The Honeymoon Is Over!!!

I wish controlling Jerry was this easy!!

So, the days of treasure box and Slurpees and great behavior in school have officially ended!  Every single day last week went from bad to very bad to worst ever!  It started Monday when Jerry simply refused to do any work and cried and threw tantrums rolling around on the floor ALL day!  Poor Meaghan!  Tuesday came with no tantrums, but complete non-compliance.  The behavior therapists stayed in the classroom with Meaghan and they tried everything they could think of.  They even rewarded the other kids with popsicles one day and ice cream on another, hoping Jeremiah would WANT to work for the same reward.  NOTHING!

What Jerry really wanted was individual attention.  Normally, his non-compliant behavior and acting out would result in him going to another room with just one other teacher/therapist while he completed his seat work.  Little did they know that this was exactly what Jerry wanted...one-on-one time...with anyone, really.  This was discovered when Meaghan sent all of Jerry's schoolwork he refused to complete home and I did it with him as "homework".  The next day, when Meaghan gave him his work for the day, he looked at her and said, "Nope.  Pile it on.  I'll take it home and mom will do it with me!"  Little stinker!

On Wednesday, the class got to watch Frozen for their free time in the afternoon.  Meaghan told Jerry he would not be able to watch the movie with the rest of the class and he said, "So.  I can watch it at home.  We have it!"  

Now it was time to get serious!

We had a conference call between me here at home and the behavior therapist, Meaghan, AND Jerry at school.  Jerry got to hear first hand that we were all on the same page.  No Frozen at school, no Frozen at home!  And the consequences were getting more plentiful as well.  Bad day = no soda at dinner, no ipad after school or at school the next day, no going outside, no snack before bedtime, and bed early.  Whew!  He suffered that fate Wednesday and Thursday.  Friday, we dangled his brother Jonathan's 17th birthday party sleepover in front of him, as well as his friend Brandon's birthday party on Saturday....in addition to all of the other consequences for having a bad day!

Also, Meaghan started adding a minute to the timer for each of his outbursts and non-compliance and Jerry would have to stay after however many minutes he earned at the end of the school day.  Thursday, I waited 27 minutes for him!  Friday, I waited 16.  UGH!

Let's just say it was a very lllloooooonnnnngggg weekend for Jerry!  He went to bed at 7:10 Friday night, before getting to watch Jonathan open his gifts or have his homemade chocolate chip birthday cookies.  Besides his baseball game Saturday and a wedding we went to on Sunday, he did not see the light of day!  Saturday, friends of ours ordered pizza for us for dinner, complete with a 2-liter of Pepsi and cinnamon sticks for dessert.  It KILLED him!  He stayed home for three hours while his brothers, sister and dad went to his friend Brandon's birthday party.  And we never caved....on anything!

We weren't sure if what we were doing was going to work or not.  He would go from, "I don't really care." to, "That's not fair." to, "It's all my fault."  He understood it was his choices that stripped him of his privileges, but he was still so defiant at times and angry about it all.  The only thing that seemed to affect him one day last week was when his friend at school got right in front of him and said, "Jerry, you need to stop right now.  You are really annoying me and hurting my ears!"  Meaghan said he sat down shocked and just cried.  He said, "I'm not going to have any friends because of my behavior!"  He was a little more subdued the rest of that day, but he'd already lost all of his "tokens" by then anyway.

I dropped Jerry off this morning not real sure of how his day would be.  He told us last night that he was not going to do his work.  John told him that he'd better not expect anything fun or anything he wanted then either.  He said he didn't care.  I was not very optimistic for him to say the least!  

I got a call from the school at 10 am.  I held my breath as I answered.  It was Jerry.  Meaghan let him call me to tell me that he did his math!  I could hear her in the background cheering him on and he was so excited.  I told him I was proud of him and to keep up the good work.  

When I got there this afternoon to pick him up, Meaghan came cheering and running to the van right behind Jerry.  Jerry had his token board in his hand and a huge smile on his face.  He earned ALL 20 tokens today!

Needless to say, we got a Slurpee on the way home, came home and played Zingo, the new B-I-N-G-O game he got and had yet to play, he's already planned what soda he'll be drinking for dinner and what snack he'll be having before bed, and he can't wait to take his ipad to school to play during choice time tomorrow.

Small victory.

What Do We Do with the Truth?

We live in a malnourished world that is in great need of this life-giving "soul food".

So we have defined truth and we have talked about why knowing the truth is so important.  As Christians, what does God expect us to do with that truth?  That's what we talked about tonight.

To review just a little, we had a bowl full of rice and small safety pins.  We blindfolded one of the kids and had them try to pick out only pieces of rice.  It was harder than they thought!  The rice represented truth and the safety pins were the lies.  Sometimes, it can be hard to tell the truth from lies.  That's why it's so important we know Scripture.   I also had walked into class with some make-up smeared on my face.  After a few of the kids said something to me, I finally pulled out a mirror to check.  We talked then about how we are to be like mirrors, reflecting God's truths to other around us.

Now onto what we do with God's truth...

Think about the worst disease that has ever ravaged mankind. The one thing that kills millions of people 

of all ages every year. It’s not a hypothetical illness or one-time outbreak of a horrible plague. It’s 

cancer, and about 40% of people who die between ages 25-74 succumb to this disease. You may even 

know someone who has suffered from cancer. 

Now imagine that you learn about a cure for this terrible disease. How long would it take you to start 

plastering this news all over Twitter and Facebook, telling everyone at your school, or even running up 

and down the streets sharing the news with anyone who would listen?

Five seconds? Two seconds? Thirty-seven milliseconds? 

Imagine you have just discovered something that will literally save the lives of millions of people. 

What would you do to let the world know?  

There’s another terrible disease afflicting the very heart of our youth. It’s ravaging their souls and 

leaving them broken, empty and lost. You have inside your own heart the cure for that disease. Are you 

willing to go to the same extremes to share that cure with the people you know?

God is looking for people who care about the things He cares for: reaching people who are in need of 

the Savior. Having a heart for the things of God means being responsible. Instead of just walking by people in need, you realize that as a Christian, you are responsible for sharing, caring, loving, giving and ultimately 

bringing people to Jesus....IN OTHER WORDS, SHARING THE TRUTH WITH THEM. 

You don’t respond simply because somebody is telling you, “Please tell this person about Jesus,” or 

“Please invite this person to Acquire The Fire.” You respond because your heart has grown big enough 

to sense what God wants you to do, and then you do it.

We talked about how we share the truth with others then.  It's not just about walking up to someone and asking, "Hey man, do you know Jesus?"

We played truth or dare then....ZG style, of course!  Every youth was given a balloon.  Inside the balloon was a tiny piece of paper that said either "truth" or "dare".  It they got a truth balloon, we asked them a question they had to answer truthfully.  "What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you?" "What's the funniest thing you have ever gotten in trouble for?"  "What is your middle name?"  "What is your biggest fear?"  Nothing too embarrassing and certainly nothing inappropriate.  If they got a dare balloon, yep, you guessed it....they had to complete our dare.  Stuff a marshmallow in your mouth and sing, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".  Try to lick your elbow.  Peel a banana using your feet.  Act like a gorilla and pretend to pick bugs out of your friend's hair.  Hold an ice cube in your hand until it melts.  Go outside and yell, "I believe in fairies" loudly three times while clapping your hands as fast as you can.

Oh yeah, you had to be there!!

Why Is Truth So Important?

Last week we talked about what truth is.  Tonight we talked about why it is so important.

One of the most-famous battles of World War II was D-Day, the invasion of Normandy beach in France.
That bloody battle turned the tide of the war. The few Nazis who survived said they couldn’t believe
the tenacity of the Allied warriors who landed that day – they just kept pushing forward, no matter how
much firepower the enemy unleashed.

We’re facing a similar, terrifying challenge. Though the battle is spiritual, and sometimes invisible, the
attack facing your generation today is not unlike what the Allies faced in World War II.

Why talk about war? Because the Enemy is well-armed and leaving many people your age in his wake.
Just like Hitler, the enemy is not playing games. He has something to gain by destroying lives. The
Bible makes this very clear in John 10:10, “the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy.”

Many of the people in our youths' lives are bound up in depression, are cutting themselves, or even thinking
about suicide. Many are using drugs and alcohol. They are having sex or going too far in relationships
because they want to feel loved, or they’re trapped in an addiction.

WE ARE IN A BATTLE EVERYDAY!!!!

We talked about what some of the weapons are in the hands of the enemy.  There are drugs and alcohol, suicide, struggles with parents, pressure to be perfect, pressure to be the best, prettiest, thinnest...there are many weapons in his hands!  But all is not hopeless because the weapons in the hands of believers are far more powerful.  We talked about what some of those are....the Word of God, prayer, mentors, a strong church family, Christian friends who encourage us, the Holy Spirit, our "helmet of salvation", and many many more.

The power of truth is awesome!  We showed the kids a bunch of kitchen knives and talked about how in Hebrews 4:12 it tells us that the Word of God is alive and sharper than any double-edged sword.  It can penetrate even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.  It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  Using a comb to comb Grace's hair we talked about how the truths in the Bible can straighten out any mess the enemy throws at us.

Next we had balloons that had lies written on the outsides of them in marker.  The kids took turns reading the lies and then popping the balloons to find the truths inside....inside God's Word.  For example....Lie - Jesus isn't the only way to heaven.  There are many different roads.  Truth - John 14:6 - Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Lastly, we played a game called Spin the Bible.  We had a big red arrow attached to the front of a Bible and we spun it on the table in the center of the room.  Whoever it pointed at once it stopped was given a Scripture on truth to read from their Bible....and 20 seconds to find it!  We read Scriptures like Psalm 25:5, John 1:14, John 1:17, 1 John 3:19, John 8:44, John 14:6, John 17:17, 2 Cor. 13:8, and Ephesians 6:14.

It was a great night of learning about why the truth is so IMPORTANT in the life of a believer!!!!!

What is TRUTH?

We started our study on the topic of truth in preparation for Acquire the Fire 2014 just a few weeks away now.  The kids are working on creating smashbooks (scrapbook-like journals) on the topic that they will also use to take notes in at ATF.

We watched a few funny clips from the movie Liar Liar with Jim Carrey.  In clip #1, his son Max makes a birthday wish that his dad (Jim Carrey) would not be able to lie anymore.  In clip #2, Fletcher discovers his inability to lie, as his son's wish has apparently come true.  In clip #3, Fletcher begs his son Max to take back his wish and tries to explain to him why adults sometimes need to lie.  With that, we defined what truth really is....the true or actual state of a matter...a verified or indisputable fact...the state or character of being true...actuality.

After defining truth, we discussed with the kids what makes sharing their faith a challenge if they know it to be truth.  Are they afraid of being made fun of, being rejected, looking weird?  48% of people their age walk away from their faith once they reach adulthood.  They are called the "Nones," the ones who claim to have no religion anymore.  We discussed reasons these young people are turning away from their faith.  Next we talked about what pop culture says about you if you believe in Jesus and some of the one-liners they use to discourage Christians.  "How can you believe in the Bible?  It's just a book written by a bunch of different men?"  We talked about how no one wants to be humiliated or intimidated and how Jesus calls us to be the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world".  We're not meant to live in fear of other people's attitudes or actions against us.

These are just a few of the topics that will be discussed at this year's ATF.  We showed the week one pre-event curriculum video for ATF then with Ron Luce.  We gave the kids each two notecards to write down the one thing they hoped God would reveal to them or prayer they hoped to be answered while at ATF.  They kept one of the notecards for themselves and we kept the other.  The cards they gave to us were anonymous so as to not infringe on their privacy, but with these notecards, we can better pray for each of the kids attending the event as the time draws nearer.

Next, we showed the kids two books.  One was a Bible and one was not, but they couldn't tell the difference because both cover pages were conceiled with a piece of cardstock.  The books looked alike and had almost the same number of pages.  We polled the kids on which book they thought was the real Bible based on its outside appearance.  It was hard to tell from the outside.  The only way to know a Bible from any other book is by looking at what is inside.  The Bible was written over a span of two thousand years by over forty writers, but it was inspired by God and it is the TRUTH!  2 Timothy 3:16 says that, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

We closed with a game of two truths and a lie.  The kids went around telling two truths and a lie about themselves.  It was everyone else's job to figure out what the truths were and what the lies were.  We learned a lot about each other in the process!

Very excited about this curriculum that emphasizes the TRUTH of God's Word and how we can more confidently share it with those God puts in our paths.  God is good!!  Three weeks until ATF!!

The Object of Our Faith

"Our faith is only as good as the object in which we deposit it." - Pastor Mike

Pastor Mike started Colossians this past week and so did we!  We reviewed Colossians 1:1-8.  

We focused on verses 3 and 4 then for the remainder of the evening and talked about what it means to put faith in someone or something.  We talked about some of the things people put their faith in that result in being let down....other people, bungee cords (bungee jumping), parachutes, their talents or abilities, seatbelts, doctors, etc...

Pastor Mike said that our faith is only as good as the object in which we deposit it.  That means that object must be pretty darn good!  And we know that only one Person is worthy of that attribute....God Himself!

Our visual tonight was in the form of an obstacle course.  Half the kids lead the other half through a series of obstacles while blindfolded!  The blindfolded kids had to put their complete truth and faith in the person leading them through the course....telling them when to bend, crawl, step over, and go around.  We had the kids switch places then, but so that the kids who led first wouldn't think they already knew what was coming, we added a few new obstacles to the course that they were not expecting!  This required more faith on their part in the person now leading them.

We ended with prayer time, reminding the kids how important it is to put your faith in God alone, for only He is trustworthy to put our faith in.  He has our best interests at heart and knows us better than we know ourselves.  He is the Creator of the universe.  He is now and always should be the only object of our faith!