Friday 31 March 2017

Friday, March 31, 2017- "WHY are there so many rules in the Bible?"






This week, we continued our "WHY?" series by tackling the question, 'Why are there so many rules in the Bible?" A lot of people look at the Bible as an old, irrelevant rule book, so we took a closer look at the difference between rules in the Old Testament and why Jesus encourages us to live a certain way in the New Testament.

NOT EVERY RULE IN THE BIBLE IS MEANT FOR YOU! 

There are a lot of crazy rules in the Old Testament. Leviticus 19:19 says that we shouldn't wear clothes made out of two types of material. Leviticus 19:27-28 outlaws trimming your sideburns and getting tattoos. And let's not mention Leviticus 11:13's rule that we shouldn't eat bacon. These are usually the kinds of things people mention when they say that the Bible is irrelevant and out-dated, but as Christians, a lot of those rules aren't meant for us!

Particularly in the Old Testament, the majority of the rules were meant for the Jewish people at that particular time. These were the very first rules EVER. At that time, there were no laws, no police, no health code, no building codes- so a lot of the laws in the Old Testament were meant to ensure that the Jewish people would live by standards that would make them happy, healthy, safe, and close to God. Those laws also helped them stand out from some of the other nations around them who didn’t know or follow God and lived without any kind of morality. It’s crazy to think about, but some of the surrounding nations were even sacrificing their kids to their idols….so, it was a messed up world- and God was calling his kids to be different!

Now, that doesn’t meant that we should ignore all of the rules in the Old Testament. Most of them were given to the Jewish people for a reason....and some of those same reasons are relevant to us today. For example, the 10 Commandments not only remind us how God wants us to treat each other (no killing, stealing, lying etc...) but they also concern our relationship with him (don't worship fake gods).


FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS TRUSTING THAT HE KNOWS & WANTS WHAT'S BEST FOR US!

That said, as Christians (people who follow Jesus), it's the teachings of Jesus and the early church in the New Testament that are the most relevant to us. It's here that we're reminded that there is a right and wrong way to go through this thing called life, and that when we choose to go our own way instead of God's way (the definition of sin), it can hurt our relationship with him, it can hurt our relationship with others, and we simply won’t enjoy life the way our Creator designed it to be lived.

I shared a few stories from when I took woodshop in high school where there were a lot of people who didn't take the shop rules very seriously, and as a result, some serious accidents happened. While I wasn't one to break safety rules, I had the tendency to ignore the building plans and just make things up as I went along. While I had a few successes, I also created a few monstrosities (like the bathroom cabinet made completely with two-inch-thick pieces of wood or the desk I made that was so big, I had to cut the legs off just so I could fit it in my room). 

In Matthew 7: 24-27, Jesus told a story about a couple of construction workers.
 

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

The first guy in Jesus’ story was pretty smart. He followed the plans, and as a result, when a storm hit, his house stood firm on a strong foundation. The second guy might have thought the instructions were irrelevant or old fashioned, or maybe he simply wanted to do his own thing, but the end result was that when a storm came, his house was blown apart.


Jesus told that story because he wanted to convey the importance of not just recognizing that God has given us guidelines for living, but that it's WISE to actually put them into practice. When God tells us the right way and wrong way to live, we need to see those things as being INSTRUCTIONS DIRECT FROM THE MANUFACTURER. God spoke life into existence with just a word, he DESIGNED us, and we need to trust that God really does know and want what's best for us! In fact, Jesus himself said in John 10:10 that his purpose was to give us RICH AND SATISFYING LIVES! The whole point of God’s instruction manual isn’t to rob us of fun, but to help us through life, to point us in the right direction, to warn us of dangers, and to ensure that our relationship with him and others is healthy.

This is why Christians dig into the Bible so often. It's a part of what we do at youth group and church. It's something that (hopefully) we make time for during the week. It's full of things that challenge us and help us steer our lives in the direction that we were meant to go. It's meant for us to get through life with as few bumps, scrapes and regrets as possible. Part of being a Christian means FOLLOWING Jesus- living the way he directs us to live- choosing to let God call the shots in our lives, and trusting that he tells us how to live, not because he wants to suck the fun out of our lives, but because, as our CREATOR, he truly knows and wants the very best for us. 


DISCUSSION FOR HOME

1. Share with your teens a time when you ignored the rules or guidelines to something (maybe a recipe, something you built, or even something your parents told you) and ended up with a disaster or really regretting it later. Can they relate? Have they ever decided to ignore rules (maybe as younger kids) and were nearly seriously injured? Talk about it.

2. Ask your teen about what they learned at youth this week. Do they know why there are so many rules in the Bible? Do they know why God cares how we live and why we should care about listening to what he says?

3. Encourage your teens to spend a few minutes reading and thinking about God's Word this week. Maybe that means having family devotions together? Maybe that means buying a devotional book to help them get the most out of that time? If they don't have something like that, point them towards one of the resources listed below. Tell them that, at least a couple of times during the week, you want them to tell you about what they read and what they think it means for their lives.

ONLINE DEVOTIONAL RESOURCES:

STUDENT DEVOS
DEVOZINE

FOR KIDS/YOUNGER TEENS: KEYS FOR KIDS

Friday 24 March 2017

Friday, March 24, 2017- "WHY do Christians always talk about sharing their faith?"


This week at CATALYST, we took a look at a video depicting Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son. This son insulted his dad, decided to leave home, and wasted his entire inheritance on a party lifestyle. After a while, his money ran out and he hit the bottom. He was filled with regret and shame, and he was starving. He didn't believe that his dad would ever accept him back for the things he had said and done, but he was desperate, so he turned towards home with the intention of begging his dad so that he could be hired on a servant. Jesus said that while the son was a long way off, the father ran out to hug him and welcome him back into the family. It's an amazing picture of how God offers us love and forgiveness, even if we don't deserve it- even if we've walked away from him and have made bad choices.

This week, our topic was "Why do Christians always talk about sharing their faith?" This story helps communicate why. God doesn't want anyone to be lost. He doesn't want anyone to be far away from him. He doesn't want anyone to destroy their lives and be separate from him for eternity. So, as people who have experienced his love and forgiveness ourselves, God has given us a mission:

2 Corinthians 5:19-20 says, “God has given us this wonderful message of RECONCILLIATION. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

The word "reconciliation" has to do with uniting people who've been separated. God wants us to point other people in the direction of the God who loves them and wants to forgive them. But how do we do that? We certainly don't want to be pushy, annoying, salespeople who force our faith down other people's throats. This week, I gave a few tips in how we could be a part of helping people take a step closer to God.

1. LIVE OUT YOUR FAITH

The way you live your life says A LOT about what you value and what you believe. If you say that you’re a Christian but are mean, if you gossip, if you lie, if you fly off the handle in anger, if you live in a way that’s opposite to what you claim to believe, people will consider you to be a hypocrite, and they’ll be turned off of God and the Christian faith. They’re not going to want anything to do with it! The verse above says that WE ARE CHRIST’S AMBASSADORS. Another way to say that is that if we have accepted God’s love and forgiveness, then we are walking advertisements for Jesus! So, what kind of advertisement are you? Would people notice any difference in the things you say and do? Is it obvious to people that you're someone who loves and follows Jesus?

2. PRAY FOR GOD TO OPEN OPPORTUNITIES FOR YOU TO BE OPEN AND HONEST ABOUT WHAT YOU BELIEVE

In Colossians 4:2-3, Paul asked for prayer that God would open doors for him to share the good news of God’s love with others. If you’re a Christian, pray that God would open up an opportunity in conversations with your friends throughout your day, so that you can simply be open and honest about what you believe. It doesn't mean having to preach a sermon, but when someone might ask you what you did on the weekend, it might be as easy as talking about what you did at CATALYST or church. Just someone knowing that you go to a church or youth group could open a pile of questions...and you might even have an opportunity to invite them to join you!

3. BE PREPARED FOR THOSE CONVERSATIONS

1 Peter 3:15 says that we should always be prepared to answer people when they ask us questions about our faith---and that when we do, we should do that with GENTLENESS and RESPECT. So, again, God doesn’t want us to be pushy, forceful, or annoying salespeople, but when people see the things we say and do, when people ask us questions, we need to be prepared to give an answer. What that means is that you should think about why your faith is important to you. Why do you believe what you believe? Why do you go to church or come to CATALYST? If someone were to ask you any of those questions, would you know what to say or would you be like a deer caught in the headlights? You don't need to have all of the answers to every possible question someone might ask, but you should be able to share with someone why your faith is important to you personally, why you bother go to youth group or church when you could do other things, or why you live differently than a lot of other people around you. What's your story? What answers would you give to those questions? Think about those things ahead of time so that you're prepared when people start asking.

DISCUSSION FOR HOME

1. Ask your teen to tell you about the story of the lost son. Why is it such an amazing story? What does it tell us about God?

2. Pray with (or for) your teen this week- that God would open up opportunities for them to be open and honest about their faith, or why they do the things they do.

3. Encourage your teen to either think about or even write out some answers to these questions, so that they would be a little better prepared when someone asks them questions:

-Why do you go to a church youth group or to church on a Sunday. What do you do there? Why is it important to you? What difference does it make in your life?

-I've noticed that you don't talk like everybody else-- or that you seem to try to live in a different way than other people. Why is that?


Friday 10 March 2017

CATALYST Youth: "Why do the things I watch/listen to matter?", Friday, March 10, 2017





This week, we continued our series called “WHY?” by talking about why the media we listen to or watch matters. Some Christians have been historically strict when it comes to what people do for entertainment. It used to be that some Christians would say that you've committed an unforgivable sin if you played a game of cards (because it was related to gambling) or entered a movie theatre. When I was a teen, there was this huge Christian movement that involved burning cds and cassettes because the lyrics of those albums were all about partying, drinking, sleeping around, and being on the "Highway to Hell". This isn't just stuff that happened decades ago- just a few years ago, some Christians were boycotting Harry Potter novels because they thought it would cause kids to LITERALLY start messing with witchcraft. So, what was the reason for all of those boycotts? Why do Christians tend to be so strict about the shows and movies we watch, the music we listen to or the clicks we make on the Internet? 

1. GOD WANTS US TO LIVE DIFFERENT
The good news of the Bible is that God loves us, and as the ultimate parent, he doesn’t want to see us make decisions that might wreck our lives. He doesn’t want us to do stuff that will put up a big wall in between of the relationship he wants to have with us. He doesn’t want us to live with tons of regrets because of the mistakes we’ve made. The Bible says that when we choose to do what we want instead of the things that God wants for us, that’s sin—and it’s a problem. Everytime we sin it’s like we’re taking a step farther away from the God who loves us, and there’s a lot of danger in us becoming lost (where we’ve gone so far away that we just shut God entirely out of our lives). Now, the good news, is that because God loves us and wants us to be tight with him, he did something crazy and miraculous—even though none of us deserves it--he offers us forgiveness and a brand new start, a do-over, through what Jesus did on the cross! And even if we mess up a million times, he just keeps on offering us forgiveness.
But here’s the deal- when God SAVES us from sin and forgives us for all of the ways we’ve messed up- he doesn’t want us to just head right back in and do the same things all over again. There’s this word in the Bible called REPENTANCE. To Repent means to TURN AWAY FROM SIN and make some better life decisions. As Christians, there are probably some things in the media that we might need to turn away from- things that can pollute us or dirty us up.God doesn’t want us to watch porn- something that’s a click away and can become an addiction, destroy real relationships, fuels modern slavery, and changes the way we see & relate to other people. He probably doesn’t want us to listen to music that is misogynistic (violent towards women and treating them like objects). He probably doesn’t want us to watch movies where people are being tortured and dismembered, full of sex scenes or where the F-Bombs are flying faster than Superman! The media that we absorb does have the ability to change the way we think and feel about the world, and it can sometimes even leave us feeling just dirty and shameful- and God doesn’t want that kind of life for us.

Phillipians 4:8 says, “My brothers and sisters, always think about what is true. Think about what is noble, right and pure. Think about what is lovely and worthy of respect. If anything is excellent or worthy of praise, think about those kinds of things”.

Maybe those cd burning Christians and strict moms took things a bit far, but they had their hearts in the right place. We’re encouraged here to think about, to watch, to listen to things that are NOBLE (decent, moral), RIGHT, and PURE. Does the media that you enjoy fit in those categories?

2 BE A CRITICAL THINKER
There’s this verse in the Bible that I like to call the MEDIA verse. It’s the movie verse! It’s the Internet verse! It’s the Music verse! Psalm 101:2-3 is part of a prayer that King David prayed (by the way—David was a guy who essentially looked at porn and then had an affair with a married woman and then KILLED her husband—but ultimately he found forgiveness, although it still screwed up his life and family).
“In my own home I will lead a life that is without blame. I won’t look at anything that is evil and call it good”.
David is saying here that when he was alone, when he bored, when he was looking for entertainment, he wanted to make right choices and not dig into stuff that was evil and say that it was ok.

 I don't want to give anybody a list with good movies on one side and bad movies on the other side. I’m not interested in telling people what they should do when it comes to what they watch or what they listen to….but what I AM interested in doing is helping teens become CRITICAL THINKERS. Critical thinking is the “objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment”. It means thinking about the pros and cons about something before you do it. If your friend is doing cliff diving and encourages you to do it, you’re going to weigh the pros and cons and think about the possible risks, you might even examine what’s at the bottom, before just jumping off. Each of us needs to really think about the things you watch or listen to before you press play. That’s the kind of thing that makes God proud.

Not too long ago a friend of mine (who isn’t a Christian) was surprised that I hadn’t watched a particular R rated movie. He said, “Why not? I mean, you’re an ADULT!” and I told him that just because I had the ability and freedom to do something, it doesn’t mean that thing is ok for me or would make God stand up and cheer! In 1 Corinthians 10:23, Paul is writing to a group of Christians who were messing with sin and saying it was ok, and he said this to them- “You say, "I am allowed to do anything"--but not everything is good for you.”. God has given us the freedom to do whatever we want with our lives—but that doesn’t mean that everything we do is actually good for us! Some of that stuff will mess us up and affect us for years down the road if we don’t think about it and make some tough choices. We need to trust that God doesn't want to ruin our lives, but that he really does know and want what's best for us.

-So, here are some good questions you can ask to help you be a better critical thinker.
-Does the media conflict with my faith values? Is it moral, right or pure? Would you watch or listen to it with your grandma in the room?
-What’s the message the music/movie is conveying? It is communicating a healthy worldview?
-Is it something that could possibly be bad for my emotional, physical or spiritual health? What does the Bible say about it?
-Does it make me feel dirty or distant from God?
-Will it pull me farther away from God and what he wants for my life or would it make him proud?
-Is it addictive?

There’s ALWAYS going to be stuff that you’re going to have to overlook because almost EVERYTHING on tv, the movies and the Internet is jam packed with stuff that’s contrary to the Christian faith. Even in PG movies you’ll have people swearing in Jesus’ name (which, as someone who loves Jesus, always offends me). Some of that is stuff you’ll have to overlook but you’ll also need to figure out where to draw the line and determine for yourself how far is too far.

Some practical things that I do (even as an adult) when I’m interested in watching a movie or TV show are:

WHAT’S THE RATING?
I’ll take a look at the rating. USUALLY an R-Rated movie is going to be jam packed with crap and movies that are G or PG-13 generally have way less pollution. But there are even cases where G rated movies are garbage. I brought my kids to the movie SING and was shocked that the message in the movie was “Do whatever you can do—even if it’s illegal- if it means that your dreams will come true”. Not exactly the best message.

IMDB
Another thing I’ll do is that whenever I want to see a movie, I’ll hop on IMDB. When you scroll down on a movie’s page you can click on the “Parents Guide” to see what content is in the movie—listing stuff like profanity, sex, nudity and violence. There have been times where I’ve really wanted to see a movie because it was about something like time travel or space ships but when I checked out the Parent’s Guide it told me that there are 50 cases of someone using the F-bomb or it’s full of sex scenes, and those facts help inform my decision in whether I should watch it or not.

GOOGLE THE LYRICS
Anytime I’m thinking about buying a song or album, I ALWAYS take a look at the album lyrics. If the lyrics contain stuff that's contrary to my faith, I decide not to buy/listen to it. For example, I like Arcade Fire a lot and have a few of their albums—but in their first album, they actually swear Jesus’ name a few times--- so I never bought it, because it’s just not something I can bop my head to or sing along with. It’s certainly not what I would want to play in the car with my kids.

Why do the things we watch or listen to matter? Because God wants us to turn from sin and not be entertained by it. Before you press play, ask yourself some of those questions above to ensure that you're not building up a wall between you and God.

DISCUSSION FOR HOME

1. This week, if you're watching a movie as a family, take some time to ask some of these questions: What is the overall message of the movie? Is it good or bad? Why do you think so? Is there anything in the movie that would be opposite of how God wants us to live our lives? 

2. If your teen listens to a lot of music, encourage them to do a project. Get them to google the lyrics of one of their favourite songs (or even one of the top songs on iTunes) and ask them to answer some of the questions about the song from the first discussion point. In my experience, teens are often amazed when they discover what some of their favourite songs are really about.

3. Encourage your teens that while some media is more obviously not the best thing to watch or listen to, and while you might have particular rules as their parent, they should also practice thinking for themselves to determine what movies/songs are about and whether or not the content in those things is spiritually healthy or unhealthy.