Main Thoughts from February 5

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Next Week @ Ignite – Sex & Love series begins 2/26/12

1 Month Snapshot

• February 26 – New “Sex and Love” series begins
• February 29 – sAlt meeting 6:30-8pm
• March 14 – sAlt meeting 6:30-8pm
• March 25 – AMP Got Talent 6:30-8pm (more details coming 3/4 at Ignite)

This Sunday we are starting a new series with the students for Ignite (10:30am) and Fusion (6:30pm) called Sex & Love.  At River Oaks we are committed to teaching a Biblical understanding of sex and fully believe that God’s plan is the best.

Here is a brief overview of each week:

Week 1 – Sex, Love, Image

Week 2 – Boundaries – how far is too far?

Week 3 – Temptation – it’s a real battle!

Week 4 – Forgiveness – messing up to making up.

Parents, check you email for a more detailed explanation of what will be taught.  If you don’t receive the email, please contact me so we can fix the database (tmorelock@riveroaks.org).  You can also find the email by clicking here: Parent “Sex & Love” Email.

Tommy

Main Thoughts from January 29

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Ignite News

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Next Week @ Ignite – Finale of Your Journey series – “Your Life Part 2”

1 Month Snapshot

• February 1 – sAlt meeting at the church from 6:30-8pm
• February 5 – Super Bowl Event
• February 10-12 – Winter Retreat
• February 12 – No Sunday Morning Ignite or Sunday Night Fusion due to the Winter Retreat
• February 15 – sAlt meeting at the church from 6:30-8pm
• February 19 – No Sunday Morning Ignite or Sunday Night Fusion due to the Winter Break (in the schools)
• February 26 – New “Sex and Love” series begins (more details to come in a few weeks)

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday we continued our “Your Journey” series and focused on “Your Ministry.”  This week we focused on the fact that God has created each of us with a purpose, a God-given “special responsibility.” We spent some time looking at how God has SHAPED us to best fulfill our special responsibility.

In Ephesians (3:1-9), the apostle Paul describes his God-given ministry to the Gentiles.

Verse 1,2 – “When I think of all this, I, Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus for the benefit of you Gentiles… assuming, by the way, that you know God gave me the special responsibility of extending his grace to you Gentiles.”

From there we looked at 3 Thoughts:

1. God has given each of us a special responsibility.
2. How has God SHAPED you for your special ministry? God has given each of them:
   • Spiritual Gifts
   • Heart/Passion
   • Abilities
   • Personality
   • Experiences
3. Keep Christ at the center of your special responsibility – don’t let pride creep in.”

I closed our time by sharing 1 Prayer I have:

That our students would discover God’s special responsibility for their lives and they would embrace it.

Parent Questions – How has God SHAPED you?  Are you answering the call on your lives?

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Next Week @ Ignite – “Your Life Part 1”

1 Month Snapshot

• January 29 – Final deadline to register for our HS Haiti Mission Trip – only 6 spots remain
• February 1 – sAlt meeting at the church from 6:30-8pm
• February 5 – Super Bowl Event
• February 10-12 – Winter Retreat
• February 12 – No Sunday Morning Ignite or Sunday Night Fusion due to the Winter Retreat
• February 19 – No Sunday Morning Ignite or Sunday Night Fusion due to the Winter Break (in the schools)
• February 26 – New “Sex and Love” series begins (more details to come in a few weeks)

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday we continued our “Your Journey” series and focused on “Your Church Family.”  I wanted our students to understand that even though they were very different from each other and come from different backgrounds (family, neighborhood, school, hobbies, etc), they could and should be able to unite as one group in Jesus.  Too often we allow our differences separate us.

In the book of Ephesians (2:11-19) Paul took some time to address some of the Jew vs. Gentile (anyone who wasn’t a Jew) differences.  Generally these two groups didn’t like each other at all.  In the end their faith in Jesus conquered those differences and united them in God’s family.

Verse 19 – “So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners.  You are citizens along with all of God’s holy people.  You are members of God’s family.”

From there we looked at 2 Thoughts:

1. All believers are united in Jesus – a part of God’s family
2. We need to treat each other like a loving family

I closed our time by sharing 2 Prayers I have:

1. For our group – that all are accepted and welcomed into our group no matter what race, background, school, hobby, etc…
2. For you – that you would go out of your way to treat people with kindness and believe that everyone matters, not just people who are just like you.

Parent Questions – Do you believe that everyone matters?  If so, how do you seek to live that out in your life?

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Ignite News

Next Week @ Ignite – “Your Ministry”

1 Month Snapshot

• January 22 – Final deadline to register for our Winter Retreat
• January 29 – Final deadline to register for our HS Haiti Mission Trip – only 6 spots remain
• February 1 – sAlt meeting at the church from 6:30-8pm
• February 5 – Super Bowl Event (details come this Sunday)
• February 10-12 – Winter Retreat

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday we started a new 5-week series called “Your Journey” which focuses on the idea that all of us are on a journey in this life and the choices we make affect our path.

We kicked off the series by looking at Ephesians 1:1.  It’s interesting that when Paul thought about the believers in Ephesus the thing that stood out to him the most was their strong faith.  It wasn’t the things people normally think about – jobs, money, talents, etc.  Later on in Ephesians 1 we see that Paul prayed for them often.  We even get a glimpse of what he prayed for (1:15-18).

I closed our time by sharing 2 Prayers I have for you (our students) and One Question:

1. That you would have a constantly growing faith.
2. That you would have a faith that lasts a lifetime.

Question – What kind of faith journey are you on RIGHT NOW?

Parent Questions – Do you have people in your life that do not know Jesus?  How often to you pray for them?

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Ignite News

Next Week @ Ignite – “Your Church Family”

1 Month Snapshot

• January 15 – Registration due for our Winter Retreat and HS Haiti Mission Trip
• January 18 – sAlt meeting at the church from 6:30-8pm (HS student leadership team) – in order to be on this team you must fill out an application by January 15
• February 5 – Super Bowl Event (more details to come soon)
• February 10-12 – Winter Retreat

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday (actually 12/18/11) we finished our short 3-week series called “Break Free” and asked the question: “What will happen to people who die in our world and never got a chance to hear about Jesus?“

The tough thing about this is that there are no verses that flat out say, “If someone has never heard about Jesus, God will…”  But there are a lot of things we can figure out from the Bible: 4 Things We Know:

1. There will be people in heaven who never heard the name of Jesus – ex: the Old Testament saints
2. People can know God through His creation – Romans 1:20
3. Nobody will be in heaven because they lived a good life – Ephesians 2:8-9
4. If someone truly seeks after God, God will make a way – Acts 8:26-40

We closed out time by looking at 4 Thoughts:

1. God wants everyone to believe in Him – 2 Peter 3:9
2. You have heard about Jesus – have you accepted Jesus into your life?
3. What will you do with Jesus?
4. We need to help others break free.

Parent Questions – Do you have people in your life that do not know Jesus?  How often to you pray for them?

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Next Week @ Ignite – New Series called “Your Journey” begins 1/8/12

1 Month Snapshot

• January 15 – Registration due for our Winter Retreat and HS Haiti Mission Trip
• January 18 – sAlt meeting at the church from 6:30-8pm (HS student leadership team) – in order to be on this team you must fill out an application by January 15
• February 5 – Super Bowl Event (more details to come soon)
• February 10-12 – Winter Retreat

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday we continued our new series called “Break Free” which is built off of the theme of salvation and asked the question: “If someone is a true follower of Jesus, can he or she lose their salvation?“  What if they do this…or that…what about suicide?

Before we tackled that we spent a few minutes looking at John 10:27-29 and saw how there are 3 Blessing for every true follower of Jesus:

1. You get to know God personally - vs. 27
2. You get eternal life and will not perish (hell) – vs. 28
3. You get held securely in His (God’s) hand – vs. 29

So essentially we saw that someone can’t lose their salvation if they are a true follower of Jesus, although only Jesus knows someone’s heart.  From there we spent some time talking about suicide – yes suicide is forgiven, but it shouldn’t be an option for the believer.  We don’t have a right to take our lives.  That belongs to God.  I then told our students that “suicide talk” is something we should never dismiss – get help!

We closed out time by looking at four thoughts:

1. Don’t worry about losing your salvation – trust what Jesus did for you on the cross.
2. When sin arises, turn from it and ask forgiveness (Romans 6:1-2)
3. Ask God to search your heart for sin often (Psalm 139:23-24)
4. Live like you’re free and don’t put the chains back on!

Parent Questions – Do you ever think about “losing your salvation”?  When you sin, is it easy or hard to ask forgiveness (from God, your spouse, your kids, others, etc)?

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Ignite News

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Next Week @ Ignite – “We need to help others break free” – in this message we’ll also deal with the question “what will happen to people who die in our world and never got a chance to hear about Jesus?”

1 Month Snapshot

• December 18 – Ignite – we’re on this Sunday during 2nd service – special things planned like some Relient K Christmas songs!  Fusion – Christmas Party – great food, fun Christmas games, ugly sweater contest, etc.
• December 25 – No Ignite or Fusion
• January 1 – No Ignite or Fusion
• January 6 – 5th Quarter – Goshen @ Concord Basketball Game
• January 8 – Ignite and Fusion resume

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday we began a new series called “Break Free” which is built off of the theme of salvation.  In the very beginning God created a world where everyone was free.  There was no need to “break free.”  It was perfect – no pain, no death, and so on.  But that perfection soon came to an end when sin entered into the world.  As a result of that our world would no longer be perfect and everyone was given chains of sin:

1. We were born with chains on us – and continue to sin (Romans 5:12; James 3:2; Romans 3:23)
2. We aren’t strong enough to break the chains (Ephesians 2:9)
3. We need help to break the chains free – so God made a way through Jesus (John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:17)

We ended our time by looking at 2 questions:

1. Have you ever asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins and break your chains?
2. If your chains have been broken, are you excited?

Parent Questions – Have you ever asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins and come into your life and save you?  If so, have you ever shared “your story” with your kids?

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Next Week @ Ignite – “We need to live like we’re free” – in this message we’ll deal with the question “can I lose my salvation?” and what about suicide?

1 Month Snapshot

• December 11 – High School Parent’s meeting  regarding the high school summer mission trip – in the Worship Room (“Big Church” to some of our kids) from 7:30-8pm
• December 18 – Christmas Party during Fusion – students are encouraged to wear “ugly Christmas sweaters”
• December 25 – No Ignite or Fusion
• January 1 – No Ignite or Fusion
• January 6 – 5th Quarter (Goshen @ Concord Basketball Game – details to come next week)