Share Your Hope

Today's devotion is from our Senior High pastor Chris Herning. I found it really helpful and encouraging, check it out!

Be happy, patient and pray!

There's a ton of good stuff in these instructions from the Apostle Paul to the church in Rome. What is God saying to you today through these words?

Romans 12:1-12 GOD’S WORD Translation

Dedicate Your Lives to God

12 Brothers and sisters, in view of all we have just shared about God’s compassion, I encourage you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, dedicated to God and pleasing to him. This kind of worship is appropriate for you. ² Don’t become like the people of this world. Instead, change the way you think. Then you will always be able to determine what God really wants—what is good, pleasing, and perfect.

³ Because of the kindness^[a] that God has shown me, I ask you not to think of yourselves more highly than you should. Instead, your thoughts should lead you to use good judgment based on what God has given each of you as believers. ⁴ Our bodies have many parts, but these parts don’t all do the same thing. ⁵ In the same way, even though we are many individuals, Christ makes us one body and individuals who are connected to each other. ⁶ God in his kindness gave each of us different gifts. If your gift is speaking what God has revealed, make sure what you say agrees with the Christian faith. ⁷ If your gift is serving, then devote yourself to serving. If it is teaching, devote yourself to teaching. ⁸ If it is encouraging others, devote yourself to giving encouragement. If it is sharing, be generous. If it is leadership, lead enthusiastically. If it is helping people in need, help them cheerfully.
⁹ Love sincerely. Hate evil. Hold on to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to each other like a loving family. Excel in showing respect for each other. ¹¹ Don’t be lazy in showing your devotion. Use your energy to serve the Lord. ¹² Be happy in your confidence, be patient in trouble, and pray continually.

What are you growing?

Hey there! What are you doing to cultivate your relationship with God? What do I mean by cultivate? Here's the dictionary definition.

Cultivate

: to foster the growth of cultivate vegetables (cultivate coffee)

: to improve by labor, care, or study : cultivate the mind

 

God loves us. He'd do anything to be with us, in fact he already did do everything by coming to earth for us, showing us how to live, and then dying to bear the punishment for our sins. He did it all. God is not some far off king on a throne, watching from a distance as we live our lives. He wants to be right here with us now, as Jesus was with his best friends. God can do that, be with us and be close to us all the time, through the work of the Holy Spirit who enables God to live in us.

 

But, here's the big but, it's our job to cultivate the relationship with God. If our thoughts and heart are totally consumed by other things, even other good things, we push God out. There's no room for him. And so we need to make an effort to get to know God, through prayer and studying the Bible, and learning to listen to the Holy Spirit.

This app can help you A LOT. It's a daily devotional that was created just for teens by a youth pastor in the Vineyard denomination. You can download it for free on either iTunes or Google Play. Follow the links to learn more! Happy cultivating :)

Shortest Video Ever

Watch this!

The Hugeness of God

What do you need from God today? I asked Him that question this evening, and He reminded me how big He is - but also that He’s here now with you and me, anyone who follows Him, not even right next to us but within us!!!

Spend some time meditating on Psalm 139 and Isaiah 40, and on how the Biblical prophet poets described God’s power and size. Then remember Paul’s words from the New Testament, that through the gift of the Holy Spirit, that vastness chooses to take up residence in us! That’s worth spending a few minutes remembering and talking to God about.

Make It! The Creation Challenge

With all this extra time at home, why not work on learning a new skill or even perfecting an old one? It could be anything: cooking (like in my video), art, music, building stuff, knitting, writing or something else with your hands, inventing a board game - whatever!

When we create something beautiful, we are participating in God's holy work of creation. We are creators, much like the Creator who made us all! That's part of our job, to continue God's important work of creation, whether it's a scarf or a piece of music, or a great Lego skyscraper, an app ... whatever!

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Ephesians 2:10

As I explain in the video, I've been trying to perfect homemade pizza for several months now. Above is the result of what I show cooking in the oven while filming. Tonight I came very close to getting it just right! It was delicious - all four of us ate it, even the baby, and it was gone in about 15 minutes :) Tonight's toppings were pepperoni, yellow pepper, mushroom and kalamata olives. As promised, here is my recipe if you want to give homemade pizza a try.

Pizza Crust
Making the crust is actually pretty easy. I double the crust recipe since I have a stand mixer that can handle that amount of dough. Then once the dough has risen, I divide it into four portions and freeze two of them: it only takes a little while for frozen pizza crust dough to thaw and start rising again, and then you can roll it out and top it.
Basic pizza crust recipe and cooking instructions from the Joy of Cooking

Pizza toppings
I keep these ingredients on hand so we can make pizza whenever we want
-jars of premade marinara or traditional pasta sauce in the cupboard
-blocks or grated bags of mozzarella cheese in the back of the fridge
-pepperoni slices that you can keep in the cupboard until you open the bag
-cans of pineapple chunks (yes! We love pepperoni and pineapple pizza, don't judge) in the cupboard
-vegetables that I dice and quickly sautee on the stovetop to soften before putting on the pizza
-Italian seasoning herb mix that I dash sprinkle over the toppings right before putting the pizza in the oven

You can also get creative with toppings. Here are some of the combinations we've tried:
Cauliflower or chicken marinated in Buffalo sauce with blue cheese crumbles
Red onion, sausage and goat cheese
BBQ chicken and red onion
Anything goes! The sky is the limit

Holy Wednesday - lavishing love on Jesus

 Hey folks! I did the devotion for the church website this morning on Facebook Live, watch it here

Holy Wednesday - Jesus prepares for the Last Supper

And here's a bonus video - this is an Imaginative Prayer exercise about the woman who anoints Jesus with oil at a party (which I talk about in the church devotion). As always, this devotional is from the book Imaginative Prayer for Youth Ministry by Jeannie Oestricher and Larry Warner

Enjoy!

We Shine - a musical devotion

Today's devotion is a musical one!

Enjoy the lyric video to this awesome new song (written and performed by my extremely talented sister-in-law Kat Regester, for Vineyard Worship UK & Ireland). You can listen a few times if you want, reading the lyrics, learning the melody or just letting the song wash over you.

Worship God by appreciating the beauty of the songwriting, the melody and track, and the vocals. Read through the questions and either answer them aloud with a family member, journal them, or just think about your answers. Spend time meditating on the included scripture verses, too. What does God want to say to you through the song, the questions, and/or the Bible verses?

As you listen, here are some questions to consider:

1. What does it mean for God to clean the "debris and dust" off of you? Where does this debris and dust come from?
2. Who is it that makes us shine? Who puts the treasure in us?
3. What's our role in learning to shine? How much do we do and how much does God do?
4. Do you need to ask God to come and make you clean again, to shine you up, so to speak?
5. The opening verse talks about standing in the chaos and calm. How would you describe your life right now? Is it more chaos or more calm? How can you shine in your circumstances?

Here's what Jesus said about letting your light shine: 
“You are light for the world. A city cannot be hidden when it is located on a hill. ¹⁵ No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket. Instead, everyone who lights a lamp puts it on a lamp stand. Then its light shines on everyone in the house. ¹⁶ In the same way let your light shine in front of people. Then they will see the good that you do and praise your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16

And the Apostle Paul said this:
^"Do everything without complaining or arguing. ¹⁵ Then you will be blameless and innocent. You will be God’s children without any faults among people who are crooked and corrupt. You will shine like stars among them in the world ¹⁶ as you hold firmly to the word of life. Philippians 2:14-16

Attitude Check

My friend shared this meme and it made me laugh a lot. It also challenged me to choose gratitude. How's your attitude today?

I admit mine hasn't always been so great. It's too easy to focus on the parts of life that are extra challenging right now, or the things that I am missing.

But the Apostle Paul gives us some encouragement about the kind of attitude we can have. He says this, in 1 Corinthians 10:31:

'³¹ So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything to the glory of God. 

This means we're supposed to do everything - eating, drinking, sleeping in, e-learning, playing video games, eating again, hanging out with our families, walking the dog, eating some more (cuz it's always snack time in quarantine life, right?), brushing our teeth, picking up our room - to the glory of God.

Huh? How do we do that? How do we do all of these everyday activities to the glory of God, especially when we can't go to church?

I'm not pretending to have all the answers here. I'm in the same boat as you, trying to figure this out everyday, how my life that has been so drastically altered and has big demands can be lived to the glory of God.

But here is what I do know. God made us so he could love us. He made us to have relationship with us. And he made us to show his love to others. We show his love to others by spending time trying to become like Jesus, and then acting towards other people - even our parents and annoying little siblings - the way Jesus would act towards them.

If our goal is to bring glory to God, we start by remembering who God made us to be (loved by him, "gardeners" who show his love to others), and then we live our life with that in mind. Sometimes it takes a major attitude shift, especially during these seemingly endless days of shelter-in-place. Here is a prayer you can pray at the start of each day, or when you feel your attitude starting to shift into self-pity, or anxiety, or anger, or even depression or despair. Try choosing a different attitude. Remember that God made you, that he loves you and that he has great things ahead for you today.

Here's the prayer:
"Lord, thank you for making me and for taking care of me. Now, God, make me a blessing to someone today."

Try it and tell us what happens!