Ken Sande: The Peacemaker: A Biblical Guide to Resolving Personal Conflict This summer we have been talking about “How to Fight Like a Christian”. Resolving conflict is a part of life and the Bible tells us how to do it. If you want to read more, this book is for you. You can also go to www.peacemaker.net and click on the “Resources” tab for some helps.
J. Budziszewski: How to Stay Christian in College (Th1nk Edition) In honor of our Seniors I want to highlight this book that we gave them as a graduation gift. It will open your eyes to some of the thoughts and attitudes that will be on your college campus . . . and probably already on your school campus. I have several copies in my office; let me know if you want to look at one.
How should we treat each other in the church? This is the question we dealt with last night. One way to answer this question is to look at the "one another" commands in the Bible and let them paint a picture for us. Here is the list of verses we used - I hope they are both challenging and encouraging. Let's pursue them together!!
This is the picture I used the other night to illustrate the fact that there is more to the Gospel than we see at first glance. Just like you have to look at one of these stereogram for awhile before you see the 3D image, when you look into and focus on the Gospel then you start to see how beautiful it is. More and more I am convinced that the Gospel touches every part of our life as we let the reality of Jesus impact us. Enjoy.
Happy New Year!
I don’t know if you’ve made any resolutions/commitments for the New Year yet or if you were even planning to. But, I wanted to encourage you to commit to be in the Word more. Here is the link to a Bible reading plan that takes you through the New Testament in one year by reading 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week. You can download and print it and get started today.
Blessings to you! Kris
This Wednesday Mindy shared about her plans to go to New Tribes Bible Insitution to get ready to be a missionary. It was awesome to hear her love for God and what he's done in her life. Make sure to give her a hug and kiss-she's leaving in a couple weeks.
We ended the night talking about the most important thing. Jesus says to love God with everything we have. My prayer for you this break is that you are able to live out The Greatest Commandment (Mark 12:28-29) Verse 30: "Love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength."
We just finished our serires on Purity - trying to outline God's plans. We decided to make all our teaching notes available to students. You can find them at this link: http://www.metroeastbaptist.com/ministries/youth/parresources.html
This week we started a series in Sunday School about purity. We want you to know that God created sex and it is amazing . . . when used the way God designed it. Outside of that design (which is marriage) there will always be a price to pay. We really care about you and want to tell you the truth so you can be free to follow God. This week we watched a video by Pam Stenzel called “Sex Still Has a Price Tag” and you can see part 1 of 6 below and then search youtube.com for the other five parts.
Pam Stenzel speaks to students all over the world about this topic and her website is really helpful. If you are not comfortable talking to one of us here, you can email her through her website which is pamstenzel.com.
Please know that no matter where you are with this issue we care about you and so does God. There will be two things you will hear over and over these next few weeks. First, through Jesus you can be forgiven. And second, God’s ways are best for us. I hope you will start to trust the fact that God is not trying to rip you off – he is your loving Heavenly Father and wants what is best for us. That is why he gave us boundaries.
Hang in there over the next few weeks and as always if you want to talk to us we would love to, because we really love you. Keep Going.
It was fun to be back together last night after what felt like a really long time off. I don’t think anyone was hurt by the marshmallow dodge ball and our conversation about God forgiving us was great (The passages we used were 1 Peter 3:18 and Isaiah 53:4-6). I also enjoyed your questions and comments on trusting the Bible. I hope knowing that the Bible comes from eyewitnesses (Luke 1:1-4) who could have been disproven if they were lying gives you some confidence. That along with the fact that one of the Holy Spirit’s jobs is to make sure people remembered correctly what Jesus said (John 14:26) makes me rest in the reliability of scripture. That is solid historical and divine evidence you can stand on by faith. I want to make sure your questions are continuing to be answered well, so please post or email me with other questions or thoughts for us to discuss next week. Keep going – Christmas break is almost here.
Here is a link to a great video on the same topic
http://www.leestrobel.com/videoserver/video.php?clip=strobelT1142.
It comes from the website leestrobel.com . Lee is a great guy who has done a lot of good work on how we can know the Bible and its claims are true. Check out his site, I think it will answer some of your questions. Enjoy.
Here is a video and the words to a new song we have been singing on Wed night. Enjoy and rest in the fact that God loves you and if you struggle to believe that just look at the CROSS - the Bible says that God proved he loved us on the Cross (Rom 5:8).
He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree . . .
One of the questions I get asked a lot goes something like this . . . “How do you know that Christianity is more true than any other religion?” It’s a great question and one that I think there are good answers to. Last night I ran through a couple of things to think about as you compare Christianity with other religions. It was really quick so we will review and add to it next time we meet (after Thanksgiving).
Here are the points I raised:
- Only Jesus, as the founder of a “religion”, claims to be God and backs up his claim with miracles and teaching that eyewitness testify about.
As we talk about how to share our faith with other people, one of the concerns is "What if they ask me a question that I don't know the answer to?" This week on Wednesday we will deal with some of those questions. So come ready to engage and if you would like - post a question here so I can prepare for it. That would be great!
