Lessons From Tiger: A God-Shaped Hole in One
by Lane Palmer
If you google “Tiger Woods” right now, you will get around 40 million returns and over 7,000 news articles.
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the kind of popularity he desires right now. The mainstream media is (as expected) executing the typical “pile on” maneuver and reporting on anything they can get their hands on, and if you’re like me, you’re ready for this story to run its course.
Of course, it won’t anytime soon. We’ll be treated to headliner stories and sordid details that the generally morbid population feeds on like sharks in frenzy. We’ll get theories, speculations, and allegations that may go on for weeks—even months.
Until, that is, somebody else in the limelight pulls a different bigger-than-life train wreck that turns into the next menu item for TMZ and all manner of gossip-loving folks who love to read about failures so they can feel better about themselves.
But it should be different for Christians Read more
Posted by Pastor Matthew Thursday, December 10, 2009 0 comments
Labels: CONNECT
"Get Connected" tomorrow!
Cookies and brownies will be provided, bring money for coffee or smoothies.
Whoever brings the most friends wins a Coffee Connect tumbler with coffee!
| When: | Wednesday - December 9 5:30pm-7:30pm |
| Where: | Coffee Connect 1405-E Hwy 66, Kernersville, NC |
Posted by Laura Tuesday, December 08, 2009 0 comments
"Let's Get Connected"
Cookies and brownies will be provided, bring money for coffee or smoothies.
Whoever brings the most friends wins a Coffee Connect tumbler with coffee!
| When: | Wednesday - December 9 5:30pm-7:30pm |
| Where: | Coffee Connect 1405-E Hwy 66, Kernersville, NC |
Posted by Laura Thursday, December 03, 2009 0 comments
Labels: Embrace
fruit baskets for the homebound
Please bring oranges, bananas, apples, grapes, strawberries and hard candy
If you are a parent and want to help deliver please see Matthew at church Wednesday!
If you help with Awana please honor your commitment, but you are encouraged to bring supplies.
Posted by Laura Tuesday, December 01, 2009 0 comments
Labels: Express
Stay informed with your phone!
Sign up below for your correct group! If you need help please contact me.
Standard texting rates apply. It depends on your personal cell phone plan.
High School Students
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Middle School Students
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Parents
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Parents who also Volunteer in the Student Ministry
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Posted by Pastor Matthew Monday, November 30, 2009 0 comments
Snowbird Information for 2010
My top four reasons for encouraging camp for your student/s! As a youth pastor I have seen God do in students’ lives things at camp that led me to include youth camps as one of the key facets of Illuminate Student Ministry. Please prayfully consider
As a youth minister camp is:
• THE BEST WAY TO INTRODUCE LOST STUDENTS TO CHRIST: Camps provide a unique 5-day “window” in which unsaved young people can be exposed to the claims of Christ! Think of it! Where else can I get that amount of time in that kind of spiritual environment to “show” an unsaved student what it is like to be part of the eternal family of Christ? They are surrounded by His love, His people, His Word! Hey, they come for the friends, the girls and the sports and recreation, but they could leave with the best friend of all, Jesus Christ!
• MY BEST SHOT AT STRENGTHENING CORE STUDENTS: Camps provide the best opportunity to deepen the spiritual walk of my “core students.” Teens are so distracted today with so many things tugging at their busy schedule... kids have Smart phones now, for crying out loud! Camp is my best shot at getting their undistracted attention for at least a week! During camp, I spend time with my campers re-enforcing their love for Christ.
• MY BEST (if not only) HOPE OF BUILDING UNITY: Camps do wonders for the unity of my student group! Only mission trips exceed the bonding effect of camp, and it is usually more costly to get ALL my students to participate in a mission trip (plus the focus is on others’ needs, not our needs) so that leaves camp as my best opportunity to spend a week building the loyalty, togetherness, and focus of my ENTIRE youth group!
• MY BEST TIME OF THE YEAR TO PREPARE MY STUDENTS FOR THE UPCOMING SCHOOL YEAR: Camps help me focus my students both on their commitment to Christ AND on our purpose as a youth group...to glorify Christ by reaching our unsaved friends at school. It is my best time for my group to regain focus before school begins again and we are back into the heavy school-year schedule with plays, sports, clubs, etc.
Please read information sheet carefully, there are three options for your student to choose from this summer. If you have any questions please contact me about details. The information sheet was reviewed and approved by Youth Ministry leadership at our last meeting.
Posted by Pastor Matthew Monday, November 23, 2009 0 comments
Labels: SWO
World Changers 2010
2nd largest land mass in the world
3,849,650 square miles
5.5 time zones
32,730,213 people
120 languages
average age 38
one of the most ethnically diverse countries in world
The need:
more than 12,000 same sex marriages since 2005
in Quebec abortion rates doubled in the last 20 years HIGHEST RATE IN THE WORLD!
Quebec has HIGHEST suicide rate in the world. 5 suicides per day
Why we must go!
# of walmarts in Canada 289 Number of southern Baptist churches 240
1.6 million students only 5% involved in campus ministry
3 million people age 12-18
5% of students claim to be evangelical Christians
40% of Canadians under 24 claim no religion at all
“It is not that Canadians have rejected the Gospel; most have never heard the Gospel” Dr. Henry Blackaby
World changers information sheet is available for download here. If you have any questions please contact me. Here is a FAQ from World Changers,adapted to us and our trip this year.
Posted by Pastor Matthew Monday, November 23, 2009 0 comments
Labels: World Changers
Take It Easy
by Charles R. Swindoll
Proverbs 22:6
Maybe it's because I just had another birthday. Maybe it's because I'm a granddad several times over. Or maybe it's because of a struggling young seminarian I met recently who wishes he had been higher on his parents' priority list than, say, fifth or sixth. He was hurried and ignored through childhood, then tolerated and misunderstood through adolescence, and finally expected to "be a man" without having been taught how.
My words are dedicated to all of you who have the opportunity to make an investment in a growing child so that he or she might someday be whole and healthy, secure and mature. Granted, yours is a tough job. Relentless and thankless . . . at least for now. But nobody is better qualified to shape the thinking, to answer the questions, to assist during the struggles, to calm the fears, to administer the discipline, to know the innermost heart, or to love and affirm the life of your offspring than you.
When it comes to "training up the child in the way he should go," you've got the inside lane, Mom and Dad. So---take it easy! Remember (as Anne Ortlund puts it) "children are wet cement." They take the shape of your mold. They're learning even when you don't think they're watching. And those little guys and gals are plenty smart. They hear tone as well as terms. They read looks as well as books. They figure out motives, even those you think you can hide. They are not fooled, not in the long haul.
The two most important tools of parenting are time and touch. Believe me, both are essential. If you and I hope to release from our nest fairly capable and relatively stable people who can soar and make it on their own, we'll need to pay the price of saying no to many of our own wants and needs in order to interact with our young . . . and we'll have to keep breaking down the distance that only naturally forms as our little people grow up.
Time and touch. Listen to your boys and girls, look them in the eye, put your arms around them, hug them close, tell them how valuable they are. Don't hold back. Take the time to do it. Reach. Touch.
When you are tempted to get involved in some energy-draining, time-consuming opportunity that will only increase the distance between you and yours, ask yourself hard questions like, "Could my time be better spent at home?" and "Won't there be similar opportunities in the years to come?" Then turn your attention to your boy or girl. Hold nothing back as you renew acquaintances.
Take it easy!
The two most important tools of parenting are time and touch.
Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll, Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.
Posted by Pastor Matthew Tuesday, November 17, 2009 0 comments
