Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Converge 08 - Youth weekend Retreat



Ronnie after swinging into river


Peter, Ronnie, Josh and Anthony

As I am resting from the weekend youth retreat (Converge 08), I am reminded again why God saved me. This weekend we had churches and teens from Maryland, NJ, PA and Delaware participate. We had over 60 teens attend and the weekend was fun as we swam, went tubing down the river, worshiped, camped out and did various games.

We also saw 6 teens accept Christ on Sunday night and others rededicated their lives to have Jesus as their Lord!!! One teen accepted Christ as we were getting ready to take our camp group picture. I got to pray with him as the rest of the teens and adult leaders watched. What a great picture. I knew that God was doing something in this boys life at the Sunday night rally because as I gave the call to accept Jesus he wanted to come but his 2 friends were laughing. He had cut marks all up and down his arms. Jesus just wiped that away!
THEY ARE NOT LAUGHING ANYMORE BECAUSE HE IS A CHILD OF THE KING!

Pretty Cool!

TEENS IN THE RIVER


DOUBLE TROUBLE
ZACK & DUSTIN


ETRAMBLINGS...

Thursday, May 01, 2008

April showers bring....


May is upon us and as the saying goes April showers bring…Wait a minute...we have had very little rain in the last month, yet the flowers are still popping up. We can see that some bulbs and seed grow, even in times of drought. I guess that is because they were deeply rooted years ago.

How about us! As we continue our “Transforming Lives” series this month, we need to remember that our lives should continually be transformed to the image of God. So how do we do this?

Last month, we saw that the “purpose of God for the people of God is to become like Christ. Christ likeness is the will of God for the people of God. It is the eternal predestinating purpose of God (Romans 8:29), it is the historical purpose of God (Corinthians 3:18) and it is the final (eschatological) purpose of God 1 John 3:2.

Three perspectives – past, present and future! All of them are pointing in the same direction: there is God’s eternal purpose, we have been predestined; there is God’s historical purpose, we are being changed, transformed by the Holy Spirit; and there is God’s final or eschatological purpose, we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All three, the eternal, the historical and the eschatological, combine towards the same end of us being like Christ.(Stott)

Last month, we studied:
1. The Power of seeing through Spiritual Eyes (2 kings 6:8-17)
2. The Power of the Inspired Church (Acts 2:36-47
3. The Power of our Fellowship with God! (1 john 1:1-4)
4. The Power of our call to Christ likeness. (1 John 2:6)
This month we will be looking at:
5. The Power of God’s Mercy (Rom 12:1)
6. The power of a renewed Mind (Rom 12:2)
7. The power of our call to Unity (Heb 11:40)
8. The power of Sharing Christ (Acts 17:16-28
If there has been no rain in your life for a period of time or if you have had a period or season of drought, do what David did in 1 Sam 30:1-6. After his family and the families of his warriors were taken captive and his men were plotting to kill him, David was encouraged, restored and found strength in the Lord. Spend time with him!
May God bless you and may we be grounded in the truth to help us in the times of drought.
ET Ramblings...