December 2008 Article: Advent 2008

Remembering, Waiting, Imagining, Hoping

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. ~John 1.1,2

What in the world am I going to do? I mean there is no way this is possible. How can she be, pregnant? We are not even married yet, there is no way that this can be happening to me.

There is nothing else for me to do. I mean, what will this say about me as a person and more importantly, what will it say about her? I don’t want to disgrace her. Then that is what I shall do, I will pack my things and leave. It is nothing against her but I know these circumstances, nothing good can come from this.

It is midnight, I suppose I should sleep a bit before I start packing my things and leave in the middle of the night.

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid…” said the stranger
What do you mean do not be afraid? What are you? Who are you? Why are you here? Please, don’t hurt me; I’m just a poor carpenter, in this peasant style home. What I am saying then is I have no money for you to take, so please leave me alone!

“No no, Joseph you got me all wrong. You see I am an angel of the Lord and I am hear to tell you this, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins,” the Angel said before it slipped away.

Joseph then fell asleep again. Awaking only to scratch his head and wonder what happened was a dream or if it was real. After thinking about it, he decided to do what the angel of the Lord told him to do. Together, Joseph and Mary welcomed a baby boy into the world and named him Jesus.

Often times we hear a lot about Mary and the pressures it must have been upon this young teenage girl. Yet I want us to focus on Joseph. Imagine what he must have felt like discovering his wife was pregnant with someone else’s child. Then after constructing a plan to get the heck out of dodge, have it picked a part by an angel. Only then to be left waking up scratching his head trying to remember what just happened. Reading on in the story, we see that King Herod had a plot to kill all infants, think about Joseph, Mary and Jesus waiting for the right time to escape. Finally, after the dust has settled, Joseph and Mary breathe a little bit and I can bet you, they were hoping the best for this child.

Remembering. Waiting. Imagining. Hoping. That is what Advent is all about. This is the season we are in friends. We find ourselves remembering where it was we just came from, waiting for this next year to begin, imagining what it will entail and then hoping for the year to be a great one!

This Advent let us together remember God’s promises to us as a people. Through this let’s begin discussion Christ’s return and what that will entail for us. Clinging tightly to the promises that God made through Christ, lets imagine what it would be like if we begin to live out the world that God had dreamed of. Together then we can begin to hope for a new world, become a picture of the Christ-life for the world and bring the Kingdom of Heaven to this place which is broken and is waiting for a healing.

What are God’s promises to us? What has God promised to his people? As we read these stories of Jesus’ birth and how God became flesh through Christ, let us engage in the reality that God did not die when Christ was crucified, but God is still alive and that God had come and that God is coming still! Let’s remember this, wait for Christ’s coming again, imagining what this will look like and then hope for the renewal God’s creation and for the life of the world to come.

Friends, this Advent season let us live in hope, as we remember God’s love for us, let us imagine what some may say is impossible such as peace and love for all and then let us do the good work of God, waiting for the moment when we will encounter Christ and his return! This is when God came to us. This is when we remember that God is coming to us again!

O God, fill us with a holy longing for the coming of your Son, Jesus, to brighten our dark and dreary world.

(Remembering, waiting, imagining, and hoping is the theme for FPC Owensboro this Advent season. Highlighted words is to recognize where it comes from, Jonathan E. Carroll.)

L O V E--Is Coming

And so it begins. It's time to talk about the 'L' word. You know, the one that we "hear" too much but never really listen to it.

You know what I mean, right? Love.

We'll tell our parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, friends that we love them and in the same breath, we'll talk about how much we love a new car or a certain pair of jeans.

I mean, I love my parents, and I also love UK basketball?

Have we lost the meaning of love within our culture? Have we failed to remember how sacred a word it really is and how sacred we are as humans?

Love. What does it mean? What is it good for?

What does the Bible have to say about it?

Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so...but where though?

[Love] is called Agape in the New Testament to distinguish from Eros [sexual love], Storge [family affection], and Philia [friendship]. So there are four kinds of love, all good in their proper place, but Agape is the best because it is the kind God has for us and is good in all circumstances.
~C.S. Lewis, Letters of C.S. Lewis

Operation Christmas Child 2008 Photos

Here are some pictures of our students putting together the Operation Christmas Child boxes. I do apologize for the poor picture quality.



















Here are some pictures of our students putting together the Operation Christmas Child boxes. I do apologize for the poor picture quality.

Operation Christmas Child 2008

“You Silly Kids”

Operation Christmas Child Devotion

November 16^th, 2008

Director of Youth Ministry Adam Quine

I want you all to think of your favorite gift that you ever gotten. Now I want you to think when was the last time you played, seen or even thought about that gift. What about your most favorite toy? What have been some of your most favorite toys?

I remember when I was your age I enjoyed this time of year. I always was excited for Sunday’s and when the latest JC Penny magazine arrived in the mail. You see, I would get excited because I would sit down with my pencil and notebook and I would go through each of the pages carefully, looking for what I wanted for Christmas. I would arrange them ads in order of how importance. For instance, how many of you have ever gone into the store Kohl’s with your parents or for you older adults, have shopped there? What sort of things does Kohl’s sell? Clothes, that is right. Now how many of you have ever been in the store, Toys-R-Us? What do they sell? Obviously toys are sold there.

What I would do is I would arrange the store ads by stores like Kohl’s first because I was not interested in clothes, then it would lead into a Wal-Mart, then Target, then a video-game store add, and finally, Toys-R-Us. I would search every page, up and down looking for the toys that I NEEDED! The ones that I must have or I would DIE or at least not be excited come Christmas morning. I would compile this list and I even remember one year, sitting at a type writer and typing it out so that when my mom and dad when shopping, they would have no question as to what I wanted. What I NEEDED!

How many of you here make a Christmas list? How many of you get EVERYTHING you ask for? How many of you get ½ of what you ask for? How many of you get nothing of what you asked for?

One time a young man came to Jesus with a list. You see, his parents were going to give his brother everything that they owned and he did not think it was very fair. So he went us to Jesus and he says, “Tell my big brother to give me some of that stuff that is on this list my parents made.” Jesus says, I’m not the one that can do that but what I can do is tell you a story about a rich farmer who was a fool. This farmer had a lots and lots of farm land and it would produce lots and lots of crops right. (Like Reid’s but much, much bigger.) He had so many crops he decided to tear down the barns that he had and replace them with bigger barns. So he tears them down and fills them with all of these extra food/crops. After he did this he looked at his barn that looks like it could explode at any moment and says, “This is cool. I don’t have to do anything else. I have what I wanted and now I can worry about me and my things.”

Well God shows up right, and God took this greedy farmer by the ear and said, “FOOL! Tonight you are going to exist no more. And your barn full of goods—who gets it?

Finally Jesus says, “That is what happens when you fill your barn with Self and not with God.”

Greed had consumed this farmer. He was so focused on his stuff, all of his corn, beans, carrots, etc. he had missed the big picture of what God wants us to be concerned of. What could the farmer have done with all that food/crops/goods? What about us? Think about all the cool toys you got? Think about all your video games, talking robot toys and what not. Now, how many of them collect a good amount of dust? Often times we can allow our desires for lots of things, toys, basketballs, movies, video games, get in the way of what God is calling us to do. We feel as if we need to stay up to date with the latest fashions, have all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys and if we don’t then it is not fair. How many of you have asked for something and not gotten it? Are you still here today?

Radical acts of unselfishness are perhaps what we are called to do for God and that is exactly what we will be doing tonight. We are participating in a ministry that puts the needs of others before our own. We will be impacting children across the worlds that have no toys. All they have potentially are the toys that we gave them last year. We do this to help us remember that we are called to love the poor, to serve them and to love them the way that God loves us. We are to be concerned for the poor, loving them and caring for them.

When we consume our lives with getting all the stuff we WANT (not needing) and bigger and better things (like the farmer’s barns), we could miss the opportunity to love others. When it was all said and done, the farmer had nothing left when he died and it went no where. Tonight, I want us to take a deliberate action to allowing our heart to be where the treasure is, the Kingdom of God.

Everybody grab a piece of paper and share from this crayon box. Quietly while this video is playing I want everyone to draw their favorite toy. It does not have to be perfect or something extravagant, it simply needs to be your favorite toy.

After drawing it, I want you to take it and lay it on this ____________, to symbolize the choice that tonight we are going to become more intentional about the way we think about material goods. We are going to lay down these toys, realizing that if we did not have them, that it would be ok. We will then become mindful of how many around the world do not have the same opportunities as we do and that some have nothing like the brother who asked Jesus to have his older brother share with all the things he had. These people who have nothing often times have no one to share with them until this night.

We will put together boxes and send them to lands over seas where God’s love will be spread through our actions. By laying this picture down, you are making a promise to yourself and God that you will share with others all that you can, that you will not ask for more than what you need and what you have is enough of all you need, and that you will strive to bring the Kingdom of God to earth by loving one another.

That is what tonight is all about friends. Our actions tonight will indeed see people as us being fools, not because we have greedy thoughts, but because we are becoming fools for Jesus, giving things to the poor and loving them when no one else will!

Camp Loucon Pictures #5

Camp Loucon Pictures #4

Camp Loucon Pictures #3

Here are our senior high gearing up for the high ropes course. The first couple of pictures are our youth gaining instructions about what to do while they prepare and when they are eventually on the high-ropes course.