Dear Teens,

Just a brief note to thank you again for your willingness to give up your Saturday morning to serve Him and us by raking our yard. This was very thoughtful of you.

Love in Christ,
The Allreds

_

Dear Teens,

We have a large yard and many trees, and I was really concerned as to how Gordon would ever be able to take care of all the leaves this year. I prayed about this, and then, when our loving Father did "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think," I was so surprised. Many, many thanks to the wonderful young people and several adults for doing such a great job of cleaning up our entire yard. These individuals certainly had a tremendous ministry in doing this. We thank each of them for their kindness to us, and we know God will bless them for their faithfulness in serving Him in this caring way.

Betty & Gordon Smith

From Ken Moon

I can't begin to tell you what a blessing your team was to all of us at Missionary Acres and Evangel Baptist Church. What a tremendous week we had together. What a thrill to hear how the Lord worked in the lives of the teens and their leaders. Thank you for sharing this with me.

About three weeks ago, I met a missionary named, Carol Mason, who was visiting her son at Piedmont Baptist College the weekend the team gave their report. She was in the service that night and relayed to me how blessed and impressed she was to hear the teens get up and give testimonies to the way God worked during thier visit here. What a blessing it was to her and to me!

May God bless you in your service for Him! I hope that we will hear from you all again and that you will keep in touch.

Your Fellow Servant of Jesus Christ,

Kenneth A. Moon
Resident Administrator
Missionary Acres
Silva, MO 63964

P.S.: please tell all of the team members we said: "Hello!" Tell Allen Lakey I sure miss his hot biscuits!!!

Summer 2006

Sr. High Missions Trip (Brazil)

Jr. High Missions Trip (Silva, MO)

Labor Day Beach Retreat

An Early Snow

Thanks for the wonderful decorations Whitson, Zach, Hannah, Kayla, and Scott! You're the greatest!

(We know where you live!)



Click to enlarge the pictures

Let's Stir Things Up!

“...and let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.” Hebrews 10:24

What could the writer of Hebrews possibly mean by “stir up?” The Greek word used here, paroxusmos, actually means to “provoke unto.” I’d like to see some ideas as to what we, as believers, should be doing in order to obey this commandment. Be sure to check the context of the verse (use proper hermeneutics).

Your Questions...Your Blog...

This is your chance to ask ANY questions, make ANY comments...anonymously!

• What does the Bible say about....
• I have a friend that thinks...
• Is it really true that...

In Love?

If you've been in our youth group for very long at all, you've heard me address one of my real pet-peeves...Presuppositional Romance. That's my fancy, made-up term for what many of us mistake for love. Yes...I did say "us". It's become a real soap-box issue for me primarily because I fell victim to the whole thing when I was young...not that I'm old now...of course.

So here's my beef...we are bombarded throughout the day with the absolute worst representations of true love one could imagine. The primary culprit...TV. Also in the line-up, movies, magazines, romance novels, friends at school, internet, etc. Think just a minute about how they describe love.

We're led to believe that love is some "all-powerful" force that transcends any circumstance, any roadblock, any hurdle that may present itself. We're convinced that love manifests itself as "warm-fuzzy" feelings that others just can't understand..."it just can't be described." Because of it's nature, "love is totally outside of our control. We have no control over who we 'fall in love' with, or when it starts to happen." The obvious conclusion from this viewpoint; we can't possibly be held responsible for our actions that are derived from our love.

The same logic naturally flows into the whole concept of "falling out of love." How can we control the fact that we no longer love this person? Maybe you've heard the classic TV line that says something like "How can I stay with him? I just don't love him anymore."

So here's the issue...What is Love? How should it be defined? Don't just give your opinion...I want chapter and verse. How does God define (or show) love?

Don't Bother Me, I'm Busy

How many times in high school are we not in the mood to “deal” with people? How many times in the other aspects of our lives is this the case? If we are honest, it is probably more the case than not. Why? Because we hate people? No. That probably is rarely the case. Why then? I don’t know about you, but my reason is that I am lazy or tired or well, just too wrapped up in myself. Besides, I don’t want to “deal” with what they might say or think about me.

What am I getting at? Sometimes we just don’t want to spend time with…people. (I don’t necessarily mean our friends either, because most of us enjoy spending a lot of time with our friends.) I mean those who we have a chance to talk with or share with or even impact with something that we do or say -- Your boss, your mom, your dad, your siblings, your classmates, your teammates, or your teachers, to name a few.

Let’s think back to the reason why we don’t…self. We all deal with it on a minute-by-minute basis. Correct me if I am wrong here…ok, I’ll keep going. Do we have the ability to control it, self I mean? If yes, then let’s try it and see how it goes. Here is blog insert from a friend of mine that is investing her life working with people…even she has a hard time with it, sometimes, but this is how she “deals” with it.

Investing in People--the daunting task
God’s task for us is that we invest in people.
“People, Lord? They’re unpredictable, unruly and unhappy. People are proud, critical and judgmental. They have mouths that might say something bad about me or mock me in front of others, authority that might fire me or lock me up. If the person I speak to does not laugh at me, someone else will. Let me do anything but deal with people.”
“It is for them that I died. Pour my eternal Word into their immortal souls. They are dead men walking. You have the message of life.”
~Julie Lundy

Wow, we “have the message of life!” Lord, thank you for this reminder. Now, may I get busy about Your work and forget about mine!

Waste of Time or Waste of Mind?

It is a rare occasion when Chris and I can relax in front of our $7 cable for an evening of, we'll admit it, reality TV. Chris indulges me in my love of "The Biggest Loser" and we even get a kick out of this season's "Idol" (if we get home before 9pm on a Wednesday night). We also enjoy some of "Raymond," but other than that it is left to the National Geographic Channel to captivate us with it's rendition of "Mega Structures." However, last season we heard of a show that was becoming pretty popular. We began watching it when we got the chance. We were amazed...it was pretty decent. The plots each episode were interesting, so we figured it was a good way to spend an hour. The main character in particular, with his cutting sarcasm, outlandish style and unbelievable diagnoses' was right up our ally. It quickly became a favorite. That is...until the new season started not too long ago. We turned it on last week and were settling down for some husband and wife "quality time" when, to our dismay, two of the characters spent the night together. Have you figured out the title of the show, yet? The show is named for the main character's last name, "House." Chris and I thought it was a great show because up until then we hadn't seen any illicit sex. Now it may have had some, but we hadn't seen it. So, right then, right there we had to make a decision...to watch or not to watch...that was the question. No one else was there, just us. Chris and I had to decide. What would you have done?
So often in our world it is the "norm" to have characters involved in affairs outside of the main plot...it makes it "real and personal" so we are told. If our decision was to, kind of, ignore the situation and reason that it was still one of the cleanest shows on TV, would that be ok? If our decision was to stop watching it, would the ratings drop and be taken off the air? The answer to both of these questions is no. We decided, as a family, that we would not make it one of our primetime shows in the evenings.
We were, to say the least, disappointed. True, it was a "good" show and we don't even think that it would necessarily "hurt" our marriage to continue watching it. It would, however, cause us to slowly slip down the slope of apathy. What if we made the statement, "Let's ignore it this time 'cause, after all, it's still one of the cleanest shows on TV?" Pretty soon we would be justifying everything that we watched! Think about it.
What decisions do you make on what you watch? Do you think Chris and I are just being too protective? Do you see the need to cut out today's hot picks because of profanity and sex? Why or why not?

A Test You Don't Have to Study For!

I'm not sure how many of you have ever taken a test like this, but if you have the time, I think you'd find it quite beneficial. Feel free to leave any comments about what you learn; or, if you'd recommend it for others, say so. Was it accurate?

Don't forget to apply what you learn!!