Parents Meeting

Parents only!

We are having an informational meeting on Sunday September 13th, this will be at 6pm and will be done at 7:30pm. We are going to share with you why the Hype is moving and the purpose behind our ministry. We would love to have you there. Thanks!

Ernie and Rory

Illinois Christian Teen Convention (ICTC)

Sr. High students and parents

We are going to ICTC again this year. We are very excited about the conference this year. They are partnering up with the National Missionary Convention (NMC). The NMC welcomes people from all over the world to come in and share what they are doing for the Kingdom of God. The NMC and ICTC has set up an event that will get our High School students involved in helping in the mission field from Peoria IL.

They will have times where students get to help pack clothes/food and build walls that are going to all be sent into the mission field. Not to mention worship music from Kristian Stanfill

http://www.kristianstanfill.com/

and speaker Jason Epperson who is a director over youth from Champaign IL.

We are excited about this fall trip but money is due by September 30th.

The cost is only $50 and if that is hard to pull by Sept. 30 talk to Rory or Ernie.

ICTC is November 20-21st. We leave that Friday 20th at 4pm. Return Saturday the 21st at 10pm.

Love and Knowlege

I recently finished a four week sermon series on the book of Hosea at NHCC. I found that not too many people know much about the book of Hosea, probably because it is the first of the Minor Prophets and no one really likes reading those books all that much (honestly, how many of us can say we love reading books like Nahum or Obadiah?). As I spent time reading over and over the message of Hosea, it dawned on me once again that the message God spoke through His prophet is still SO relevant to us in today's culture.

In the book of Hosea, God speaks of coming judgment upon the nation of Israel because they continually turned away from Him. Israel had time and time again turned to false deities and idols in order to find protection and provision, instead of looking to the one true God who had led them out of Egypt! So throughout the prophecy, God warns of impending judgment on the nation of Israel because of their unfaithfulness and unrighteousness. Israel found themselves in a terrible spot.

Throughout the entire book of Hosea, there is one verse that constantly stands out to me. Chapter 6, verse 6 says, "For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowlege of God rather than burnt offerings."

Here's the scary thing: The two things that God desires from us are two of the things that we often hate to do!

1. Love God. Not only are we called to love God, but to do it in a steadfast manner. Two verses earlier, God said that Israel's love was like the morning mist, that it simply vanishes. When God calls us to a steadfast love, this means that it is something that will remain, even through the difficult times. It's easy to say that we love all the time, but love implies obedience. If I say I love someone, then it means that I will show obedience and willingly do what they need. Though God doesn't need anything from us, we show our love to Him through obedience. This is where we often stray. Ever find it difficult to live a life of obedience to God? I know I do.

2. If love through obedience is difficult, the second half of the command might be even harder! God requires us to "know" Him. This is a difficult task because it requires a few steps. First of all this means that we need to know about God, which comes from some pretty serious study of Scripture. However, this also means that we must communicate with Him through prayer. Some people love to study Scripture yet hate prayer, while others might be the exact opposite. Rarely do you find someone who thoroughly enjoys both steps of getting to know God

May we as a youth group strive to both LOVE God and KNOW Him as well! This is Rory and my aim, that we can equip you so that you can develop a personal relationship with Him that involves both your knowlege as well as your steadfast love!

Where is the challenge?

If you have not seen the trailers they have taken a classic child's book and turned it into a movie.  Nothing special about that, right?  It seems like they take children's books all the time to make movies, "James and the Giant Peach", "Chronicles of Narnia", "Princess Diaries", and of course the Harry Potter series.  Some books have been brought alive by movies, some have done an injustice to the book.  The movie that is coming out soon rivals the idea to make "Polar Express" into a full length motion picture.  The have taken the book, "Where the Wild Things Are" and turned it into a movie.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NOkQ4dYVaM check the link out if you have not seen the trailer.  If you have never seen the classic story, it is about 20 pages and the story shows a young boy who is sent to his room only to get carried away by his imagination of taking a forever long voyage to an island where the wild things are.  The wild things are a bunch of crazy monsters and this child is wilder than even them.  He is so much more wild that the monsters make him king and they have fun, only for him to leave and go back home, to reality to have supper.  

Why do I mention this?  Well where has the imagination and creativity gone?  It seems like we have given our youth too little of a challenge of creating their own imagination.  The details of movies, video games, and in so many other areas makes it almost uneccessary to imagine the pictures that are drawn out in writing.  The whole story of "Where the Wild Things Are" is about the boy and his imagination, and yet they have made it into a movie so kids no longer need to picture the wonderful island for themselves, or think of the wild things, or picture what they were doing.  

I have also seen this have its effect on students faith.  When they are challenged with a doubt, or a theological question that they do not have an answer for, they come to me for an answer or the just chalk up an old Sunday School answer to it.  Students are expecting to be spoon fed the answers that they think will easily answer the questions or doubts in their head.  This is contrary to how it suppose to happen.

God calls us to love him with everything, including our minds and so often students, as well as adults have tried to find their answers in things outside of God.  Just how they have come to expect in our culture to be void of using their minds, the challenge of creativity, they have started to do the same with God.  The Hype has been working hard to show the students the importance of turning to God in prayer and scripture to find the answers to their questions, strength through their doubt.  This is going to be a challenge we continue on to our students.