That's about more than volleyball. Check out this story & remember that a public faith has deep impact on others.

*****
Class acts: Competitive spirit gives way to caring after volleyball player's injury

12:03 PM CST on Friday, November 6, 2009
Column by KEVIN SHERRINGTON / The Dallas Morning News ksherrington@dallasnews.com

When Anna Fedell watched her daughter dive for the volleyball, as Morgan Ashbreck had done many times, Fedell thought nothing of it. Even when Morgan didn't get up, Fedell wasn't worried. Maybe she'd bloodied her nose, but really, what could happen at a volleyball game? And then the convulsions started.

By the time Fedell made it to her daughter's side in the East Texas Christian Academy gym, two men cradled Morgan's head. Blood pooled on the floor. As Fedell leaned into Morgan's face, she heard the panic in her daughter's voice.

"Am I dying?"

Read the rest @ dallasnews.com

At the hospital at Vanderbilt, literally within an hour of knowing that my little girl was in heaven with Jesus, I found myself having to make a choice, when I would start to feel myself and everything in me being sucked into this place, this abyss. I would begin to say, "Blessed be the name of the Lord. You give. You take away. But, God, I trust you. I trust you. You are faithful. You are good. I trust you. I trust you." And as I would say that, literally just choose to make that declaration in the midst of this, I would almost physically feel myself being pulled back from that place. And I'd start to breathe again.

-Steven Curtis Chapman; Rising from the Valley of Death
Interview by Mark Moring posted 11/02/2009

The Dr. Johnny Derouen presentation that we watched last Wednesday @ Oasis:

And she turned her town upside down!

I love the story of Jesus & the Samaritan Woman from John Ch. 4. It's inspiring to see how her unlikely encounter with Jesus not only changed her life but the life of so many others in such a short time.

It wasn't because of what she knew or what she didn't know. It wasn't because of what she did or didn't do. I was because of WHO she met. She met Jesus & told merely told the simple story of their meeting.

Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, "We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world."

John 4.39-42

An unlikely spiritual revolution started by a woman with a shaky past & a not-so-bright future. I love this story because it a reminder that God can use even us in powerful unexpected ways.

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. - Proverbs 16.32 (KJV)

This is a verse for Nebuchadnezzar, a mighty kind who conquered many cites yet had trouble controlling his own temper. Every time we see him in the first three chapters of Daniel he is blowing his top & making cruel decision in the heat of his anger.

DANIEL 1.10
but the official told Daniel, "I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you."

DANIEL 2.12
This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.

DANIEL 3.13
Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

DANIEL 3.19
19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed.

Have you every been around someone with a volcanic temper? It's not much fun walking on eggshells, wondering when they will fly into a rage.

Neb seems to be contantly making regretful, rash decisions. It's sad really.

Have you ever made a bad decision in the heat of your anger?

Better to be able to control your passions than to take over cities.

I'm sure you recall the story of Rifqa Bary we discussed a couple of weeks ago. She's the girl from a Muslim family who converted to Christianity then, fearing her parents reaction, fled her Ohio home for Florida.

Here is her testimony.

"You know boys," Alyosha said, "you needn't be afraid of life! Life is so good when you do something that is good and just"

- Fyodor Dostoevsky; THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

-Jesus: JOHN 10.10

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

-Winston Churchill
*****

Doesn't that sound like Nebuchadnezzar through the first three chapters of Daniel? He has seen God revealed in amazing ways. He acknowledges his amazement yet he picks himself up & moves along...

*****

Wait until you see what happen in Chapter 4.

Marcos Andres Gonnet
September 12, 1991 - September 8, 2009

Chris Abner's powerful message on Revelation 21. Check it:

Thanks to all of you who carved time out of your schedule to be a part of our End is Near workshop on Saturday. I know I was enlightened & encourages by Bulldog Bobby V's presentations so I hope you were too.

I'll post a couple of the videos we watched for those who weren't able to attend.

The details about the '09 Labor Day Campout have been released. Here's what you need to know:

2009 Oasis Labor Day Campout
Saturday, September 5 - Monday, September 7
Eisenhower State Park (Lake Texoma)

$30 – if paid in full by Sunday, August 30
$35 – if paid after Sunday, August 30

*****
Sunday, August 30
• turn in $30 trip fee
• turn in signed campout covenant
• turn in Medical Release Form & insurance info

Saturday, September 5th
• arrive at MBC at 9:00am for departure

Monday, September 1st
• pack up/clean up/return to MBC – approx 5pm

The topic of marriage has been an interesting sidebar to our "God's Will" discussion. As promised, here is a link to the article I told you about this morning.

Read it then let's discuss.

The Case for Early Marriage
Amid our purity pledges and attempts to make chastity hip, we forgot to teach young Christians how to tie the knot.
by Mark Regnerus

As far as inspiring people, the main thing today would be that society puts younger people, like 15 through 18, in kind of a box, no one’s really expected to do much. They kind of just tend to go to high school and play football and that’s pretty much it. There’s so much more potential that people can do with the right motivation and the right ambition in life. So my thingwould just be to get out there and do hard things. Go for it.

-Zac Sunderland; youngest person (17) to sail around the world
Read more about Zac at the Rebelution; Zac Sunderland Makes It Back

Tim Tebow:

• Florida Gators Starting QB
• All-American
• Heisman Trophy Winner
• National Champion
• Home School Grad
• Christ-Follower
• Virgin

Tim Tebow has been making sports headlines as we move closer to the start of the college football season. Of course, there's to more to Tebow than meets the eye.

Check out Austin Murphy's SI cover story on Tebow:

"You Gotta Love Tim Tebow"
He's a Heisman Trophy winner and a two-time national champion, but the Florida quarterback will tell you he does his most important and rewarding work off the football field

******

He made a minor splash when a reporter recently asked the 21-year old QB if he was a virgin at a SEC media day press conference.

Paul says He chooses weak people to show His strength, foolish people to show his wisdom. As David Roper says, "We are not great stuff. God surrounds Himself with incompetence. The people God uses have rarely been great people. Nietzsche looked for a 'strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will.' God looks for misfits and milquetoasts, schmucks and schlemiels. It's not that he has to make do with a bunch of fools, He choose them.

-Bruce Waltke; "Finding the Will Of God: A Pagan notion?"

I may have some limited access to the internet at camp so I've set up a blog @ http://impactsummer.blogspot.com/ . If I can connect I'll try to post some quick updates throughout the week so you can get a peek at what we do at Jan-Kay.

"Let no one look down on your youthfulness", Paul says to Timothy (I Tim 4.12). Even though Paul was talking to a guy who was probably closer to my age than to yours we know that there are plenty of adults who are quick to look down on Sr. High students.

We also know that there are students who give adults plenty of reasons to dismiss young people. While sometimes you are treated unfairly - written off by someone who hasn't even taken the time to really know you - you must admit that there are times when you've more than earned the negative response you receive from some.

Piper listed 7 attitudes that cause adults to look down on youth in the video we saw last night:

1. disrespect
2. rebellion
3. self-absorption
4. cliquishness
5. conformity to peer pressure
6. indifference to serious issues
7. a fixation on fun

So, here's your challenge as you consider this list...

Yes, it's true that it's easy to think of others who exemplify these attitudes much more than you do. It's even true that there are adults who look down on your while displaying these "youthful" attitudes themselves.

The challenge for you is to resist the temptation to use these truths to justify your own behavior. It's not ok to be rebellious just because you know someone more rebellious than you'll ever be. It's not ok to be disrespectful to those who disrespect you.

You are called to a higher standard because you have the opportunity to e an example, not only to those younger, but also to the adults around you. I say this because Paul said it first, "...but rather in speech, conduct, love, faith and purity, show yourself an example of those who believe."

You have no idea how much of an encouragement you can be to adults in your life when you live out your faith in the things you say & in the thing you don't say, in the things you do & don't do, in the way you handle yourself, & in the way you show Christ's love for others.

Consider this quote from Tim Schmoyer's "Life in Student Ministry" blog.

“Youth Ministry sets the path for the whole church to follow.”
It’s perhaps the most important ministry of your church. The old saying is somewhat true: “Teens are not the church of the future; they’re the church of today.” Yes, they are they church of today, but they are also the church of tomorrow. And as these teens grow into adults, their church will become the church of the future.

You really do have a bigger part to play in the church then you realized.

Oasis-

Here's the blogpost from "The Rebulution" that I read to you yesterday. Alex & Brett Harris, the two bros behind this blog, also wrote a book called "Do Hard Things". Ideas from their book will be a big player during the workships at camp this year.

*****

Study Links Teen Depression to Bedtimes

We have never wanted to post anything on our blog that teens would be tempted to hide from their parents. Unfortunately, we are breaking that rule today. A new study featured by USA Today links teen depression to bedtimes — yet another reason why your parents are right when they tell you to get off Facebook and go to bed.

Study links teen depression to bedtimes
USATODAY.com - Gregg Toppo - 06/08/09

Teens whose parents let them stay up after midnight on weeknights have a much higher chance of being depressed or suicidal than teens whose parents enforce an earlier bedtime, says research being presented today at a national sleep conference.

Read the rest at The Rebelution.

Or rather vacations from church? As we discussed this morning, the big challenge for high school students is to develop a faith that stands on it's on. You really put yourself in a bind if you wait until the you are a high school senior to try to get your life together.

The best time for obedience is now.

*****

Here the advice I read this morning from Jon's Stuff Christian's Like blog:

#544. Taking the college years off.

When I started college, I never officially said to God, "Adios, I'll see you again when I'm in my mid 20s," but I should have, because that's what I did. I essentially took a Jon vacation from God during my college years.I put Him in a tiny box, labeled that box "Open when you’re married or after you have kids," and put the box under the bed. Then I proceeded to live for me with an embarrassing amount of gusto.

You didn't. Hopefully, upon reading those first few sentences your thought was, "What a loser. College was the period of my life when I grew close to God and learned about what it meant to be in a relationship with Christ." That happens a lot and I honestly think that is awesome.

I didn't have that experience though. My college years were a mess and although I can't change them, I can tell you and my little sister Molly, who heads to the University of North Carolina this fall, why I wish I had not taken the college years off from God.

Here are the four things I'd tell every graduate:


1. God is not trying to ruin your college experience.

Man oh man did I throw God under the fun bus. I thought that if I pursued a relationship with God during college I would miss out on all the "fun college experiences" you're supposed to have. Like drunken spring breaks, casual relationships, coming home with the sunrise parties etc. Wow, was I wrong. I realize now that God placed the deepest, most “light me on fire with fun and hope and life desires” within me and would have loved the opportunity to awaken those during college. He wants college, and every day after that for that matter, to be lived fully alive and is by no means trying to rain on your college parade. Like Missy Elliot, God can't stand the rain, but unlike Missy Elliot He's the one that created the sunrise and I promise that only He can show you the brightest ones in college.

2. Your parents' faith won't sustain you.

Neither will your high school youth minister's or your friend's or your pastor's back home. If you inherited some beliefs from people around you while you were growing up, expect to go through a period of redefining them and personalizing them. For instance, if the only reason you went to church every Sunday was because that's just what your family did, don't expect that habit to carry you through college. You've got an amazing opportunity to understand your faith and your one on one relationship with God during these years, don't miss it.

3. College is not forever.

I didn't realize it at the time, but by completely disregarding my faith and my God during college, I was building a really horrible foundation for my mid 20s. Even now, 11 years after graduating from Samford University, there are things that my wife experienced in college with God that she can lean on. I don't have those same things. And the damage I did to my heart and my mind during college made the first four years of marriage unnecessarily difficult. Sometimes during college you don't like to think about consequences or you get sucked into this idea that college is all there is. But it’s not. Be kind to the 25 year old you and don't gather the baggage I did.

4. Don't have sex.

In addition to all the health risks, the pregnancy risks, the Biblical pleading against premarital sex, let me throw one more reason not to have sex that all the "wisdom for graduates" books seem to be leaving out: College sex is strictly amateur hour. Seriously, the ROI (Return on Investment) is bogus. You'll give a part of you that is special and irreplaceable and beautiful and in return get something that is fumbling and awkward and shallow and selfish. Marriage sex, that has the benefit of a covenant relationship that allows people to be real and honest and adventurous, is better than college sex. I promise. Don't believe me? Ask your parents. And then go throw up. But it's still true.

There is very little chance I will ever be invited to give a high school graduation commencement speech at a Christian school, especially after point 4, but if I did, I would plead with the graduates not to take the college years off from God.How about you?

What would you tell graduates this year?

I love Paul's words at the beginning of Romans 15 as he begins to wrap up this book:

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. - Romans 15-4-6

Why endurance? Because life is difficult sometimes. All our problems & anxieties don't disappear overnight. We need endurance.

Why encouragement? Because life doesn't always work out the way we hoped it would. Sometimes that no big deal. We get over it & move on. Sometimes it's a very big deal & we can get very discouraged when we find our disappointments, failures, & heartbreaks are not easy to get over.

Do you ever need endurance & encouragement? I know I do. Paul knew his readers needed that too so he pointed them to two of his favorite sources: God's Word, & God Himself.

When you are worn out where do you turn?