Reminder: No Youth Service this Wednesday

Just a quick reminder that there will be no church service this Wednesday night. Enjoy the time with your families and we'll see each other next week for a pre-camp worship service.

Youth Cook-Out this Saturday, June 27 @ 3:00PM

Everyone remember to leave this Saturday afternoon, July 27, open for the Youth at Winder Cook-Out at The Refuge. Festivities get underway at 3:00PM and go until 6:00PM.

We'll provide the burgers and dogs, each of you needs to bring a side dish, chips, or dessert to add to everything else. We'll be using the day as an excuse to break in our HUGE brand new deck in the back. I think it's safe to say you can expect some volleyball to spontaneously break out as well!

See you at The Refuge!

Mercenary or Marine? Which one are you?

This week about half of our youth group has volunteered to assist with VBS at the main church (and that is great!). As those volunteers help to give the younger kids in our church a better understanding of Scripture, and specifically the journey to Jericho from the Old Testament, we will still be meeting at The Refuge for everyone else who doesn't have a VBS-related function. However, rather than start a new series for only half of the group (and in an attempt to give me a few extra days for my sinuses to further heal), we will do things a little differently this week.

Following Praise & Worship, we will watch a video from Greg Stier and Dare 2 Share ministries about evangelism. This is a unique video in that it features Greg in a straight-up, no-frills teaching/preaching capacity. In this particular video, Greg uses Luke 14:25-34 to illustrate the type of discipleship and dedication to the cause of The Gospel that Jesus expects from us. :

"Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish’.

Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace.

In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:25-34

So, are you a mercenary with your evangelism - looking to get what you can get on your own terms and for your own good? Or are you a Marine, obediently doing what you are commanded to do, regardless of the personal cost? Be prepared to have your feet stomped on and your shins kicked!

See you at The Refuge!

Special Testimony & Gospel Journey: Maui Wrap-Up

Although your fearless leader (that's me!) will be out this week due to my sinus surgery, we will still have a regular weekly youth service. We will have Praise & Worship as usual with John-Mark and Nicole, followed by watching a final wrap-up segment from the Gospel Journey: Maui series. In this segment, the cast members have their final goodbyes and share briefly what the experience has meant to them.

Following the DVD, Mike Stancil (that's Mr. Mike to most of you!) will share some of his personal testimony about a period in his life when he was searching to determine which religion was based in genuine truth. Be sure to be there this week as Mike shares with everyone about this important time in his own life that so closely parallels the journey that many of the cast members of Gospel Journey: Maui undertook.

It's all this week at The Refuge!

Are You Leading a Secret Double Life?

If you take a serious look at your life and genuinely examine the way you act at church and compare it to how you act around your non-church friends away from church, what do you see? Is there a difference? If there is, which version of your life is the genuine one, and which one is the "secret" life? And what does God think about it?

Well, according to Scripture, this is the review that God is sending your way:

"I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! You say, 'I am rich. I have everything I want. I don't need a thing!' And you don't realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." (Revelation 3:15-17)

Get the point? A secret double life is a 'lukewarm' life that dishonors God's name and makes Christianity a joke. But you already knew that, right? The secret double life of a Christian teenager is a fast track trip to the worst life possible. Why? Well, people who aren't Christians live life apart from knowing the way God designed it. So partying and acting selfishly and choosing destructively come naturally for them.

But Christians are the only people on planet Earth who have the Holy Spirit of God living inside them. And when we choose to live life contrary to God's design, we grieve the Holy Spirit and literally make God sick. That's why when He sees the secret lives of Christian teenagers, He wants to 'spit' them out of His mouth!

This week we will take a look at how destructive a sinful life that is not surrendered to God and His will can be. And we will also examine what a Christian's proper response should be to sin in our midst.

See you at The Refuge!