We are so excited to be doing our Famine this year! During the 30 Hour Famine, our youth group will actually NOT EAT for 30 hours. YES! You read that right. Teenagers… not eating… for 30 hours. Why? Because nearly 8,000 children under age 5 die every day because of hunger-related causes—that’s one child every 10 seconds. And we are NOT okay with that, we will NOT stand by while children die from lack of food.

In the time leading up to and during our 30 hours of fasting, the students are going to get a crash course in global hunger and come face to face with the realities of poverty and injustice. We will make a global impact by learning about world hunger and raising money for hungry children around the world through World Vision; a local impact through service projects and raising awareness during our 30 hours; and making an individual impact on us when we will all get a small taste of what it is like for starving kids around the world.

The Famine is our chance to make a difference, our chance to make hunger part of our history not our present, and our chance actually do something about hunger. Our youth have come together and set a group goal, each $30 we raise will help feed and care for a child for a month. Check out our thermometer to see our goal. Will you help us reach our goal this year? Donate today.

Thanks for sponsoring us to go without—so others can eat.
And so our Famine begins.
copy this link to make an online donation

http://twv.convio.net/site/TR/30HourFamine/30HourFamine?team_id=30456&pg=team&fr_id=1610

in HIM
Chad Rogers

run for joy

hey if you are interested in getting text updates from my upcoming marathon in Houston Tx here is the website you can go on to sign up for those. You will recieve 4 updates during the race one at the 10k(6.2mi) ,13.1mi(halfway), 20mi and the finish

http://​alerts.houstonmarathon.com/​2012/cf/RegAthleteAlert/​pg_AthleteAlert.cfm?mode=entry&​snap=49975858&

Dear Friends–
I’ve decided that I’m going to “auction off” my hairstyle for the start of our fundraising for the 30 hour famine which will take place Feb 24-25. What I’m doing is one of four choices and whichever gets the most money donated to that choice I will wear my hair like that from Wed Jan 11 til(at least) March 1st. I will be setting up a table in the lobby before and after all the services this weekend and the reveal will be at Youth Group on Wed Jan 11 6-8pm.
the choices are :

FAUX HAWK

MULLET

BALD

MOHAWK

So again I will have 4 seperate containers and whichever gets the most money I will cut my hair like that to raise money for the 30 hour famine that raises money and awareness for hunger around the world! for more info go to www.30hourfamine.org

In Him–
Chad Rogers

This is something that I have trouble wrapping my mind around:
Why would God leave His throne in heaven and humble himself and become a volnerable little baby?
He did this mearly to get to know you & me! This is the most irrational show of Love this world has ever seen. God wanted to know us and to be known. He wanted to Love and to be Loved. Because to be known is to be loved and to be loved is to be known. You must ask yourself : What is one without the other?

The book of Isaiah was written by …. Isaiah … now Isaiah was one of God’s profit …aka messenger… now he was writing to the Israelites (Gods chosen people) but at this time they had turned their backs on God…they stopped counting on God and His promises… God gave them tons of signs that the one that was to come ..but with them in the state of mind they were in it came off as judgmental…. so needless to say Isaiah wasnt the most popular dude on the block… buuuut this message of “judgement” was the opposite–it brought a message of HOPE….

Isaiah 9:6-7
 6 A child has been born for us.
   We have been given a son
   who will be our ruler.
   His names will be
   Wonderful Advisor
   and Mighty God,
   Eternal Father
   and Prince of Peace.
   7 His power will never end;
   peace will last forever.
   He will rule David’s kingdom
   and make it grow strong.
   He will always rule
   with honesty and justice.
   The LORD All-Powerful
   will make certain
   that all of this is done.

Fast forward something like 700-800 years and you see this message of
hope coming to life in Luke 1:26-33:

 26One month later God sent the angel Gabriel to the town of Nazareth in Galilee 27with a message for a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to Joseph from the family of King David. 28The angel greeted Mary and said, “You are truly blessed! The Lord is with you.”
    29Mary was confused by the angel’s words and wondered what they meant. 30Then the angel told Mary, “Don’t be afraid! God is pleased with you, 31and you will have a son. His name will be Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of God Most High. The Lord God will make him king, as his ancestor David was. 33He will rule the people of Israel forever, and his kingdom will never end.”

The little baby God was forming in
Maryʼs stomach?
He was the same promised savior Isaiah was writing about
in Isaiah 9:6-7.
Long before God sent Jesus to this earth, He knew the plan. In fact, Godʼs
sending His own Son to live and breathe and walk this earth was always the
plan. God has always known that Jesus would be the answer to a perfect
relationship between God and His children. Which is great news for you and
me. But to see this plan come to life, Jesus had to come to earth. And thatʼs REALLY what Christmas is all about!!!

This video really hits that point home of God’s willingness to do ANYTHING to build a relationship with us. Like it says God knew we were going to be messy; He knows we’re going to screw up but in the end He sees things through different eyes and when He looks at us all He can say is: PERFECT!

Last night we had a lesson on proper P.D.A. It wasn’t really the P.D.A that most people think of when they are talking about public display of affection though. What we talked about was publicly displaying our affection for Jesus! Like it says in the Gospel Matthew:
Matthew 5:13-16 from The Message
Salt and Light
13″Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage.
14-16″Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.

We talked about an athlete that is in the news all the time for his display of his faith on the football field and in the media and that is Tim Tebow. He, by all accounts, is a great man of faith and professes it as often as possible. He was recently called out for talking to much by a former NFL quarterback named Jake Plummer. Plummer said “Tebow, regardless of whether I wish he’d just shut up after a game and go hug his teammates, I think he’s a winner and I respect that about him. I think that when he accepts the fact that we know that he loves Jesus Christ then I think I’ll like him a little better. I don’t hate him because of that, I just would rather not have to hear that every single time he takes a good snap or makes a good handoff…like you know, I understand, dude, where you’re coming from …” Whenever Tebow heard this, he responded with one of the best reponces when he said, “if you’re married and you’re a [husband] is it good enough to only say you love her on the day you get married or should you tell her every single day when you wake up and have an opportunity? And that’s how I feel about my relationship with Jesus Christ. It is the most important thing in my life so anytime I get an opportunity to tell him that I love him or give him an opportunity to shout him out on national TV, I’m gonna take that opportunity. So I look at that as a relationship that I have with him that I want to give him honor and glory anytime I have the opportunity and then right after I give him honor and glory, then I want to try and give my teammates honor and glory and that’s how it works because Christ comes first in my life.” This quote was just amazing to me. First as a christian but then as a husband; it made me think a lot about the way I treat my relationship with both Christ and my wife.
Tebow also has a quote that we all liked when he said,” When you die, you get a tombstone. On that tombstone they will put your name and two dates. One is the year you were born. The other is the day you die but in between there will be a dash. That dash is there to represent your life. All the good things and all the bad. That raises the question; WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR DASH TO REPRESENT?”
We listened to the song Allah, Allah, Allah by the band Mewithoutyou to remind us that God is in everything.

THIS STORY WAS TOO GOOD NOT TO RE-POST

http://www.npr.org/2008/03/28/89164759/a-victim-treats-his-mugger-right

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”

Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.

“You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?’”

“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.

The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ’cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”

The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”

“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo.

The Birth of Jesus According to Matthew
Matthew 1:18-25
18-19The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.
20-23While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: “Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—’God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” This would bring the prophet’s embryonic sermon to full term:

Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).

24-25Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus

This is an amazing story that could have been a major scandal had Joseph not responded to God’s wishes. I recently have found out that I was going to be a father for the first time and I was over-joyed. I am so excited that Sarah and I are going to be parents. I have now experienced what it is to have pure joy in my life. I think that is probably the same feeling that Mary and Joseph expierenced when they found out. Even if Jesus wasn’t Jospeh’s child, I’m sure he still treated Him all the same. Joy is,as I’ve stated before, is a lifestyle choice not a fleeting feeling. I cannot til the birth of my child and am so blessed to be able to be a part of such an amazing Church community here at First United Methodist. I know that my child will have such a loving family to be brought up in.

I showed this funny video to kick off the holiday season with the Youth.

Last week we looked into the band U2. We looked into their music,their faith, and their works. We focused on the fact that worship can come in many forms including a Rock Concert. Bono(the lead singer of U2) often says prayers, speaks of love and hope, and tells stories of how we can help others in need in front of as many as 120,000 people. Many people will argue that, that is not church but I will then ask them what is “church” then? Or what is “worship”? If you say speaking about hope and love and sayng prayers to God and how were are to help the poor and needy then that’s a great worship service if you ask me!
We also looked at the verse Hosea 6:6 which says
6 I want you to show love,[a]
not offer sacrifices.
I want you to know me
more than I want burnt offerings.
This verse means a lot to me because it says that more than our works, more than our needs, more than our “I’m sorry or I will try harder next time”; it says for us to KNOW Him to really BELIEVE in Him. That’s what He truely wants from us first and formost. He wants us to worship Him for just mearly exsisting not for what we can do for Him or more importantly what He can do for us; just because HE IS!

INVITE YOUR FRIENDS FOR A FUN NIGHT OF WORSHIP AND LESSON ABOUT THE BAND U2 Get with Chad if you need fliers to hand out to your friends