Sunday 12.14.08

This week will be our second week in our Advent series. We're looking at the Biblical account of the birth of Jesus and trying to realize just how incredible the events actually were. This week we'll look at the shepherds encounter with the angel, their trip to find Jesus, and how it impacted their lives. We'll be looking at Luke 2:8-12,16-18.
Our takeaway point will be that this story was so incredible that it impacted the Shepherd's lives forever. How has it impacted your life?
Thanks.
JM

Sunday 11.23.08

Today we're going to talk about the consequences of our disobedience. We'll look at Genesis 3 to see how Adam and Eve responded when they realized their mistake: Cover up the problem, hide, find excuses/pass blame. We'll use this to look at how we respond when we realize we've messed up. We'll also continue with the Metamorphosis theme by looking at how Adam and Eve's sin had the consequence of separating us from God and changed the course of our story forever.
Thanks.
JM

Sunday 11.16.08

This week we'll continue our Metamorphosis series, which is looking at the redemption story of the Bible. We'll talk about the fall of man this week by looking at the garden of Eden, the temptation, and the commitment to sin and disobedience of God. We'll talk about how Adam and Eve made the same mistake that we choose to make: We fail to trust God and we believe that we know better than God does how we should run our lives.
Thanks.
JM

Sunday 11.09.08

I just realized I forgot to post this. Today we started our series called Metamorphosis. In this series we'll talk about the redemption story of the Bible. We'll look at how it was intended to be, how we ruined it, God's plan to rescue it, and the role we play in the redemption rescue mission.
We looked today at how God's creation was intended to be when he made it. How we had limitless fellowship with God and how we had a simple life with only one rule: Don't eat from one particular tree. We focused on how different that is from how the world is today: far from perfect.
Thanks.
JM

Sunday 11.02.08

This Sunday will be our wrap up message for Chiaroscuro. We're going to talk about how Jesus is The Light and how we can point people to The Light because we are the light to the world. We'll look at John 1:4-9 and Matthew 5:14-16. We'll focus things down to what we can do to help people praise God by acts of service on a personal level. We'll leave with the question of Would my school, my house, my activity be darker if I wasn't in it?
Thanks.
JM

Sunday 10.19.08

This week we continue our Chiaroscuro series, which is focusing on the contrast between light and dark in spiritual terms. We're going to take on the topic of why do good things happen to bad people. Why does it seem that people who don't care anything about God live easy, seemingly blessed lives?
We'll base our study around Solomon, the man who tried everything to find the meaning of life. We'll look at Solomon's teachings in Ecclesiastes to discover our focus should not be on what God gives us, but instead on our relationship with God.
Thanks.
JM

Sunday 10.12.08

This Sunday we'll continue our Chiaroscuro series, which is focusing on light and dark in spiritual terms. This week we're going to focus on why bad things happen to good people. Why does it seem like God punishes some people, even though they are adding light into the world? We'll try to unpack some of the frustrations that students might feel because of this frustrating situation and we'll try to understand why it might seem that God is punishing people who are following Him.
Thanks.
JM