If  want a heads up on what is going to happen this weekend, you have to read this!

2010 Vision Update

Here is what we learned today:

We learned that NOTHING is impossible for Jesus!  Jesus can do anything! Jesus’ friends were out in a boat in the middle of the storm.  They look out and notice that someone is walking out to them…on the water!  Jesus walked right up to their boat! Not only did he walk on water but He then calmed the winds and the rain.

Today’s lesson was probably one of the most important lessons we will ever hear! We continued studying the parables, today’s being the parable of the lost son found in Luke 15. Through this parable, we learned that God is a loving and faithful Father to his sons and daughters.  He never gives up on us even though we may stray! God never stops loving me no matter what!

Here is what we learned today:

Is anything too hard for Jesus?  Jesus can do anything! We learned today that Jesus took a little boy’s lunch of 2 fishes and 5 loaves of bread and fed 5000 people.  Wow!  Jesus is powerful and nothing is impossible for Him!

God loves to give good things!!!! God is incapable of giving things that will harm us.  He wants the best for us.  If our earthly fathers give us good things, how much more does the Heavenly Father want to give us good things!

Here is what we learned today:

Today we learned that we can love others by praying for them.  Jesus wants us to pray for those we love and for those that we don’t even know.

Today’s parable was the wedding banquet and the feast.    There is nothing more important than when someone gets saved.  Heaven rejoices and so should we!  God created us to tell others about Jesus. When we fail to share the Gospel with our friends, God’s plan for reaching them comes to a screeching halt. God has no Plan “B”. His plan to reach the world is through us, so we need to be sure that we aren’t the ones holding the ball, and slowing down the process of spreading the Gospel!

Here is what we learned today:

Today we learned that we can talk to God the way that Jesus taught us.  When we pray, we need to tell God how special He is.  We also need to tell Him that we know His ways are always right.  Then we should ask Him to provide for our needs.  Then we need to ask for forgiveness and for Him to show us how to do the right thing.

STAND! IN THE WORD continued study of Bible 101, Survivor style.  We learned there are 66 books of the Bible, divided into the Old and New Testament.  Each of those books are divided into different sections.  There are over 40 authors and it took 5000 years to complete.

We learned about the parable of the vineyard workers in STAND! worship. A man in charge of a vineyard went out to hire workers early in the morning.  The agreed to work for a day’s wage (approx. $1 in today’s times).  He went out again at noon, 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m.  to hire workers and agreed to pay them a fair wage.  At the end of the work day, the manager of the vineyard paid the workers hired last very first.  He paid them $1.  The workers hired first saw this and thought to themselves that they would be getting more money than at first agreed.  The manager continued to pay all of the workers the $1 wage.  This made the workers hired first very angry!  They felt since they had worked the longest, they should be paid more than the other workers.  The manager then asked them, “Did you not agree to work for $1 a day?  I have paid you according to the agreement.”  Jesus then taught us that the last shall be first and the first shall be last.  From this parable, we learned that we are to be happy when God blesses others, even though it may be really hard.

Here is what we learned today:

God wants us to do 2 very important things…love Him and love people.  Our Bible story today was about a man named Saul.  He was doing bad things, killing people that claimed to be Christians.  One day as he was walking down the road, a bright light appeared to him and asked him, “Why are you hurting me?”  Saul fell to the ground out of fear and realized that it was Jesus talking to him.  Jesus continued to tell him to go to the city and wait for directions.  Immediately, as Saul stood up, he became blind but he did exactly as he had been told.  Once at the city, a man came to visit him.  The man told Saul that the best way to show his love for God was to show his love for people.    The man touched Saul’s eyes and he immediately could see.  Saul’s life was changed forever!  He immediately went out and started telling people of God’s love but most importantly, he started showing God’s love by loving people.

STANDing in the Word at 10:10 kicked off the Survivor:  KidZone Island series today.  Each week, we will be working through the basics, Bible 101.  Each week, we will be taking a tribal vote on how we want to celebrate the Survivor Finale.

STAND!  Worship at 11:00 continued our study of the Parables.  Our Bible story today was the Parable of the talents.  Our study came from Matthew 18:21-35.  We learned first and foremost that we should forgive because God forgave us.  REAL forgiveness began with God!

As many of you have heard, Haiti was hit with a devastating earthquake on Tuesday.  A dear friend’s parents run a mission in Northwest Haiti.  She has asked that we pray for the people of Haiti. Over the next several days, there are going to be lots of Haitian funerals.  Please pray for the families and loved ones during this hard time.

Starting this Sunday, we are also going to start collecting food items to be shipped as soon as shipping is allowed again to this country.  There are specific items that they are collecting:  peanut butter, beans, rice and spam or treet. We will be gathering items through the rest of this month.  A table will be placed at the back of the Children’s Worship area designated for these items.  Thank you in advance for your help!!

Here is what we learned today:

Today we learned that the most important thing we can do is to LOVE GOD! Our Bible story was about how the Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus into asking him what was the most important commandment.  He replied by saying that we are to LOVE GOD more than anything else.   The second most important thing we can do is to love others like we love ourselves.  One way we can show our love is to serve them.

We continued learning about the parable of the sower and the seed.  We focused today on the good soil.  Our Bible verse(Mark 4:20) told us, that a seed harvested with good soil could produce a harvest 30,60 or even hundredfold.  We want our hearts to be like the good soil, so that God’s Word can sink in and reap a harvest like no other!

Here is what we learned:

Our Bible story was about Jesus as a young boy.  He was 12 years old and his parents couldn’t find him anywhere!  They finally found him in the temple.  He was doing exactly what His Father had told him to do!

How can we love God? We can love God just like Jesus did!

We have started a new Quarter today.  We are going to be spending the next 13 weeks learning parables.  We learned that a parable is a story with a cool secret inside. Jesus used familiar objects and situations of that day to teach deeper unknown spiritual truths.  In today’s lesson, Jesus compared God’s Word to seed being planted by a farmer.  There were 4 different types of soil:  the hard path, the rocky soil, the thorny soil and the good soil.  The seed represented God’s word. The farmer represents someone who shares God’s Word.  The hard path is about someone who hears the Word but the Word is stolen from them.  The rocky path represents the Word that is received with joy but when problems arise, those people will wilt and die.  The thorny path are those who receive the Word but are soon overtaken by the cares of life.  Further details of the parable can be found in Mark 4:1-20.

Here is what we learned on December 20, 2009:

God’s gift to us was the baby Jesus.  Today we learned about the shepherds in the field.  They had a “heavenly” visitor one night.  An angel came to tell them that something very exciting and very special had happened.  A baby was born!  This was not any baby!  This was a special one!  The baby Jesus was born as a gift for us.

Today we had a lesson from the Grinch!  We learned that Christmas is more than dinner and decorations. Dinners can get burned and decorations ruined but our Christmas can’t.  Its all about Jesus!  Perhaps Jesus was born in a stable because God wanted us to see that it wasn’t about the decorations or about the accommodations.  Its about Jesus and Jesus alone!! In the movie The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, the Grinch stole all of the dinners and trees and lights.   If Christmas was about that, the Grinch would have succeeded in ruining the Christmas.  We know Jesus and because of that, no one can ever steal Christmas from us!