Summer Wednesdays...

We started our summer Wednesday night schedule this past Wednesday, May 10th. We will meet from 6:45 p.m. until 8:15 p.m. Each meeting will involve some games, such as volleyball with a ginormous ball. We will also try to have a snack of some sort and then we will dive into our Bible study time.

This summer we are going through Principles of Spiritual Growth by Miles Stanford. This is the first 18 chapters of his book The Complete Green Letters. While this is a pretty deep book, I know our CBC teens can comprehend it and begin applying some of these principles to their lives. The focus of our study will be seeing what God's Word teaches us about the Christian life. And we will be looking at quite a few positional truths for the believer. In other words, this is who I am in Christ, this is what I have as a believer. Once we understand who we are in Christ and what we have available to us, we can begin to understand how to apply these things to our Christian life. The focus of this study will be understanding this biblical truth; "Not I, but Christ".

This past Wednesday, we looked at the importance of faith. We saw that faith is taking God at His Word. We saw that our faith in God is not a blind leap in the dark, but that our faith is based on facts from God's Word. We have something to stand on. And faith is not just a one time thing that takes place when we trust (place our faith in) Jesus Christ as our Savior. Faith is a way of life for the believer. We are to live by faith (Galatians 2:20). Faith is a God dependence, and as we saw, a God dependence begins when a self dependence ends.

Next week we will look at the subject of "Time". So read ahead in chapter 2 so that you are prepared for next week. And don't forget to bring your Bibles and books next week.

I was glad to see a lot of our youth on Wednesday night, and I hope you can continue to come through the summer. It should be a great time!

Worshiping while Working...

We had a wonderful day last Saturday, May 6th, as we went and helped out some of our folks from CBC by working in their yards. Even though it meant that we had to get up early on a Saturday morning, we all saw that it was well worth it.

First we went to Mrs. Weddle's home, then to Mrs. Prager's home, then to Mrs. Baldridge's home, and finally out to Mr. Scharbert's farm. It was a full day but a profitable day and we even had great weather.

And Mrs. Weddle sent us a poem she wrote about us coming and helping:

The job you did on my house was good
Now the showplace of the neighborhood.
You neatened and cleaned, weeded and mowed
You washed and trimmed and your hard work showed.

I appreciate it more than words can say!
What a great way to start the day!
And to the girls who stained the wood
You did a great job (I knew you could!)

So to Aaron, Elisa, Marissa and Brad
The most willing workers I ever had
To Kathleen, Rachel and the Ruths numbering two
Thanks for all the stuff that you do.

To Brittany, Becca, Maria and Jess
The job you did was truly the best.
And I would truly, truly be caught lying
To not say well done to Melinda and Ryan.

Patty, Priscilla and Tom, her dad
The very best yard team I ever had.
This is the reason I wrote this poem
You gave up a Saturday to work on my home.

Thanks for that great poem Mrs. Weddle!

And most importantly, through this work, we had the opportunity to bring glory to the Lord. A work day on Saturday is worshipping the Lord just as much as coming to church on Sunday. How? Well, for we who are believers, worshiping the Lord is a way of life or a lifestyle. It is not a once-a-week get together. Every moment of every day provides potential for worshiping the Lord. The main question then is...are we worshiping the Lord in this way by depending upon Him and focusing on Him, or are we trying to do it all ourselves and focusing on ourselves. It is very important to have a God-dependence characterizing our lives rather than a self-dependence. Isn't it awesome that we can worship God while pulling up weeds (a result of sin).

So thanks to all of you girls and guys who gave up some time on a Saturday to worship the Lord as we worked together to work in some yards pulling up weeds, raking leaves, picking up sticks, and many other things as well.

Spy vs. Spy recap

Hey, thanks to all of you who came to Spy vs. Spy. I hope you had a great time sneaking around trying to disable satellites while not being killed by assassins. It was a great night and we had a great turn out. I am definitely proud of our CBC youth for inviting friends to come. You guys did a great job.

So begin preparing for next year. Who knows what we may have up our sleeve this time. Who knows what mission may need to be peformed to protect the safety of the world. All I really know is it should be fun. See you next year!

Awana Awards Ceremony

We are having our year end Awana Awards ceremony on May 3 at 7:00 p.m. at CBC. In addition to the younger clubs awards that will be given out, we will also be presenting JV and Journey awards. Michael Hohm will be receiving his Meritorious Award, and Alison Schmidt will be receiving her Citation Award.

Many other JV and Journey participants will also be receiving awards for their accomplishments this past year. So invite your family and friends to come and join you as you celebrate another great accomplishment in your life. And congratulations to all of you guys and girls for your hard work this past year. I am very proud of you all.

See you Wednesday night!