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!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
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.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Reporting from CIY Believe
Hey everyone,
Well it has been a few weeks since we last posted and I cannot fall asleep for the life of me, so I figured I might as well write a blog post! Not too much going on right now, but it is officially 2:10 AM and we are at the hotel and I think it is nearly impossible to sleep in this hotel room. It's too warm, it's noisy, I don't do well sharing a bed, and Ty-Ty and I noticed that the bed is "lumpy". Thus, I came outside the room, where there is actually some lawn furniture, and sat down and did a little reading. Then Matt and Tyler came out and I was reminded that I am a very bad youth pastor because I let them hang out with me for about 20 minutes, but don't tell Rory, he's sleeping. Aaaand a drunk guy just stopped by to ask me where the vending machines are. This night is getting better and better.
Well, here are a few thoughts to keep ya entertained for the next couple minutes:
1. Believe is amazing. This is my first time going and everything is just better than I could have imagined. Whether it's the music, videos, teaching, stunts or illusions, everything has been done to perfection and CIY is just doing an incredible job at focusing on the jr. high age group. This is what I want to learn in ministry. How do I really zone in on all the different age groups in youth and children's ministry? How does the ministry differ from group to group? Tough questions to answer at times.
2. The speaker last night (Friday) definitely told a story about his 2 year old eating his own feces in the bathtub. It was a difficult story to hear...
3. It is official, Rory's stomach has no bottom when he is eating. I have seen it at Lambert's, I-Hop, and now at Taco Bell. And when he is full, he still likes to talk about how good food sounds, which is odd to me!
4. I have been re-reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller and I just really have to recommend it to all readers. If you have read Blue Like Jazz and it left a bad taste in your mouth for Donald Miller, check out this book instead. I gotta say that I don't agree with everything he writes, but this book really shows that Miller is looking for a way to express Christ to those who need to see Christ as He really was. SFGKW aims to show people why humanity is the way it is and what it means for God to become man in order to redeem us. It's an incredible read.
Alrighty, that's all I am really thinking about right now. I try not to think too hard about a lot of things out of fear that my head really might explode. It is now 3 AM and I am still not the least bit tired. I sure do hope that all of you are having a great weekend I will see you all soon!
-Ernie
Well it has been a few weeks since we last posted and I cannot fall asleep for the life of me, so I figured I might as well write a blog post! Not too much going on right now, but it is officially 2:10 AM and we are at the hotel and I think it is nearly impossible to sleep in this hotel room. It's too warm, it's noisy, I don't do well sharing a bed, and Ty-Ty and I noticed that the bed is "lumpy". Thus, I came outside the room, where there is actually some lawn furniture, and sat down and did a little reading. Then Matt and Tyler came out and I was reminded that I am a very bad youth pastor because I let them hang out with me for about 20 minutes, but don't tell Rory, he's sleeping. Aaaand a drunk guy just stopped by to ask me where the vending machines are. This night is getting better and better.
Well, here are a few thoughts to keep ya entertained for the next couple minutes:
1. Believe is amazing. This is my first time going and everything is just better than I could have imagined. Whether it's the music, videos, teaching, stunts or illusions, everything has been done to perfection and CIY is just doing an incredible job at focusing on the jr. high age group. This is what I want to learn in ministry. How do I really zone in on all the different age groups in youth and children's ministry? How does the ministry differ from group to group? Tough questions to answer at times.
2. The speaker last night (Friday) definitely told a story about his 2 year old eating his own feces in the bathtub. It was a difficult story to hear...
3. It is official, Rory's stomach has no bottom when he is eating. I have seen it at Lambert's, I-Hop, and now at Taco Bell. And when he is full, he still likes to talk about how good food sounds, which is odd to me!
4. I have been re-reading Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller and I just really have to recommend it to all readers. If you have read Blue Like Jazz and it left a bad taste in your mouth for Donald Miller, check out this book instead. I gotta say that I don't agree with everything he writes, but this book really shows that Miller is looking for a way to express Christ to those who need to see Christ as He really was. SFGKW aims to show people why humanity is the way it is and what it means for God to become man in order to redeem us. It's an incredible read.
Alrighty, that's all I am really thinking about right now. I try not to think too hard about a lot of things out of fear that my head really might explode. It is now 3 AM and I am still not the least bit tired. I sure do hope that all of you are having a great weekend I will see you all soon!
-Ernie
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Entitlement
Over the past couple of months, I have been thinking a whole lot about how we always tend to think that we have certain entitlements in life. Whether we're talking about money, gifts, food, or even how people treat us, we tend to think that we deserve something. When it comes to Christmas, there have been times where I think I deserve the gifts that I receive and if I don't get enough, then I believe that I should have gotten more. Or when I have been in relationships in the past, I think that there is a certain way that a girl needs to treat me if she wants the relationship to continue. I know...that sounds absolutely horrible, and a lot of you are thinking, "Poor Ali!" but I assure you, I think I have gotten a lot better as of late.
But think of it this way. What would be your thought if your parents didn't get you a birthday present this year? How would you feel if your boyfriend or girlfriend didn't get you anything for Valentine's Day this year? I think it's easy to get drawn into the mentality of, "Hey, I deserve something here!" However, the more I read through the Bible, it becomes more evident to me that we really aren't all that deserving of that much of anything. In fact, the general idea in the Bible is that when good things happen to us, it's pretty much only by the grace of God.
What this means is that we need a change in perspective, one in which we understand that there is a lot more out there than our wants and desires. Don't hear me say that we should never have desires, I don't believe that at all. But I do believe that none of us are really entitled to anything in this world. Instead of thinking about what we deserve, whether it's with our friends, family, significant others or even strangers, let's begin to think about how we can better serve and give ourselves to others instead. I think this is the attitude that Christ had and it's one that we should adopt in our own lives. Think of what our youth group would look like if we decided to serve others with everything that we have!
-Ernie
But think of it this way. What would be your thought if your parents didn't get you a birthday present this year? How would you feel if your boyfriend or girlfriend didn't get you anything for Valentine's Day this year? I think it's easy to get drawn into the mentality of, "Hey, I deserve something here!" However, the more I read through the Bible, it becomes more evident to me that we really aren't all that deserving of that much of anything. In fact, the general idea in the Bible is that when good things happen to us, it's pretty much only by the grace of God.
What this means is that we need a change in perspective, one in which we understand that there is a lot more out there than our wants and desires. Don't hear me say that we should never have desires, I don't believe that at all. But I do believe that none of us are really entitled to anything in this world. Instead of thinking about what we deserve, whether it's with our friends, family, significant others or even strangers, let's begin to think about how we can better serve and give ourselves to others instead. I think this is the attitude that Christ had and it's one that we should adopt in our own lives. Think of what our youth group would look like if we decided to serve others with everything that we have!
-Ernie
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