Do you S.P.R.I.N.G.?

I haven't forgotten you...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 15:34:50 -0500

Hello everyone, I’ve been having problems getting on the site and with things being blocked. But I think everything is working now, so hopefully we will be back on schedule next week. We’ll see you then and as a reminder, no Wednesday nights this week.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving.

The Seed Company

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:21:53 -0400

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share an Email I just recived from the Seed Company (our VBS mission) to give you more details on what was accomplished this summer and how you can get involved as a family:

As the vacation Bible school (VBS) season comes to a close, we at OneVerse — a program of The Seed Company — invite you to celebrate some of God’s accomplishments.

More than 500 churches participated in the VBS Missions Module in 2012. That means more than 25,000 kidsheard about the needs of those living in darkness without God’s Word. God moved many of these children to give sacrificially. Churches from all 50 states, Canada, Germany, Australia, the Philippines, and the Federated States of Micronesia joined hands to help fulfill the Great Commission by funding Bible translation.

Together you raised $79,764.78. Even more exciting, some of you supported languages that qualified for the dollar-for-dollar match through the Least of These program. This brought the total gifts raised for Bible translation to $124,621.87 — enough to fund the translation of 4,793 verses of Scripture!

And we have more great news. The matching-gift opportunity doesn’t stop with VBS. Through 2013, every church and church-related group can double their impact through the Least of These program. Would you consider partnering in prayer and investing in Bible translation to help bring Scripture to people who are still waiting to hear God’s Word in a language they understand?

We invite you to prepare your hearts by watching the Least of These video featuring Francis Chan and Alistair Begg, as well as the video How Does Translation Work? As God speaks to your heart, please share this opportunity with your church leaders and church body. Your VBS kids will be all for it.

All Glory to God as He unites His Church to bring the Good News to those who long to have it.

For His glory,

Scottye

Day 157- Seeds were planted

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 16:08:05 -0400

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share with you what we accomplished at VBS through our partnership with The Seed Company. At VBS we raised $1,757.97 which went to The Seed Company to translate bibles. Our money went to translate bibles into a language that has never had bibles before, and in a country where it is dangerous to even read a bible. Because of this, we can not be told which country our money went to help, but we were told our money translated Luke 1:12-78. We were also thanked by numerous people at The Seed Company and told that because of a grant, our money was doubled. God has blessed so many people because of what happened at VBS. Good job everyone and remember to keep living a radical life.

http://www.theseedcompany.org/

Day ??- Spiritually Lost

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:39:55 -0400

So I’ve lost track of what day it is. I’ll have to go back and count. But it doesn’t change the fact we’re still in our year of focus on Radical living and now it’s time to talk about the Spiritually Lost.

Now I know that your thinking, “Isn’t that the point of all the other things we’ve been talking about?” Give them water to tell them about Jesus, give them clothes to tell them about Jesus, Give them food to tell them about Jesus. And the answer is “Yes” that’s is what all the prior posts have been about, but what about the person that has everything they need. What if someone has everything but Jesus, what do you do then?

This may be one of the easiest and hardest needs to fulfill. Easy because there is nothing extra you need to do, nothing you need to raise or carry or give. Hard because walking up to someone and saying “Can I tell you about Jesus?” can be very scary. But think of the alternative. Talking to someone about Jesus isn’t as scary as what will happen if we never do. We like to talk about how much everyone that believes in Jesus goes to heaven. But what about the people that don’t believe in Jesus, what happens to them? Well, They don’t get Jesus, or God, or heaven for all eternity, that’s what we call Hell, being separated from God.

Think about it this way. What are all the good things in life- Love, nature, beauty, friends, family, animals, the night sky with all the stars, telling stories and playing games. There are so many good things that God has given us, now think of the world with out them. Without people who love us, without trees and rivers and sunsets and stars, without games and toys. A world with only bad things because God isn’t there- That’s what Hell is like. And Heaven is a place where only good things are becuase God is there and he can only be with good.

So knowing and understanding this: is it really scary to talk to someone about Jesus, or is it more scary not to?

We're Back

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 15:37:37 -0400

Hello everyone! After getting off schedule do to VBS I’m back again, and wanted to let you know about the series we starting this Sunday. It’s based of a book called “Tales of the Not Forgotten” by Beth Guckenberger and each week we will be taking a look at a topic we talked about during our Radical Sunday. I’m so excited about this series and think you’re going to have a lot of fun too. And if you want to hear some stories of the not forgotten, you can get the book on amazon by following the link below. I promise we’ll get back to discussing the 10 problems in the world next week, but I just wanted to give you a heads up on this great book, and great series that we’re going to be starting.

See you Sunday!

Tales of the Not Forgotten

Radical Outreach

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 10:09:02 -0400

Hey everyone,

I’m taking a break from discussing our 10 for this week and wanted to remind you about the Carnival and VBS coming up. These are both great ways to reach out to those around you that don’t have a realtionship with Jesus and invite them to see how great being part of a church family can be. Make sure to invite all your neighbors and friends because it’s going to be a great time. And as a reminder here are the details.

Carnival: July 8 5p-8p

VBS: July 9-13 6:15p- 8:15p

Remember: it’s all free. We just want as many people as possible to come and have fun with us.

Hope to see you there!

Day 82 Uneducated

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:04:42 -0400

Spelling was never something I liked to do in school and I’m still not very good at it. But the truth is I’m still better than a 70 million kids who have no education. I know a lot of you are thinking those kids are lucky that they don’t have to go to school, but are they really? I’m sure all of you have dreams about what you want to be when you grow up. I wanted to be a Paleontologist when I was in elementary school before I realized being a Children’s Minister is really the greatest job in the world. But I wouldn’t have a chance at either of those if I didn’t go to school. School is where we learn to read and write which gives us a chance at a Job which helps us buy food, clothes, a place to live, medicine, and other things that we need. Without an education, life is hard. And what’s worse, without an education you can’t read, which means you can’t read your bible, and it will be difficult even to understand it even if someone read it to you.

And you can help others get an education. There are many organizations out there that work to build schools so that children can learn and grow up to have a better future than their parents. Below are some sites you can look at to start investigating more about the education problem in the world and how you can help. And remember when a person can read, they can read their bible allowing them to know the God that loved them so much that he sent his son to die for their sins and raise from the dead so that every person that ever lived could have a chance at eternal life through a relationship with Christ.

www.worldvision.com

www.compassion.com

www.overlandmissions.com

Day 72- Sick

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:22:00 -0400

Hey Guys. Sorry I’ve missed the last couple weeks. Camp has been a little time consuming, and my internet wasn’t working at camp. But I’m back now and want to talk to you about our next world problem: sickness.

Now I’m sure all of you have been sick. Whether it was a cold or the flu, some of you may have even been in the hospital for your sickness. But imagine getting sick and there is no medicine, no hospital, no doctors. You would just have to suffer and hope you get better. The sad thing is that there are 270 Million people, kids and adults, that have no medicine or doctors or anyone or anything that can help them get better. Sometimes something as simple as a cold or a mosquito bite can kill a person when all they needed to get better is a pill or shot.

But there are people out there trying to make a difference. Doctors and Nurses go to help people either by giving them vaccines that will keep them from getting sick or by fixing mouths, legs, arms, eyes, or any other part of the body that might keep people from being healthy and having jobs. Below are organizations that work toward providing healthcare to people that might die without it in other countries. Check them out with mom and dad to learn more about how to help. Who knows, maybe God is calling you to be a doctor to help others that need healthcare.

One way that you can help now, though, is by buying nets. Now I’m not talking about the kind you use to catch fish. These nets are called mosquito nets and it keeps mosquito from biting you while you sleep. In a lot of countries where medicine isn’t available, people get malaria when a mosquito bits them, which can cause you to get sick or even die. A $10 mosquito net can save a life and keep a whole family from getting sick. You can learn more about buying a net for a family at Bite Back.

Check These Sites Out:

World Medical Missions

African Christian Medical Missions

Day 52- Hungry

Tue, 22 May 2012 16:36:58 -0400

I don’t know about you, but at least once during a week I will say “I’m hungry.” Now, I’m not lying when I say this. I really am hungry: my stomach makes funny noises, sometimes it even hurts, and sometimes I even shake or get really tired. But when this happens I go to the kitchen and I get myself a snack or dinner or go to the store or a restaurant and the problem is solved, at least for me.

826 million people in the world are malnourished. What this means is that they don’t have enough food to eat, and the food they do get doesn’t give them the right kind of energy and vitamins to be healthy. 16,000 kids die every day because they don’t have enough food. If 16,000 people in Jasper died every day, it would take 2 days for everyone to be dead.

But the saddest part about the hunger issue is that this shouldn’t be a problem. There is more than enough food in the world to feed everyone. Think about the food that you don’t eat when you go out, or even leftovers that get thrown away because no one wants to eat them for the third night in a row. But there are kids out there that eat rice and beans every single day of the year, because that’s all they can afford.

It doesn’t have to be this way. You can do something about it. Money is a way to start, but you could also grow vegetables to donate to the food bank here in town, make peanut butter sandwiches to hand out to people that need them, or collect seeds and supplies for people to grow their own food. And there are always mission trips that your family could do for vacation this summer to help people in poverty. Below are some organizations that work to get people food, maybe they will inspire you to do the same.

*Remember kids: let Mom and Dad know what sites you’re going to look at before you look at them.

http://www.worldvision.org/- Along with other things, World Vision works to provide not just food for the children and families but also a way for them to keep producing food for their families, so that hunger stops being a problem all with Christ as the center.

http://www.plantwithpurpose.org/- Another Christian organization, they teach people to plant and care for fruit trees, so that they not only will have food to eat, but also sell the extra food so they have money to buy other things they need.

http://www.chfus.org/- Children’ Hunger Fund does just what is sounds like, Helps make sure children have food from right here in the United States to international to disaster relief, they want to help the church help others.

Day 44- Thirsty This video explains how serious of a problem it...

Mon, 14 May 2012 14:37:00 -0400

Day 44- Thirsty

This video explains how serious of a problem it is to not have clean drinking water. And when we solve this problem for someone, it allows them not only to be healthy, learn to read and write, and have a better life in general, but also can open the door for them to learn about Jesus, who can give the water of life (John 4:14). Check out more orginizations that work to not only give people water for this life, but the water that leads to eternal life.

http://www.activewater.org/

http://www.bloodwatermission.com/

http://www.water.cc/

http://thewaterproject.org/

Guest post by Macey Stiles.

Fri, 11 May 2012 09:52:52 -0400

Guest post by Macey Stiles.

Day 37- Slavery

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:36:24 -0400

When I was a kid, I thought slavery was something that had happened a long time ago in the United States. It wasn’t until around High School that I realized that it was something that had happened all through history, with just about everyone at one time or another. Then when I got to college, I found out that slavery wasn’t something that happened in the past, it was something that was happening right now, all over the world, and even in the United States.

You may be surprised about that, but in the USA alone there are around 40,000 slaves being made to do terrible and hard work. Usually they are either tricked into slavery, thinking the are going to have a better life and winding up in a locked room, or they are sold by their parents because their family can’t afford to keep them.

The sad thing is that even though they are miserable being slaves, they don’t know how to escape or they are scared to. Some of them have been threatened that their family will be killed if they try to leave some of them can’t speak the language of the people around them so they can’t ask for help.

That’s where we come in. We can be abolitionists and fight to end slavery. And when we rescue them from their physical slavery, we can help them escape from the slavery of sin and help them come to know about the freedom they can find in Jesus.

Below are some sites that can help you find out more about slavery in the world and how you can fight it. And remember, one of the most powerful things we can do is Pray. Not only to help these people find help to escape, but also that we can be willing and ready to do what God wants us to in order to rescue these people.

Remember- Make sure your parents are with you while you visit these sites!

http://www.stand4kids.org/- This site is specifically to help kids understand the slavery situation and how to end it and show people the truth of Jesus.

www.freetheslaves.net – Not a specifically Christian site, but still has a lot of information about slavery and working toward abolishing it.

http://www.freedomcenter.org/slavery-today/ - going to Cincinnati? Then go by the Freedom Center and learn more about the history of slavery as well as the current state and how to end it.

http://www.freethechildren.com/- this organization was started by a 7^th grader who knew he needed to make a difference and end slavery

Day 30- Orphans

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:39:00 -0400

Over the next 10 weeks, I’m going to go a little more in-depth with the 10 problems of the world we talked about and what we can do to change each of them. The first one we will talk about is Orphans.

James 1:27 says “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” So many times people ask what Religion are you? The proper response is showing what you believe, because what James was talking about here is that just because you call yourself something, doesn’t make it true. Just like calling myself “the king of the world” doesn’t make it true, calling myself a follower of Jesus doesn’t make it true unless we do something to show that you follow Jesus. And if you keep your eyes peeled as we read through the bible, you’ll notice that God cares about the poor and suffering. He doesn’t want people to suffer or be abused, and he wants us to do something to change it. That’s why it says take care of orphans and widows. In bible times, they were the poorest people, they couldn’t work or support themselves, and were often forgotten by everyone.

So what can we do to help orphans? Well first of all you can pray. If you picked orphans as one of you five, every day when you pray for the world, pray that the orphans in that country find Godly homes and pray that people follow God’s call to adopt.

You can raise money for a children’s home. Everywhere there are orphans, there are people trying to help them. Talk with mom and dad and see what countries you are interested in then research orphanages and missions in that country. Below are some sites to get you started.

A big thing you can do is go on a mission trip. Orphanages and Children’s homes need donations and help to take care of the kids that they have. They also want people to come and show the kids that they are loved.

You can also become an advocate. What that means is that you are someone who knows a lot about a problem so you can tell others and help them learn what they can do to make a difference. The sites listed below will help you learn more about orphans in the world, how to help them, and how tell others about the problem.

http://www.christianalliancefororphans.org/

http://www.back2backministries.org/

http://www.hisarmskenya.org/index.html

http://www.hopefororphans.org/Display.asp?Page=hfokidshome

Day 27- Fill that Bowl!

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:15:00 -0400

Today’s Guest Post is written by Megan Stiles.

How’s filling your rice bowl working out? Mine’s going great! I’ve collected a lot of change. I asked for money as my Easter present and gave half for the orphans. I felt great about it. I hope we raise a lot of money for the orphans. Please pray for all the orphans. Also, pray thatwe raise enought money for food for as many orphans as possible.

There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be open handed toward your bothers and toward the poor and needy in your land. Deuteronomy 15:11

Day 23- How do you pray?

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:57:32 -0400

Did you know that there are different ways to pray? You don’t have to sit at the edge of your bed with your hands folded and head bowed to pray. You can pray a lot of different ways, and all of these ways can be used to pray for the world. Try out a new way to pray this week and see how you like it.

1. Draw your prayer- Markers, crayons, pencils, pens, whatever you want to use to draw, use it to tell God what’s on your heart. You could draw pictures of your five to hand somewhere or you could draw pictures of the country you’re praying for or anything else that comes to your heart.

2. Write your prayer- Start a prayer journal. Write a date then start dear God and tell him what’s on your heart. The cool part about this is you can see how long it takes for God to give you an answer to prayers.

3. Post-it prayers- Pick 5 different colors of post-it notes and label each one with a different one of your five. Place these notes in a book or folder at school and when you notice a color that matches a post-it pray for what is on that color post-it. For example, if I have a red post-it that has hunger on it, and I see someone in a red shirt, I’ll pray for God to end hunger in my city, in my nation, or maybe in the countries that we are to pray for that week.

4. Read the Psalms- Did you know that the Psalms is just a big book of prayers. David wrote a lot of them, but Solomon and some other people wrote some too. But these are songs and poems that they wrote down as prayers to God in good times and bad times of their lives. Find a couple that your relate to and read them out loud as a prayer to God.

5. Sing a Song to God- Are there some songs that you love to sing and make you feel closer to God? Those are prayers too. Make a CD of songs that you want to pray to God and Sing through it. Or make a CD of music that represents different countries. Pray for each country while their song is on.

6. Prayer walk/drive- Take a walk around your neighborhood and pray for the family in each house you pass. Or take a drive as a family and pray for neighborhoods, businesses, schools, or cities. You could also print a map and write in countries of the world at different points along the path you want to take. When you get to a country spot, stop to pray then go on to the next spot.

7. Start with the Lord’s Prayer- Write the Lord’s Prayer down, putting a couple spaces between each line. Then go back and write what each line means to you, or make each line specific for the countries we’re praying for. Read it to God out loud when you’re done.

8. Use the Clock- Make a list of 12 things to pray for, and then each time you look at the clock, pray for the thing that the minute or hour hand is pointing to. You could put your five on the list, the countries we’re to pray for, people you know that need Jesus, the church, or anything else that God puts on your heart.

9. Fast- In Jesus’ time, fasting meant that you gave up eating to give you more time to pray to God. But you don’t have to fast just from food. You could fast from video games, TV, movies, or anything that would give you more time to pray from God. Giving up something also reminds us to pray every time we want to give it up. You can fast for as long as you want to as well, it could be a couple days, a couple weeks, or a couple months, but no, you can’t fast from homework or school.

10. Text it- This is a fun way you could pray with a friend. Decide with a friend or family member what you want to pray about, then one of you texts the first line, and then the next person texts the second line and so on till you’re done. This is a prayer that could go on through the whole day too; it doesn’t have to be a solid block of time.

So what do you think? Is there a way you like to pray that’s not on this list?

Day 20- Afghanistan is Lost!

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:16:21 -0400

Today is our first guest post, which is a prayer by Mya Stiles.

Dear Lord,

Thanks for this beautiful and glorious day. Help the country of Afghanistan because not a lot of people know Christ. Lord, help the children have clean water to drink and better living. Help heal those who got hurt in war. Be with the people in charge of the country to have a changed heart. Lord we praise you for the Afghans that do follow Christ. Please help all of those who don’t know Christ come to you.

Amen.

“It is written in the prophets: they will all be taught by God everyone who has heard the father and learned from him comes to God.” John 6:45

Remember if you’re interested in writting for “Do you S.P.R.I.N.G.?” you can go to the downloads page to get the form. Then just give it to Ms. Shannan on Sunday or E-mail it to her at shannan@ccjasper.com.

Day 16- Blood Water

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:09:00 -0400

Hello Everyone. Hope you’re having a radical day.

Today I want to highlight a mission group called “Blood Water Missions”, which was started by a group called Jars of Clay (and if you scroll down, you can listen to one of their songs). The whole focus of this mission is to help solve the water and HIV crisis in Africa. But they aren’t just trying to fix a water problem- they are also trying to show them Jesus.

As we’ve been learning, fixing a physical problem doesn’t help if you still don’t know Jesus. Every time we help someone we should use it as an opportunity to tell them that Jesus died in their place, even though they are the ones that sin and mess up, and that Jesus rose from the dead so, if we follow him, we can have eternal life.

That’s what serving others is all about. And Blood Water gives us an easy way to serve the people in Africa through a simple Lemon-Aid stand. They have a kit on their site for $10 that comes with balloons, posters, tattoos and other cool things to help you take a stand against the Water problem in Africa and raise money to donate to Blood Water. If you don’t want to buy the kit, you can go over to their resource page to download posters for free. But either way you go, a lemon-aid stand is an easy way to raise money for a good cause that points people to Jesus, not only in Africa, but also here in Jasper. People will ask you what this organization is about which will give you the chance to tell them how it provides clean water for people in Africa, and tells them about Jesus.

So talk with mom and dad to see if a lemon-aid stand would be possible this summer, and check out Blood Water Missions to find out more about what they do.

Jars of Clay: We Will Follow

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 13:28:00 -0400

Jars of Clay: We Will Follow

Day 10- What’s your 5?

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:03:43 -0400

Hey guys. Sorry about yesterday. Already falling behind and it’s only the second week. Anyways, I was wondering what five things you picked on radical Sunday? If you remember, we talked about things that need changed and we were all supposed to pick five out of the list of ten. Here’s the list again in case you forgot.

Orphans
Slavery
Thirsty
Hungry
Sick
Uneducated
Spiritually Lost
No Clothes or shoes
Homeless
Persecuted

There are a lot of people in the world that are suffering from at least one of these things, many times it’s more than one. And Jesus told us to help them. He doesn’t want people to suffer, and his plan for ending these problems starts with us. So what five did you pick? Here are mine and the reasons why:

1. Orphans- I love my family, and I love that I’m apart of the family of God. I want everyone to know that they can be part of the family of God too, helping orphans find an earthly family can also help show them their heavenly family.

2. Slavery- We learn about how slavery used to happen in the united states how we got rid of it, but we hardly ever learn about how slavery still exists all over the world- and even in the untied states. There are people that are forced to work for 12 or more hours a day for no money and little food, then get up the next day and do it all over again. I want to help free them from this slavery on earth, so that they can learn about how Jesus freed us from the slavery of sin.

3. Uneducated- I know a lot of you don’t like going to school, but think about how hard life would be if you couldn’t read. And if you can’t read, you won’t be able to get a job, which means you’ll be poor, and probably won’t have food or water or clothes or shelter. Having an education is important, not only for solving a lot of the problems in the world, but also because if you don’t learn to read, you can’t read the bible. I want everyone to be able to read the words of God.

4. Spiritually Lost- There are people in the world that have everything they could ever want but still don’t know who Jesus is. What good is it to have all the coolest toys if it means you won’t go to heaven with Jesus. I want everyone to know who Jesus is.

5. Persecuted- There are countries in the world where it is against the law to be a Christian. If you say you follow Jesus in these countries it could mean you’re beaten, tortured, thrown in prison, or that you are killed. I want there to be piece in these countries so that those Christians can openly tell others about who Jesus is.

So what are your five and why did you pick them?

Read Day 10: Job 24-28

Pray for week 2: Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia

Day 5: Letters

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:24:00 -0400

Hey Kids!

If you were here last night you got to write letters to a lot of cool people. We wrote to our world vision kids, to some missionary kids, and to some Christians who have been thrown in prison for believing in Jesus. We had a lot of fun doing this, but did you realize you were being radical just by writing a letter? Below is the information to write to our world vision kids and also the link to write letters to people that have been thrown in prison for believing in Jesus. This is a great way to encourage others to keep having faith in God.

Prisoner Letter Link:http://www.prisoneralert.com/

Scroll to the bottom to see list of countries and prisoners. When you pick someone the link to write a letter is on the top right of the page across from the prisoner picture.

Place on letter and back of envelope:

Alejandrina Reyes Feliciano

165419-5899

Address Envelope:

Dominican Republic

Vision Mundial

Apartado 21740

Santo Domingo

Place on letter and back of envelope:

Vedaste Dushimiyimana

RWA 173092-2787

Address Envelope:

Rwanda

world vision of Rwanda

PO Box 4253

3 Rue Depute Kamuzini

Kigali, Rwanda