Restored

We started a series of four messages tonight that focus on Scriptures from the book of Ephesians.  The messages progress from being someone in need of restoration to becoming a child of God to realizing the power that you have in Christ and finally focusing on how we are to live lives of sacrifice for others.

We started off tonight by reading Ephesians 2:1-10.  Our message was, no matter how messed up your life is, God offers healing and restoration.  He created you and is willing and able to restore you.

While rocking in a borrowed wooden rocking chair (thank you Lynn Helsel), we read the kids the Rocking Chair Story.  If you've never read this story, we encourage you to do so.  It's a very powerful visual of God's love for us and desire to restore us.  We are God's workmanship.  We are created by God, and yet life and our own messed up choices have hurt us to the point where we barely look recognizable.  Through Jesus and the cross, God offers us reconciliation and He lovingly takes His original creation and restores us to who we were created to be.

As we talked about the Rocking Chair Story and how we can compare it to what God can do/has done in our own lives, we gave the kids each a glass and an old penny.  We put some vinegar in their glasses then, along with a teaspoon of salt and a few paper towels.  We told the kids to drop their pennies in the solution and start swishing the glass around while we continued to talk.  Within a few minutes, the kids were able to take their now shiny and restored pennies out of the solution.  We asked them why they think it's easier for God to change us than to do it on our own.  What happens when we continue to sin and get our lives dirty again?  Is there any person too dirty for God to make clean again?

We watched a movie clip from Wreck-It Ralph then.  It's the clip where Ralph is at a Bad-Anon meeting where he confesses to his fellow bad guys that he's tired of being the bad guy and wants to be the good guy for a change.  We talked about what it means to be a "good guy" and a "bad guy".  Why did Ralph want to be a good guy so much?  Do you think the "bad guys" club was helpful for Ralph or not?  Why?  Have you ever felt like Ralph?  Have you ever wanted to be something different, but couldn't for whatever reason?  Is it possible for people to change?  How do you know?

We had a really great discussion with the kids tonight and pray that they now grasp what it means to truly be restored, who the great Restorer is, and the role they play in their own restoration process.

iLock-In YouTube!!!!

Here is a video of the awesome night we had last night guys!!  Thank you for making it so great!!

iLock-In!!!!

The long-awaited and much-anticipated back-to-school lock-in finally happened.  We didn't have one last year because of the timing with the missions trip to Cherokee, so the kids were more than ready for the lock-in this year.

The theme was i-Lock-In and was based on all of the Apple apps out there that have so engrossed the kids these days.  In our age of technology, we figured if we can't beat 'em, then join 'em right where they're at!  Besides, even Angry Birds can be used as an object lesson, right?  We had several things we wanted the kids to get out of the lock-in this year.  We wanted them to learn about God's truths through creative means that would interest them and grab their attention.  We wanted to build them as a youth group and help them bond, as they are still adjusting to the new kids in ZG and having said goodbye to some of our founding kids.  And lastly, we wanted them to have fun!

We started out the night with a pizza dinner and we also celebrated Brandon Carpenter's 11th birthday with cake and ice cream.  Oh, and we were all asked to come dressed as our favorite app!

Here are some of the other things we did to meet our lock-in goals this year:

• We had a world map on the wall for Google Earth.  We gave the kids colored dot stickers.  They put their initials on some of the dots and then stuck them to wherever they have traveled in their lives so far.  We discussed Matthew 28:19-20 and our commandment to go and make disciples and the opportunities God gives us to do just that wherever we travel to.
• We hung a Pinterest poster on the wall and encouraged the kids to write all over it their interests and likes and then pointed out how different we all are, but how we have one thing in common...we are all sons and daughters of the One True God.
• We had a large tree poster and Twitter birds for the kids to tweet on and hang on the tree.  We discussed Scriptures that teach us about using wise words and words that build others up and don't tear them down.  We talked about the small tongue that can start so much big trouble.  (Prov. 21:23, Eph. 4:29, James 3:2-10, Psalm 34:13, Matt. 12:33-37)
• We had a time of just plain old dancing and crazy fun at the iheartradio station while listening to the Cha Cha Slide, Cupid Shuffle, Cotton Eyed Joe, Gangnam Style, and the Chicken Dance.
• We played a life-size version of the memory game with app icons and talked about the importance of memorizing God's Word above all else we desire to remember in our hearts.  (Psalm 119:9, Eph. 6:17, Psalm 119:11)
• We played Scramble with Friends.  We wrote letters on the bottoms of the kids' feet and separated them into two teams.  We gave them words using the letters on their feet and the team to re-arrange their feet in the correct order to spell the word first won!  This called for some serious teamwork, as some of our kids can't read...let alone spell!!
• We had our own version of Temple Run with a churchwide scavenger hunt and the kids broken into 3 teams of 4.  Again, teamwork as some of the kids know the church building better than others.
• Draw Something was our version of Pictionary and again, we split into teams for this one.
• Words with Friends was a gigantic crossword puzzle on poster paper on the wall.  The clues were all interesting facts or questions about each of the ZG kids or past ZG experiences that required the kids to get to know each other better in order to answer.
• Angry Birds was just that.  We set up pyramids of soda cans for the kids to knock over using angry birds stuffed animals.  Then we put a painter's tape line on the floor and split the kids up into two teams, one on each side of the line.  We split the Angry Birds stuffed animals between the teams.  On "go", the kids threw the Angry Birds across the line at one another.  At the end of 3 minutes, the team with the most Angry Birds on their side was the loser.  Then we discussed Scriptures about our anger and how it does not glorify God or bring about the righteous life that He desires.  (James 1:19-20, Prov. 15:1, Prov. 22:24, Prov. 30:33, Eccl. 7:9, Eph. 4:26)
• Yahoo Sports was a good old-fashioned game of stick ball...best of 3 innings.
• Send and Receive was played in a circle using Chinese Pictionary.  It's similar to Rumor or Telephone.  Someone starts off by drawing a picture.  The person next to them looks at their picture and tries to draw their own just like it.  They pass the notebook and the next person tries to draw the same picture just by looking at the picture the person before them drew...not going back to the original picture.  At the end, we compared the first and last pictures.  We discussed how our communication skills have changed from talking to each other face-to-face to texting and e-mailing and how that can change our relationships with each other as well.  We also discussed how easy it is to fall into the sin of gossip and how dangerous that can be to our friendships.  (Eph. 4:29-32, Col. 3:12-14, Prov. 27:17, Prov. 11:13, Prov. 16:28, Prov. 26:20).
• We also made a YouTube....stay tuned for that one!
• We had a table where kids could dig deep and come up with their own app ideas.  What would they do?  How would they work?  Who would they be designed for?  The kids even drew their own icons to go with their apps.  We let all the kids use smiley face stickers then to go around and "like" each others' apps.
• We had another table that had Settings icons made from paper plates on it.  Psalm 139:13-15 was on one side of the icon, as well as the name of one ZG member.  Each youth then went around the table and wrote one character trait they appreciated or liked about each person on the backs of their paper plates.  We discussed how God made each one of us unique, but still in His own image and how we all need to embrace and appreciate our differences respectfully.
• In Icomania, we tested the kids' memories of past ZG lessons.  We had a huge banner with all of the year's past lesson pictures printed on it.  Below each picture were blank spaces to fill in the titles of the lessons.  We did give the kids the words to go in the blanks, but they were all mixed up on the floor in front of the banner and the kids had to work together to remember the lesson titles and fill in the blanks with the correct words.
• For Instagram, we printed out extremely up-close pictures of things that might or might not be obvious.  We passed them around one at a time and asked the kids what they thought each picture was of.  Then we showed them the whole picture.  We discussed perspective and how ours can sometimes be skewed because we are too close to a situation.  God's perspective is always the bigger picture though and we reminded them of Romans 8:28 - And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  We also looked at Psalm 30:5, Romans 8:18, James 1:12, and Hebrews 12:2.
• Candy Crush was simply an Angry Birds Pinata filled with candy...appropriate for what was to come next...
• Fandango - We went to our respective sleeping quarters then...the boys in the sanctuary and the girls in the youth building.  There we wound down, watched movies, painted nails, hung out, chatted, and just made some fun memories.

Awesome evening.  Thank you parents for bringing your kids and entrusting them to us for the night.  

Amazing Love

We wrapped up Gross, Weird and True with a modern day movie version of Hosea and Gomer.  It's called Amazing Love and gave the kids a visual of the object lesson we discussed last week that portrayed God's love for His idolatrous people.

The Prophet/Prostitute Wedding

We are taking a look at some of the strange stories of the Bible, not just because they are strange, but because we believe that the Bible is God’s word to us. So if these stories are in the Bible then apparently God had a reason for putting them there. We have been following this idea that God calls us to be holy like
He is holy. God sets the bar pretty high and expects us to passionately pursue Him. He expects us to respect our elders and to control our emotions. In this lesson we discussed how God helps us to live this holy life and why living this holy life is so important.  We did it by taking a look at the life of a prostitute.

We started out by reading Hosea 1:1-3 and discussing a few questions.

• What does God tell Hosea to do?
• Do you think this was a strange request?
• How do you think you would have responded if you were Hosea?
• How do you think you would have responded if you were Hosea’s friends and family?
• Who did Hosea marry?
• Why did God tell Hosea to marry Gomer? (Because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery.)

Next we read Hosea 1:4-9.

• What are the names of Gomer’s children?

God gives Gomer’s children 3 very descriptive names:

1. Jezreel means “God will scatter” and the valley of Jezreel was the site of many bloody battles.
2. Lo-Ruhamah means not loved.
3. Lo-Ammi means not my people.

Imagine going through life with names like this. “What’s your name?” “Not loved, and this is my brother, not my people.” But once again we see that God is teaching his people through the life of the prophet Hosea.

We read Hosea 3:1-4 then.

• What is God’s command to Hosea this time?
• What has happened to his wife? (Apparently she has either gone back to her former place as a prostitute or has been taken back, but either way she has once again become unfaithful and is apparently owned by someone.)
• What does Hosea have to do to get her back? (He has to buy her back.)
• After Hosea married Gomer who did she belong to? (OK, this isn’t the best question for a 21st century audience, but Gomer belonged to Hosea as his wife. It's more of having a place to belong than an ownership thing.)
• So why did Hosea have to buy her back? (Because she had walked away.)
• What parallels to this story can we make about how God deals in our own life? (You are a creation of God. You were made by Him and for His purposes. As such you belonged to God from the beginning. But instead of sticking with God and loving Him like He loves us we have decided to chase after other lovers.)
• What are some of the things that teenagers chase after other than God? (Popularity, drugs and alcohol, relationships, pleasure, technology, etc.)

These other things may seem good for a while, but ultimately they can never satisfy us and ultimately we become enslaved by them. They get control of us. We get trapped by our sin and someone needs to come and get us out. Jesus is the price to buy us back. We were a creation of God, we belonged to Him, but each one of us have turned from God and chased after sin and stuff to the point that the Bible says we are slaves to sin. That is where Jesus comes in. He pays the price of his own life to redeem us from that slavery. Just like Hosea had to buy back his wife, God bought our way back to Him with the blood of Jesus. But here is the interesting thing. We don’t want to go back to Him. We like the things that we are doing. But God knows something very important. God knows that the things we are doing will ultimately hurt us. So He does everything that He can to try to turn us back to Him. He does this because that is what a loving father does.

God told Hosea to go and marry an adulterous woman because the people of God had turned away from Him. The relationship of Hosea and Gomer mirrors God’s love for us. It takes a look at how God will lead us into the desert and remove all of the distractions from our lives so that he can “woo” us again.

Hosea 2:5 - Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my olive oil and my drink.’

In Hosea 2:5, Gomer’s actions are saying “these other things are giving me what I want and need.” It is like us saying “Being this person's girlfriend or boyfriend makes me feel loved and valued. Putting others down makes me feel like I am important. Being a part of this group is giving me the acceptance I need and I will
do anything they ask me to do so that I can be included.”

Hosea 2:6 - Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

• What does God say he will do?

Hosea 2:7 - She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’

• What does she say she will do?

Hosea 2:8-13 - She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold—which they used for Baal. “Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her naked body. So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands. I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days—all her appointed festivals. I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them. I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the Lord.

God doesn’t stop opposing her. He doesn’t immediately give her good things. God knows that she is only coming back to get a quick fix. She hasn’t learned a lesson yet, she is just out for what makes her feel good. She is just coming back to God because she wants something from Him.

• Do any of you know people who treat God and church that way?
• Do any of YOU treat God and church that way? In other words do you go and live however you want and then when you feel a little guilty or when things start to fall apart turn quickly to God for help without ever really letting go of the stuff that is really killing you?

God says that He will do whatever it takes to remove you from that situation, even if it means that He has to strip you of everything so that you can wake up and see what is really hurting you. Sometimes we forget that God’s love means that He won’t leave us to get hurt. He will do whatever He has to do to make us healthy again. He will do whatever it takes to make us His.

The story doesn’t end with the tearing down of Gomer.

Hosea 2:14-18 - “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. “In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.’ I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.

God says that once she is in a place where she realizes that the stuff she has been craving is killing her; then He will speak softly to her and call her back to what is right. God desires for us to be holy. He is working in our lives to lead us to that place, because only when you are following God can you be free. God wants to redeem you from slavery. Will you keep chasing after stuff that will never satisfy you or will you turn to Him and let Him make you whole?

We don’t like to think about someone controlling our life and putting up boundaries on us, but everyone can agree that a young child needs boundaries. If a parent gives their toddler nothing but junk food or lets him eat nothing but candy we would call that person a bad parent. A good parent gives rules and makes their children eat healthy food. God gives us rules and guides us in ways that may not make us happy at first
(think of a child who is told he can only have one piece of candy), but He knows better than we do.

We ended our time together doing a cute skit called , "It’s Just a Little Tumor".  It was a humorous
skit about a doctor who doesn’t want to remove a tumor because the patient would be inconvenienced.  We talked about the skit then and how the kids felt about the doctor and whether or not they believed there were really people out there who would choose to live with a tumor than be inconvenienced by surgery.

We all feel that this doctor is being negligent for not doing the surgery, but we get upset when God wants to clean sin from our life. Sin is like a tumor in your heart. Sometimes it takes a little pain to remove it, but you will be better off if you let God take it out of your life.

This lesson ended our Gross, Weird and True curriculum.  It's been interesting to say the least, but the lessons have been memorable hopefully and have taught us all some awesome truths found in God's Word...even when they're gross and weird!