Weekly Update 2.23.10

Friday, February 26-Saturday, February 27
This weekend is the 30 Hour Famine. Remember, youth (and those parents who are participating) are to stop eating at 12:00am Friday through 6:00am Saturday. We will open the doors of the church at 7:30 on Friday night and we will begin our lock-in at 8:00 with worship. Please bring your donation envelopes with you. We will add up the total and we will send a check to World Vision for that amount. Remember, for every $30 we raise, we feed a child for an entire month.
A reminder to parents, we would like for you to come and cook the "break-the-fast" meal Saturday morning. If you are interested in helping out, please let Jared know.


Sunday, February 28
We will conclude our series on evangelism Sunday morning in our Sunday School time. We will also conclude our "Clue" series on Sunday night. Weston will be coming to share how we, as humans point towards a Creator.

Also, we will be having our meeting about the mission trip at 5:30 in the Commons. Please come and hear about the trip that we will take. Remember, we have only 25 spots for sure, so the quicker you get your deposit in, the better. We can apply for more spots on the trip, but they are not guaranteed. Please come out Sunday night and we will discuss what will be an awesome trip!

We will see you Sunday!

2/21 Sunday School "Ethos-Knowing Your Audience"

Senior High- Lindsay Graves, Junior High-Jared Graves

Introduction

Form teams of 3-4 people. They are to draw a “product” and an “audience” from a hat. They have 5 minutes to collaborate on how they are going to pitch the product to their given audience. They must then give a minute infomercial on that product for that audience.

How hard was it for your team to reach out to the given audience?

If you have a satellite television, or you travel much, you get the opportunity to see how advertisers reach out to people, selling the same product, but in very different ways. People know that based on different areas of the country, economic statuses, and backgrounds they have to appeal to different types of people. Last week we talked about the need to be credible when we are evangelizing. This week we are going to talk about the importance of knowing our audience.

Lesson

Everyone turn to Acts 3. We will be reading verses 11-26. Let’s give some background before we start. What we are reading today is after Pentecost, and is following Peter healing someone

Read Acts 3:11-12

What does the term, “Men of Israel” mean? (They are Jews)

Read Acts 3:13-15

He acknowledges that they worship the same god (The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob)

Read Acts 3:16-17

Peter isn’t being too kind to the people right now. He puts the blame on them for Jesus’ death, and then said it happened due to their ignorance. How is he getting away with this?

Read Acts 3:18

Why did he bring up the prophets? (They are Jews and looked for the prophets to tell them what to look for in the Messiah)

Read Acts 3:19-23

He asks them to repent, but then throws in the Moses reference to make sure that they see the connection.

Read Acts 3:24-26

How do you think this would have been received?

Application

By looking at Peter’s speech, how do we know that he knew his audience well?

What did Peter say that would speak to the Jews listening?

What are the different audiences that we face while trying to spread our message?

How can we say the same message in different ways?

Weekly Update 2/15

30 Hour Famine

We hope that you are continuing to raise money and meet your goal for the 30 Hour Famine. We are looking forward to sending a big check and feeding a lot of kids. Keep working hard. The Famine is next Friday, February 26!

Sunday, February 21

We are actually going to have Ignite next Sunday. We apologize for last night, the forecast said that there was going to be enough snow on the ground to make it difficult and dangerous to travel.  Obviously they were wrong, and we apologize. We hope you will join us next Sunday!

2/14 Junior & Senior High Sunday School, "Ethos-Know Your Story"

Introduction

Play the game “2 truths and a lie”

Tie In: We have to know our past and use that past if we are to be considered qualified to endorse a product.

The US Government is in the process of passing a law that states if a celebrity endorses a product, that they must actually have used, or currently use that product. They don’t want someone who has never used the product to get up there and say they have just so they can collect money from the company.

Peter gave some pretty bold statements on the day of Pentecost. Anyone could look at him and be skeptical. However, if they tried to see if Peter subscribed to the product he was selling, they found quickly that he truly believed every word that he said.

Lesson

Have everyone to Mark 1.

If you were a fisherman in the time of Jesus what did that mean? (You were not the best of the best. In fact, you were close to being the worst. You were not smart, you did not make it through school, and you were probably just carrying on the legacy of the parents before you)

Read Mark 1:16-20. What type of faith would it take for you to drop everything that you were doing in order to


Other points in Peter’s life that gave him credibility:

Walking on water

He’s had his doubts (denial of Christ)

His reinstatement: John 21:15-18

Weekly Update 2/8/10

Wednesday, February 10
We will be having our first "A 10th for the Lord". We have decided that we are going to give the tenth of every month to God by worshipping Him and serving His people. This week, we are going to help around the church by cleaning up our adopted part of the campus, as well as start to prepare the church to get painted. We hope you will join us from 4-6 on Wednesday (or whenever you can get there) and help us out. Also, we hope that you will stick around for WNL this week with your family.

Friday, February 12- Saturday, February 13
This Friday we are going to leave for CIY:Believe by 2:00pm. We will be returning Saturday night. Please refresh yourself with the hand out and all you need to bring (and not bring!) this weekend. We look forward to seeing you all!

Sunday, February 14
Sunday morning we will continue our study of evangelism. We will continue looking at Acts and what it shows us about the importance of evangelism, and how we go about being good evangelist.

Sunday night we will begin a new series called "Clue". We are going to look, over the next three weeks about the evidence we have for a Creator. What does the universe show us? What does nature show us? And lastly, what do we show? We hope you will join us!

2/8 Senior & Junior High Sunday School- "Ethos"

Evangelism 101: Ethos-Know Your Facts

February 7, 2010

Introduction

Have the students draw a subject out of a hat. They must then proceed to tell us about it for two minutes, even if they have no clue what the subject is, or they are not an expert in the field. At the end of everyone’s turn, see who was the most believable of all the presenters.

Aristotle believed that there were three ways of persuasion, Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. Logos was the words that were said, a logical appeal. Pathos was how it was presented, an emotional appeal. But Aristotle believed that Ethos was the most important. It was the credibility of the speaker. When we played the game, many of you didn’t know what in the world you were talking about. It’s like going to ask someone about a product only to hear that they’ve “never used it, but heard it was great.” We would rather hear from experience.

I think one of the biggest problems in the world today, when it comes to evangelism, is the fact that very few of us have good Ethos. Over the next four weeks, we are going to take a look at the ethos of evangelism, and how it should influence how we go about spreading the Good News of Jesus.

The first key ingredient of having good Ethos is knowing your facts. Newspapers have to send out corrections rather frequently because they do not do adequate research and give a false story. Once someone is caught in a false story enough times, they become ignored. Think about the boy who cried wolf!

Lesson

Everyone turn to Acts chapter 2.  Here’s the background: This is right after the Holy Spirit ascended down. Those who were looking on asked if these people were drunk!

Read v. 14-16

Peter wants to make sure what is going on doesn’t get passed over as drunkenness. He wants them to know that they know what is going on, and it is important. Have you ever been around someone who converted to Christianity? Most of the time they act like a new person. Yet, when other people see them, they believe something is wrong with them. They think it is just an act. We must make sure that our faith and joyful living is not mistaken for a show. We must make sure that everyone knows the reason we act like we do.

Read v. 17-21

He explains the phenomenon that is happening at the present time. These are religious people, they would understand the Scriptures and for many, it would make sense to them. Peter’s smart. He realized he has all their attentions, and now he is appealing to their intellect.

Read v. 22-24

This would have been still fresh on the minds of all who were gathered here. While there was no National Enquirer, TMZ, or anything like that. But you who go to school know that rumors spread all over the school very quickly. Jews were very close-knit people, word would have gotten around. These people were in the very city that Jesus was crucified in. This would have been a big deal.

Read v. 25-28

Why is it important that Peter brought up David? (If you were going to get anything spiritual across to Jews, it starts with God, but David is like 1a. He must be mentioned and discussed in all things that have to do with religion).  

Read v. 29-36

Peter uses Scripture to back up his claim that Jesus was the Messiah. He wants them to know that he is fully coherent and knows what he is talking about. If he had made wild claims but had no spiritual backing, he would have gotten shot down very quickly. But he knew Scripture, and his argument is grounded in it.

Application

Some questions for us today:

· How well do you know the message that you are supposed to be spreading? 

· Can you get the facts straight so that no one can find any faults in your statements?

The first step to evangelism is to know the message and the significance of the message that you are spreading. If we cannot get this part right, there is no point in going on to any other step in evangelism. Tonight is the Super Bowl. There are going to be plenty of people who know ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING about football who will turn into football fanatics tonight. They are going to be made fun of (maybe even to their face) and ridiculed. I dare say we have a lot of people in our faith who are Super Bowl Christians. They talk big game, only when the show is on. But the rest of the year they do not act like Christ, read about Christ, or firm up their foundation in Christ. Let’s not be one of those people. Let’s make sure we know the facts about Christ. Only then can we hope to reach out and change the world

2/1 Weekly Update

Wednesday, February 3
Just a reminder, we will have WNL this week from 6:30-7:30. A pizza dinner begins at 5:30.

Friday, February 5
We will be hosting a 5th Quarter following the Greenwood/Bowling Green game Friday night. We will go from 9:15-12:00. We will play various games and have competitions between schools. We hope to see you, and many friends out Friday night.

Sunday, February 7
Sunday morning we will begin a new series on evangelism called "Ethos". Steve Briggs will be teaching the senior high and John Baker will be taking on the junior highers.

Sunday night we will be having a Super Bowl party in the Commons from 5:00-9:30pm. You may come and go as needed, but make sure to be there for half time, as we have a worship service and devotion (basically what we were going to do last night). We ask that everyone brings a snack to contribute to the group.