Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving and so it is appropriate to write about something that I am thankful for. So, here I go.

On Sunday night, at PowerHouse we talked about Jesus's question to his disciples found in Luke 9:18-20. He asked them, "Who do you say that I am"? Peter answered by saying, "The Christ (Messiah) of God". Peter knew this to be true about Jesus because of the many experiences he had with Jesus.

In the same way, my experiences with Christ recently have backed up entirely who I say Christ is. This fall has been a very challenging one for me on a lot of levels and it has caused me to draw closer to Him because of it. So, with that being said, who do I say that Christ is and what am I thankful for is very similar.

I say and I know for sure that Christ is

• MY PROVIDER
• MY SOURCE OF STRENGTH AND COURAGE TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT
• MY PROTECTOR
• MY ANXIETY RELIEVER

Scripture backs up all these characteristics of Christ. But, there is a difference between knowing the Truth and really experiencing the Truth. This fall, I really experienced the TRUTH of Christ.

Because Christ is all these things and so much more, I am extremely thankful today, thankful beyond I have ever been in my life.

THANK YOU JESUS!

What about you? Take a moment and identify who do you say Jesus is and thank Him for it!

The Benefits of Searching the Scriptures

This past week we continued our series on Knowing God as we looked at one of the ways that we can know who God is. We looked at a variety of scripture such as:

• Luke 15:11-32
• Daniel 6
• Genesis 9:1-17
• 1 Samuel 16:1-13
• Exodus 3:1-10

Based on these passage, what do we learn about the character of God and who He is?

We learn that Jesus to be a teacher and he loves and cares for all people, that God is powerful – powerful enough to shut the mouths of lions and protect his followers, that God is loving, that He examines our hearts, not our appearances as he cares more about who you are on the inside and that we learn that he listens to us and hear our cries.

Because we know that God is loving, someone who teaches, powerful, and hears our cries and desires to help, we know that we cares for us, wants to help us grow as people, desires to help and is powerful enough to do something about it. That has direct implications in our lives if we allow him to.

There is so much we can learn about God by just searching the scriptures. The question is are you willing to take the time to learn about him?

This week, search the scriptures and get to know who God is so that you can benefit from that knowledge.

Last Week's Capernaum

When I first came to Cedar Run, one of our goals was to find a quarterly service oppotunity for our youth to participate in. We always did a summer mission trip and with the success of those trips, we wanted something to come home and do on a regular basis so our students didn't have to wait to summer to serve. As I was thinking through all that what we could do, the first places I looked at were food banks and other donation groups. Although they were good experiences and we did them a few times, our students never really connected with those groups. I don't know exactly why they weren't connecting other than our teens seem to be more geared towards relational ministry opportunities rather than stocking shelves with food or collecting clothes for the homeless.

So, we tried a Young Life ministry called Capernaum. I wish I could remember why we choose Capernaum (maybe it was because we have a few students with disabilities in our youth program), but it became clear very quickly that not only did our students support this, but they excelled in this format. From our very first time helping Capernaum over 4 years ago, a lot of our students showed up to help and when we buddied up with our Capernaum buddies, they took the initiative and loved these kids the way Christ loves them. It is quite impressive to see our students step up in a big way and take ownership I have rarely had to tell our students what to do or to engage their buddies. They came and they served wholeheartedly.

This past Saturday was our Capernaum Saturday night with this month's theme being a Karaoke and Dance Party night. We got American Idol for the Wii and the fun began! American Idol Karaoke has some classic songs like, "I'm every woman" by Whitney Houston and "Y.M.C.A." by the Village People. But it also has some newer songs like "Apologize" from Timberland and "Who Knew" by Pink. It is very easy to play as you just need the game, a Wii and 2 mics for the Wii.

From the moment the first song came on to to the very end, our students and their buddies sang song after song after song. Sometimes you couldn't understand what was being sung, but that just added to the carefree nature of the whole event. It was great as it seemed that almost every song ended up being an impromptu dance party. It was a lot of fun to see our student and their buddies singing their hearts out with reckless abandonment.

Normally when average high school students do karaoke with each other, it seems a little awkward at first until someone makes a complete fool of themselves which then gives others the freedom to go up and make a fool out of themselves. However, that was never an issue this past weekend as we had some of the coolest people in their high schools stand up and make a complete fool out of themselves. Why? Because they were serving the Lord and because, as a Capernaum Buddy, you have to be prepared for anything and to do anything. It was very rewarding to see the level of engagement our students had with their buddies. I have said this each time we do Capernaum - our students serving as Capernaum Buddies benefit just as much, if not more, as it benefits the buddies they serve. What a blessing!

The Way, the Truth and the Life???

On Sunday we began our 1st week in a 3 week series entitled "Knowing God". How you know God begins in a conversation between Jesus and his disciples in John 14:1-7.

In it, Jesus says that the way to know God is to know him and that he is the only way to know God (v.6-7).

The question I challenged the students with is if Jesus is THE ONLY WAY to know God, are we making him OUR WAY to know God? By that I meant that there are many people and many religions out there that will say that they are the way and that they have the right truth and if they follow them, they will get to God. Or, there are things out there that are tempting like that great party coming up or a hook-up that will make them feel that if they just do that, they will have found their way and that life would be complete because of that.

But, what Jesus is saying is that He is the way, the truth and the life. That if we want to get to know God, we have to go through Jesus. That is the only way.

So, the question is - is He YOUR way and YOUR truth? If so, why and if not, why not?

The challenge this week is to go out and discover who Christ is so that:

1. You can get to know who God is and what He is about.
2. You can begin to make him your way so that when that next big event that comes about or when that next person comes up and says he know the way to true happiness, you can say, "That's ok, I know the real way and the real truth that leads to true life".

This week, discover who Christ and God is by opening up the Bible and reading. If you need a place to start, start with Luke 1 and do a chapter a day for the rest of the week. When you are done with that chapter answer these 3 questions:

1. What did Jesus say or do?
2. What does Jesus' words or actions communicate about who God is?
3. How can I apply what happened to my life?

Based on my life, I know that when I follow Jesus' way, His truth, I know God better and my life is more complete. How about yours? This week, let's all go out of our way to search the way and the truth Christ was about so that our way and truth can lead up to a full life that Christ promises to give us by following Him (John 10:10)

A Dance Party at Church???

Yep, that is what we did. During our 5th Quarter event, we transformed our high school room into a cool dance floor.

Now, doing a dance party can be quite controversial as dancing in christian circles is not always encouraged. But, at Cedar Run, we are a non-denominational small-to-medium sized church with not lots of tradition. Because of this, we have done some very impromptu dance parties throughout the years so we thought this would be something we would like to try. But, in order to do this, I felt that there had to be some good benefits to doing this. Here are the benefits we felt we could gain by doing this:

• It was a way to draw students into our Church. As I have posted before, 5th Quarter has been a great bridge event. Because of this, we already have a solid reputation around the area and felt that we could have a big draw.
• The t-shirts are a good promotion tool as the students will likely wear those shirts again, spurring possible questions like, "Where did you get that shirt" or "You had a dance party at a Church"???
• The word about Cedar Run would expand. So far, the excitement that we generated from the dance party was something we haven't generated since the Super Bowl Bash. It gets people talking and hopefully helps the students realize that there is something for them at Cedar Run.
• It was a good opportunity to promote other things we were doing at Cedar Run. Our latest Sunday night series is on "Tough Choices". We figured that if more non-Christians were going to come to 5th Quarter on Friday night, this would be a great series to promote for them to come to. So, as students were leaving, the leaders and I passed out our fliers for Sunday night. Students got to see that we weren't a place in which you just had fun at. We were a place where we talked about tough choices students face.

The one thing I have always loved about Cedar Run is that they give us the freedom to try new things. They allow us to be creative in our efforts to draw students (as long as it is safe). If all we ever did was Sunday School and then Sunday night Youth Group, then I feel that we would have missed opportunities to draw new students into our program. That is the purpose of these "bridge events". A dance party is neither traditional or a new idea. But, it is something we wanted to try and I am glad we did.

For More on the Dance Party, you can check out my other blog - www.notamegachurch.com