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!

Strong Man's Weakness

We have been talking about some gross and weird things in the Bible. We have been studying them because they are fun, but also because God must have put them in the Bible for a reason. The Bible is God’s word to us and all of it—even the weird parts—is important.

We started out by looking at God’s holiness and then expanded that by discussing how we can’t be holy if we don’t respect our parents and those in authority over us. In this session we studied the life of Samson to see how strange it was. We also looked at how Samson lived disregarding God’s call to live a holy life and paid the penalty for it.

First we divided the group into teams of 2 or 3. We passed out the team assignments and, using a Bible and a pen, the groups were each asked to complete their assignments (which were different questions based on the life of Samson in Judges 13-16).  The teams had 8-10 minutes to finish their assignments. After they finished, we called on the teams in order and asked them the questions on their sheet. By the end, everyone had a quick but pretty complete overview of the life of Samson.

As you can see, Samson was a man who was driven by his passions. He let his emotions and immediate pleasures control his life. He was a sucker for pretty women and they eventually led to his downfall. Samson didn’t pursue God’s holiness and because of that he never lead the Israelites to freedom from the Philistines. That is, of course, until at the end of his life when God listened to his prayer and used him to liberate the Israelites from the Philistines.

Most teenagers (most people actually) live their lives like Samson. They are controlled by their emotions and live life for the moment rather than following the ways of God. Because of this they often end up hurting or broken and wondering if they can still be used by God. The story of Samson shows that God can use anyone, and that He is a God who offers second chances.

We had a great time of discussion then.

• What would you see as some lessons for your life that you can learn from this story? (Stop and think before you act. Don’t take God’s gifts for granted, etc...)
• What can you take home and do differently this week because you looked at the life of Samson? ("I will make an effort to control my emotions.""I will give God credit for the blessings in my life." "I will ask God for strength to stay away from places I know I shouldn't go.")
• Do you think that most of the time you control your emotions or they control you?
• Have you ever acted out of your desire for immediate pleasure or out of your emotions and gotten in trouble for it?

You are powerful. You have the spirit of the living God inside of you, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the power that God gives to you. The question is are you going to use that power to help change the world or are you just going to be controlled by your whims and immediate desires like Samson? What will be your choice this week?

For our object lesson, we used a magnet, a piece of iron labeled sin, and several large nails.  Magnets are like people.  My magnet is strong and attracts anything made from iron.  It can easily lift these large nails.  It reminds us of how our lives change when Jesus comes into our hearts.  He makes us clean inside so that we want to love and serve Him.  And this attracts other people to Jesus.

Samson had great strength and when the Philistine enemies of Israel captured him on several occasions, he was able to overcome them easily.  His strength came from God and if he had been wise, he would have realized that God could only work through him while he lived a clean and pure life that would honor God every day.

However, there came a time when sin came into his life.  It's like taking this piece of iron labelled "SIN" and putting it over the ends of the magnet.  Now the magnet has lost its strength and can't pick up the nails anymore.

One day Samson sinned by telling Delilah that his strength lay in keeping his hair long and uncut.  She was delighted and had a man shave off all his hair while he lay asleep.  On waking, Samson didn't know that the strength God had given him was gone.  The Philistines jumped out of hiding and grabbed Samson and easily overpowered him.  They blinded him and then bound him with bronze chains and made him their slave!

Just as my magnet is now powerless to do the things it once did, Samson could no longer do the great deeds he once did.  It's the same with us today.  We need to pray to Jesus each day and trust Him to lead, guide and strengthen us, so that we can keep sin out of our lives.   And then we will be able to serve God and do great things for Him.   But, if we allow sin to come into our lives, we will become too weak and powerless to serve God!

Great visual!  And, as customary, we ended with a little humor and a YouTube.  This one by Tim Hawkins, who so eloquently (NOT!) tells his version of the Samson and Delilah story through song.

Death by Dishonor

We are taking a look at some of the strange things in the Bible and seeing what we can learn from them.  If we say that we believe that the Bible is the word of God then we have to assume that everything that we
find there is important.  That means that even the strange stuff, the hard to understand stuff, is important.  This week we looked at two stories and a few rules from God and saw what truths we could learn from them and possibly get another look into the person of God.

Of course, to kick off our first story, we had to watch a music video by Ray Stevens to get us in the mood.

The Streak

Yes, we started with Naked Noah and read Genesis 9:18-29.  Then we discussed the story with the kids.  So what’s happening here in this story?  What was wrong about the actions of the younger son?  What was right about the actions of the older sons?  What was wrong about the actions of Noah?  Did Noah's actions change the way that the older sons responded?  Why do you think that Noah responded so harshly to the
younger son’s actions?  What do you think we can learn from this for our lives?

The Bible stresses the importance of obeying your parents and having respect for those who are in authority over you.  That is why this is such a neat story.  The guy that God has chosen to be the head of the new world gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent. This isn’t the picture of the Bible hero that most people think of when they think of Noah.  But even though he messed up, he chastises his son for not treating him with respect.  In the same way we should always treat our parents with respect, even when they are doing things that are wrong.

Next, we moved on to Elisha being made fun of for being bald.  We not only read 2 Kings 2:23-24, but we also had the youth act out a skit to demonstrate what happened in this story...bald jokes and and bad humor added for emphasis of course.  What is the taunt of him?  What are they saying by speaking about his bald head?  Do you think this curse of Elisha to be a little harsh?  Do you think the youth who escaped ever made fun of bald people again?

These youth treated Elisha with contempt because of his age.  Once again, we see God treating this as a very big deal.  So the question you have to ask yourself is do you treat this as a big deal?  Do you think that being disrespectful to your parents or to your elders is something that warrants harsh punishment?

We played the Messy Hair Game then to get the blood pumping and the ants out of pants.  We put shower caps on three of the kids and let the others use shaving cream and their hands to create a crazy hairstyle for each youth.

But back to all seriousness.  What about the price of dishonor?  We started talking about respecting parents.  Most teenagers will just roll their eyes and mutter about how their parents “just don’t get it” or something similar.  To badmouth your parents is common for teens (in this world).  But it is against God’s plan.  We looked at some of God's punishment for rebellious children in the Old Testament.

We read Deuteronomy 21:18-21.  What is a parent to do if they have a rebellious son?  What is the punishment for being a rebellious son?  Do you think that is justified?  Death because you don’t listen to your parents is a pretty harsh sentence.  But again, we find that God is teaching something here.  He is teaching about more than just being nice to your parents.  He is teaching about himself.  Our parents are a reflection of God here on earth.  That is why God set up the family so that we could understand Him better.  That is also why He thinks it is so important for us to treat our parents with respect.

What about kids who have bad parents...parents who at the very least don’t believe in God or who don’t follow Him? What are they supposed to do?  Keep on respecting them!  Why? Because you are commanded to and because God honors those who follow His commands.  Honor Your Father and Mother (Exodus 20:12).  What are we commanded to do?  Why does the Bible say that you should honor your parents?  What does “honoring” your parents look like?

Honoring your parents is more than just being nice to them and not yelling at them.  It is about living in such a way as to bring them honor.  When people look at your life, when they see the way you act, the way that you live does that bring honor to your father and mother? Do you treat them with respect when you are with them and do you live in such a way to bring them honor when they are not around?

We watched a YouTube about David Nasser then.  In it Nasser talks about the reaction of his Muslim family on the night that he was being baptized as a Christian.  Instead of bragging about his bravery, Nasser speaks about how he wishes that instead of just walking out the door he would have honored his father and stayed home like he was told to do.

David Nasser

We closed with a discussion, asking them some questions and requiring total honesty from them.  So what about you?  Do you live in a way that is honoring to your parents?  Do you treat your elders with respect?  God may not be sending any bears your way, but I do know that you are called to live with respect towards your elders and if you do then you are living how God intends for you to live.

We passed out an “Honor Meter” test then and asked the students to work on them silently for a few minutes.  After they had a minute or two to fill them out, we talked through each statement. A sample of one of the statements is, "I speak to my parents in a respectful tone, even when they are yelling at me."  "I treat my parents with honor when in public.  If I have a disagreement with them, I speak to them calmly and privately."  Needless to say, there was lots of conviction in the room!

Great and practical lesson!

2013 TT 4th of July Parade!!!

It was hot and it was a long walk, but we had a blast walking again this year in Temple Terrace's 4th of July parade.  We handed out candy and Life Books and shared the love of Christ with everyone we encountered.