MADE

Scripture says in Genesis 5:1, "When God created man, he made him in the image of God. He created them male and female and blessed them."

This year we are talking about going and making disciples. God has sent us out to be witnesses or I think a better word would be storytellers. Simply put these last few weeks I hope the youth have thought about friends that they could invite. Simply invite. Sometimes we forget that we are suppose to invite people on to this journey with us.  

Paul in Acts when preaching to the people of Athens said, "The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hand...We are his offspring." 

You are his offspring. I am his offspring. We are all his offspring. And our mission is to call out that which is good with the way we live and in the way we speak echoing this powerful reality that we are made in God's image. 

We have messed it up. Yup sure have. So God sent Jesus so that we might be redeemed by his blood. So in the words of John people will see God in us. "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." 

The next three weeks we will talking about all of this! And hopefully it will all come together. 

1. MADE: You were created by God for God! 

2. MADE: We messed it up... but there is GREAT news we are redeemed by the blood of Jesus! 

3. MADE: We are made for a purpose! 

Elevate

Excited to start our new season of youth!

JONAH:God wants me to go "where"!

As many of you might have heard through the emails that our Sunday nights will now be called "Elevate". We picked the name of Elevate because that is the message of Jesus to his disciples. As Christians we are to rise up and to be good examples of what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

Our "theme" that will guide us through this year is "go and make." These two words come from the great commission found in Matthew 28. These were the last words Jesus spoke to the disciples in the gospel of Matthew. And they are words that still center our mission here in this world.

We will start out our year by talking about how we tend to react with this word "go" with the story of Jonah being our backdrop. Our temptation is to think when Jesus said "go" what he really meant was "go" to church.

But what it really means is God sending us to places that we might have never thought he sent us. Youth might think they are at school to learn, in band to play an instrument, on a sports team to rise above the rest, you might see where I am going with this. But in reality God has sent us there to be a light to a dark world.

So encourage your youth and yourself to take sometime to read the story of Jonah. It is a good one. Looking forward to sharing in its truth this month!