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!