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February 15 Faith Friday for February 15, 2007***You are receiving “Faith Fridays” because you have subscribed. If you wish to unsubscribe, please reply to this message with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Use this devotion however suits you. Print it off, read it on your computer screen, talk about it around the dinner table, journal about the questions, or reply to the questions and send it back to me. Feel free to forward this devotion to friends! Enjoy! ***
Faith Friday for February 15, 2007
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Have you ever received a love letter? Or even just a real letter from someone who cares about you? I love to get real mail. I love to see it in the midst of the bills, credit card offers, and junk mail I get on a daily basis. There it is: my name, written by someone who cares about me. Sure, they could have emailed me, left me a comment on MySpace, but they took time to sit down, write me a note, put a stamp on it, find my address, and send it to me. So exciting!
God has written us a love letter too. It is the Bible. And it has some of the most beautiful, wonderful things to say to us. This section from 1 Corinthians is just a small example. God loves us more than any one ever could. Every day, God looks forward to talking with us and being with us. God took a lot of time to write this love letter and put it together for us. Have you taken time in the midst of the junk mail of your life to read it today? I hope you have. If you haven’t, and if you want to know where to start, I suggest 1 Corinthians, Romans, or one of the Gospels. There you will find real nuggets of truth and declarations of love from God.
This is a week we focus on love. I hope you can take some time to focus on God’s love for your life!
Questions to consider:
Have you ever received mail from someone you really care about? How did it make you feel?
What is one verse in the Bible where you think God is telling you how much God loves you?
Prayer: God, thank you for loving us more than we could ever imagine. Help us to love others the same way. Help us to find time to read and study about your love for us in your Word. Amen
- Scripture from the NRSV Bible
Happening this week:
Breakfast Club will be held at Jenna’s home on Sunday.
There will be no Breakfast Club on February 25th.
We are looking for host homes for March for Breakfast Club.
Do you have a MySpace or a Facebook profile? Add Jenna, and get information about upcoming events there too!
Do you need information about an upcoming event? Do you have a question to ask Jenna? Just hit reply to this email! Very easy!
***If you have any questions, please contact Jenna***
~Would you like to write a devotion for a Faith Friday? Do you have a specific topic you think should be covered? Please let Jenna know!~
February 09 Faith Friday for February 9, 2007***You are receiving “Faith Fridays” because you have subscribed. If you wish to unsubscribe, please reply to this message with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Use this devotion however suits you. Print it off, read it on your computer screen, talk about it around the dinner table, journal about the questions, or reply to the questions and send it back to me. Feel free to forward this devotion to friends! Enjoy! ***
Faith Friday for February 9, 2007
Who rules your life? Have you ever seen those bumper stickers that say, “God is my co-pilot?” If you want God to be in total control of your life, how can he just be the “co” pilot? Shouldn’t God be the Pilot? Watch lava sometime on T.V. As it flows it oozes into the smallest cracks and crevices of the earth. That’s the way our lives should be with God. Surrendering every crack and crevice of our life to God is hard, but that is what God asks us to do. God knows you better than you know yourself. In Psalm 139:2-3 it says “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar…you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word comes out of my mouth, you know it completely.” Yep! God can read your mind! And God isn’t even a fortuneteller with a crystal ball! Consider these words from Psalm 139:6-7: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” God knows everywhere you go and everything you feel! God is closer than your shadow! Look at Joseph in Genesis 37-47. He was just a teenager when his brothers sold him into slavery. In Egypt, one bad thing after another happened to him, but he continued to trust God because he understood that God was in control of his life. Eventually, he became the second most powerful man in Egypt. Check out how God blessed Joseph for trusting in the Lord! Give God every crevice in your life: your friends, your music, the movies you watch, the books and magazines you read, your parents, the places you hang out, and your future. In Psalm 139:13 it says that he knit you together in your mother’s womb and God’s eyes saw your unformed body. Doesn’t it make sense to let the person that made you and intricately knows you have control of your destiny? The truth is, even if we don’t yield our lives to God, God’s in control anyway. You might as well give up, wave your white flag and throw your arms in the air. Don’t fool yourself. God controls your life, no matter what you think. Comfort yourself with this reality. Life will be much easier when you quit trying to swim upstream away from God and instead swim along side the Lord! It’s mighty exhausting swimming away from Almighty God! Questions to consider:
What parts of your life do you try to hide from God?
Prayer: Dear Father, I praise you for breathing life into my unformed body. I thank you Lord for caring about the number of sparrows, and for caring so much more about me. If You, O God, can raise people from the dead, then you can certainly take care of me. God, I give you complete control of my life. Help me to walk in your ways. Please accomplish your purpose in my life. Amen.
- Written by Anne Parker, Flagstaff Arizona
Happening this week:
Breakfast Club will be held in at the Schuchard home on Sunday.
Breakfast Club will be at Jenna’s February 18th, there will be no Breakfast Club on February 25th.
We are looking for host homes for March for Breakfast Club.
Do you have a MySpace or a Facebook profile? Add Jenna, and get information about upcoming events there too!
Jenna is looking for dishwashers for all Lent Suppers, and clean up help on the 21st and 28th of March. Please let her know if you can help.
Thank you for your generous support of Souper Bowl of Caring. We surpassed our goal of $1 for every person in church, and raised $289.26 to combat hunger in our community! Parents of 7-9th graders- On February 14th we will be discussing Sex, Love and Dating at confirmation. As you may know, sex, love and dating is on the forefront of the minds of many youth. We would love for you to join us for this discussion of how God wants us to live our lives in this area. When the youth go to small group, we will have a parent discussion. Hope you can join us.
Do you have a prayer request? Please let Jenna know so she can add you to her prayer list. Also, if you would like the prayer request to go into the bulletin or on to a Faith Friday, please say that. You can tell her or email her your requests.
Do you need information about an upcoming event? Do you have a question to ask Jenna? Just hit reply to this email! Very easy!
***If you have any questions, please contact Jenna***
~Would you like to write a devotion for a Faith Friday? Do you have a specific topic you think should be covered? Please let Jenna know!~
February 02 Faith Friday for February 2, 2007***You are receiving “Faith Fridays” because you have subscribed. If you wish to unsubscribe, please reply to this message with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Use this devotion however suits you. Print it off, read it on your computer screen, talk about it around the dinner table, journal about the questions, or reply to the questions and send it back to me. Feel free to forward this devotion to friends! Enjoy! ***
Faith Friday for February 2, 2007
Psalm 5:1-2, the Message Bible
We are given many gifts when we believe in God. One such gift is the opportunity we have to share all of our emotions with God, big or small. God does not want to hear from us in just our happy times, but our sad and angry times too.
When I was a freshman in college, my parents separated and began the process of getting a divorce. I was so angry. I was mad at my parents, and mad at God. It didn’t seem fair to me, not at all. I was fortunate to be surrounded by friends who loved me and helped me through it. But I also needed sometime to set things straight with God. So, I yelled at God. I remember doing this a couple of times clearly. Once, in the chapel at school, yelling silently in my prayers. The second time was when I was home for the summer, walking in the woods, literally cursing God out. I knew that God could handle my anger, and would surround me with love, much like the hugs of my grandma when she knows I am angry.
These Psalms of Lament as they are called give us the opportunity to be angry towards God, and to come to God with all the sorrows on our hearts. It is my prayer that you find comfort in sharing all of your emotions with the one who created all of us and our emotions.
Questions to consider:
Have you ever been angry at God?
How can you best tell God about your feelings? Is it talking, writing a letter, drawing, or some other way?
Prayer: God, thank you for making us all different and unique. Be with us and help us in times of sorrow and trouble. Help to remind us of your love as we share all of our emotions with you. Amen
-Scripture from the Message Bible
Happening this week:
Breakfast Club will be held in the Tower this Sunday…Lots of Doughnuts!!!
Breakfast Club will be at the Schuchard home on February 11th, and at Jenna’s February 18th.
We are looking for host homes for March for Breakfast Club.
Do you have a MySpace or a Facebook profile? Add Jenna, and get information about upcoming events there too!
Souper Bowl Sunday:
Pastor Tom Tribute Night- February 7th 7-8:30pm. For all 7-12 graders. Let’s take a night to tell Tom how much he has meant to us. There will be activities, ice cream cake, and lots of laughs! Jenna will be setting up about 5:30 that afternoon, and would love help.
Jenna is looking for dishwashers for all Lent Suppers, and clean up help on the 21st and 28th of March. Please let her know if you can help.
Registrations due this Sunday!!! Ski Trip, 2/15-16, $40 (We will be leaving after school on the 15th! I read the calendar wrong!) Middle School Quake, Bismarck, March 2-4th, $100 Senior High Construction Zone, Minneapolis, March 23-25th, $125 YOU MUST REGISTER BY FEBRUARY 4TH FOR THESE EVENTS. NO LATE REGISTRATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED!!!
Do you have a picture of Pastor Tom? Jenna is working on an evening for our youth to get together and honor the ministry Pastor Tom has done with them. Jenna is looking for pictures of Tom with our youth. These may be pictures of our current 7-12th graders being baptized, getting confirmed, at VBS, or at a youth event with Pastor Tom. You will get the pictures back when we are done with them. Please turn in your pictures with your name on the back to Jenna by February 4th.
Do you have a prayer request? Please let Jenna know so she can add you to her prayer list. Also, if you would like the prayer request to go into the bulletin or on to a Faith Friday, please say that. You can tell her or email her your requests.
Do you need information about an upcoming event? Do you have a question to ask Jenna? Just hit reply to this email! Very easy!
***If you have any questions, please contact Jenna***
~Would you like to write a devotion for a Faith Friday? Do you have a specific topic you think should be covered? Please let Jenna know!~
January 26 Faith Friday for January 26th, 2007***You are receiving “Faith Fridays” because you have subscribed. If you wish to unsubscribe, please reply to this message with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Use this devotion however suits you. Print it off, read it on your computer screen, talk about it around the dinner table, journal about the questions, or reply to the questions and send it back to me. Feel free to forward this devotion to friends! Enjoy! ***
Faith Friday for January 26, 2007
God is Love A really important attribute of God is His love. No human being can love us as much as God does. His love for us reaches to the farthest corner of the universe. We can't begin to imagine how great it is. We can understand it in only one way. We have to think about how much love it took for God to have Jesus die for our sins on the cross. God’s love for us goes way beyond the natural love a good father has for his children. The fact is, God loves us even when we are rebelling against every one of his commands. Every person who has been born since Adam sinned has inherited a sin nature that makes sin more attractive to him or her than goodness. You can observe this fact in action next time you hang out with your friends. Are you ever called names because you won’t do something good or right? Not likely. But, friends and classmates will tease you and call you names for not joining them in an activity that is wrong or hurtful. It’s way harder to do the right thing than it is to follow the crowd into sin. Because of our natural attraction to sin, we are not God’s friends, but his enemies. However, he loved us so much that he sacrificed, not his own life, but the life of his son. That is way harder. Paul puts it this way in Romans 5:7-8. “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to die for our sins. Every once in a while I hear a story about a father who jumps into Lake Powell to save his child who has fallen into the water. Sometimes the father is successful. Other times he's not. Sometimes, someone else in the boat rescues the child, but the father dies. I am always amazed at how much a father will sacrifice for his child. If God loves us so much that he gave his only son to save us, he will absolutely care for us in every possible way. He will make sure we have what we need to grow and mature, both physically and spiritually. He will keep us safe. He will never let anything come into our lives that would hurt us in our relationship with him.
The fact of God’s love makes it possible for us to have peace even when things aren’t going like we want them to. God is all-powerful and he loves us perfectly and without any expectations. He never allows us to suffer unless it fulfills a part of His great plan for our lives. He uses both the good and bad things of our lives to make us mature and spiritually beautiful. What a treasure we have in the promise God gave us in John 3:16! “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Questions to consider:
How do you thank God for his love?
Who do you want to tell about God’s Love? Do they need to be reminded, or maybe they haven’t heard it yet.
Prayer: Loving Father God, I surely am glad that I don’t have to earn your love by being good. I’d never make it. Thank you for loving me just the way I am. Thank you, too, for using everything in my life to make me more like Jesus. Most of all, thank you for giving Jesus to die for me so I could know you and live with you forever.
-Written by Martha E Menne, Flagstaff Arizona
Happening this week:
Breakfast Club will be held at the Thomsen Home this Sunday.
We are looking for host homes for February for Breakfast Club.
Do you have a MySpace or a Facebook profile? Add Jenna, and get information about upcoming events there too!
Souper Bowl Sunday:
Pastor Tom Tribute Night- February 7th 7-8:30pm. For all 7-12 graders. Let’s take a night to tell Tom how much he has meant to us. There will be activities, ice cream cake, and lots of laughs! Jenna will be setting up about 5:30 that afternoon, and would love help.
Youth Serving In Worship: Our youth will be serving in worship again on February 11th. This is a great opportunity for youth or families to serve together. We are currently looking for Greeters and Ushers at both services and a lector at 9:00. Youth of all ages and their parents are welcome. Please let Jenna know if you would like to serve in this way.
Registrations due this week!!! Ski Trip, 2/15-16, $40 (We will be leaving after school on the 15th! I read the calendar wrong!) Middle School Quake, Bismarck, March 2-4th, $100 Senior High Construction Zone, Minneapolis, March 23-25th, $125 YOU MUST REGISTER BY FEBRUARY 4TH FOR THESE EVENTS. NO LATE REGISTRATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED!!!
Do you have a picture of Pastor Tom? Jenna is working on an evening for our youth to get together and honor the ministry Pastor Tom has done with them. Jenna is looking for pictures of Tom with our youth. These may be pictures of our current 7-12th graders being baptized, getting confirmed, at VBS, or at a youth event with Pastor Tom. You will get the pictures back when we are done with them. Please turn in your pictures with your name on the back to Jenna by February 4th.
Do you have a prayer request? Please let Jenna know so she can add you to her prayer list. Also, if you would like the prayer request to go into the bulletin or on to a Faith Friday, please say that. You can tell her or email her your requests.
Do you need information about an upcoming event? Do you have a question to ask Jenna? Just hit reply to this email! Very easy!
***If you have any questions, please contact Jenna***
~Would you like to write a devotion for a Faith Friday? Do you have a specific topic you think should be covered? Please let Jenna know!~
January 19 Faith Friday for January 19, 2007***You are receiving “Faith Fridays” because you have subscribed. If you wish to unsubscribe, please reply to this message with “unsubscribe” in the subject line. Use this devotion however suits you. Print it off, read it on your computer screen, talk about it around the dinner table, journal about the questions, or reply to the questions and send it back to me. Feel free to forward this devotion to friends! Enjoy! ***
Faith Friday for January 19, 2007
“Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
I read this verse earlier this week. I don’t know why, but it has stuck with me all week long. I think it may have stuck with me because it has to do with God speaking to us.
How does God speak to us? I want to have a rich and vibrant relationship with God. I think we all do. But sometimes it is hard when it feels like God isn’t speaking back. When we talk to our friends, they can talk right back, give us advice, laugh with us, and we do the same for them. Sometimes, with God, I have a hard time hearing the response from God.
So how do we hear the response? I think we take time to listen. I know in my prayer life, I do a lot of the talking and very little of listening. I probably don’t give God a chance to get a word in edgewise! I think God can use other people to speak for God and I think God can use our surroundings, emotions, those little thoughts in the back of our head to speak to us.
So, here is a challenge for the next week. I think we all need to spend time listening. I would love to know what you hear!
Questions to consider:
How would you describe your prayer life?
How do you think God speaks to you?
Prayer: God, help us to spend more time listening, to you and to others. Help us to quiet our hearts and minds so we can hear your word of peace. Amen.
-All scripture from the NRSV Bible
Happening this week:
Breakfast Club will be held at the Thomsen Home this Sunday.
We are looking for host homes for February for Breakfast Club.
Senior High Youth Group: Bowling is a no-go; we will try and do it in February. Come to the church Sunday night at 6 though for some crazy games, fun, fellowship, and devotions.
Chicago Worship Planning: Chicago Mission Trippers! Let’s get together on Sunday, January 21st after the second service. Lunch will be provided. We will be working on our worship service.
For Adults: Engaging the Soul of Youth and their Culture- On February 3rd, Bethel Church in Fargo will be hosting Walt Mueller, who is the President of the Center for Parent/Youth understanding to equip adults to better understand youth culture and what we can do about it. It will run from 9 am to 3 pm with lunch provided. The cost is $15 for an individual and $25 for a couple. Please let Jenna know by Sunday if you would like to attend this event. Walt Mueller is an outstanding speaker and leader in the field of youth culture. Please consider joining us.
Do you have a picture of Pastor Tom? Jenna is working on an evening for our youth to get together and honor the ministry Pastor Tom has done with them. Jenna is looking for pictures of Tom with our youth. These may be pictures of our current 7-12th graders being baptized, getting confirmed, at VBS, or at a youth event with Pastor Tom. You will get the pictures back when we are done with them. Please turn in your pictures with your name on the back to Jenna by February 4th.
Do you have a prayer request? Please let Jenna know so she can add you to her prayer list. Also, if you would like the prayer request to go into the bulletin or on to a Faith Friday, please say that. You can tell her or email her your requests.
Do you need information about an upcoming event? Do you have a question to ask Jenna? Just hit reply to this email! Very easy!
***If you have any questions, please contact Jenna***
~Would you like to write a devotion for a Faith Friday? Do you have a specific topic you think should be covered? Please let Jenna know!~
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