Presenting an award for academic excellence at Greensborough Public School.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Anson on TV!!!
Anson's school was on TV today!!! There's a clip of him and his mom towards the end of the video. Wow! Such stars!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
JUNIOR HIGH SUNDAY SCHOOL
Some of the students from class on our last day. Showing the teacher some birthday love!
JUNIOR HIGH SUNDAY SCHOOL
Babel 3 - Sunday June 26, 2011
While technology is not wrong, how we use it and our relationship with it matters. Technology is powerful. Technological power and convenience have changed the way our world works. Technology has given us the ability to do more than we ever thought possible. With all that potential for good, sometimes a shift toward the negative happens.
[Ahab] did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him (1 Kings 16:33 NIV).
"Let me have your vineyard to use for a vegetable garden, since it is close to my palace. In exchange I will give you a better vineyard or, if you prefer, I will pay you whatever it is worth" (1 Kings 21:2 NIV).
“The LORD forbid that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers" (1 Kings 21:3 NIV).
Jezebel his wife said, "Is this how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat! Cheer up. I'll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite." So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, placed his seal on them, and sent them to the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth's city with him. In those letters she wrote: "Proclaim a day of fasting and seat Naboth in a prominent place among the people. But seat two scoundrels opposite him and have them testify that he has cursed both God and the king. Then take him out and stone him to death" (1 Kings 21:7-10 NIV).
As soon as Jezebel heard that Naboth had been stoned to death, she said to Ahab, "Get up and take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite that he refused to sell you. He is no longer alive, but dead." When Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, he got up and went down to take possession of Naboth's vineyard (1 Kings 21:15-16 NIV).
We all have the control and the ability to accomplish almost anything—good or bad. The power technology gives us is here to stay. There is possibly even more at risk than ever before. How are you using technology in your relationship with others? Are you making the world a better place? Are you enhancing relationships or destroying them? Are you harming others or helping them?
Bottom Line: The way we treat technology can help or hurt our relationship with others.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
JUNIOR HIGH SUNDAY SCHOOL
Babel 2 - Sunday June 19Technology and image are connected.
The way we use technology says a lot about who we think we are and how we want to represent ourselves. With technology, we can shape how others see us. Technology gives us the tools to make ourselves into the image we want. It’s easy to forget who we really are—the person God created us to be.
God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:20-25 NIV).
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27 NIV).
You have value because you were created by God to resemble God. You bear His image. You always have and you always will—nothing changes that. Genesis tells us that our image, based on who God is, doesn’t change. Our image is wrapped up in every aspect of our lives. Because of technology we can be whoever we think we ought to be—and disregard what God has already said to be true of us.
With all the opportunities to create any kind of image we want, we have lost sight of the one image that is real. Technology wasn’t created to redefine who we are as individuals and determine where we fit. God’s image is in you and on you, and it isn’t going away.
Who are you really? Who does God say you are? Who has God determined you to be?
What image are you trusting in?
What image are you putting your confidence in?
You are who your Creator intended you to be.
Bottom Line: Your relationship with technology can distort your view of who you really are.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
JUNIOR HIGH SUNDAY SCHOOL
Babel (1): TechnologyTechnology is an integrated part of our lives. Technology is always running in the background of our lives. Each one of us has a relationship with technology. Technology is a part of our lives and our world—we can’t get rid of it completely. How do we interact with technology in a way that both acknowledges how important it is to us, but doesn’t make it too important?
At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words (Genesis 11:1 NLT).
As the people migrated to the east, they found a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there. They began saying to each other, “Let’s make bricks and harden them with fire.” (In this region bricks were used instead of stone, and tar was used for mortar.) Then they said, “Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world” (Genesis 11:2-4 NLT).
But the LORD came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. “Look!” he said. “The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”
In that way, the LORD scattered them all over the world, and they stopped building the city. That is why the city was called Babel, because that is where the LORD confused the people with different languages. In this way he scattered them all over the world (Genesis 11:5-9 NLT).
“One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they’ll come up with next—they’ll stop at nothing! Come, we’ll go down and garble their speech so they won’t understand each other” (Genesis 11:6 MSG).
The bricks weren’t the problem—the intent of the people was. You and I have a choice about what to do with our “bricks.” We have to decide how technology plays into our lives. How we relate to the things God has given us can get distorted. For a lot of us, we have never stopped long enough to think about our relationship with technology. How you have decided to use technology tells a lot about the role you have allowed it to play in your life.
Are you using technology for good or evil?
Are you allowing technology to have too much ownership of your time and attention?
Have you allowed technology to become your life and in some ways replace God?
What is your relationship with technology?
Bottom Line: Every one of us has a relationship with technology.
Friday, June 10, 2011
YOUTHQUEST BASKETBALL
Our volunteer appreciation banquet at Frankie's. Thanks guys for a great year!!!
Monday, June 6, 2011
JUNIOR HIGH SUNDAY SCHOOL
SUNDAY JUNE 5, 2011It is easy to grow discontent with the way things are when we look at the outside and think what we have doesn’t measure up. What makes us the kind of church, the kind of youth group that is having the sort of impact God desires us to have?
Jesus told a story. Stories have the potential to open our eyes to certain truths we would have otherwise missed.
The younger son “wasted his money in wild living” (Luke 15:13 NLT).
“A great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs” (Luke 15:14-15 NLT).
“The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant”’ (Luke 15:16-19 NLT).
When the younger son was a long way off, his father saw him coming.
“The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’” (Luke 15:28-30 NLT).
“We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!” (Luke 15:32 NLT).
Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! (Luke 15:1-2 NLT).
Those people the Pharisees considered unworthy, unholy and unlovable were the very people Jesus welcomed into His presence because they mattered to Him.
To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story…” (Luke 15:11 NLT).
The point Jesus was trying to make with all three stories concerns how we respond to those who are lost. What if the Pharisees had their way and God operated like they wanted Him to? We should all be challenged to be the loving father to the people who come into our youthgroup, but also to the people we encounter every single day.
What if people knew this was a place unlike anywhere else—a place where we follow the loving father’s lead? Being a youth group that impacts the world is about having the heart of the loving father.
Bottom Line: How we love others determines what type of group we really are.