Message From the Future

Wow! Guys, you won't believe what happened to me last night! I was surfing the Internet, looking up random silly stuff, when I found this website that claimed it could send me back and forward in time! Of course, I didn't believe it, but when I clicked on it, it actually did it! Physically I stayed here in 2007, but online I went to 2010!

So I surfed around a bit to see what was new. Reviews for Spider-Man 4 were mostly positive. I can't wait to see it.

Then I went here to our blog. It was still here, can you believe that? It was changed up a little, but still the same ol' blog. That's where I found the following post, which I copied and pasted on here for all of you to read.

M-Fuge: Year 4
Posted by AJ

Hey everybody. What an awesome year this was. 56 people saved through our group alone. Great job to the 36 members who were able to go this year. As co-president of your student leadership team, I am very proud. Mr. and Mrs. Craton are proud too, as are Gary and Jovanna. And when Jason and Marissa heard, they were very excited (if they could have gotten off the set of their new film, they would've been there as well).

Seems like just yesterday when y'all were leaving for the first time, and I wasn't going with you 'cause I wasn't as involved in this youth group as I am now. I remember seeing the van pass my house and wondering if I'd ever really be a part of the youth group. Sure, I loved playing softball with you guys and all that, but when it came to the important things, I really didn't have a clue. To be honest, I don't think any of us did.

Then a week later, the group returned completely changed. They were excited about something new. Suddenly, every Wednesday was filled with excitement and enthusiasm about Christ, and the whole group started taking everything seriously (in a good way, I mean). Next thing I know, they're talking to me about learning to take Christ seriously myself. So I did, and then I started inviting more of my friends and trying to get them to do the same. Before long, we had the most amazing youth group in town.

I'll never forget that group, particularly the class of '08 - Ryan, JD, Shaun...all those guys. They made me who I am today. They became leaders, then they passed it on to little kiddos like me.

Well, that's all I have to say for now. I'd post some pics from the trip, but Blogger is acting up again. It's 2010 and Blogger still stinks! Can you believe that?

Numero 3

Well here it is, the third post in my list-o-things I wanna talk about. In case you haven't been around for the past month or so, I started talking about the various things most of us already think about this here Christian life. (For those of you who have poked in here and read my previous posts already, you can skip the next section.)

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I've been talking about things like how "quiet times" are a torturous mental chore, going to church is plain snore-inducing; serving is uncomfortable and embarrassing; and how the only good thing about heaven it seems is that you aren't in hell. Now those are all some pretty bold things to say, but we all think them every now and again (and perhaps more often for some of us.) so I figured it was high time to drag them out of the closet and sit them down right in the middle of the room.
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My first post in this little series was kinda a birds-eye view on everything I wanted to say, the second narrowed things down to a broad overview of church and what we think about it, and this post is going to get down to the nitty-gritty stuff revolving around church. I asked several questions in the last post, one of them being "shouldn't we want to go to church?" I'll touch on that one first, since it really kinda brings the whole thing into focus.

For some this whole concept of should we, or should we not WANT to go to church may be fairly alien. Most of us come to church because our parents make us, or because it's what good Christians are supposed to do, or maybe just because we always have. How often do we really ask ourselves "shouldn't I want to go to church?" My guess is that it's not very often, but both the question and the answer are very important.

So I ask you: what is the answer? Should we, or should we not want to go to church? Think about that for a second before reading on.

I'm guessing a lot of you answered "yes we should" to that one. I mean yea, it's kinda obvious that we SHOULD want to go to church; so you smiled, nodded, and gave the Sunday school answer (Not that there is anything wrong with that if it is the right answer.)

HOWEVER, I'm also betting that even though that is what you answered, you currently don't like going to church. Or, at the very least, aren't terribly passionate about going. Why is that? OK, so we said we SHOULD want to go... Why don't we? Can we change things to where we DO want to go? Does it just take a bunch more rules? Do we just have to keep going to church, reading our Bibles, doing "acts of service" etc. and eventually we will want to go? If it does, why don't we already want to? I mean, how long have we been going because we've had to? How much longer does it take?!?!?!

What do you think? So far I've been pretty much monologuing, but this is an important question and so I'd like to get your input. What do you think? Should we want to go to church? Why don't we? How can we want to? Is it worth it?

What God Wants

Found this on a youth ministry website - thought it was pretty dead on.

1. God wants you to be saved and growing spiritually.
2. God wants you to be increasing in your knowledge of His Word.
3. God wants you to have a transformed mind.
4. God wants you to develop Christ-like character.
5. God wants you to establish firm Bible-based convictions.
6. God wants you to be a wise steward.
7. God wants you to follow His unique plan for your life.
8. God wants your relationships to be characterized by selfless love.
9. God wants you to be actively involved in your church.
10. God wants you to show compassion to those in need.
11. God wants you to respond Biblically to the difficult issues you encounter.
12. God wants you to be a spiritual leader.

Mission Fuge

Hey guys.

Just to let you know, those of you who are going to M-Fuge and are on this blog, we are going to need to collect $30 from each person and you will be paid for on camp, as long as the finaince committee gives us what I am requesting. Those darn committees. And as Jason said in the post below, I really hope that you are getting excited about this camp. I know that it isn't what you are used to in camps, like Pineywoods or Siloam, this is going to be different. At least you get to choose what you want to do for the week, like recreation, drama, actually work at people's homes, visiting senior adult centers, or working with kids.
And don't worry, we are not going to drive all the way there in one trip. We are going to drive most of the way and then stay at a hotel in Mississippi, and then drive the rest of the way.

Let me know of any summer plans that you guys are interested in, I am trying to set the summer plans and I want a few ideas from you guys. You can just send me an e-mail at cra37516@obu.edu. This is the best way to contact me.

Thanks for being Awesome.

The Aaron

M-Fuge

I know that some of you are not as excited about M-Fuge as you could be. Some of you wish we were going back to Pineywoods. Others think it's too expensive (of course, it's not gonna cost that much at all now that we've raised the money).

But I want to go on record saying I believe this will be a very good thing for our youth group. And I believe that you all will really enjoy it once we get there. For over a year now, we've been talking about what our youth group is lacking, what we need, what we need to be doing, etc. Well, that's what this camp is about. It is meant to challenge us to be better at what we're meant to be doing. And afterwards, we should be better equipped for a real mission trip (I think Mission Arlington or something like it might be in the works for a post-M-Fuge project).

So if you're not excited yet, I hope that you will be soon. I know it's been a somewhat discouraging journey for our youth group over the past few years. But this is an opportunity to let God change that, if we'd all just embrace it.

Graduation

Hay! everybody :)
Please pray for us Graduates (Lauren, Susanna, and Sarah) as we graduate this week :) Pray that we won't be nervous and that the weather will be good.

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Who had fun at the car wash? I know I did even if I got a sunburn on my face and arms :)

.;~Prayer~;.

Hey guys!

Just a quick reminder for all of us to remember to pray for our youth group. :)

Every one of us in our group need prayers in some way. Maybe they just feel down today, or there is something you don't know about that they're dealing with. Just pray for them even if you don't know what they need yet - but God knows and through your prayers He can really touch that person's heart. :)

*Something to start off is pray for our youth group as a whole, and that we might be able to come together and do things that are really respecting God.
*For our awesome youth leaders, especially Aaron and Joann who have to drive a very long way every week just to get to us!
*For Tony's grandmother, she's in the hospital. There are probably several other members in our group who have loved ones who are ill.
*I think Blake will be coming back to the youth group soon, lets continue praying for him!!

If you had anything to add to the list please let me know, I will pray for you! :)

And so I continue...

}{'lo everyone! Well, I think it's about time to continue my post from a little over a week ago. You know, this one. Lol, don't worry I'm not gonna ask you to go back and read the old one now. Basically that post was a general overview of all I want to talk about, and believe it or not all those seemingly seperate subjects are all linked. For those of you who didn't read my last post I'll just offer a little recap:

The bible says that when we become Christians we take up Christ's yoke which is "easy and light." Yet, how in the world does that fit in with BORING bible reading; tedious "quiet times"; embarrassing "acts of service"; having to go to church every yawn-inducing Sunday; and then to cap it all off, eternity floating around in a bunch of boring clouds!?!?! That's not easy. That's not "light"!

All of those subjects are a lot of theological ground to cover. I mean, I'm practically touching on every christian virtue with the exception of salvation here. Lol, so instead of creating a single massive super-post that noooobody (except maybe Jason and myself) would ever read I decided to break it up into several smaller(ish.... OK still really big) posts. Lol, now honestly I wasn't planning on continuing that now, or in this way, but it works.

Today, at 10:30ish on a Sunday, while most of you are in church, where am I? I'm at home, in my PJ's typing away at this post. And THAT is what I want to cover today. NO not PJ's lol. Church.

OK, let's face the facts, Church is very often really, really dull. We have to wake up early to go to Sunday School where we bump into a bunch of other groggy, bored people who are equally displeased about having to come to Sunday school. Or, even worse, we hit one of those goody-two-shoes Christians who are actually excited about all the super-bland stuff that's going on and is pushing us to be excited too. What in the world is there to be excited about Chrurch!?!?

Then, after we finish eating the donuts (hey, every dark cloud has it's silver lining) we go off into a bunch of little rooms to hear the same bible stories repeated over and over again. Noah, Jonah, Abraham, all those dudes. Heck we could probably teach half of the stories. Once all that is finally over with we shuffle off to service where the pastor stands up and talks for a half hour about things that are either really complicated, make us squirm, or are just uninteresting. Not to mention all the singing and whatnot. Sure, SOME of the songs are at least remotely cool, but what in the world is supposed to be going on during "worship" anyway? Seems like a bunch of old people swaying in their seats to me.

We would rather be at home playing video games, watching TV, chatting with our friends, or sleeping. Am I right? Why? How does Sunday fit in with this whole easy and light thing? An excellent question.

So we have established that Sunday is currently quite boring (lol, like I really needed to tell you that.) The question we should be asking is why. Why is Sunday so dull? If I'm a Christan and I've got some weird Holy Spirit thing supposedly going on inside shouldn't I WANT to worship God? Shouldn't I WANT to learn more? Shouldn't I WANT to talk with my fellow Christians?

Well, I'm afraid the answer to that one will have to wait till next time. I'm trying to keep these posts at least fairly short so there is a greater chance of people actually reading them :-) . This is kinda the overview of what I want to say about Church. Next posts gets down to the practicalities of why in the world Church is boring, how we REALLY can find it interesting, and that NO IT DOESN'T take a robotic Barbie smile. I hope you will at least look in on that one.

Living Out Our Faith Comic Book Style

On Friday night, everyone is invited to join us in seeing Spider-Man 3. I don't think I have to say much to get some of you excited about that. I for one can't wait!

Before we see this movie, though, I had some thoughts. Now don't worry - Friday night is all about good times and entertainment. I'm not gonna be trying to lead a devotion during the movie or anything like that. I just wanted to share some thoughts that might get some of you thinking. After all, to me some of the most fascinating aspects of the stories are the moral conflicts faced by the characters. As a youth group, we'd be missing something if we saw this movie and didn't take at least a little time to discuss these conflicts. So, here's some things to consider...

In the first movie, when Peter first discovers his powers, what is his reaction? How does he use them? (think back on the wrestling scene) What was the famous line that Uncle Ben said which would later become the inspiration that changes Peter's perspective? (Hint: "With great power...") Can anyone give me a verse from the Bible concerning this?

In the second movie, what is Peter's biggest challenge? (Hint: I'm not talking about his battle with Doc Ock - I'm talking about his personal challenge.) What does this challenge lead him to do? (Hint: What did he throw in the garbage?) Ultimately he goes back on that decision. Why? What does Aunt May say to change his mind? Can anyone find a Bible verse that goes along with this?

In the third movie, there's going to be many new challenges - so many that I'm curious to see how it's all going to fit into one movie. Without having seen the movie yet, here's some of the moral challenges I'm interested in seeing played out: Harry is out to avenge his father's death. How do you hope Peter deals with this? According to the previews, Peter must also face his "dark side". As Spider-Man, he is starting to become a bit prideful and arrogant. What leads to this change in attitude? Which version of Spider-Man makes for the better hero?

Spider-Man is fantasy. If you get bit by a genetically-altered spider, you're probably gonna get sick and/or die. But fantastical powers are not what makes Spider-Man a hero. Being a hero was Peter Parker's choice. We all have a choice to be a "hero" in our everyday lives - we have the choice to do the right thing or the wrong thing, to be a good person or a selfish one. In the real world, our power is that of Christ...and it is our choice to accept the responsibility of that. That makes us heroes...and I hope we all aspire to be a hero.

So anyway, those are just some things to consider. Again, the main purpose of Friday night is to have a good time. There's not gonna be a test. But it never hurts to determine how our faith applies to the everyday things we do.