Retreat

Last weekend I had the opportunity to speak for Zion Missionary at an youth retreat in Converse, IN. What an incredible time. It was so awesome to see God workngi in each of teens lives over the weekend. God did incredible work. Zion has a great youth pastor and awesome volunteers. They are going to have some great things in store for them.

It also was the first time that I was able to take some friends with me on a retreat in which I was the speaker. We brought our youth praise band. They did a fantastic job and believe God used them to reach students for Christ.

I love retreats. They are a time to retreat, to get refreshed, and to refocus on Jesus Christ. It is a time to get away from the business of life and focus on Jesus Christ.

Hearing God's voice

What does it mean to really hear the voice of God?

If you feel that God is speaking a message to you but you are not really sure if it is from God here are some good questions to ask your self about the message.

1) Does it line up with the Holy Bible, the written scriptures?

2) Does it lead you into a closer relationship with God, a greater unity with Him?

3) Does it lead you into expressing love, which is putting God’s benefit and the benefit of others before your own benefit?

4) Does it lead to a dying of yourself and a greater manifestation of Christ life in you?

5) Does it cause greater humility in you, and a greater dependence upon God?

6) Does it cause greater love, joy, and peace from God in you?

Interesting Observations from Matthew 23

Matthew 23- Seven Woes

Seven Ways to Guarantee God’s Anger:

1. Keeping others from entering the Kingdom of God (23:14)
2. Converting people away from God to be like yourself (23:15)
3. Following Man Made traditions instead of God’s word (23:16-22)
4. Involving yourself in every last detail and ignoring what is really important (23:23,24)
5. Keeping up appearances when your private world is Corrupt ( Matt. 23:25,26)
6. Acting Spiritual to cover up sin (23:27,28)
7. Pretending to learn from the past, but your present behavior shows that you have learned nothing (23:29-36)

It seems all of us have struggled with one of these woes. In fact I think form time to time I haev struggled with all of them.

Lifehouse's Everything Skit

This is an incredible drama. It's shows how much we can mess up our life. One thing to remember is that there is always hope.

Things are not always as they appear

This does not have any movement. the movement you see, when you look at the edges of the picture, is purely the result of tricking your brain.

I found this on neatorama, where they explain:

Neatorama reader Walt Anthony shares with us his blog, geared to educate kids about optical illusions. Walt did a good job in explaining the illusions in the post:

Anomalous Motion Optical Illusion aka Peripheral Drift Optical Illusion is characterized by anomalous motion that can be observed in peripheral vision. […]

Keep in mind that this is a static image. It is not animated in any way. but as your vision moves back and forth the center area seems to be moving toward the center (contracting) and the outer edges seem to be moving away (expanding) from the center. Also worth noting is that if you fixate on a point in the center and don’t move your eyes this anomalous motion will stop.

Parents Need to Invest in their Children

2/3 of the students active in our youth ministry walk away from their faith within a year of graduating high school.

OUCH! Those of you familiar with youth ministry know this to be a problem across the country. In fact, our numbers would be viewed in many circles as pretty exceptional.

So I looked for commonalities in the piles. Initially, I thought the kids who were most involved in youth group, church activities, leadership development efforts, or discipleship programs would be more likely to end up in the "Still Active" pile. I found this not to be the case. Those kids were just as likely to be in the "Walked Away" pile. Those things seemed not to be indicators of a teen's long-term spiritual commitment.

What became evident really quickly was the effect of parents on the faith-development process. I realize that this entire process is a bit subjective and nonscientific, but what I discovered was enough to indicate a real pattern.

We lose 25% of kids who have 2 Christian parents and Dad takes the spiritual lead.
We lose 50% of kids who have 2 Christian parents and Mom takes the spiritual lead.
We lose 66% of kids who have a Christian Dad only
We lose 75% of kids who have a Christian Mom only
We lose 90% of kids who have no Christian parents

So 10% of the kids who have no Christian parents - the "outreach" kids - stick with it. I contacted those kids and asked them all the same question, looking for patterns. Without exception theire was one common factor with the 10% who stuck around. They all had a spiritual mentor - a surrogate spiritual Mom or Dad. A spiritual mentor.