Got Faith!

Oh so much fun this week.....It is a blessing each week to meet with our Fun Gang!  We had 7 teens show up last night.  Our topic for the night focused on having Faith in our Lord, Our Savior!  What exactly is faith?  Faith is not something that we can see, touch or even hear.  Hebrews 11:1, says "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."  It is a trust built up in your heart and with this trust you are able to recognize that you are loved, protected, and guided in the right direction through the Holy Spirit.  

Many times it is hard to explain about something you cannot physically see and our goal last night was to help our kids understand that "you must have faith to believe in a God you cannot see." 

One thing that I am recognizing each week that passes is that our kids have faith in my husband and I that we will be at Youth Group to lead them in a Bible Study.  They have faith and depend on us.....much like we all depend on God to help us through every aspect of life.  With this growing trust in mind, we had our kids participate an exercise that tested their Faith in believing what we were telling them.  We had three of our kids step outside the room, each one came in at different times blindfolded.  We took an orange, a lemon, and apple and fed them each one, but the clincher of the exercise was that when they were told they were going to eat an orange they were given a lemon.  So when they were given the other two items we watched to see if there was a hesitation in believing what they were really being given to eat.

The outcome of the exercise revealed that there was only one of the three that had complete faith in what was being fed to them and did not waver even when they were tricked.  The other two were scared to even attempt to eat anything after they were given the lemon in place of the orange.  This exercise brought to light how we questioned many situations in life instead of just having Faith!

I pray that our kids got something out of last night's lesson and have less issues of doubt in their lives!

What does Jesus have in store for us next week..... 

Killer Tunes....January 4, 2012

Our Fun Gang weekly meeting was successful.  Thank you Lord!  We had 7 kids show up last night which is basically our core group.  I was just so happy to start off our year with a great turnout and a captive audience.

Last night's topic was "Killer Tunes"........we all know that teens love music and are typically plugged in listening to some kind of tune throughout some portion of their day.  Our lesson focused on popular music that is so widespread through the media and specifically the hits that made the charts in 2011.  As expected, all the songs that we mentioned that made the top ten chart, our kids had heard before and even some admitted that they really enjoyed listening to them.  Our question to them was "are these songs good to listen and what kind of message are they receiving from them?"

We let them read through some of the lyrics of some of the songs.  They were stunned at the amount of negative messages that these songs presented.  A few of them had mentioned that they had no idea how bad they were, which is understandable especially when the song has a catchy beat or rhythm.  I have to say I am guilty of liking a song or two and not even realizing how wrong the lyrics are which most likely are promoting sex, drugs, or some sort of obscene profanity!  The devil has his sneaky ways to grab us  and draw us closer to him......so why not do it through music!

The key verse for last night was Proverbs 4:23...."Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."  This verse guides you in remembering the fact that it is important to be aware of the worldly influences that have the ability to change our spiritual focus.  We had our kids write this verse down on an index card and on the other side write down the influences that impact them negatively in their daily life.  When they are faced with situations or instances that have the power to sway their focus; they can remind themselves of this verse which is a powerful tool to remind them of what is right in the eyes of their Heavenly Father.

God is Awesome!  Our teens were so interested and captivated through the night.  My husband presented visual material to help them understand clearly how poisonous certain types of music can be and followed it up with supportive scriptures to reflect God's thoughts on music.  We showed them two short videos that gave them insight on rock stars that got caught up with fame and money.

Our first video presented a musician from Korn and how he walked away from fame and fortune to turn his heart to Jesus!

This next video is Lady Gaga before her monumental performance at Madison Square Garden.  She expresses her weaknesses and her concerns outwardly.  She also takes the time to pray....our question to our kids was concerning her focus and her beliefs....Is Lady Gaga lost?

What is such a blessing is that so far this morning I have gotten a few responses from kids and a parent on how great our lesson was last night!  We owe this Glory to our Savior for helping us present this message to our kids!

I am excited to find out what our Father God, Jesus Christ, has in store for us next week!
 

We are the Youth of Shaver Lake!

Hello and Happy New Year! I am a co-leader of the The Fun Gang @ Shaver Lake! I lead this awesome group of teens with my husband Alec. We are so happy to have this opportunity to work with these teens and are honored to teach them the Word of God. We see it as a blessing and we are proud to work together as a team. We started teaching our youth in May 2011. It has been an exciting adventure thus far. We cannot be more blessed to have this opportunity to work with this group of kids. Our group is not large, but we do have a consistent core of about six teens. Each week we challenge ourselves to introduce these kids to subjects they are familiar with but we work hard to tie them in with Bible. The name of youth group, The Fun Gang, is an acronym for Fired Up Now....God's Anointed New Generation. We felt that this name best described our kids a group. Each member of the group is amazing in their own unique ways. I am hoping through this blog you will get to know them through our adventures and journey of learning about our Savior Jesus Christ. We have an exciting year ahead of us! We pray that we can reach out to more teens to join our fun group! I look forward to inviting you to follow our journey each week with these amazing kids. I want to share with you our studies, events, and all the wonderful blessings that come out from our time spent together with these kids. As for this moment in time, I want to wish you a blessed new year and I hope to peak your interest with our experiences with the Fun Gang!