Jesus resists temptation

Sunday, January 22nd, our jr church class learned about when Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert.  We learned what it ment to fast and the toll fasting takes on our bodies.  Satan knew what Jesus was doing and he tried to use Jesus’ weak time and try to make Him sin. Read more

Jesus is baptized

Sunday January 15th, the children learned about Jesus being baptized by John the baptist.  the learned what baptism means, and how God wants us all to become baptized.  After Jesus was baptized a dove appeared and everyone heard Gods voice saying, “This is my son, whom I am well pleased.”

OUR SCRIPTURE VERSE FOR THE MONTH: “Jesus replied, “It is written, man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Men’s Fraternity

The title of our first teaching of the New Year is ‘Man and His Work’. Pastor Bob had done a quick review of the first third of our teaching dealing with man and his spouse. The next had to do with man and his children so we can be successful building a God centered marriage and family and today he led us in the foundation laying of man and his work.

It is interesting that he began with a statistic that in 27 years of pastoring his church, he had preached only one sermon about this topic. the challenge for most men is we don’t really understand why we work and the purpose of work from God’s point of view. If men gather together one of the first questions asked is, “What do you do for are living?” Men identify themselves with work while women identify with their children and home. Men spend about 65% of their time at work, 35% of the time with their families and only about 10% of the time relating to the church or active within it.

Today most men are still trying to find the right job for themselves so they may become fulfilled as men and provide for their families. Their struggles are how do we balance our lives so that we may be fulfilled in this life. This brings us to the ladder of motivation.

Many are motivated to work because they have to. Some just want to meet the needs of providing for their families so they are standing at the bottom rung of the work for the lone motivation of getting a paycheck. As we grow in our understanding, God births a desire for standard of living above just existing, but one of having a better life for our wives and kids than just existing and living selfishly. Passion for something more burns in our hearts and we become dissatisfied. This elevates us to the next rung on the ladder of work where our work has to give us meaning. What is it that I’m accomplishing? Does what I do really matter? These questions come up in our minds because we are looking at our works purpose but also how can it be helpful and provide s a service for others. We develop a philanthropic mindset of contributing to something greater than myself and my family; it’s now geared to giving money that we earn to social causes to aid those who are less fortunate than ourselves.

But even with accomplishing all this God’s ultimate plan or purpose for a man’s work is to advance His kingdom on earth so we may glorify God through our work and influence people spiritually to God’s greater purpose for them too! The scriptures  affirms just these elements for our work. Read 2Thes.3:10, 1Tim.5:8, Eccl.5:19, Eccl.2:24,1Pet.4:10, Eph.4:28,Prov.3:9, Col.3:23-24.

For men following the Lord Jesus Christ we need to lift our view higher pertaining to our work and that starts with taking an assessment of the gifts, talents, desires, and what we like to do. We need to be courage that if where we are working in a job that isn’t all that, then we need to begin to work towards the goal being successful at what we do. We also must develop a broader understanding of work and how God views it; after all the first thing He did with Adam in the garden was a job.

As part of our personal assessment we need to answer the question – what do we want from our work? The work we do must bring success and receive recognition for it. Let’s face it, everybody needs an atta boy. Our work must have the right fit and be paid fairly for what we do. And lastly it must allow for us to balance our home life with work while harmony is lived out in our work, family and community.

Work is not just work to God. It has a greater meaning and a higher purpose than just doing something. I would like to encourage you that you have the power to create just the right workplace that brings into it everything that God has intended for us and so much. Next month we will look at vision as it pertains to work. God bless you mighty men of God!

How will they know…?

We had a great breakfast gathering this weekend! And oh, the lies we believe about children! Not only are children a treasure and a blessing, but God never intended for our children to learn the hard way what we as parents should have trained them in from the beginning. Let’s face it… there are just some things we need to learn from experience in order to gain wisdom and appreciate God’s grace and mercy. However, if we as parents don’t teach our kids NOW how to cultivate their own intimate relationship with God… what it really means to love righteousness… if we don’t model a fervent prayer life and passionate love for Truth – then we really shouldn’t be surprised when our kids don’t make good decisions, should we? Read more

**JUNIOR CHURCH WELCOMES 2012**

This Sunday, January 1st, 2012, the children of Junior Church talked about the new year.  We learned that it is a new year and we can have a new start and walk with God.  We learned all about New Years resolutions and we talked about our sin.  We wrote our sin on a dry erase board and we learned that we are like the dry erase board and we try to solve our problems by ourselves by erasing them, but a plain old eraser wont clean us, we need something more, we need a solution, we need Jesus.  Jesus is the dry erase solution we need, we need to admit to Him that we did wrong and repent and then make right the wrongs that we did.  They also learned that this doesn’t mean you wont mess up again, the point is we walk away from the sin with Gods help and love.  The children are making a calender for their families with a scripture verse for every month to remember.

Fasten your seatbelts, ladies…

… It’s time to root out those lies we believe about children! Our gathering this weekend was awesome – and the conversation was so great! So far, we managed to uncover one lie – the one that leads us to think that we are the ones in control of the size of our families! Read more

The Little Drummer Boy

For the month of December our Butterflies, Caterpillars and Dragonflies are practicing  a play, The Little Drummer Boy.  We are going to be putting on the play Saturday December 24th, 4pm-6pm.  The kids are doing a great job and are having alot of fun!! So, come and join us for some Christmas songs, entertainment and to see how great God is!!  Cant wait to see you there! Miss.Dorie, Miss. Irene, Miss.Kim, and Miss.Karen

The truth about marriage…

It’s official! SUBMISSION is not an ugly word! This week we rooted out that evil lie that tells us that submission equals slavery. We came to see that when we submit to our husbands as the authority over us, we’re actually honoring God who put him there in the first place. Our husbands are called to love us… we are told to respect them. When we are obedient – we’re actually free!!!
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BAND OF BROTHERS

Band of Brothers this year was being behind enemy lines or ministry focus. Read more

TRUTH PROJECT

The subject titled for this last topic is community or “am I my brothers keeper”. The answer is definitely a resounding yes! God’s heart is always to meeting the needs of the poor, the outcast, the down trodden, the orphan and widow and anyone else who suffers from the lack of the world’s goods for basic needs.

The community sphere contains Christ, neighbor and the needy. God moves upon the heart of the believer to become involve with the needy. The parable of the good Samaritan essentially teaches us to help and meet the needs of the needy no matter the cost to us personally.

Our discussion lead us to the point of how far do we get involve in meeting needs to how little do we need to be there. The bottom line is not how little or how much, but doing something for doing nothing is not an option.

God’s heart is humble and lowly so He identifies with all those less fortunate, He also resists the proud. All those who think they are better than those lesser in their eyes.

I think that we are to engage our community knowing that we are responsible to understand the needs and beliefs of those less fortunate amongst us, but also change it by revealing Christ and His love for our communities.

It is understanding that every person we meet daily are actually eternal beings who are needy and we are given the responsible opportunity to showing not only them, but the community at large, the grace and love of God, unconditionally.

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