Something that is becoming more apparent through the enlightening of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures is that matters of Christianity, the church, faith, theology, God's will, and family are simple. It is issues of sin, pride, and the flesh that complicates these simpler ideas. God's commands are uncomplicated. Take the passage that we commonly refer to as the great commission at the closing of Matthew's gospel account. "And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "^aAll authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth."^1aGo therefore and ^bmake disciples of ^call the nations, ^dbaptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, ^aI am with you ¹always, even to ^bthe end of the age."

First we have in this passage Jesus, the Christ. We read another description of this Man in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, "And He ^aput all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as ^bhead over all things to the church, which is His ^abody, the ^bfullness of Him who ^cfills ^dall in all." This Man, God in the flesh, the One given as the Head of the body in which would contain all that God has to offer to this world is giving directions. These directions are concise yet lengthy, comparable yet distinct, and challenging yet….. simple. These people and this body are to be going and making disciples. (We will unpack these thoughts in a later post.) Going where and making disciples of who? Going to all nations and making disciples of all nations. Nations is defined not only geographically but also ethnically. The thought is that as you are actively going you are "making" disciples every step of the way as you walk with God.

 

The commands of Christ do not end there, there is to be a baptizing of these believers that are in this journey of being shaped into the image of God through discipleship. So, what do you do in discipleship? What do we teach? Where do we go from here? Teach them to observe everything that He commanded us to do. The application is that as we are "going" we are "making disciples" and that we are doing in not as much in what we say but in how we live. We cannot expect to lead another down a road that we are not willing to travel down ourselves. This is where the complications begin to corrupt the simplistic mission of the gospel. When one begins to take another down a path that they themselves do not find their own feet on our message loses its authority and it also loses its compelling nature. It loses its compelling nature because the relationship has been severed. One is a picture of relationship and the other of religion. Religion would say here is how you do this but I'm not going to practice the same while relationship in contrast is a connection. The act and process of being bound to another rather than observing from a distance.

 

The "relationship" is simple and "religion" complicates things. Religion allows for programs and procedures to be more important than person. Relationships focus on the person and remove programs along with their traditions. So, as you go through today ask the question, "What matters the most?" Once you answer this question, don't easily push it aside for the day but allow God to reveal to you the numerous ways in which people complicate things that God intended to be so easy.

 

God is at work in the lives and hearts of our students. We left
Sylacauga on Saturday morning as individuals but will return as the
foundation for a youth ministry with the same mindset. I will write
more tomorrow because it is 2 AM here and we have another long day
ahead of us.

Making Disciples of all Nations,

Kenny Norris
Student Minister
FBC Sylacauga
Sent from my iPhone

Test message from remote blog.

Kenny Norris
Student Minister
FBC Sylacauga
Sent from my iPhone

It's time to leave everyone! I hope that you are as excited as I am about this weekend. From the way it sounds you are. If you didn't read the post from yesterday remember that you can bring iPod's and mp3 players with you this weekend. You can also bring personal game devices but nothing that will have to connect to the hotel televisions.

For a final rundown, remember that we will leave at 5 AM on Saturday morning. This does not mean to be there at 5 AM. If you expect to come at 5 AM you may be alone in the parking lot so please be on time. It is not fair to everyone else that is on time and has done what has been asked of them so please do your very best to be there early. We will meet on the Ft. Williams side of the church tomorrow morning to load the vans for Pigeon Forge, TN. Try to get some sleep tonight. I know that some of you are spending the night with each other and planning to stay up all night. You can do this if you want but remember that tomorrow is going to be a very long day.

Parents and others, please pray for this weekend. Pray for everything concerning this trip but mainly that this group would become one and that our eyes, the chaperones and students, would be opened to whatever God wants to reveal to us through His word. And remember that if you have any questions please call me. If you know that we are on the road driving, I will not answer the phone for safety reasons in our van so please allow a little time for me to call you back. Thanks for all of your support. Let's get this show on the ROAD!!

In the forecast for Pigeon Forge! It wouldn't be a winter retreat without freezing cold temperatures and at least the chance for snow. We hope that you are all excited about this weekend.

In regards to this weekend we are making a change to the information that we gave to you all last Sunday night at our parent meeting. The only request that we have is that students not bring their cell phones into the conference centers for our meetings. Other than this, you may bring your iPod's, mp3 players, PSP's, Nintendo DS's and items such as these. However, do not bring any game systems that plug into the television sets in the hotel or laptops. Some people have an iPhone which would mean that they have access to an iPod as well. In addition to this, I was not aware that on past youth trips and events these items were allowed to come with you. So, again, you can bring your tunes and games with you. If you have any questions about this, then please email me.

"And the ¹book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the ¹book and found the place where it was written, 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, 19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord." 20 And He ^aclosed the ¹book, gave it back to the attendant and ^bsat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your ¹hearing." (Luke 4:17-21, NAS

The above passage is the theme for our 2009 student ministry retreat with the SDEA. You can read more about the theme on the Strength to Stand website. We are going to talk this weekend about the believers part in freeing the oppressed and being freed from oppression. We hope that you all are as excited as we are about this weekend.

One quick reminder about an item that you may want to pack for this weekend. With all of the students that will be in the area and in our hotel towels run low very fast. In fact, they make us reuse our towels for the entire weekend. (I'm just sayin'.) So, take care of your towel and do your best to not misuse it too much the first night there. Also remember, we are "leaving" at 5:00 AM for Pigeon Forge, TN this Saturday morning. For our 24/7 fashionable people you need to know that it is totally normal to travel in your pajamas (decent pajamas) since we are leaving so early. You can clean up at the hotel later in the day. So, don't miss the caravan by trying to get ready for a formal event. See you all tonight at Refuge.

Hello parents and students! The countdown to the student winter trip is quickly winding down. Saturday morning we will begin our road adventure. Depending on how you look at it the chances for snow on the way to Pigeon Forge, TN is not favorable. If you've looked at the forecast it is still going to be C-O-L-D! I realize that the students are going to try and dress to look "cool" but they will end up freezing. Literally. So, try to encourage them to try to bring gloves, winter caps, scarf's, etc. They will even need to pack lip balm, lotion and such to protect their skin.

Also, if you have not done so I encourage you to go the Strength to Stand site and watch the videos about the conference and read what the theme is all about. We are very excited about the weekend that your students are going to have this weekend and want to say thank you for trusting them to us. We will write more tomorrow. And remember that just because we are going on the retreat this weekend does not mean that we are cancelling church services. Tomorrow night we will continue our study in Ephesians and will be on Ephesians 1:3-4. For those not going on the retreat, Sunday morning Bible study will go on as scheduled. So come and spend time in fellowship and Bible study this weekend. We will see you later.

Wow. So the weather has quickly changed just like we said it may do in our area. On the front page or our student ministry site is a link to the weather forecast for the weekend in Pigeon Forge, TN from the weather channel. The good news is that as of right now it does not look like we will wintry weather to drive through but it will still be cold so plan to pack your bags accordingly. For even more good news, our three vehicles for this trip are at capacity and we have a waiting list for this event. If you are one of the families on the waiting list, we will contact you if a spot becomes available for your student.

If you were not at the parent meeting and need to download the final itinerary, then you can do that as well on the student ministry website. Have a great week!

The sun is coming up on a beautiful morning in Sylacauga, Alabama again. For my friends that read this around the country you can skip this next part since you've been snowed in for a few weeks. It was unusually warm during the Christmas break but as they always say "If you don't like the weather hang around, it will change in 10 minutes." It seems like that 10 minutes is up where we live. As many of you all know, we will hold our pre-trip meeting for our student winter retreat on Sunday, December 11, 2009 after our evening service at FBC. One of the things that we will ask you to do at this meeting is to stay tuned to this blog or the blog on the www.fbcstudentslive.com website under the parent's page. Sometimes we need to get information out quickly and our student website is the fastest way to do this.

We talked about the weather because the weather people in our area seem to be in agreement that we are going to see very, very cold weather as we leave next week. As it stands now the forecast high for Friday is 39 with a low of 19. I ask you to watch this for two reasons. One, it will help you to pack properly for your student that will be leaving with us next Saturday morning. And, two, we may have to make travel changes and they will be posted here and on the student ministry site. Why may there be travel changes? For the 2008 winter retreat weekend, a cold front with a snow, ice mix moved into this region while many of the conference attendees would have been making their way to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Instead of groups not coming, the SDEA allowed the conference attendees to leave on Friday afternoon after school and check-in to their hotels that night without charge. So, if the possibility of a winter mix of precipitation becomes a reality there is a great chance that we could leave on Friday night and not on Saturday morning.

Stay tuned and we will see you on Sunday night.

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