Recap from last week. "daily resolutions for God"

Hey guys,

I just wanted to recap what we talked about last week so that we could continue to be encourage by the scriptures and learn about our God.

We read Psalm 44, which we concluded was a psalm about needing or asking for God's help, but also that it was a reminder to us of the promises that God has made and has kept. Also the promises that He continues to stand by.

We also read Romans 8:18-30 on "future glory" and waiting with endurance and patience for the Lord.

     Let us keep this in mind as we walk in God's promises daily: that His mercies are for us everyday! Lamentations 3:22-24 "the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The LORD is my portion" says my soul, "therefore I will hope in Him."

Take up your cross daily, and be of Christ. Christ centered relationships, decisions, actions, and words. And His mercy is for us always. Lets make some resolutions just for today...for tomorrow has enough worries of it's own. 

-Kyle

Youth Group Back on this week!!

Hey guys,
 I hope everybody had an awesome few weeks since our last group. The holidays were sweet and I'm excited to talk about what all happened in our lives since we were all last together.

We will be having youth group this sunday morning (1-8-12) at 9am as usual and im stoked to see everyone back together.

So im looking forward to Sunday and I'll see you guys then!

-Kyle

Thanks and Giving to the poor

This past week we talked about God's grace for us, and how we don't have to walk in our short comings and failures. We looked at Peter and his relationship to Christ post resurrection and post denying Him 3 times. We talked about being "crowned with glory and honor" (Psalm 8:5) and how Jesus interrupts situations with grace (such as the women caught to be stoned for her sins). How we can walk in this grace and feel called and fit and actually BE Kingdom bringers!

So it was a good week...

          So this next week I thought we could put some of it into action. We will be giving Thanks this week and Giving this week, and we will be doing this with some of the more less fortunate and homeless right near our church in Scranton. I have tons of winter hats and gloves and socks to give out to people (or even if we just make it to the soup kitchen to pass out or drop off) and i think this will be good for us. Ministry opportunities  like this open us up and broaden our world view of what is going on so close to home. At the very least it will give us something to be praying for.

So let your parents know and think about it yourselves and i will be getting in touch with you guys this week about making this happen for sunday.

We will have Youth Leaders going with us, Pastor Matt Miller is willing to come as well, and we would be leaving at 9am from church and just walking down together. I will keep you all informed as the week goes on and i will be trying to contact parents and all that good stuff.

-kyle

Tearing the Walls Down

                                                      ...just to recap

This past Sunday we learned about "tearing the walls down".

We were in Ephesians 2:11-22 on being "one in Christ".

We jumped into Acts 21:27-30 and then back into this letter to the Ephesian church to show why Paul was writing from prison, why there is this section in his letter, why he is writing with this "worship language" and why this passage historically is so intense.

We also were in Isaiah 56:3-8 and read about how God even of past really didn't intend for this division in His house. That even the "foreigner" is not to say that he is not welcome.

                       So why then was the temple like this?
                                     Is this our God?
                                                  Is this what He intended for with Israel and Blessing the Nations?

      By Paul's time even more walls are up in the temple to separate groups of people from the house of God.

"And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants .....These I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer..."

But in Christ and through His resurrection the world was forgiven and we have now equal access in ONE Spirit to the Father!
                                                               This is good news!

we are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit

Last week we watched a video teaching done by Rob Bell called "breathe", we were able to discuss our thoughts a bit and then we dove into scripture.

Last week we really sat on Ephesians 1:11-13.

I highly recommended (and still do) that we re read this passage this week and even read through the book of Ephesians with our discussion on our hearts. We HAVE this Holy Spirit, that was promised, and it is sealed in us. We are crowned with glory and honor, and we not only have our breathes that God has given to us, but we as a people of God who have heard the Word of Truth and excepted the gospel of our salvation, also have the inheritance and promised Holy Spirit sealed in us.

This is great news.

We will be talking about the Holy Spirit a lot

We will be talking about God a lot

We will be talking about Jesus a lot


                              We will be learning to consider that "He is able" in all things, and that we can trust in Him

Discussion Questions for Compassion week

Guys, I meant to be using the board last week and have some stuff written for more of a discussion but the stupid markers didn't work so I thought maybe we could do that here.

I'll post a few questions to get our minds going and lets just talk back and forth this week about some of what we are going through this week with all this compassion on our minds.

1. How can we as Christians, see others around us the way God sees them? Or in other words, how can we encourage one another to see the people we interact with (friends, family, enemies, strangers) the way that  Jesus saw people "with compassion"?
2. To show compassion for another person we may need to do a few things in our hearts first. Two things I can think of are; FORGIVE one another in order to have compassion and or PRAY for one another. What are some good passages from scripture that could help and encourage us in doing this?

Verses we talked about this past Sunday were:

• Matthew 5:46-48 on loving our enemies
• Matthew 9:35-37 on Jesus having "compassion" on them. Like sheep without a Sheppard
• John 4:7-27 on Jesus having compassion for the Samaritan woman
• John 8:1-11 on Jesus having compassion for the woman caught in Adultery
• Luke 23:34 on Jesus having forgiveness for those who were killing him.

Lets get a good discussion going on this topic.

-kyle

Compassion week

This week (10-16-11) we will be reading into the topic of compassion. I am very excited to explore a small bit of this topic, because i think that God is really going to speak into our lives this sunday and we will have immediate application with this topic for our lives.

We will be looking into the gospels and jumping around throughout all of them, looking at stories of Jesus' compassion and how that played out. We will look at how the way we show compassion may be a "law breaker" when it comes to the worlds standards of showing compassion and who we should show it to.

So come prepared with pure hearts and ready for God's word to speak to us as we read and discuss together a pretty sweet topic.

-kyle