The power of unity

Our Church just finished the power of unity series and I hope that this is only the beginning of a time in seeing the local and global body of Christ unified.

My heart for us as a youth ministry is that we would be unified. Youth pastors, volunteers, parents, and teens all working together to see a generation of young people touched and changed for the glory of God.

We all have our differences and can see things different. My hope is that we would give God glory in submitting our differences to his Lordship that we might be used to do something extraordinary in our lifetime.

Love you all.

I said yeah.

Thought I might show this for kicks.

Go youth go.

Defiled or Irrelevant?

I thought it would be great to post a question from our message board regarding an issue that many people wonder about. I'll leave the name of the person anonymous.

"...I have been asked by a few people, and Christians at that, if by limiting my kids exposure to media, I am keeping them from knowing culture and being able to minister those who are lost and submerged in that culture."

This was my response to it.


"...that is an absolute wonderful point. Let's look into it a little more. The dilemma looks a little like this: Either let my child watch BET, or MTV, or whatever movie or what not so they can stay in touch with the culture (yet they get defiled) or take it away from them (but then they are irrelevant).

What if I told you that was a lie the enemy put out there. Culture does not live in T.V., or magazines, or the Internet, or movies. Culture is real it's around us.

Point #1- we do not learn about real culture watching these shows.

The lie is that we learn about the culture through these forms of media. The truth is we don't because the media has a different agenda. The media is in business to make business, it exist to keep itself existing-- in other words MAKE A PROFIT- at our expense and our kids expense. The media does not reflect the culture we live in. They go into small pockets of areas where extreme attitudes of rebellion, sexual immorality, violence, lust & passion, materialism, hedonism and like natures exist. Then they choose to package that and display it on T.V. as being cool. Though these small pockets of extremities represent less than 5% of real cultures they saturate over 95% of the air time, thus giving a false image about what the real culture around us is. Then our kids start mimicking what they see on T.V. and spend what they have and do what they can to look like it, including rebelling against parents and other authorities.



Recap- 1) media reflects small pockets of extremities, 2) They package it to cover nearly all of air time 3) the majority of people see it and think it's normal 4) The companies that own these broadcasting stations and magazines make a lot of money because they are partnered or associated with the makers of the products that can make the general public look like what they saw on T.V.


Point #2 We do not need media to stay in touch with culture.

How long has culture existed and how long has the media existed? Whoever needed media to understand the culture that THEY THEMSELVES live in.



Culture is not found in media. Culture is in flesh. The only way you will get out of touch with culture is when you get out of touch with people.

Here is the fact: if you want to understand people you have to listen, ask questions, and build relationships.

If you think about it, the best that watching most of these shows will do for you is build stereotypes, and who likes to be stereotyped? People want you to know them for who they are?

So here is the option- raise our own kids and teach them real culture or let the media force on them false images so that the media and it's associates can make money.

Stolen Virginity....Family

Nothing tears up relationships quite like have sex out of wedlock. It's not just the two that are involved that is affected but others close to them as well. Many parents feel helpless and believe there is nothing they can do to keep their child from having sex before they get married. Some believe it's not even possible.



What a feeling of powerlessness, it's like arthritis in your authority, paralysis; complete numbness unable to make a move that would cause a difference.

Sex out of wedlock affects parent child relationships. The child has lost their purity and innocence, yet they are still living under their parents roof. Their soul is bonded to someone else, they feel like they should be somewhere else. The parent tends to remain silent regarding the issue they have no idea what to say. Their sense of authority has been stripped. It wasn't just virginity that was stolen it was also family.

How can these types of issues be reconciled? Let's start with communication. It's hard, and we always wished we did a better job of it. Yet it is still the answer. Communicate. Even if it is in tears. Virginity may not come back but family doesn't have to go also.

Steward Those Relationships.

Todays service was just awesome. I must admit that I was torn to pieces inside during worhip. The message that echoed in my heart was the need to steward well our relationships. The enemy is so adament about seperating our relationships. Whether through offense, or pride, misunderstandings, miscommunication, etc; How quickly he wants to come in and make us untrusting of one another. However there is a great power when you walk in right relationships.

Don't be afraid to shed some tears, in fact it's probably impossible to walk in long relationship without doing so because we inevitably hurt one another. The beauty and the power in the word of God is that through forgiveness we can overcome, and seperation is not the only option.

Is there someone whom you've been meaning to make things right with for a long time? Either you hurt them or they hurt you. The time is now. The power is in your hand to change the state of that relationship.

Ahead Of The Game!

The state of our youth can be striking and the task of reaching them at times can be very overwhelming. However, I wanted to take a little time to encourage you with some great news about how we are doing.

The average youth group size in america is 12. Our list of students adds up to just under 30. Also, a healthy youth group size to church membership ratio should be 1:10. We are nearly 30:250. Above average.

We are doing really good especially with what we have. Our parents are great, I feel like I learn so much from them. Thank you.

Just imagine where God is going to take us next.

Check out some of these cool pics of all that God is doing among us