Poverty Revolution
There is poverty all around us. It affects us whether we realize it or not because sooner or later we are going to choose to do something about it or ignore it and that very action affects us. Social Justice causes have been on my heart more and more which is ironic because I have never really had a heart of compassion. If you get hurt, get up and quit whining. I know this though, I’m not alone, several of you are the same way. In fact if something bad happened in the world, it is easier to throw money at it than to roll up the sleeves and do something about it.
Are you aware of such issues such as, human trafficking, sex trafficking, clean water acts, homelessness, hunger, poverty and fair trade? Half the battle is knowing what is out there, the other half is figuring out what you can do about it. Put your faith into action and do something about it. Look globally, locally and internally. There is poverty all around us if we are willing to look.
UNITED Promotion
UNITED Promotion from Ryan Geiger on Vimeo.
Randomness
So much has been happening over the last couple weeks. Some things life changing and some just schedule altering.
First off great weekend. Kid Kollage was great, 15 students received Christ at UNITED, great turnout on Sunday with a lot of energy and Gus did a great job wrapping up Udderly Stuck.
Brandon is back home from the hospital and is doing good. He went in Friday morning and came home Sunday night. He had a temperature and an ear infection. They did a spinal tap on Friday and all the cultures came back negative (which is good). He still struggles badly with his acid reflux which keeps him and mostly Jess up at night so prayers for that would be appreciated.
Backstage Leadership started and last week had a chance to listen in on a conference call with Chuck Colson. I guy with tremendous wisdom and at age 77 is going as strong as most thirty year olds. Out of respect for the program I will not blog on the details but will say that I am so fortunate to be able to learn from so many influential leaders as well as walk through this program with guys who are just like me and trying to figure all this out.
Get a chance to go to the Catalyst conference and listen to leadership “stuff” for 12 hours a day and if you know me that just gets me fired up so be looking for blogs and possibly some live blogging (if I can figure it out) from the conference.
Accept
I am talking about accepting people as they are without any conditions on Saturday night for UNITED. As I looked through the Bible to prep for this I realized that there are some seriously jacked up people, and that is just in the first 30 chapters of Genesis.
Genesis 4-Cain kills his brother Abel
Genesis 9-Noah gets drunk and naked
Genesis 16-Abraham has sex with his wife’s servant and gets her pregnant
Genesis 19-Lot gives offers his daughters up to the city of Sodom in place of the angels visiting him
Genesis 29-Jacob marries 2 women, has sex with 4 and has 13 children between the four.
Why would God put all those stories in the Bible? To show us that people are messed up but regardless He died for them just like He did for us. Accepting others I believe is a form of worship and brings honor and glory to God. The key is accepting them before they change not waiting for them to make the change.
There is a line from Transformers 2 that says, “Fate rarely calls upon us in the moment of our choosing”. I feel God rarely calls upon us in the moment of our choosing. Because we naturally we don’t choose to love the unlovable like Jesus did with the Lepers in Luke 11, but that is exactly what He has called us to do.
I wonder what it would look like for us if we put ourselves in other people’s shoes and see life through their eyes for just a moment? I wonder how much more accepting we would be? Who has God put in our life that needs to see the accepting love of Jesus through us this week?
New Series_SEXED
SEXED from Ryan Geiger on Vimeo.
Alright everybody I am giving the warning now. I know that some of you feel uncomfortable when somebody mentions the word sex but that is exactly what you will hear at our next UNITED on April 4 at 6:00pm. I will launch our series talking about God’s view on sex and in case your wondering He is pro sex. In our life groups we will be covering the topics of what a girl wants/who a guy is uncovering the stereotypes and differences and do those impact our relationships. We will be talking about sex is bigger than I thought, dealing with the small picture now and big picture later of the consequences as it relates to the spiritual, mental, physical and social aspects of sex. Finally we will be talking about I’ve messed up, now what? How to start over, and dealing with the truth of Jesus and your mistakes.
I know this is a sensitive subject and so we are asking that only students and youth staff attend. One just so it is not uncomfortable for students/parents to be in there and two because of space. This is usually our most highly attended series all year although I don’t know why. I know that some of you have younger students but I would strongly encourage to allow your students to attend and use this as a tool to talk about sex with your teenager. The reality is whether they are 11 or 17 they have questions and it is the role of the parents to teach their kids about sex and it is the role of the church to come along side and affirm what you are teaching from God’s Word. There will be notes provided from the talk that your students use and we will be putting the talk up on my blog in its entirety after the weekend.
March UNITED
March UNITED from Ryan Geiger on Vimeo.
FSM Weekend in Review: Volume 2
Weekend Teaching Series: Week 1 of our new 4-week series “The Family Series”
Sermon Title: What goes on under your roof?
Sermon in a Sentence: God Cares more about your family than you do.
Scripture: Ephesians 6, Exodus 20
Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 6 out of 10. We had 2 new songs. A Nickelback song, we did an artistic element with an easel, 2 Videos and group announcements.
Attendance: Down 21% from last month, up 197% from same weekend last year
Service Length: 85 minutes
Understandable Message: This message started with an alarm clock going off throughout the whole message. The end idea on that is we have a conditioned response towards our parents like we do every morning with the snooze button. We shared how God can heal families and He cares more about their families than they do. We gave them some actions steps to improve communication with parents and siblings. There was a lot of laughter but there was also a challenge to honor the way that God has called us to honor.
Volunteer/Student Involvement: We had students and leaders greeting and all of our video/audio and lighting was done by Fellowship staff members. Confidence comes in knowing you have the best possible team behind what your doing.
Element of Fun/Positive Environment: Group announcements was entertaining. We had students/leaders coming up and write out pains on a easel and during the final song we had two volunteers come up and write the name of Jesus in red to cover all their pains, very symbolic. Announced that Kyle was leaving May 2nd after his internship and it was a fun approach.
Music Playlist: take it all, let the praises ring, all because of Jesus, lift high, when our hearts sing, overcome
Favorite Moment: I think my favorite moment was the end song and watching the students with tears in their raising their hands to worship their God freely.
Next up: Sexed…a 4 week series on what God says about sex
Lala
Do you like music? So do I and Greg Davis introduced me to this tool that allows my music to be online and available at all times. It also allows me to download songs cheaper than Itunes and in mp3 format or if I just want to listen to it online I can do so for .10 cents. Seriously? How cool is that?
It also allows me to post what our playlist will be for UNITED. One week prior and three weeks after our UNITED you will be able to listen to the worship sets as well as the opening song we do for each UNITED. You can follow others on lala and hear what type of music they enjoy and the best part is it is free. Check it out at lala. I’ve been using this one day but I am really impressed.
The Family Series
What is under your roof? This is the series that will launch at our upcoming UNITED in March. March 7th at 6:00pm join students from all over the Delaware Valley as we worship an incredible God and find out what He has to say about the relationships we have with our families.
March 8, 15, 22, 29 are our life group nights at 6:00pm. We will continue this series as we deal with everything from death, abuse, family sickness to competition, respect, and favoritism in families.
