Jan12

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?

Audio Link for Message

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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?

Audio Link for Message

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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

This morning I concluded my quiet time with Acts 1:1-14.  This passage contains many great things: the disciples would soon receive the Holy Spirit; the Spirit would give them great power; they’d be Jesus’ witnesses throughout the world and so on.  Great things!  But that’s not what directly touched my heart this morning.  It was actually the final verse – 14:

“All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.”

The phrase “were devoting themselves to prayer” hit me hard.  Prayer has been a very important part of my journey with Christ, but I KNOW I have MUCH MUCH MUCH room for growth.

What would devotion to prayer look like in my personal life?

What would devotion to prayer look like in my family life?

What would devotion to prayer look like in my ministry life and in the church generally?

I’m not sure how this will play out or what goals will be set but I definitely know that I need to continue working this “devotion” thing out in regards to prayer.  What about you?

Tommy

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)?

Audio Link for Message

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Ignite News

http://www.vimeo.com/33600801

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

Dec14

Winter Retreat ‘12 – February 10-12

This year’s Winter Retreat is quickly approaching at AMP Student Ministries. This is a great chance to get away for 2 days with your friends and take some time to do some tubing, other snow activities, cabin competitions, gym games, and most importantly grow closer to Christ.
We will be bringing in a special speaker to talk about this year’s theme: “God’s Chisel: Becoming the people He wants us to be.” Paperwork can be found here: Winter Retreat ‘12 Paperwork

Early Deadline: Sunday, January 15 (Save $$$$$ with early deadline)
Late Deadline: Sunday, January 22

Dec13

(Picture of Children’s Lifeline)

I’m very excited to announce that this summer’s high school mission trip is to Haiti (see link below for background info).  It will certainly be an eye opening experience for our students and I’m excited to see how God challenges them through their experiences.

This trip will offer a variety of serving opportunities: help at an orphanage, lead a Vacation Bible School with kids, help with the feeding program, transport and give out supplies to neighboring communities, prayer walks in the community, and general work projects (building school benches, houses, etc).

Safety is a concern of ours with any trip, but it’s definitely elevated a bit when it comes to a foreign mission trip.  Please know that Children’s Lifeline has a great deal of experience with bringing in short-term mission trips and has established guidelines, rules, and expectations to help minimize the risk (some of these are listed in the application).

Below you will find our trip application, information about Haiti, and information about Children’s Lifeline.  Please know that the registration deadline is January 15, 2012 and that there are a limited number of spots open for the trip.

Haiti Mission Trip Application (paper copies are available on the student ministries cafe counter) – *please note that two pages were added to the paperwork since Sunday night.

Haiti’s Background

Children’s Lifeline General Information

Children’s Lifeline Website

Tommy Morelock

Dec8

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?

Audio Link for Message

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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)

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday (11/20) we finished our series called “The Space Between: Me & My Parents.” I began our time together by telling our students two little secrets:

1. Your parents aren’t perfect…
2. You aren’t perfect either…

The sooner all of us understand this the better our lives will be.  The reality is that mistakes happen and conflict, hurt feelings, anger, and so on are bound to occur from time to time.  You can’t always control whether their will be conflict, but you can control whether you offer forgiveness or hold a grudge.

From there we looked at three things that are huge when it comes to forgiveness…

1. Don’t forget what God did for you (Romans 5:6-8; Psalm 103:12)
2. Don’t forget that God expects you to forgive – it’s not an option (Romans 12:17-19; Ephesians 5:1-2)
3. Don’t forget failing to forgive hurts you and not the other person (Psalm 32:3)

I finished our time together by giving one final challenge: Make every effort to keep peace (Ephesians 4:3).

Parent Questions – Have you ever had to ask one of your kids to forgive you for something you did?  How did it go?  Was it easy?

Audio Link for Message

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Next Week @ Ignite – New Series called “Break Free” begins December 4th – more details about this series will come out later this week.

Ignite News

http://www.vimeo.com/31924502

1 Month Snapshot

• December 4 – New Ignite Series “Break Free” begins at 10:30am in the Black Room
• December 4 – Fusion Small Groups meet from 6:30-8pm
• 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
• December 25 – No Ignite or Fusion
• January 1 – No Ignite or Fusion

Nov29

This past Sunday in my message (Change Your World: Disciples who Betray)I said “One of the ways to fight being a lover of money is to be generous.”  If you need a reminder about this check out Pastor Tim’s 3 weeks series called “Generosity” from last year.  It was a great series and I know you’ll be encouraged and challenged by it.  Here are the links:

Generosity: It’s Essential to Your Growth (November 7, 2010)

Generosity: Budget for It (November 14, 2010)

Generosity: God Blesses It (November 21, 2010)

Enjoy!

Tommy

Main Thoughts

This past Sunday we continued with our series called “The Space Between: Me & My Parents.”  The title is based off of the idea that parents and their children often come from different perspectives in life.  This week, the second week of our series, we looked at the main tension between parents and their children: correction or discipline. We looked at 5 reasons why parents discipline:

1. It’s their responsibility (Proverbs 22:6)
2. They love you (Proverbs 13:24)
3. They want the best for you (Hebrews 12:11)
4. They follow the example given to them (Proverbs 3:11-12)
5. They will be held accountable for it(1 Samuel 3:11-14)

I finished our time together by sharing two comments and a challenge:

1. There is a difference between discipline and abuse. No one has the right to abuse them.
2. They have a part to play in their correction. They choose how they respond to it.

Challenge – How will you respond when your parents discipline you?

Parent Questions – What does discipline in your household look like? Do you have the right intentions? How can we help?

Audio Link for Message

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Next Week @ Ignite – Offering forgiveness is not an option

Ignite News

http://www.vimeo.com/31924502

1 Month Snapshot

• November 16 – Last Fusion on Wednesday night (moves to Sunday 11/27)
• November 20 – Compassion Day – Food Drop (Click Link for more details)
• November 23 – No Fusion (due to Thanksgiving)
• November 27 – No Ignite – students go to service with their families (due to Thanksgiving)
• November 27 – Fusion moves to Sunday from 6:30-8:00pm (1st one)