Tag: Sermons

Putting Yourself Out There

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This week we picked back up our series, Generations. Having covered Generation Z and the Millennials, this week we turned our attention to Generation X. If members of Gen X have gotten things right before this season of their life, they are following Jesus faithfully and growing intentionally in their relationship with Him. But what’s next? That’s what we’ll be talking about here. If you are a member of Generation X (or even if you’re not) read on to find out what you need to be doing to get your relationship with Jesus right.

Putting Yourself Out There

So, the boys decided that they want to run cross country next fall. They’ve done Running Club and participated in Albemarle’s Mini Medley for the last couple of years, but this will be full-on cross country. It’ll actually be the first official sports team the STEM School is going to field which I think will be a great thing for the school. In any event, we didn’t want them to start running cross country completely cold in the fall, so we encouraged them to start running this summer. Simply sending them to go run wasn’t going to work, though. So, I committed to going with them any morning they wanted to run. I’m trying to think of the last time in my life I did any meaningful running. It’s been a couple of years…or decades…something of which my body has been all too happy to remind me over the last couple of weeks. Running like this is fun…if you’re just a bit deranged…but even more than that, it is an investment. Our bodies are a gift from God, and this is one way we can invest in them wisely. I’ll let you know when I can walk without wincing again.

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Growth Is Mandatory

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This week we are continuing our series, Generations. Last week we focused our attention on Generation Z and talked about the importance of following. This week the Millennials are in the docket. What is it that Millennials most need to hear in order to get their faith right in the season of life they are in? Read on to find out.

Growth Is Mandatory

I’ve talked before about our gardening exploits. The little garden spot we use does weird things. Last year, for instance, while we had three tomato plants from Jim, only one of them actually produced a tomato. It made its grand appearance in June, grew to about the size of a grape, and stayed that way until about October when it finally turned red. With all of that in mind, this year we tried to get smarter. We have put all of our plants in the same area of the yard, but we put them all in pots. Six plants. Six pots. Easy to maintain and water and weed and the like. What could go wrong? We even have tomatoes on both of our plants. I took a picture of two of them just to document the evidence. And we have blossoms on the squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. Lots of them. But would you believe we still don’t have any produce? We got one little zucchini about the size of my pinky finger (which disappeared before it ever got any bigger), and that’s it. Oh, at the boys’ request, we planted a whole bunch of two different types of sunflowers including one variety that’s supposed to get up to 12-feet tall. About a quarter of those have popped up including just three of the twenty or so seeds we planted in the actual planter box. I’m starting to think there’s something weird about that whole side of our house. Or maybe it’s just us. 

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This past Sunday was our Graduate Recognition Sunday. We had the privilege of highlighting the excellent work of 12 incredible students. What a treat it is to celebrate the hard work of bright young people as they prepare to move into the next phase of God’s big plan for them. This past Sunday was also the first Sunday of a new teaching series called, Generations. For the next few weeks, we’re going to be talking about whole generations of people each week and what they need to be doing that is unique to their generation to be an active part of the advance of the kingdom of God in their current place of life. This week, since it was Grad Sunday, we started with Generation Z. Tune in for this one and all the rest to find what your generation needs to hear about following Jesus well.

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“If only they understood!” I want you to think for just a second about the last time you thought something like that and what age you were when you thought it. If you have lived through multiple generations, I suspect you’ve thought it more than once and in more than one generation. And, no matter which generation you happened to be in when you thought it, you were absolutely convinced your frustration and exasperation were completely justified. But let me add one more challenge to this. If you’re from an older generation—let’s say older Generation X, Boomers, and Builders—it’s really tempting to look back at folks from a younger generation—perhaps your kids or grandkids—who are thinking this and laugh at them as silly because of course you understand them. You’ve been them. It’s you and your situation that they need to try to understand, not the other way around. 

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Making an Investment

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This week we wrapped up our month-long series, How to Read the Bible. So far we’ve talked about what the Bible is and why engaging with the Scriptures matters. What we haven’t yet talked about is how to actually do that. This week we fixed that. In this message we talk about several different approaches to engaging with the Scriptures. Some of it may be familiar, some of it may be new. And this is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination. All of it, though, will help you move in the direction of coming to know and better understand the God revealed within its pages. Dig in here and see what you can put into practice.

Making an Investment

One of the most common bits of investment advice given to young people is to start doing it now. If you can put a small amount away on a consistent basis, over time, that small amount has the potential to grow very large indeed. Now, sure, anything could happen, but all things being equal, and assuming on the basic stability of our nation’s economy, a little bit added to a little bit at a time can become a lot if you go far enough down the road. Even if you don’t know anything else about investing at all—and I don’t—taking this basic approach will pay off over time. You just about can’t go wrong if you take it. The very worst thing you can do here is not to make a wrong decision, rather it is to make no decision at all. Even a small something is better than nothing. 

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Making a Case

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This past Sunday as we continued our series, How to Read the Bible, we talked about why engaging with the Scriptures is something worth your time. When the percentage of American’s who engage with the Scriptures has fallen 10% in the last year, this is something we need to know for ourselves and so that we can share it with others. Read on to discover some reasons this matters so much in your life and in the lives of the people around you.

Making a Case

Have you ever had someone try to convince you to do something you weren’t interested in or perhaps even opposed to doing? Have you tried to do it to someone else? How did that go? Did they succeed in their aim? What kind of an approach did you take? There are many different options available depending on the nature of the relationship between the two of you. In school, something like this often takes the form of basic peer pressure. They could have used the “everybody’s doing it” line. They might have offered a variety of reasons why you should do it. It could be they started mocking you for your unwillingness to join in, calling you any manner of names in the process—”scaredy cat,” “goodie two-shoes,” “weakling,” and so on and so forth. It could have been a pretty girl or handsome guy enticing you toward whatever it was with the promise of more personal attention if you came. There may have even been the threat of physical violence toward you if you didn’t join in. 

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