Snippets

On days like today, when I've gone to bed in full freak out mode and awoke, still panicking, the next day, I take some time to look through a book that's become my "anti-panic attack" book. It's a journal my friend Hannah gave me for my birthday this year, and I've begun to fill it with pictures and quotes that help me refocus and slow my heart down. In the interest of helping me do that this afternoon, I decided to type up a few selections from my book:

Cracks and Jesus Glue

   Some of you know that my mother suffered from bipolar disorder for many years of my life. She found support in church friends, on occasion, but I know others from our homeschooling or church circles gave her platitudes. Jesus loves you; you can do anything through him; I love you too, I hope you know that. None of that was particularly helpful, but for many I know they thought it was a genuine fix if she’d only listen.

I’m still a bit confused as to why Christians tend to think religious platitudes will help solve the great problems of life. I’m even more confused when Christians judge those who can’t ingest the platitudes and use them to turn their lives around. Sometimes things are just too broken to cover up with the clever use of a Bible verse, or a sermon, or a series on God’s love. My mother used to talk to me about “receptors” when I couldn’t understand her mental illness. “I can read a verse about God’s love a hundred times,” she said, “but until I can receive it, it doesn’t make a difference. Sometimes my receptors are damaged or numb, and I can’t experience the truth in the words I’m reading. I know it’s true, but it doesn’t change how I am or how I feel.”

Looking at God's Will: "Obedience to the Heavenly Vision"

Obedience to the Heavenly Vision is a short book written by Sam Doherty, the former CEF co-director of Ireland and regional director of Europe along with his wife Sadie. I read it as a part of my support-raising training through CEF, but even if it hadn't been assigned, hopefully I would have picked it up at some point and read it through. I can't tell you how encouraging it was to me!

As I read Obedience, the personal nature of God’s vision stood out to me. Sometimes I’ve been frustrated with God’s call: why are there things He asks me but doesn’t ask my friends? Why does He send them through one route and me through another? I’m like the pot that asks its creator, why have you made me like this? I also frequently wonder if I’ve botched things up enough so that God will give up on me and take His vision elsewhere. But when I doubt my place in His plan, He continues to bring things into my life to remind me how He brought me into ministry, and that my place is here until He takes me out – things like this book.

For someone who tends to pressure herself and compare herself to others, it is liberating to read that His purpose in sending His vision isn’t merely for me to complete a task, nor is it to make me more like someone else. Rather, His revelation is to help me understand who He is; His purpose is to draw me closer to Him. Whatever God has for me will look different in some ways from what He gives to others, in the same way He made me different in looks and personality. Through this plan, He shows me that He values me, that He understands me better than I understand myself, and that His purpose for me is specific.

Encouragement in the face of... stuff.

  A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle was on my shortlist of favorite books for my sophomore and junior years of high school (if you read it, you will understand the appeal it holds for an awkward teenage girl). In the story there was a poem that captured the attention of the heroine and myself. It wasn't "The World", by Henry Vaughan, although that would be a good guess considering the book's title. The poem was actually a short and odd-sounding snippet (to my modern ears) by Sir Thomas Browne, and it helped our moody protagonist as she dealt with the immanent death of her grandfather.

Thoughts on "The Indomitable Mr. O", by Norman Rohrer

    Life is hard when a person denies love; when they can't accept grace and insist on being enough by themselves. This seems to be a theme in the story of J. Irvin Overholtzer; he refused his parents' help and love (even when he desperately needed it), he doubted his salvation was “perfect” enough since it relied on his deeds, and he doubted whether he should even seek converts since “the best I had to offer them was to... start working for their salvation as I was doing” (The Indomitable Mr. O, pg. 57). I think that to begin (and continue) a relationship with Christ means admitting brokenness and a personal inability to face life's challenges. But even more painful is knowing that love is just around the corner, and still choosing to stay right where you are. Mr. O learned that the hard way.

What Bethel is thinking at the end of spring semester

"I am so thirsty, I'm gonna walk out in the hall and attempt mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on that low-water-pressure drinking fountain."

"That flagpole sounds just like a railroad crossing."

"I'm pretty sure I can make the Warsaw Pact have something to do with the Hitler-Stalin pact. Just sayin'."

"That orange juice looks just like spring... I needed that."

"Wow, my document writer automatically fills in 'proletariat.' I just want to write 'professor'!"

"'User name or password is incorrect'? They're the same thing!"

"I should look back at that building fondly as I walk away, since I may never be there again. What am I saying, I still have finals!"

"Pregnancy brain. Except, I'm not pregnant."

CEF in Russia

For the last year now, Child Evangelism Fellowship has been working with the Russia Baptist Union to help train teachers in presenting the Gospel!

 I'm always interested in how God is working in the former Soviet Union (particularly Russia); it seems the Protestant church there has flourished, despite the changing political climate which is becoming hostile towards non-Orthodox religion. Maybe the church rifts go too deep for Protestant-Orthodox partnerships, but hopefully they can retain a peaceful coexistence, whatever the state does. According to this article from CEF's website, CEF of Russia has worked with "Orthodox, Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal and Charismatic" church groups, reaching over 150,000 children in 2011.

5-day club verses

This year, the club theme is Jesus the Lifesaver, aka Knowing Christ.

There's a new memory verse for each day, all of them about who Jesus says He is. They're known as the "I Am" verses from the book of John. :)

Monday: JOHN 10:11 "I am the good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep."

Tuesday: JOHN 6:35 "...I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in Me will never be thirsty."

Some Good Reasons

  After you've done something once, the odds of you doing it again usually increase... even when you have a bad experience!

  My first year of Christian Youth in Action® (CYIA™) was not the best -- when people asked me, I said I doubted I'd be back for a second year. However, God had other plans. :)

  Some of our summer missionaries this year have questioned their own motives, and struggled to find God's voice in the tumult of everyday life. But from what I've heard them say, they all have excellent reasons for coming back this summer...

CYIA Winter Retreat!

This weekend a group of us came together for a Christian Youth in Action winter retreat. It was a time of refreshment and fun for everyone who came, though I think our visitors from down south felt it was a little chilly (and it was)!

Ready for lunch! And what a delicious lunch, too.

Conversations with CYIA-ers

            This week I had a wonderful conversation with one of my Christian Youth in Action friends, who is looking forward to her second year of training. This young lady can’t wait to learn how to teach a Bible lesson, although she has taught a couple in a Good News Club already—and quite well, I might add! She’ll also be joining the teens and adults for Good News Across America in the future, to “blitz” cities with 5-day clubs. She said she’s never done anything like that before, going away from her family for such a long missions trip! 

         Another of the CYIA teens I talked to recently is thinking of attending TCE (Teaching Children Effectively) class this year. 

Spoiler alert: THE WAY = Jesus

So there Jesus was, about to die. He and his friends were finishing up some last-minute gospel teaching, but Jesus' message wasn't quite getting through to his friends.

"I will be with you only a little longer," Jesus said.

Simon Peter asked him, "Lord, where are you going?"

Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later."

Peter asked, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you."

Peter wasn't the only one with questions: after Jesus told his disciples that he would take them where he was going one day, and that they knew the way to that place, Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus didn't expect that his disciples had some sort of magical GPS that told them how to get to unknown destinations, but he did expect that they knew him, at least a little bit.

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

Overcoming

Life is not always very much fun, especially the life of a believer in Christ.  That might sound hopeless, but it's actually a declaration of hope in the nature of God. If God hadn't been willing to go to war with Satan for our souls, we would be in a heck of a spot. Quite literally, a heck of a spot... one of our own doing.

Oswald Chambers once said that "life without war is impossible, either in nature or in grace". Nature is at war because of the fall into sin, but the fight of grace in our lives is based in Christ. God's gift of His Son, which we'll be celebrating in full force 21 days from now, gave us hope for the future. But it didn't come without a cost.

If the Christian life is to be anything like Christ's, it is to be set apart and holy for God's use, however painful His usage is.

The REAL Good News

"Bank robbers sin."
The little girl was adament on that point.

"People who rob banks. Bullies at my school. My big brothers; they're mean to me."

Those were her answers to our question, "Who has sinned?" Over the course of Good News Club, we went through the gospel five or six times, and each time the girl replied, "bad people have sinned." Whenever that happened we told her, "the Bible says in Romans 3:23 that ALL have sinned. That includes me and you." It seemed she was beginning to understand, so Mrs. Weibel asked the little girl if she could tell US the gospel. The little girl picked up her Wordless Book bracelet and began.
"The gold is like some roads in heaven where God lives. The dark is like bad things that bad people do."

I stopped her a second and asked, "Who has done bad things?"

"People who rob banks." ...OK, so we weren't there yet.

Keeping up with Testimonies

Unless you, dear reader, know a hardcore CEF/CYIA participant (and I happen to know several - what a coincidence), you may not have heard testimonies recently of the great work God is doing through CEF in the Midwest region!

My coworker's comment when I told him what I was doing was "wow, I haven't heard of CEF in a long time. Are they still around?"

I think Child Evangelism PR needs a reboot, maybe. But you didn't hear that from me.

Hopefully you (dear reader) know all about what CEF has been doing in Western Wisconsin over the past few years. But just in case you haven't, I've compiled a list of links to check out for testimonies, news, and some all-around fantastic pictures of teens and kids and grown-ups serving the Lord.
Check them out!

* Testimonies from Western Wisconsin hosts, parents, teachers, etc.
* A photo gallery of CYIA 2010 
* Quotes from children (what this blog is really about!)
* For old photos (I mean like ancient, ancient, 2008-2009 photos), see here and here

Check out the stories. Are you excited? :)

Teen Mentorship

A study by the Barna Group indicated that 6% of teens listed “pastors or other religious leaders they know personally” as their top role models, while 6% listed “entertainers (including musicians and actors)” - an interesting similarity in statistics.
But even with parents excluded from the role model survey (they had been the top response at first), a "close relation" to the teen came out at the top (37%).

Unfortunately, as the president of the Barna Group pointed out, "teens rarely identified spiritual mentors" in the survey.
 

STOP a second

It was a Monday, I believe, when Sammi was at club.
She was almost junior high age, so she was a little older than some of the other kids. But she and her siblings had a lot of fun playing games with us. For one game I had all the kids line up and as I read a "right heart attitude", they could take a giant step forward. For each "wrong heart attitude", they had to stay where they were. If someone moved when they weren't supposed to, we would send them back to the starting line.
The game may not sound very exciting, but the kids liked it - maybe because it was easy to tell which was a right attitude and which was a wrong one!
But Sammi surprised me when the group of kids got close to the finish line.
I read, "I talk to God every day, every chance I get," and all the other kids took a big step forward.
But Sammi stayed back.
"Sammi," I said in surprise. "Why didn't you take a big step?"
"Because," said Sammi, "I don't do that all the time."
I explained that, while the attitudes I was reading were good, the kids didn't have to step forward only if they had those attitudes. Sammi said, "Ohh," and stepped up to the other kids.
That was all.

But Sammi's attitude got me thinking.

It took guts to stop when everyone else kept moving forward. It took even more guts to speak up and say, "I don't do that all the time." So I think maybe we had it backwards all summer. The kids are the teachers... and we teenagers just show up to learn from them.

Sammi's actions taught me to stop and think about the true nature of my relationship with God; not to just move forward with things. Sometimes I assume everyone else must have a word from God I don't; surely they're all moving in the right direction!

But maybe God just wants me to stop.

The college I'm attending this fall has a motto based on what Jesus said to Martha in Luke 10; "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Everyone else may be "worried... about many things", but you and I need to stop and say "there is something I'm not doing, and it's what I need to do. I need to get closer to God."

That's what won't be taken away from us at the finish line.

MORE Kids Quotes

This blog has become all about the kids quotes! But uh, I'm not sure I can remember anything else from this week. :) It went by so fast! We taught 3 clubs a day so the days were full and sticky (juice on the parachute in 90-degree weather, anyone?).

The quotes might be the most telling...
________________________________________________________

"Jesus is the way, Jesus is the way. Jesus is the only way at club today!"
- a kid at our park club who loved rhymes.

Teacher:"Why where the Christians praying? Maybe something bad had happened..."
Child:"Maybe hamburgers fell from the sky!"

Teacher:"What has God given to you?"
Child:"My Star Wars video games and lightsaber!"

Teacher:"How can you come to God with a right heart attitude?"
Child:"Talk to him nicely."

Teacher:"What is a missionary?"
Child:"Someone who tells anybody about Jesus!"

Host's child when his dad came in: "Daddy, this is 5-day club!"

T:"What do you think they had at the feast?"
C:"Chicken!"
C:"Ribs!"
C:"Cow tongue!"
Teachers:"Cow tongue?!"

Sometimes it's the teachers that get a little... odd.

Teacher:"He probably had a lot of doctors but none of them knew anything! So..."

Teacher:"Wow! That was awesome! Style points!"
Kid:"Yay! We get more points!"
Teacher:"...Oops."

An amazing joke from this week's teacher:
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Broken pencil!
Broken pencil who?
Never mind; it's pointless. :D

Children know

Sometimes kids are right on!

Like at 5-day club last week - a little girl was asked how Jesus came to earth. She replied, "He came down from heaven and he was a baby, and his parents birthed him."

An eight-year-old boy explained Cain's punishment as "he had to walk away from God and others."

And a little girl who accepted Jesus as her Savior was positive that she was "part of God's family."

Other times, kids' thinking is just a little mixed up.

- "Jesus gave us our blood when he died."
- "Jesus shared his blood on the cross" (explaining Hebrews 9:22).
- "Adam and Eve left the garden 'cause they ate them pears and sinned."

Kids can be very confused: one little girl announced at club, "you won't sin when you're a mom!"

Another girl said "I thought Joseph was Jesus' father", when Jesus was called God's son.

It's an honor to teach kids the truth about Jesus... but it's fun to hear what they think you said about him too. :)

Quotes from the Clubhouse

Quotes from kids at the fair trailer:

Missionary (showing the Wordless Book): How is this book different from other books?...

There are no words, are there?

Child: Did someone pull them off??

Missionary: What are some things God created?

Child: He made the Ferris wheel!

Child to missionary: I remember you from 5-day club last year!!!

Child (complimenting us on the Wordless Book presentation): It was all good... except for the blood.

Child: Did God make drugs?

Missionary: How can you be cleaned up from your sin?

Child: By being baptized?

Missionary: What's the punishment for your sin?

Child: God has to spread apart from you