‘Tis the season to be generous! Of course, as Christians and as Americans, we should always be generous.  For some reason, though, the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas (and the onset of cold weather) make us especially thankful for what we have – and concerned for those who are struggling.

In this month’s Reader’s Digest, I ran across an article that gives some great ideas about how and what to give this season.  The following twelve tips are summarized from this article, originally written by Deb Martinson on xojane.com:

1. Do not give anything you would not want to eat. Odds are that no one else wants to eat it, either.

2. Don’t give stupid things. Some food is just too horrible to wish on anyone else; throw it out instead.

3. Consider giving food that can be eaten without cooking. Even living indoors, people have a hard time cooking if their landlord won’t fix the broken stove or the power company just shut off the electricity again. Think granola bars, cheese and cracker packages, spam, tuna, peanut butter, dry milk — anything you’d take on a long hike.

4. Don’t give perishable items. Also, leave food in the original packaging. If it needs to be portioned out, volunteers at the food bank will take care of it.

5. Think about people with special dietary needs. Clear labeling will help food bank workers get the right food to the right clients.

6. Make it easy to get at. Aseptic packaging and pouches are better than pull-top cans are better than traditional cans. Avoid glass jars, as they may break during processing.

7. Choose things that don’t require elaborate preparation. A boxed cake that says “just add water” is much better than one that wants milk, eggs, vegetable oil, and whatever else it can think of.

8. Keep it simple. Exotic foods are likely to be tossed and they take up space that could go to things people will actually eat.

9. Ask what’s needed. The volunteers at the food bank know what’s on the shelves and how far it will go. Your local food bank probably needs things you’d never think to give them. Ask.

10. Check your grocery store. Many work with local food pantries to assemble bags of food you can buy and donate for 5 or 10 bucks. It’s a really easy way to give.

11. Be nice. Try to include at least one item you’d choose as a treat for your kids. Someone else’s kids will love you.

12. Consider donating cash. Large organizations can get way better deals on food than you can; with ten dollars, Feeding America can provide 90 meals to hungry people. You can give them money here.

Our Youth Meetings have been going well and participation has been good on Sunday nights. GRADS @ Grahams has also been doing well so ministry on Sundays is happening. The Sunday morning class is chugging along with “InTune with God Through Purpose, Purity, Power & People,” and we have enjoyed better attendance than last year. On Sunday nights in Youth we have just finished “Who is God?”: our CREATOR, our FATHER, our God of MERCY & JUSTICE, our LOVE, that’s what we have learned who GOD is! We have begun a new series, “Who is Jesus?” This Sunday we finish up “Extreme Love” with the GRADS @ Grahams then we will move in our Bible Study with the topic yet to be determined.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE! On October 25th we packed hundreds of diapers for the “Diaper Alliance” and had a good time at Grandma’s Pumpkin Patch! Thank you Pastor David for stepping up and helping us out! Diaper Alliance is an organization in the Tri-City area that supplies diapers to various agencies that distribute them to families in need of diapers. Basically, we sorted them into groups of 20 (each worth $6) in particular sizes and prepared them for delivery. It was amazing because we packaged hundreds of diapers for people in need across our area in just 2 hours of work. This is a great activity for any group who would like to participate in a service project.

There will be NO YOUTH on the evening of November 23 due to the area Thanksgiving Service in Oil City at the Assembly of God. We will be doing a service project, Sunday, Nov. 23rd with the Midland Thanksgiving Basket Food Drive from 1:00 -3:00 PM. The Midland County Department of Human Services, Aldersgate United Methodist Church and the Midland County Food Pantry Network will be coordinating this afternoon of service. This important program provides Thanksgiving dinners for some of Midland County’s families in need. We will be having sandwiches, chips, & dessert between 12:00 PM & 12:40 PM, then travel to Aldersgate Methodist Church in town. After our service project we will travel to Northern Lanes to go bowling, then we will return to the church afterwards.

We have planned some of our events for the year with the details still needing to be worked out. They are as follows:

  • November 23: Service project – Thanksgiving Baskets @ Aldersgate followed by Bowling @ Northern Lanes
  • December 21: Christmas Party @ Mt. Haley
  • January 9-11: Winter Retreat @ Cran-Hill
  • January 23: Mt. Haley Lock-In
  • February 22: Swimming Party @ Four Seasons
  • May 15-17: State Youth Convention
  • There will be events in March & April yet to be determined and there probably will be other events mixed into the schedule.

Our Church of God WINTER RETREAT at Cran-Hill Ranch is coming up on January 9-11, 2015 and registration has begun. A $50 registration deposit is DUE by November 30, 2015, with the remaining $49 due by January 4, 2015 (total cost $99). It’s a great deal for two night’s lodging, five meals, snacks, all programming and much of the recreation. This year’s speaker is Brett Talley from the Church of the Crossing in Indianapolis. Josh Lavender (recommended by Tommee Profitt) will be our worship leader. By December, Connie will be praying for snow and making some of the final preparations! Think ahead, earn your money needed and mark it on your calendars.

Hopefully, by the time of this reading, Olive’s (our church centenarian’s) yard will have been raked and Olive will have blessed the participants with several hundred dollars. Our Poinsettia and Wreath sale begins this month and orders are due by Sunday, November 30th with delivery on Saturday, December 6. There will be another Scripts Gift Card sale also before the registration date, which Youth can take orders for and claim the profits. Hopefully, Youth have participated in the fundraisers (Mums, Gift Cards, Raking) this Fall which will help you in costs of the retreat.

Great news, most of this year’s permission slips have been collected and will cover us for the year. Also, our “Prayer Warrior” ministry has begun for the year with prayers being offered up daily for all of our youth (6-12) plus our grads! We consider this ministry one of our MOST important aspects of the church and we THANK everyone who has volunteered to participate.

Missions – YES, we NOW have 14 people signed up for our Guatemala Mission on the dates of February 5-12, 2015. We have had our first Guatemalan Spiritual Growth meeting and are anticipating our November meeting. We have 8 people from Mt. Haley, 1 from the Meridian Church of God, 3 from the Community Nazarene Church and 2 from the First Church of God in Saginaw. These churches will be helping in the fundraising, however, our goal of $5000 to help with the cost of a Guatemalan Home is set and we are praying for God’s blessings in helping out another family. Please consider how you can BLESS this church ministry and help our team. Each year it is exciting to anticipate the blessings of Guatemala.

Parents and church, your prayers, support and encouragement are greatly appreciated and we look forward every week to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our students through interaction, study, fellowship, and relationship. Thank you for sharing your son or daughter and our congregation for holding the youth up in PRAYER.

Love God, Love People, Live It!

Blessings,
Pastor Jerry

Today I hope you’ll allow me to be a little bit nerdy.  One of my favorite hobbies is the game of chess.  I don’t write about chess often (in fact, only once before, and that was three years ago).  But a thought struck me today about the game that I’d like to share with you.

Chess is a strategy game between two players who alternate turns moving their pieces on an 8×8 playing board.  The object of the game is to force the capture of the opponent’s king.  Checkmate your opponent’s king and you win.

At the beginning of the game, all the chess pieces are set up in a standard position, with each player’s pieces on that player’s side of the board.  The king is located right in the middle of the board, next to his queen, behind a row of pawns.

The game’s first move sets the tone for the whole game.  There are only twenty options for this very first move:  any of the first player’s eight pawns can move either one or two squares forward (sixteen options), and either of the two knights can move to one of two squares (four options).

Do you know what moves are most commonly played first?  I checked an online database of chess games played by grandmasters and amateurs alike, both recently and in the past.  (I know, but I asked for permission be a little nerdy.)  This database contains nearly 7 million chess games.  Of those millions of games, the vast majority (over 83% of them) start with one of these moves:

Advance the pawn in front of the king, or the one in front of the queen, two squares.

Even if you don’t know anything else about the game of chess, think about the consequences of these two most frequently played opening moves.  The object of the game is to capture the other player’s king; as a corollary, you want to protect your king at all costs.  And yet the most common opening moves of the game push one of the king’s closest defenders away from him, exposing him to potential attack.

It is a risky first move.

So it is to be in the game of Christian life.  We can play defensively, keeping all our pawns close to home.  But the greatest success in following Jesus comes from taking the risks of stepping forward in faith, opening ourselves up to potential harm in relationships with others, trusting that the true Grand Master, the King of Kings, knows what he is doing with the pieces he has called to serve him.

Are you willing to push that pawn two squares forward?  Are you willing to step deeper into faith with Jesus Christ?  What will that require of you?

Let’s discuss something bluntly.  You probably know about this summer’s “celebrity hacking” scandal:  naked selfies of several famous actresses were stolen from their online accounts, and these images spread quickly across the internet.

This is a massive ethical and moral problem on many different levels.  We could point fingers at many people:  the thieves who stole these private photographs, the young women who took these selfies, the many strangers who viewed these pictures for their own pleasure.  For quite a while, I have been bothered by this entire situation.  But today I gained some clarity on the issue.

I subscribe to a news magazine called The Week.  In its current issue, this magazine quotes a Vanity Fair interview with Jennifer Lawrence, the 24-year-old actress most famous for playing the role of Katniss Everdeen in the “Hunger Games” movies.  Jennifer is one of the victims of the aforementioned hacking scandal.

Let’s put aside Jennifer’s claim that the theft of her pictures is a “sex crime.”  Let’s put aside questions of whether or not she “deserved” this unwelcome attention.  I want to focus on one extremely illuminating detail from her interview with Vanity Fair.  Jennifer explains why she sent naked selfies to her boyfriend by saying this:

“I was in a loving relationship.  It was long-distance, and either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or look at you.”

Read the last phrase of that quote again.  What kind of sexual culture do we tolerate that brings young women to believe such a statement?

The true evil revealed by the celebrity hacking scandal is that our culture believes men must satisfy their sexual desires in any way possible.  Since they must, they will.  And since they will, they may as well find that satisfaction in “appropriate” ways.  This perspective absolves men of any responsibility for their own behavior, and it cheapens human sexuality, which God intends for higher purposes than satisfaction of impulses.

Either your boyfriend is going to look at porn or look at you?  Why do we assume that he has to look at all?  Is there no other way?  Is there no better way?

It is time for us to stop believing the lie that “boys will be boys.”  It is time for us to reject the ideas that viewing pornography is natural, that the female body is meant to be seen indiscriminately, and that women must do whatever it takes to satisfy their boyfriends’ sexual desires.  It is time for us to call men (and women) to exercise self-control.

I understand where Jennifer Lawrence and her boyfriend are coming from.  I am a 34-year-old man who has been married for nine years.  Tara and I did the long-distance dating thing for two years before our wedding.  We know that self-control is possible.  And self-control has led us into a healthy and safe relationship that will last our entire lives.

Women, keep your clothes on.  Put your cameras down.  If you believe that your boyfriends must choose between pornography and you, then both you and your boyfriends need to mature.

Men, stop viewing pornography.  Stop the online image searches.  Stop “reading” swimsuit magazines.  Stop asking your girlfriend to send naked selfies to you.  Stop supporting the many ways that our culture misuses the female body.  Learn the art of self-control.

I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.  For what is our lot from God above, our heritage from the Almighty on high?  Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong?  Does he not see my ways and count my every step? (Job 31:1-4 NIV)

Jesus told the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22:1-14, which ends with a somber punchline: “Many are invited, few are chosen.”  What does this parable mean?  How does it relate to spiritual life today?  And how does it connect to our new, emerging vision?  Listen in to Pastor David’s message:

Listen now!

We began a new sermon series this week:  what is our vision as a congregation?  What drives us into God’s preferred future?  And what does this have to do with how we communicate as a church family?  Listen in to Pastor David’s sermon on Philippians 3:4b-14:

Listen now!

This is the vision statement which Pastor David references in the sermon:

vision

We are off to a GREAT beginning of the 2014-15 school year.  Youth is going strong every week from 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM, then Connie & I are scurrying home for our 8:15 Grads @ Grahams meeting. Sundays are BUSY as we are proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Even our 10:00 AM Sunday morning class has picked up in attendance.  We are hoping to touch over 30 people on any given Sunday as the year progresses. Our topic on Sunday morning is “InTune with God Through Purpose, Purity, Power & People.”  With the Youth on Sunday nights we are “Becoming a GREAT Youth Ministry” through knowing “Who is God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit.”  Our grads are exploring the topic of “Extreme Love.”  So the Word of God is being spread!

Our IYC Sunday was a blessing highlighted by testimonies from Corey Forster, Liz Dale, Paul Hassen, Nick Torres, Tristan Mapes, Sabrina Torres, Jessi Smith and Shane Mudd. All of our delegates came home closer to God and we are anxious to watch how it plays out in their daily lives. Several commented that they could hardly wait for the next one in San Antonio, Texas.  It was a BIG event with over 5000 in attendance, $65,829 given for Spread the Word missions ($600 from us) and incredible stories of God working in our kids!  Thank you for all the prayers and support.

Speaking of prayers, we could still use some more volunteers to “Prayer Warriors” for our youth.  We are entertaining the idea of including the Grad Class participants, which would multiply our numbers.  Pray about it and let us know.  Thanks!

Our Mum Sale was not as great as we hoped, but after reducing the number to just 50 delivered, we were able to sell most of those.  We will be having a poinsettia & wreath sale in December plus possibly some can collecting and we know Olive’s yard will need to be raked soon.  We appreciate you donating pop cans & bottles on a regular basis.  It doesn’t seem like much, but last year we had almost $700 in can & bottle money.  It adds up!

Our Church of God WINTER RETREAT at Cran-Hill Ranch is coming up on January 9-11, 2015. Sounds like a long time from now, but a $50 registration deposit is DUE by November 30, 2015, with the remaining $49 due by January 4, 2015 (total cost $99).  It’s a great deal for two night’s lodging, five meals, snacks, all programming and much of the recreation.  This year’s speaker is Brett Talley from the Church of the Crossing in Indianapolis.  Josh Lavender (recommended by Tommee Profitt) will be our worship leader. By December, Connie will be praying for snow and making some of the final preparations!  Think ahead, earn your money needed and mark it on your calendars.

As you know, our Detroit CSM mission was very successful and were blessed greatly again.  On Sunday, September 28th we made the Midland Daily News with pictures and an article about our trip. Hopefully, you were able to catch that as we had quotes from students and a general description of the mission. Check the Youth bulletin board because we will have it posted for a few weeks.  We are possibly considering a weeklong adventure in Detroit next summer.  Keep that in your prayers!

Missions – YES, we already have 12 people signed up for our Guatemala Mission on the dates of February 5 -12, 2015.  If you are still thinking about it, please let us know ASAP because we will begin having our Spiritual Preparation Meetings in October.  Our goal of $5000 to help with the cost of a Guatemalan Home is set and we are praying for God’s blessings in helping out another family.  Each year it is exciting to include new participants on our team to share the blessings of Guatemala.

New 2014-2015 Parental Medical/Permission Release Forms were mailed to each family during August.  We NEED to have these forms completed and turned into Pastor Jerry ASAP.  If you have lost your copies, contact Pastor Jerry and we have more.  Many have been received, but we still need a few more. Please help us have this necessary paperwork done for the year so students can attend meetings, ride in the church van and attend any youth event.  Thanks for your help!

We have tentatively planned some of our events for the year with the details still needing to be worked out.  They are as follows:

  • October 25: Service project – the Diaper Alliance followed by visiting Grandma’s Pumpkin Patch & Maze
  • November 23: Service project – Thanksgiving Baskets @ Aldersgate followed by Bowling @ Northern Lanes
  • December 21: Christmas Party @ Mt. Haley
  • January 9-11: Winter Retreat @ Cran-Hill
  • January 23: Mt. Haley Lock-In
  • February 22: Swimming Party @ Four Seasons
  • May 15-17: State Youth Convention

There will be events in March & April yet to be determined and there probably will be other events mixed into the schedule.

Every summer we attempt to upgrade the Youth room at church and we have been successful again. We have new darker rugs to replace our light tan one and we have an air hockey table that we picked up cheaply at a garage sale.  Also there are some new wall pictures & sayings that spruce up the room. We are forever grateful for the church providing a “newly remodeled” room a couple of years ago.  Thanks again that we have an inviting room for our youth and their friends.

Parents and church, your prayers, support and encouragement are greatly appreciated and we look forward every week to sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ with our students through interaction, study, fellowship and relationship.  Thank you for sharing your son or daughter and our congregation for holding the youth up in PRAYER.

Love God, Love People, Live It!

Blessings,
Pastor Jerry