Wow, I have a hard time keeping up with this blog. Sorry I'm a slacker! It was awesome playing outside for a while this week. Being able to beat up on you guys playing soccer, then hug the people who were soaked in the baptismal was awesome.
We've been in the middle of our lessons on Good Fruit. We spent a lot of time talking about patience this week. I want you guys to keep in mind that keeping patient in our prayer life is key. Remember to say the verse back to God that we talked about, "I'm going to be still and know that You are God." What do you think it means to know that He is God? Who is God? The answer to that question shapes our entire lives.
So today, try to think through who God is. Be still today and know that He is God.
February 10, 2009
I've been doing a lot of thinking this past week about how we can show Jesus to other people. My job is huge, probably one of the most important jobs in the world, I teach you guys about Jesus Christ. That is a huge responsibility. Sometimes I take it lightly, I don't take it as seriously as I should. My life should reflect what I teach you guys, and sometimes it just doesn't. I'm a sinner. Even though Jesus has saved me and I'm going to heaven, I still sin. I can't stand that I sin... I hate that I sin, but I still do it. So don't ever get the impression of me that I'm perfect just because I'm teaching and you're listening. I'm learning just like you. I'm sorry for the times I haven't been prepared to teach you or took my responsibility lightly. Because sometimes I sin on purpose, and I know that wrecks what I teach. I am going to guard everything there is about my life so you will know that what you are hearing from me, I'm doing everything I can to live it out in my own life.
We can all learn from that. At your school, when you tell someone you are a Jesus follower, they paint a target on your back whether you want them to or not. They are watching you. They want to see what it is like to be a Jesus follower. If your actions don't match your words, will they want to become Jesus followers? If you say you're a Christian and then cheat on tests, or lie, or cuss, or whatever, you are giving them reasons not to trust in Jesus.
I am really working on making Jesus the center of every part of my life. Not just when I teach, not just when I'm at church, not just when I'm supposed to be a Christian. I want to trust Jesus even when nobody is looking. If I can do that, Jesus can do great things through me. Work on following Jesus with everything and every time. Do it when you think nobody is watching, do it when you don't want to, do it when you could sin and nobody would find out. Follow Jesus in those quiet places and He will make you a warrior when everybody is looking.
See you guys tomorrow at JAM! I'm looking forward to seeing all of your mugs :)
January 27, 2009
I've made you guys eat some pretty weird stuff, but I must say none of them made me want to throw up more than the anchovies. Their smell almost made me gag, but I'm proud of those who took the plunge and ate them...
Monterey Bay Aquarium - Anchovies from J. P. Kang on Vimeo.
I wonder how many of them were in our little can??
I hope you guys are continuing to VOLT, I talked to one of you who already had 40 VOLTS done!!!!! That's amazing!
Hope you guys are ready for tomorrow, I sense it's going to be fun.
January 20, 2009
We're talking about prayer this week at JAM and I came across this video of two kids that aren't too happy at all that they didnt get what they wanted for breakfast.
I hope this is not what we sound like to God :)
January 19, 2009
I've read a lot of stuff saying that the things that you do now will affect you in the future. So your childhood is extremely important, the habits you get into now are more than likely going to be the habits you have 10 years from now. Which is why I want so badly for you guys to get into the Bible and making that a habit. I'm only now making reading the Bible an everyday habit, and it's a lot harder to develop new habits as you get older! So don't forget to VOLT. Joshua 1:8 says, "Do not let the Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."
Develop those good habits now so you will have awesome habits later. This is the habit that I had when I was little:
Not sure how it carries over into today, but it still was a pretty cool habit to have (by the way, none of these people are me... they are mucho better than I ever was, I am not that cool.)
I had fun at school although I am still major tired, and I get to go back to school tomorrow night!! Adventures galore. I can't wait to see you all back at JAM on Wednesday, I hope you didn't have too much fun without me :)
January 13, 2009
V (Verse) - Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."
O (Own Words/Observation) - God has the biggest and best dreams, way cooler than we can imagine, already planned out for our lives! :) He's the One who created us for those dreams. When we are walking with Jesus in a surrendered relationship (delighting in Him), our hearts become purified by His truth and His super-amazing love!! It is there that we can see that God's plans for us are sooooo good -- we begin to desire and want those plans for our lives.
L (Live it) - We all want things and have dreams for our own lives, right? God wants to give us what we want just because He loves us. So often I THINK I know what I want and I begin to chase after it. For some reason I can't get it or once I do, I realize it isn't really what I really wanted. God sees my heart and understands it better than I do, He knows what I truly want and need. Instead of dreaming on my own, I will delight in God FIRST, trusting that His plans are better than mine. He will lead me safely to the desires of my heart.
T (Talk to God) - Lord, thank You for loving me so much that You want the best life for me. Thank You for giving me Your Word that guides my heart to the awesome and fun dreams that You have planned for my life. :) Help me to be delighting in You always, so that my desires line up with Yours. God, You are the greatest desire of my heart, my treasure!
January 10, 2008
V (Verse) - Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight"
O (Own Words/Interpretation) - We all have to trust what God says in scripture. It is so hard and there is so much pressure when we have to try to understand everything on our own. I mean God is the creator of the world and is giving us a free list of how to make our life better. How awesome is that? It is like the teacher is putting the answers to the test directly into our brain... that's pretty cool. All we have to do is acknowledge him, read his word, do what he says and he will guide us through our life with promises of joy and happiness!!
L (Live It) - There are many times when I get impatient and try to make decisions and accomplish things without talking with God first. I think I can do it on my own. I will get frustrated and confused. Next time, I will pray to God first and wait and listen. It always seems to go so much more smooth when I do that. Then I ask myself, "Why don't I just listen to God EVERYTIME? He always has the right answers."
T (Talk to God) - Dear God, please give me the courage and strength to lean on you for understanding and quit trying to figure everything out on my own. Your my best friend and I want to talk with you about EVERYTHING. I am so lucky to be best friends with my God that has ALL the answers. Please help me to always remember that You are always there for me.
January 6, 2009
Here is my VOLT for James 1:5. Hope this helps you guys get started on your stuff this week!
V (Verse) - James 1:5, "But if any of you needs wisdom, you should ask God for it. He is generous to everyone and will give you wisdom without criticizing you."
O (Own Words/Interpretation) - We all need wisdom about making the right choices. Whether it's choosing between having Cheerios or Ice Cream for breakfast or choosing between lying and telling the truth. Getting wisdom from God helps us recognize what things are right and what things are wrong. God is pleased when we want this wisdom because it shows that we want to become more like him. We can approach God about anything that we are seeking answers for.
L (Live It) - A lot of times, when I am asked to do something, I jump right in and give an answer without even thinking or praying about it. I need to learn to turn to God before I make my decisions.
T (Talk to God) - God please give me the wisdom to be able to slow down before I give someone an answer to a question. I don't want to do anything without talking to You about it first. I want to make sure it is in Your will in my life before I jump in and commit to something. Please help me slow down and remember to pray first before I do anything else.
See... easy!!!
January 5, 2009
Hey Guys!
We had a great weekend talking about our High VOLTage Experiment. I think it's going to be an awesome way for us to get into the Bible. I'm going to post my own VOLT later this week so you can see what I've come up with and hopefully we'll get some great things from you this weekend so you'll see your own VOLT on the site.
I have come to realize that it is nearly impossible to keep the Cove Kids store fully stocked with enough goodies for everyone. It is clear that you love candy about as much as I do. Therefore, I have decided to post this video done by my an old friend at my old church in Arizona. This is dedicated to all you who love lollipops.
Jon and John Johnson- World Premier from Palm Valley Students on Vimeo.
Ok, have a great week back at school and don't forget to VOLT!!
January 2, 2009
Merry Christmas everyone and I hope you had a fantastic new year!! We had an incredible time during our Christmas Eve services at The Cove. Our 6 services were amazing in Cove Kids. If you didn't get a chance to come back and see it, we turned the hallway into ancient Bethlehem complete with a market, potter's shop, carpenter's shop, bakery, a rich woman's house, a tax collector, Herod, singing angels, and inn a stable and a certain newborn baby boy! Taking the younger kids on a tour of the city was awesome. But the greatest thing about the services was we had 75 children mark a card that they had prayed to accept Jesus' offer of salvation. Praise God! I hope 2009 brings many more decisions for Christ and we definitely need your help in doing that!
I can't wait for JAM to get started back up on January 14th. I think it's going to be the start of an awesome year for us and we'll be able to do a lot of great things. We certainly have a lot of things to look forward to this year:
- Unknown stuff I'm going to make you do, eat, say, think about, watch, sing during JAM :)
- Trips and things I'm planning for us
- Xtreme Sports Camp part 2 (coming in August)
- Hopefully a CD completed by the Cove Kids Band (If we get our act together!!)
- The new building will be finished and we are going to have an incredibly big room to hang out in during the weekends and during JAM!
- More kids coming to The Cove and hearing about Jesus Christ.
Ok, I'm out for now, I hope I see you all this weekend!
Hey Dudes!
I'm excited for the baptism next week! I found a video that I wanted to share for next week (no, it has nothing to do with an exploding whale or a kid trying to say blood)
Don't get any ideas now.... Have a great weekend!!
I'm going to miss everyone tomorrow and next week at JAM, but I know you are all looking forward to the turkey as I am. I am certainly thankful for all of you and what JAM is all about.
Just wanted to leave you with a tidbit of info about the whole idea of the church like we were talking about last week. The Church is all about the Kingdom of God. When Jesus came, He announced the coming of the new Kingdom of God: the Kingdom where God rules and makes everything new through Jesus. Everything is under His authority: people, nations, world, and universe is all His. Jesus brought the announcement that the Kingdom of God is here. There will come the day where Jesus will return when He will set up His Kingdom to last into eternity. Between that time when Jesus announced the Kingdom and the coming of His eternal Kingdom is our time: the Church's time! No one can visibly see the Kingdom of God except through the Church. We make the invisible visible through our acts together. We are to show the world what the Kingdom is all about and what a joy it will be like when it comes. So let's stand strong together and give God many thanks for giving us His glorious Kingdom! I can't wait until that day when Jesus returns and establishes His reign forever, let's look forward to that day and prepare ourselves for that glorious day. There's an awesome song by Jeremy Camp called "There Will Be a Day" that's all about the coming Kingdom of God, write me an e-mail if you'd like it and I'll send it to you!!
Hey Dudes,
I had an awesome time at JAM this past Wednesday. All of your questions were great! You don't even know how incredibly deep some of them were, I'm talking serious philosophy and theology. I really enjoyed that time. Don't ever stop asking those kinds of questions, God doesn't want us to believe in Him on blind faith. He gave us brains for a reason, let's use them! So please don't be afraid to ask questions about our faith. The more questions we get answered, the stronger we will become and we can then use those answers to help other people come to know Jesus. If you do have any more questions, leave a comment on this blog or shoot me an e-mail at rweber@covechurch.org and I will get right back to you. Always know that whatever comes across your mind, even if your parents or your JAM leader or I don't know, there are answers out there that we can go find together.
I taught a couple of you guys how to read minds yesterday, it was awesome. We can all read your minds on Wednesday if you want. I am not going to lie, it is pretty intense and you will not believe your eyes. I will ask you the hardest questions on the planet and I guarantee that I will get at least two out of three questions right. I'm that good.
Ok, I just got done editing a video for this weekend and I wanted to share it with all my JAM peeps, so here it is!!
Ah, yes, isn't it lovely... Hope to see you guys this weekend.
Last night was great fun. I have never seen an egg smashed on a person's head and we had the privilege last night to see not one, not two, but three people with egg dripping down their face. Thank you three for being so brave and willing to sacrifice yourself for the cause!! I hope we do understand from that lesson that we all fall short of perfection, we can never be perfect in the way that God wants us to be. Whether we sin once or a million times, that separates us from a perfect and holy God. That is why it is so great that God sent His Son Jesus down on this earth. Hopefully over the next few weeks we'll be able to fully understand the sacrifice that God made by sending Jesus to die for us. It is far bigger, far more important than any of us can ever imagine. I hope you all are having an uber wonderful time at JAM. Can't wait for next week. It was eggs on the head this week, what will it be next???
What a night. I'm always so stoked when I go home from JAM. It's just been incredible to spend time with everyone, learning about God's Word together and just having fun spraying silly string in each other's faces. It's just so cool to see how many people are willing to step up and help too. All of the leaders have just been great, I love you all for doing what you are doing. Even some of you guys are doing great helping out, whether it's moving chairs after JAM is over or helping call out names at the end of the night. I think a lot of adults can learn so much from you guys by just watching what you do. After everyone had left tonight, I just stopped and knelt down by the stage and just thanked God for all of you. You make such a difference in my life and I love to be with you. I want so badly for you to love Jesus and learn more about Him and JAM is the perfect place for you to do just that so I'm so glad that you're all into it. God is so overwhelming... this is the song that popped into my head tonight...
... JAM rules! Thank you so much for making JAM so awesome.
Also I had a prayer request that I wanted you guys to pray for... I just found out that Sarah Morton, who came to Xtreme Sports Camp in the summer, has a tumor on her spine. She is such an awesome girl and my heart hurt bad when I read that tonight. Would you guys please pray for Sarah's healing and for her family? God can do all things and I know He can heal Sarah... keep praying!!
First Wednesday was awesome as usual last night. I hear the whole night out in the auditorium was great, watching those five guys get ordained to be pastors must have been cool. Ordination is just a fancy word for the church recognizing those guys as pastors of the church. I saw them lay hands on them and pray for them which was great. I was in Cove Kids holding babies... I learned some new things about babies yesterday: First, if you squish their cheeks, they will stare at you as if you are Godzilla. Two, once you hold a baby, you are attached to that baby until their parents come. I found that if I put them down, they would start crying... I can't do crying babies. Number three, if you put babies in a stroller and run after Ross with them, they will stop crying, that was wonderful. See, you always learn incredible new things every day. Plus I got to eat the most cheese I have ever seen at Brickhouse yesterday, so all in all, things were good. Hope you didn't miss JAM too much, it will be back before you know it. How is everyone's quiet time (Dig In time) going? I hope everything is making sense as you are reading and journaling!
You're going to be hearing a lot of the phrase, "Whatever," in the next couple months. We're starting a new series during the weekends called "Whatever." It's based on Philippians 4:8 where Paul tells us of the different things that we should think about (look it up). It should be pretty sweet if I do say so myself... here is a never before seen sneak peak for this weekend:
Hope to see you all this weekend!
I knew no one would live up to the three saltine crackers in 45 seconds routine. Madison certainly got close, if it were not for her disgusting drooling habit. I'm hoping everyone is having fun at JAM, I have no idea what you guys did for a game last week. I was probably there and I cannot seem to remember what happened. Kudos to Foster for making such a memorable game :) I hope you all enjoyed the lesson on the Trinity, I know it is a pretty deep topic to try and understand but just getting to know each of the three Persons (Father, Son, Spirit) will definitely help you out as you learn more about Him.
Just wanted to remind you that there will be no JAM this Wednesday because of First Wednesday. But like I said last week, it would be awesome if you could wear your JAM T-shirts and we could all sit together in an area together!! We'll meet in the atrium and all go in together, that will be sweet.
Now, since I am all for making things easier in your life as well as using those fantastic brains of yours... I would like to share this video... see how much more stuff you can get done by being creative??
Ok, hope to see you all for First Wednesday this week! Peace out.
This week we are going to be talking about the Trinity. I was reading in my little electronic Bible library thingy this morning and this was the definition that it gave about the Trinity:
1. That God is one, and that there is but one God (Deut. 6:4; 1 Kings 8:60; Isa. 44:6; Mark 12:29, 32; John 10:30). 2. That the Father is a distinct divine Person (hypostasis, subsistentia, persona, suppositum intellectuale), distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit. 3. That Jesus Christ was truly God, and yet was a Person distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit. 4. That the Holy Spirit is also a distinct divine Person.
Ummmm... What?!? All that is saying is that there is one God... the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are all God... each one of them is separate from the other one. Does that make sense?? No??? What's wrong with you? :) I know the Trinity is an extremely hard concept for us to think about, but here is a picture of a cluster... and here is a picture of a grape. The grape is fine by itself, but it is complete in the cluster. There doesn't all make sense now?? Still no??? That is ok, hopefully we can clear it up for you tomorrow night.
Last week was great! We had 42 people come to JAM and I know more people will be there tomorrow night. Chicken and the Hen House is always a very fun game to play, even though we have some people fall off the hen house or try to drink tea on their horse... And hopefully we can give Foster that swirly here in a few weeks. Aside from that, I want to write about the art of nick-name creation. Last week, Nate's group all had nicknames by the time I came around to visit them... here are just a few of the 5 star creations: Mr. Cool, Glaydenator, Flipper, Wizee, Panda Bear and Applesauce. I would love to know why you guys chose the names that you did. My nick-naming art is somewhat strange and sort of a science. Here are the nicknames I have for my family:
Mom = Mumba
Dad = Flat Pat
Ashley (sister) = Nasher
Amy (sister) = Reubonian
Meagan (sister) = Bulbis
Thank you, thank you.
Write down your thoughts about the Trinity and/or Nicknames in the comment section! See you guys tomorrow!
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