cool man of faith that the Bible calls us to be regardless of what the world around us says we should be! Boo Yah!"
  

much Love,
johnny

Sunday ReCap, high school

Judges. Lots of cool stories of God raising up warrior judges to lead the people back to Him. When you sit down at Forza to take the half hour this week to read it...remember that it is very bloody at times and war like. Probably rated R for violence. But don't let that stop you!

And when you read it remember to look for the "judges cycle." That is: the people turn from God, suffer oppression from surrounding nations, cry out to God for help, God raises up a Judge, they turn back to God. This cycle happens a number of times in the book and we can learn a lot from it today.

This "cycle" happens because "everyone did what they saw fit" (Judges 17:6, 21:25). You see just how bad society is when you read Judges 19-21. It has gotten very bad in Israel! I don't think USA is at the point where the book of Judges ends, but similar to our society, the moral code is loosening greatly in recent years. Take for example sex before marriage. 60 years ago it was frowned upon in our society. Now, it is practically expected to have sex if you are dating. Because society says it okay, does it make it right? Is there a higher standard that we are to live by? Yes!

And this puts Christians in a tight spot. We DO have a moral code to live by, regardless of what society says. But it is becoming increasingly more difficult to BE a Christian. To constantly choose God over our selfish desires. To constantly be a light to this crooked and perverse generation (Phil. 2:15). I am praying for you!

God has set His standard higher. I am once again reminded of the classic DC Talk song, "I don't want it." It is very poetic (a stretch of the word) about how Christians should live in a society that has loose morals about sex. Check it out!

much Love,
johnny

Connections ReCap

Hello! Grace and Peace to you in all that your chaotic life is bringing you today! If you and your parents are in a fight right now...how great would it be to experience Grace and Peace in that relationship? If you and your best friend are really not seeing eye to eye right now...how great would it be to experience Grace and Peace in that relationship right now?

Grace and Peace is what we need...with God, with each other.

Last night we looked at the first step in finding a CHAOTIC Joy is finding Grace and Peace with God, and then sharing that with the people we encounter.

We saw last night that the apostle Paul is all about grace and peace. He opens every letter with it. The same way. Grace and peace. When asked to define Grace and Peace you all did a pretty awesome job!

Grace according to you: the undeserved love of God, favor, acceptance, unearned, mercy

Peace according to you: harmony, reconciliation, a little bubble of Jesus wrapped around us that is full of serenity, calmness

Some good thoughts. What if we treated each other with Grace and Peace? What if we didn't add to the chaos around us and we were "little bubbles" of grace and peace in our community?

What if?

grace and peace,
johnny

Life can be chaotic

So, Brooke and I are in a young married home group here at Believers Fellowship. We joined this year because we wanted to meet more people in our situation. Young and married. What we have found has been great! There are so many faithful young married couples here, and all of them get together twice a month. You may be thinking "Twice a month? That doesn't seem like very often...how can you have quality fellowship when you only see each other twice a month?" Well, we do wave to each other Sunday mornings...

We can't meet more than that because we have such chaotic busy lives...but, we are creating good fellowship! Because we know that all of our lives are so chaotic, we go twice a month with a purpose. We go with intentionality. We all want to grow with each other and learn from each other in the Lord.

Why all this talk about young married people? You are not married. You are in high school, or middle school even! That may be the farthest thing from your mind. Well, I want you to glimpse at the future. For many of you, you have a chaotic life right now. For many of you, your focus is on school, sports, family, drama (the good kind on stage), food, sleep, boys, girls, drama (the bad kind that is annoying), and many other things that compete for your attention. Oh yeah, and don't forget God.

Guess what. When you get married and start making babies, life doesn't get less chaotic. Life is always busy. Good things happen and your like "hooray!" then bad things happen and your like "man, again?". Life is life. And in our American mind set we will have chaos.

So, we need to start learning how to have Joy in the midst of chaos right now. We can learn from the apostle Paul to not have a cow when things go south. We need to allow joy to have its proper place. I want to endow you with the opportunity to learn to rejoice always. Any how, starting tomorrow, we are going study the book of Philippians, which is all about a Chaotic Joy.

See you there!

much Love,
johnny