Snow Days
Snow days are the best. I grew up in California so snow days are not something I grew up with. But after living in Oregon for over a decade, I quickly learned that this kind of weather shuts everything down and it can be like a mini vacation.
The only bummer about the snow that appeared was that I really was looking forward to our last Fusion of 2008. It has been such a great fall and I wanted to have one last Fusion before January. But, due to the inches of snow and the impending ice we had to cancel. Sad, but I know that all the students must be thrilled that due to the weather they had a snow day today.
Since we did not have Fusion last night, let me share with you why I enjoy Fusion so much:
1. Leaders: The Fusion Leaders are amazing. They care deeply for each student in their group and they take time out of their busy lives to be there for students.
2. Discussions: Each group has a relevant topic that students can discuss and be challenged to live out that week.
3. Meal Nights: A great time to celebrate through worship, having community, and a challenging message.
4. Friendships: Friendships in Christ are so essential to help students feel that they can keep living for Christ no matter what may happen.
5. Service: So many groups have taken the time to serve the community by taking food to the Food Pantry, handing our lunches to those who have no food, and putting together shoe boxes full of presents for Operation Christmas Child.
6. Students: The students we have in our jr. high program are the best. They make me laugh, they challenge me to live for Jesus, and I really enjoy spending time getting to know them.
I have worked in the Jr. High Ministry for over eleven years, and I must say as time has gone by I like it more and more each year. That is why when Fusion is canceled I can honestly say I miss spending time with the students. So thanks for letting me work with you, and thanks for allowing me to be a part of your lives.
To all of you jr. high students out there, enjoy your snow day! See you at the next Fusion!
Jen
Captivated
I love this time of year. The hunt for a great Christmas tree, decorating my house with items I only pull out once a year, and being a part of the shopping madness all makes my heart happy. This year we have added something new to our holiday busyness, Christmas Lights! After dinner time (which is very early at our house because our toddler wants to eat right away) we all get in the car and drive around looking at how people adorn their houses with a vast array of lights. Some lights twinkle, some are different colors, some are all white, and some are the latest LED version. We don’t care what kind of light it is; we are just on the look out for them all.
Our daughter will stand at the door that leads to the garage and repeat, “lights, lights, lights,” until we tell her that we must wait until after dinnertime. She loves it, and she is so quiet in the back seat of the car that often times we think she has fallen asleep. But, she has not drifted off into a winter slumber, she is captivated by all the lights she sees.
So I think to myself, what captivates my attention this season? Is it making out my wish list and focusing on all the things I want, or is it bigger then that? Do I desire to be captivated by the real Light of the World or worldly materialism?
In the Christmas Story in Luke 2 it describes how the angels appear to the shepherds in the fields. The angel tells the shepherds that he has great news the Messiah has been born. After the angels leave the shepherds say, “’Come on, let’s go to Bethlehem! Let’s see this wonderful thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.” Luke 2:15 NLT
Do I focus on Christ and see the wonderful things He has done in my life?
I do not want this Christmas to just be about gazing at a spectacle of houses aglow from masses amounts of lights. I want to stand in awe of the Light of World, Jesus the Messiah, who came to heal my brokenness and make me whole.
May I be captivated by His Light, and reflect Him in what I say and do.
Merry Christmas!
Jen
Anti-Community?
This year marks my 20th year of student ministry as a ministry profession. I still remember putting a resume together and praying to God that my first church would be anywhere but in the flat Plains states. Ironically, God called me to be the first youth pastor at a church in Alberta, Canada. Up there, they don’t call the flatlands Plains, but Prairies! However, to a lifelong Oregonian, with easy access to the ocean and the mountains, this seemed to be a geographical death sentence! But I went, in obedience to the Lord, and started my ministry in Lethbridge as a 23 year old single guy.
My biggest fears were that I would have a hard time making friends and would never get married. God had a few things in store for me. First, no sooner had I moved in to the church parsonage but a week later I had 4 roommates (well 5 if you count the guy who moved in for two days and moved out right away because he missed his mom’s cooking!) Those guys were fun to be around. They showed me friendship could be challenging. They became many of my first youth ministry volunteer leaders at the church. Talk about amazing and totally unexpected!
What made this all the more unusual is that I had such an open door relationship with so many different people in the church from the very beginning. I often went over to my Senior Pastor’s home and he became a strong father figure for 5 years of my life. I was invited in for meals to many different people’s homes and rarely went hungry from my poor cooking skills. I wish I would have invested more of myself into those precious people as they gave so much to me.
In looking back, I have never experienced that same level of community since. Honestly, I don’t even know why. I have friends here who I am deeply close to and friends who would drop everything and be there in times of crisis. Maybe it’s that the culture here is different. I find that just dropping in is replaced by scheduling a get-together a month from now because there are so many things happening. I see less of how people are really feeling and more of the superficial mask of “everything is fine with me!” How I long for those days gone by…
Look at Jesus. He had time to hang out with his disciples and do life with them. He dropped everything and went to lunch with Zaccheus. He went out of his way to go and heal someone and his life intercepted with a woman who had a huge need for healing that he wasn’t even aware of. She just touched his coat while he was on his way. Jesus modeled community by including all and being the example our culture sorely needs. I only hope that I will start to walk in His steps and fight the tide of Anti-Community that we have come to expect is normal. May we all want to be more than normal conformists, isolated in our suburban homes of refuge, becoming more and more independent and losing our connectedness along the way. I know that’s not what I want, but am I willing to change? Am I willing to open my home and reach out and include others?
With God’s Strength I want to!
Pastor Mark
More Is Caught Than Taught
Do you ever come to the realization that our kids behave a certain way most of the time, but you wonder how they came to be that way? Last night we were having our regular pick-up-your-clothes disagreement and my wife and I were wondering if little things like this would ever change. Will the girls start cleaning up after a meal without being told to? Will they do a load of laundry, just because they noticed it needed to be done and they happened to be available to do it? Will they spend time with God, without being constantly reminded about the importance of doing so each day? Sometimes I wonder if their actions will match up to their beliefs in the long run.
When I was growing up, I always saw my Dad spending time reading in the Bible and reading that day’s selection from the booklet, Our Daily Bread. He did it every morning, right around 6am before he went to work. Truly, it was like clockwork and he was as dependable as the sun rising each day. Funny thing, him doing that didn’t motivate me to do the same. In fact, until I went on a couple of mission trips and became a leader in my youth group I didn’t start to develop what my time with Jesus each day would look like. I knew I wanted to read the Bible and pray, but prayer put me to sleep most of the time. I tried to journal, but I felt stupid trying to write what my thoughts were. Being a young male, I’m not sure if I even had thoughts!
But over time, I was able to find a rhythm to spending time with the Lord. I found that I like to read through books of the Bible, two chapters at a time. I don’t read the Bible from start to finish, but I do read groups of books straight through like the gospels or the wisdom literature. I don’t pray silently, but I walk and pray out loud and as a result I don’t fall asleep! I almost always do this early in the morning with a time of exercise (which I now listen to message podcasts on my ipod shuffle while I’m running!) On the occasions when I find that when I don’t take time in the morning I feel like something is missing in a real, felt kind of way.
I guess the reality is that I did catch something eternally valuable from my Dad: his passion to follow God. Each day when I connect with God, my life is following the spiritual legacy that my Dad has lived and hopefully will continue to live the rest of his life. What are your kids catching from you? Are they catching that you have to be a workaholic to succeed in life? Are they catching that you are what you own? Or are they catching that your relationship with God is your constant, your Rock and your Strong Tower? It’s easy to say the right things on Sunday, but do they catch the same things the rest of the week?
Take care,
Pastor Mark
December Series
Christmas is such a crazy time. Students are busy dreaming about what they want to get, and parents are shopping frantically for what they want to give. We all become consumed with malls and wrapping paper. It’s a Wonderful Life and How the Grinch Stole Christmas play on TV and Santa Clause poses for pictures with every excited (and screaming) child. At church we tell the story about shepherds, angels and a manger, but so often the significance of the story is lost because it seems like just one more holiday tradition. Or we’ve heard it so much that we don’t hear it anymore. Our upcoming series is going to tell the Christmas Story—but in a slightly different way.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 4, 2008 @ OUR ELEVATION SERVICE
We will begin the series by looking at the life of Herod, a man who had everything. He was powerful and in control. But when it comes to the Christmas story, Herod missed the point. When he heard about the baby born in a manger, he felt threatened. This week we will talk about the danger of the Christmas story. That’s right, danger. Because each of us, like Herod, must determine how a little baby in a manger thousands of years ago threatens our security and shakes us out of our comfort zone?
SUNDAY DECEMBER 14, 2008 @ OUR ELEVATION SERVICE
This week we will talk about Simeon—a man who lived 114 years consumed with only one thought. Simeon wanted to see the Messiah. He knew that God was going to fulfill His promise, and he was wiling to wait as long as it took to see the promise fulfilled. This week we will encourage students to live like Simeon, patiently focused on the one thing that really matters.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 14, 2008 @ FUSION
We will conclude the series that night by looking at the lives of Zechariah and Mary. Zechariah, a religious professional, used all his skills and abilities for God, but somehow missed the power of God when He showed up in Zechariah’s life. When God promised to work a miracle, Zechariah was skeptical. But when an angel came to tell Mary that God was about to do the impossible, she praised Him for His great plan. This week we will begin to see how God can use us for something bigger than ourselves if we let Him.
Have you ever been a part of something bigger than yourself? Maybe you were able to send food, shoes, or presents to a family hundred’s of miles away. Maybe you were able to hold the hand of a grieving stranger. Our world is full of need and each one of us has been equipped with resources to meet some of those needs. And when we do that, we also gain in the process.
Whenever we are able to work together as a team, neighborhood or family, it is amazing how much we are drawn together. In the act of serving together all the tension and stress of our day-to-day lives seem to melt away, and we walk away with a powerful shared experience. This month, think about a project that you and your family can do together so that you can be a part of something bigger than yourselves.
You may want to consider one of the following options:
Compassion International: Compassion International is a Christian child advocacy ministry dedicated to release children from poverty. Through sponsorship programs, Compassion addresses the economic, health, environmental, social, educational and spiritual needs of these children. Currently, Compassion helps more than 800,000 children in 24 countries. Log onto their web site to find out one of the many ways your family can partner with Compassion to make a lasting difference in the life of a child. The Jr. High Ministry sponsors two children from Uganda and it’s a great way to be the hands and feet of Christ outside of our normal sphere of influence.
[www.compassion.com]
TOMS Shoes: TOMS was born in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie out of a commitment to produce stylish, comfortable, and practical footwear while improving the lives of children around the world. Every pair sold is personally matched with a donated pair to a child in need. This Christmas have fun giving TOMS shoes and celebrating the children who will also be comforted by your donation.
[www.tomsshoes.com]
410 Bridge: 410 Bridge began in 2005 by Lanny Donoho. The overall goal is life transformation, for Americans and Kenyans alike through building lasting relationships within cross-cultural communities. This month your students are partnering with 410 Bridge to help solve the water crisis in 410 bridge communities in Kenya by purchasing bottled water. To find out more about how your family can partner with 410 Bridge communities, go to their web site and click on the link to “communities,” then look for projects that interest you. Be creative in thinking of activities that would raise money and enable you to give to these communities.
[www.410bridge.org]
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