r e v e r s a l * m i n i s t r i e s

Worship = Surrender

2009-08-04T21:10:00.000-07:00

The Titanic. A massive, mighty ship. The unsinkable. At 882 feet long and 175 feet high, it weighed over 46,000 tons and could carry 3,500 people. It displaced over 52,000 tons of water. It was a floating fortress of steel. Basically… ridiculously huge. On April 14th, 1912 it sent out on its maiden voyage and everyone was so excited because it was so big and amazing and yay! On April 15th it sank. We all know the story. An iceberg, shadowed by night, tore into her and sank her. What you might not know is that only about 10% of icebergs are above the surface of water. It’s the reason this robust ship sank. The iceberg probably didn’t even flinch!

Wait, what the heck?? This blog is titled “worship” not “icebergs.” No, I’m not an iceberg expert. That’d be a boring blog. Think of icebergs in terms of worship. While an iceberg is nearly 90% beneath the surface, the same is with worship. What comes to mind? Music? Singing? That is definitely a form of worship, but it only scratches the surface! Worship isn’t the songs we sing as much it is the lives we live. It’s not a religious thing, or Christian thing… Worship is embedded in human nature. We all do it. Music, sports, money, pleasure…Jack Bauer? What do you worship?

Think of a rock concert. Think of your favorite band playing. You’re among tons of people crammed into the Crystal Ballroom (but you definitely are in front). You’re screaming as the lead guitarist shreds a ridiculous solo. The bass is thumping in your chest. The lead singer belts out an ear piercing note, “YYYEEAAAAAAAAA.” Fans are screaming, arms are raised, rock fists are up high… Your favorite band rooocks.

Think of Sunday morning, or Wednesday night. It’s time to praise your God. A God who is set apart from anything you could ever imagine. So big, he created thousands of (discovered) stars that make up galaxies that are trillions and trillions and TRILLIONS of miles wide. An all powerful, glorious, triumphant, indescribable creator of life. Maker of everything you know, and do not know. And yet, despite the fact that we reject Him daily…He longs to be with you. So where is your heart when singing to God?

Genesis 22. I dare you to read this story and ponder. After a long long long looong road of being tested and promised, God finally provided Abraham with a son. But then! Abe is told by God to take his only son up a mountain and sacrifice him. What?! What does Abe do?! In verse 3 he obeys. Why? Because Mr. Abe trusts God. He even has his head held high (verse 4). No moping about! In verse 5 & 6 we read the first time worship is mentioned in the bible.

“He said to his servants, ‘Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.’
Abraham took the sound system, the guitars, and drums as they rehearsed the…” Wait…no, no that’s not right. No mention of music at all...

“Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together…” What’d they take to worship? Wood, fire, and a knife. Yep.

Verse 12. “'Do not lay a hand on the boy,' he said. 'Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.'" Abe was willing to give God the very thing he loved the most. God wants all of you, laid bare on the alter.

Check out Romans 12:1, one of my all time favorite verses. Read it. What the heck is a living sacrifice? HA! It’s you! It’s your sin. It’s your pleasure. It’s your fun, your grades, your friends, your home life, car, money, boyfriend, girlfriend…Everything! When we surrender to God, amazing and incredible things start to happen. I’ll put a little emphasis for you. “…In view of God's MEEERRRRCYYYYY, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices.” Grace is amazing. Like, really amazing. Think of the complete brokenness of man. The only thing we’ve got going for us is the ability to screw up. But God's grace is infinite. Take a romantic relationship for example. Who cares what God thinks. I’m going to have sex because I love this person and it feels soooo right. WRONG. It’s only going to lead to more pain and suffering down the road because it’s outside of what God wants for you. Sure, your way will be fun for a week, a month, maybe even a few years. But ultimately, it's going to lead nowhere.

It’s interesting, though. Those little living sacrifices sometimes get up and crawl off that alter… 1 Corinthians 15:31 says “I die every day–I mean that, brothers–just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In other words.. YEA! You’re going to screw up. This is a daily battle! But goodness gracious is it worth it! This is living life.. life that is truly life. This is joy. This is purpose, meaning, and hope. So what does surrender look like?

Doesn’t it suck to wake up in the morning? Early? Yea, but that’s surrendering your body. Waking up, when the day is new, before anything can clog your head and reading God’s word. That is surrender. Breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend who is a non-believer. Inviting someone to youth group who doesn’t know Jesus. Volunteering, tithing, confessing a sin. These are all forms of surrender!

Worship is not defined by music. Music, and singing, and praising is the outpouring to what God is doing in our lives. When we submit to Him, when we experience true joy, then we praise!

Nostalgia

2009-04-02T18:13:00.001-07:00

I am a fan of comedians. I have to keep my life loose because of the way my personality is, my brain can be filled with a lot of the reality of life. One of my favorites is Demetri Martin. The man can get pretty crass, but some of his jokes to me are some of the funniest things I've heard. His type of humor are these quick one or two line type jokes, not these long elaborate stories that most comedians have. He has this one where he says, “I remember when I used to really be into nostalgia.” Oh... nostalgia.

Every year around this time I get in this really nostalgic mood where I begin to think about my life and whether I like what's going on. I mean, I do this regularly anyway, but during this time it's heightened to a ridiculous level. This is because on April 5th seven years ago I recommitted my life to Christ after walking away from him for a couple years of my life. When this time of year comes along for me, I use it as a marker to think about how life is going, what God has done in me over the last year, two years, three years, seven years, whatever. This year is kind of the quintessential nostalgic year for me. Adding on to the seven year mark of following Christ I'm 43 days away from graduating from college. HOLY CRAP! So now I'm thinking about college specifically and my journey during this brief period of my life. For those of you who don't know, my college experience hasn't exactly been a rosy one. In fact, it's been four hard years that many times I feel like I was just scraping by in life to make it to the end.

I look back on my college years and I'm astounded at so many things. I'm amazed by God's grace to work out incredible details to get me to where I am right now in my life. I am so beyond thankful for His faithfulness to me even when I've ignored Him, rebelled against Him, wrestled with Him, and more times than I could count cried out to Him with the question of “why?” It's not that I went through such intense suffering as some people do, but some circumstances brought to my attention some of the deepest questions we have as human beings. I really had never experienced heartache in any way shape or form before I reached college, but I definitely have now.

I'm not here to divulge a bunch of information as to what happened to me because I don't want to come across as a guy looking for a pity party from a bunch of people. I don't want it or need it. What I want to tell you about is something so much better and greater than the pain I felt. I can tell you the main question that I've been asking of the Lord over the last few years, “Have I been doing right by You, Lord? Have I been doing what You want me to do? Have I made choices that have honored You?” I had been so busy recently that I totally forgot about these questions in my brain, but this morning for some reason as I was waking up, eating cereal, preparing for the day and reading in 2 Corinthians 11 that they came flooding back again.

The nature of these questions has nothing to do with areas of sin in my life. I absolutely know where I am sinful and those questions are irrelevant for those situations. What I'm more talking about is asking the questions in areas of decision making in following God's heart, and whether we've done it for the Lord or for ourselves. I can honestly say that I look back at my time in college and I have mistakes that I feel haunt me in many ways. Because of the way my personality is being a deep thinker, I tend to think about how I would have done things differently and maybe the outcomes would have been different. Here's a simple example: about five months ago, I began to plot out how I had done my classes because I saw that I only had to take 7 credits of classes to graduate this semester and asked the question, “How close was I to graduating a semester early?” Now that I had asked the question, I had to get an answer and I realized that if I had really pushed myself hard over three and a half years, I could have been graduated by now. Unfortunately, I was doing this at a time when I was especially frustrated with the school so that just added to my frustration.

But, I started looking back at some of the situations in my life that have some unanswered components to them and I did what I've done so many times and just asked the Lord, “Please, tell it to me straight. I want to hear from you. Have I done right by You?” The Lord then brought to my attention something that He has harped on me so many times. Often when we ask for answers, we're asking the wrong question. If you look at the question, the subject and focus is me. What have I done wrong? What could I do better? Have I done right? The reality is that those are the wrong questions to be asking in terms of our relationship with the Lord because we are not the focus. The focus is upon Him and His faithfulness to us even though we can be faithless. We ask if we've done right because we're seeking some sort of validation from Him that we're okay and that we've been hearing Him all along, which isn't altogether a bad thing.
One of the many lessons I've learned over the years is that we cannot live in regret over mistakes that we've made or in wondering whether we've done something wrong by someone else. We can't replay mistakes over and over again in our minds thinking of how we would have done things differently because in reality, we cannot change them and would make the same decision every time. There is absolutely nothing about our past that we can change. I look at my mistakes and I see that God used those mistakes to turn me into the man that I am becoming, and that is exciting. If you would have told me 4 years ago when I was getting ready to come to college that God was going to do what He has done these 4 years, I wouldn't have believed you. Not for a second. It's remarkable the change that God has made in this little broken vessel.

One of my favorite movie series of all time is the Lord of the Rings movies. There's a line in the first one that I absolutely love. Deep in the mines of Moria, Frodo is dealing with the frustration and agony with having the ring come into his possession and with the choices of his predecessors in terms of the ring. He says to Gandalf, “I wish the ring had never come to me.” Gandalf responds to him with a statement that I think many of us need to remember in our own lives. “It is not for us to decide what happens us to in this life. All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to us.” All we really can do with the things in this life is how we respond and what we do with them. Frodo decided that even though he didn't want the ring, he had to continue forward with his mission to go and destroy it because the task had been given to him and no one else. I look back at my college years and I had to learn that I couldn't be upset with myself with things that happened to me or the mistakes that I made, regrets I had, or uncertainties in choices but to respond and do something about what had been put in front of me. We can't regret the mistakes we've made because most of the time we went with all that we knew. I made the decisions I made based on things that I no weren't true now, but I cannot regret them because I didn't know any better.

The great thing about it is that we have a God who doesn't just let our mistakes hang over our heads, but that redeems them for His glory. God has taken all the junk from my four years of college and turned them into things that I cannot describe the beauty of to people. And yet, there are still so many things that have yet to be redeemed, hurts yet to be fulfilled, that will one day be fulfilled in this life and in the life He has in store for us at the end of all things. Thank You Jesus!

Here's a song by a man that has thought about this once or twice in his life that stirs this idea in my brain:

Gospel Trek

2009-03-27T15:14:00.000-07:00

I recently moved up to Vancouver to be closer to my church family. I can't tell you how thankful I am for this new family I've found. The other night, I was up late for no apparent reason watching TV (which is a regular thing we do) flipping through the channels, we stumbled across probably one of the weirdest, awkward, yet hilarious things we have ever seen. I don't know if any of you have ever seen TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network), but it's this old Christian channel that's put on by super-Pentecostal Christians that completely misuse and misinterpret Scripture. Well, they also created this channel for the younger generation called JCTV (Jesus Christ TeleVision, yeah I'm not kidding) that plays a lot of music videos, but occasionally has some shows on there that for some reason they think is going to appeal to our generation. Some of them are even these old videos from like the 80's or 90's that show extreme sports with that same era's Christian punk rock music. If you think Christian punk is bad now, it had to develop to get to where it is now. Even today, I saw a one with like the early 90's Supertones. They made some good music, but let's be honest, it can be quite cheesy.
So I flip to this channel and no joke we are caught by surprise seeing a large older bald black man in a Star Trek type suit. **Pause to ponder the paradox just created by that statement** If you think this is funny now, just wait. This guy was the Captain of a Christian star ship like from the old Star Trek. (I mean, excuse me while I sound like a nerd, but he didn't even have the right color to be the Captain! It was not accurate!) I don't even remember what the Captain's name was or his crew, but it was horrible. There were 4 others on the bridge (the command deck) and they were in the middle of this mission. The Captain was somber knowing what he had to do. While watching, we couldn't find out the name of the show, so we decided to call it “Gospel Trek”.

To say the least, we would never regularly watch this show because it was simply horrible. Yet, we were way too intrigued to change the channel at this point. It wasn't simply the concept of a Christian Star Trek show that caught our attention, but it was the horrible way in which it was done. No kidding, but for about 5-10 minutes the captain kept asking his crew whether or not there was something out around them in space. The funny part of it was that he would look at each one of them, and say, “Mr. Connors anything on your scanner?” “Nothing, sir.” “Miss Abernathy, anything on your scanner?” “Nothing, sir.” Then each one would question his motive for flying where they were. “Sir, nothing is showing up on the scanners, how do you know if something is there?” And he simply responds with, “I just know something is out there.” This goes for seriously 10 minutes, without commercial break of course.

After 10 minutes or so, they finally get a transmission that says, “If you don't leave this area within three of your earth minutes, you will be destroyed.” So the Captain powers down all his weapons, drops to 10% power basically making himself a sitting duck and says to these aliens, “Please, do not destroy us. We have news that you must here. We are not going to fight you. Please let us tell you this important news.” After a couple tries, the aliens finally allow them to tell their news. No joke, this captain proceeds to tell this alien race about Jesus and the Gospel. The aliens respond something like this, “This news you have told us intrigues us. We would like to learn more about this Jesus. Is there some literature that we can read to learn more?” The captain says, “Yes, it is called the Bible. It points to Jesus and talks about His life and what He taught.” Then the aliens ask for a copy of the Bible to be beamed down to their planet. The Gospel was presented and all the crew members apologized to the captain of the ship for their doubt that God's message needed to be spoken to this alien group. Wow.

To say the least, we were shocked. We still laugh about our “Gospel Trek” experience. But, of course, me being me, it left me thinking about why Christians feel the need to do things like this. Why do Christians feel as if they have to do their own parallel shows, music, or anything to what secular culture does? Was Star Trek such an effective culture change agent that there needs to be a Christian alternative? Seriously? What could possibly be so appealing? Did these people seriously think that a Gospel Trek presentation would bring someone to the Gospel? I mean, I won't rule out the possibility, but how do you think a non-Christian is going to look at this? Honestly, with a lot of the non-Christian friends that I've had, they'd laugh and use it to make fun of all Christians, including those of us who try desperately not to be cheesy.

I think the unfortunate thing that is happening in Christian circles is this desperate try to be “relevant” to this fast and rapidly growing technological society we live in. I honestly believe there are some things that we Christians simply should not try to do. Not because it's evil, but because I don't think it could possibly translate over to our message without watering it down or making it sound stupid. Sure, Jesus told us that His Gospel would be foolishness to the rest of the world, but that's because the world wouldn't understand the type of love that we show, not because of how stupid we make ourselves look with our lame attempts at trying to be relevant.

I would rather have a non-Christian (though I hate calling them that) laugh at me because I got myself hurt loving someone like Jesus did. I would rather be ridiculed because of the love that doesn't make sense to the rest of the world. I don't want to be laughed at because of a T-shirt I was wearing, or the WWJD bracelet that broke, or some cheesy Christianese phrase I throw out in common conversation.

My challenge to all of you who read this is to look more to learning how to live and love like Jesus did rather than trying to find a good place to shop to wear good Christian clothes that look cool, or find the latest cool Christian band and instead look into your Bible to see how Jesus encountered His culture with His love, His passion, and His desire for relationship with the least of people.

Bible Study Tips

2009-02-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! A few weeks ago at youth group we challenged you to seek to understand your faith at a deeper level. One way we suggested that could happen is by reading your Bible. So this blog entry is to give you some good tips for reading your Bible.

First, recognize the importance of what you're reading. In many countries across the world, the Bible is an illegal piece of literature to own and is punishable by prison or even death. This should tell you something. This is more than just a book. How many books in the world could get you killed across the world? Not many. The Bible that you have in your room is a treasure that God has given us. If you are wondering how it got here and if we truly can trust whether or not its true, feel free to e-mail me (chris@cpbc.org) and ask me. This blog entry is geared more towards those who already believe that the Bible is God's Word and want to learn how to read it better.

Second, take a moment to stop and pray before you start reading. Okay, I know this sounds cheesy and christiany, but follow me for a second. Most of the time what happens when we read our Bible, we begin with a thought in mind to dig out whatever we want out of it. Instead of reading it for what it says, we go in with the question, “What does this mean to me?” Going at your Bible study in this manner puts the focus completely on yourself and can lead to some interpretations that the text isn't trying to say. For example, if you look at Matthew 18:20, it says, “For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” Many Godly preachers, I believe, have misinterpreted this passage meaning that if more than two or three people gather together (like in a Church), then God is with them. Well, there's a problem with that since God meets us individually and the passage is not talking about church gatherings but about how to approach a brother or sister in Christ (friend from Church) when they've hurt you. That part of the passage is talking about how if you discuss the matter with two or three of your wisest friends, and you all agree, then God is with you in the matter. Most of the time, people take the passage out of its context, as in the surrounding verses and story, and come up with a truth that has nothing to do with the passage itself. So, this is why you need to pray. None of us are unbiased Bible students, but we do need to submit our wisdom and our biases to God. When I tell you to pray before you read, I'm telling you to make sure to get your heart straight with God before you go into it.

Thirdly, read it slowly and deliberately. One of my big problems that I had when I was a young Christian was reading the Bible too fast. It really is okay to read just 1 chapter a day. It's just a matter of what you do with that 1 chapter. Most people get hung up on how much of the Bible they read in one day or how much time they spent in the Bible instead of asking, “How well did I read the Bible? How well did I use the time I spent in the Bible today?” If you spend 5 minutes breezing through 1 chapter and then put it away for the day, how well did you spend that time? But, if you spent 15 minutes, reading the chapter in maybe 5 minutes, then thinking and praying about it for 10 minutes after that, how well did you spend the time? What I've learned about my faith, it is not the quantity of time I spend with God, but the quality of time with Him. Trust me, if you work on the quality of your time with Him, the quantity will grow, too.

Fourthly, ask questions. Not just, what should I change in my life, but why is this here? Why did the writer use that metaphor? Why is this story here? Why? Why? Why? If you have questions that you cannot answer, then ask an adult from our ministry or one that you trust that may know the answer. I personally would be glad to answer any of your questions, though I can't guarantee you'll get an answer. I may just ask you a series of questions instead. The key in studying the Bible is not to come up with immediate answers, but to ask questions and really try and figure out what it's saying. We live in a culture that thrives on “easy mac” answers, instead of taking the time to cook a good meal with the questions.

Fifthly, discuss with others your age. Talk with others about what you're reading and see if they're seeing the same thing. Along with this, you could read this with another person, out loud. (*Whoa, you're telling me to read the Bible out loud?! I don't want to sound like a boring preacher dude!*) Okay, granted, most people read the Bible in a monotone (snorefest!) voice, but here's the deal, this was written by a person who was deeply passionate about he was writing. You think Jesus called the Pharisees “brood vipers!” in a boring teacher voice, or in a booming screaming yelling fanatic “YOU BROOD OF VIPERS!!!” Yeah, definitely the latter. Trust me, reading it out loud and with changing your tone of voice based on what is being read completely changes how the Bible sounds.

Sixthly, (I'm getting to the end I promise!!!) read it in a private place. Don't read it while chatting online, checking myspace or facebook, doing homework, watching TV, and somehow walking the dog at the same time. You will get absolutely nothing out of it. I'm not guaranteeing that you will get something out of it if you read it without all those things, but I am saying you it will be more likely. Find a good time out of your day that you know you will be alone for the amount of time you want and stick to it.

Seventhly, (okay, I realize this is getting ridiculous) if you don't understand what you just read or zoned out temporarily (which I do all the time), read it again. Yes, I did say it. Read it again. In my freshman Bible Study Methods class, after an entire semester of teaching us the best ways to study the Bible (I wasn't being sarcastic at all there), the professor says this to us, “I've taught you all the ways I see best to study the Bible, but I will give you the single best way to study your Bible. It is simply this: if you do not understand, read it again. Read it 50 times if you have to. The best Bible study method is to read a passage over and over again until it becomes ingrained into your brain.” I can honestly tell you (without sarcasm) that he is absolutely right. If you have ever been impacted by anything I've taught you from the Bible, it is because I have read the passage many many times before I present anything to you. It's about repetition. Athletes understand this. In order for you to understand a play, get better at the fundamentals, you have to do it over and over again. Or if you're a gamer. How many people got on World of Warcraft right away and were instant stars? You can try and disagree with me on this, but they weren't good until they had played the game for long periods of time. Same applies to Bible study. If you take the time to get used to the Bible, practice reading it, and reading it over and over again, your view of the Bible will begin to change.

I want to say this to close this off. In no way, shape or form is this a fool-proof way to get the best out of your Bible. I'm simply one dude giving you my take on it. There are many other ways. Don't take my word for it though. It is incredibly important that you learn to think for yourself and to become more familiar with the text that God has given to us as His Word so that we may know the way of His life, the truth of His life, and the real life we find in His life. I think some guy said something like that one time (hint: His name is Jesus).

The Real Jesus

2009-02-11T12:29:00.001-08:00

Take out your Bible...

Now go to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These pages are the foundation of our faith. Right here, in these four biographies, we have the real account of the man, Jesus Christ. We sing thousands of praise songs about Him, we pray in His name, Jesus is supposedly the center of our faith, and our lives. We trust Him for salvation and we call ourselves Christians or "little Christ’s." But how often do we actually find the time to read about the man? Is it possible to miss Jesus? In the midst of Christianity could we actually be missing who He really is? Is He even interesting to us anymore?

I would tend to believe that if you've grown up in the church, you have it the worst. You would remember all the Sunday school flannel graph stories about Jesus feeding the five thousand, or walking on water, turning water into wine, healing people... We've heard the stories hundreds of times, and we may think we know who He is already. Somehow Jesus becomes this very nice and domesticated Mr. Rogers type of fellow.

The problem with this is that no one would crucify Mr. Rogers.

My challenge to you is this: take your bible and the next few minutes and read along with me just a couple accounts of how wild and crazy Jesus actually was when he walked the earth. He never met people’s expectations. He defied, offended, and blasted the religious people of His day and it is my prayer and hope that we will begin to wake up to the real person...

Read Matthew 8:1-3 - Leprosy
Here we begin at the end of this sermon that Jesus is doing called the Sermon on the Mount. There are massive crowds of people following and listening to Him at this point. Now, you have to understand that leprosy back then was not only a physical disease, but there was a huge social stigma attached. You would be cast out of society; you would have to shout "unclean! unclean!" when you were around people, and you were not able to worship in the synagogues which was HUGE for someone who was Jewish. It was thought that having this disease was your fault. A result of you or your families sin, so you deserved it. It was also thought that purity would not affect your impurity, but the other way around.

v.3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

There is no way, no possible way to communicate 2,000 years later the audacity and outrage of this. The controversy and the complete offensive nature of this act! You did NOT touch someone with this disease! Let alone someone with Jesus' stature. Jesus could have healed this guy long distance. I mean he's Jesus; all he has to do is say the words. But he makes it a point to actually touch him! Unfortunately we think, and are taught, that we have to get cleaned up before we show ourselves to Jesus. We think we have to get our doubts answered, and get our life together, and fit in with the church crowd. And this thinking would be the same for the religious people back in the day. But Jesus was so revolutionary. Your impurity doesn't affect Him, His purity affects you. What Jesus is saying here is "I am willing! You need me because you can't clean yourself."

Read Matthew 8:5-13 - The Centurion
There's all sorts of background that we miss 2,000 years later. At this point in history, Rome has conquered the known world and occupies Israel. The Romans were godless (gentiles), and how can Israel be ruled over when they are supposed to be God's chosen people? Now, a centurion was like a Roman captain. Enforcing Caesars laws, backing the tax collectors... The Jews hated these guys. Read verse 8-9. The centurion knows how authority works. He knows that all Jesus has to do is say the words and it will be done. Jesus is astonished by this mans faith and even says, with ALL these (Jewish) people following him that he had "not found anyone in Israel with such great faith." Imagine you are a Jew, your people have been waiting for the messiah for thousands of years, and Jesus says this to someone who was not only gentile, but a Roman soldier, a centurion. Crazy. When Jesus walked the earth he didn't care who you associated with. He didn't care if you were religious, or if you had any bible school, or if you were the only Christian in your family... Jesus came to destroy the religious impulses that somehow try to justify us before God, and replace it with something infinitely better.. Himself.

How far have we come from knowing, celebrating, and worshipping the real Jesus to just taming Him down and softening him up? When He walked the earth He was far more radical and gracious to those he hung around with. If you're skeptical of Christianity, been hurt by the church, come from a broken home, are trapped by addiction... you just have to know that the real Jesus would have loved hanging out with you! The church will let you down; Christianity won't change your heart. But He is more loving and gracious than you could possible imagine. He is alive, and He is willing to renew and cleanse you.

My challenge would be this. Read these four biographies about the man, Jesus Christ. Ask questions, find answers, and build your faith on Jesus.

in Him,
Steve Smith
Student Ministries Intern

Reverse the Curse!!

2009-01-17T18:27:00.000-08:00

Hello there! This being our first entry and all, I shall explain a little bit about what this blog is intended for.
We'll be posting our ideas and thoughts on a regular basis involving Reversal Ministries, as well as our plans for upcoming teaching at our Wednesday Gatherings or whatever is on our hearts. I really hope you keep checking back, and provide us with feedback!

We are very excited for the new year and the new vision God has given us for our youth group at Cascade Park. So! As I said before.. keep checking back here to get inside our heads a little!!

in Him,
Steve Smith
Student Ministries Intern