CATALYST Youth- "THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD PART 2", Friday, November 17, 2017

This week, we’re continuing our series on THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD- looking at some of Jesus’ parables—these made up stories meant to communicate some kind of truth about God or life. Most people LOVE stories. It’s the reason why binge-watching is a thing. If you don’t know, “binge-watching” means sitting down and watching a bunch of episodes in a row without stopping. Of course, NETFLIX makes that pretty easy because it auto-plays the next episode without you even having to click a button! (And by the way, IF you watch a ton of shows on Netflix without stopping, after about four or five, a little pop-up will appear asking if you’re still alive and whether or not you want to watch more. Don’t ask me how I know this). We love stories so much that even Netflix is hinting that we might be over-doing it a little!

Well, as I mentioned last week- JESUS knew the power of a story. He was known for travelling around and talking to huge crowds of people, often telling stories (parables) in order to help teach people something important. He told stories so that people would remember what they heard and would be able to pass it on to other people—and it’s the reason why there are a lot of people who’ve never even been in a church, but they would know a lot of the stories that Jesus told.

This week, we’re going to look at another of the GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD. This one is about a couple of guys who were building their own houses…and for one of the guys, it ended in complete disaster.

Matthew 7: 24-27 (NLT)
Jesus said “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.”

Now, the first guy in Jesus’ story was pretty smart… I mean, it sounds like he knew exactly what he was supposed to do because he was following the plans! And because of those plans, he ended up building a solid home on a really good foundation that could withstand any kind of storm or hurricane that came its way. There’s a reason why, when you build a house these days, you have all sorts of professional people involved. You don’t want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a house only to discover that some guy who had NO TRAINING did all of the electrical wiring and that it could burst into flames at any moment. The first guy in Jesus’ story did things “by the book”. He followed the building codes. He followed the plans, and his house was pretty awesome

But then Jesus tells us about another guy who didn’t seem to be too good at following instructions. Maybe he thought that the instructions were irrelevant, out-of-date, or flawed? Maybe he just wanted to do his own thing instead of following the “rules”? Maybe he was just super lazy and wanted to do a rush job? Ahatever the reason, Jesus said that when the storm came, his house, which he built on sand, on a foundation that wasn’t really secure, was totally wrecked! There was nothing left!

Now, the reason why Jesus told that story is because he wanted to convey the importance of not just recognizing that the instructions exist, but TO ACTUALLY PUT THEM INTO PRACTICE…TO FOLLOW THEM! I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to build or help your parents build something from IKEA, but those instructions (even though they are made of ridiculously simple pictures with no words) are pretty important! There was one time when I bought two shelving units from IKEA, and after I successfully built one by following the instructions, I was pretty confident that I could just build the second one by remembering how I did the first one. Well, after about a half-hour of work on the second shelving unit, I began to notice that I had built the drawers upside down with the opening at the bottom, so, even if you managed to get your clothes inside it, if you pulled it open, all of the contents of the drawer would fall onto the ground. It was so frustrating! I had wasted time, and had to unscrew the whole thing and follow the instructions closely so I wouldn’t mess it up again!

The same thing is true for a LEGO set. I’m a pretty huge fan of LEGO, and when I buy even a small Star Wars set for my office, I’m often amazed at how so many tiny, random, pieces can be built into something that looks pretty cool. But of course, if you were silly enough to not follow the building instructions, even if you studied the picture on the box pretty closely, the odds of you actually building the set successfully are pretty slim. Those instructions are there to help you build the set the way it was designed and created to be built!

Now, when Jesus is talking about following his instructions, he’s not talking about the instructions that come with the furniture you get at IKEA or the LEGO manual…although those are pretty helpful…but he’s talking about GOD’S WORD, THE BIBLE, GOD’S INSTRUCTION MANUAL FOR LIFE!

There are some people who think of the Bible as being out-dated…that because it’s old, it’s irrelevant. There are some people who feel that the Bible has TOO MANY INSTRUCTIONS…so they pick and choose what to follow and what to ignore. Some people feel that it limits their freedom…that following it might mean giving up something that seems pretty fun… so why bother?

But, I tend to think of the Bible as being INSTRUCTIONS DIRECT FROM THE MANUFACTURER! As we talked about a few weeks ago, God DESIGNED US, he CREATED US…and because of that, HE REALLY DOES KNOW AND WANT WHAT’S BEST FOR US! He knows how life is meant to be lived! 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, and to keep us safe from danger!

I remember, when I was a new dad, I had to safety-proof our apartment so that it would be safe for our little boy. Because I wanted to be a good parent, I had to place restrictions on what he could play with, I had to show him what was safe and what wasn’t safe, and I had to warn him about stuff that could hurt him. I remember that there were times when he would cry or fuss because I wouldn’t let him wrap the cord for our drapes around his neck, or when I put a safety gate at the entrance to the kitchen so he wouldn’t grab stuff off the stove. He didn’t like those rules and boundaries, because he just didn’t understand that the thing he seemed to desperately want might hurt him OR WORSE!

Well, God is the ULTIMATE GOOD PARENT, and even if we don’t always understand WHY he tells us to stay away from stuff, why something is considered sin (something that separates us from God), we need to TRUST that it’s for a GOOD REASON- it’s for our health and well-being! God doesn’t want our lives to be all busted up because we make horrible mistakes and do what we want instead of what he wants. Like we talked about last week, he also doesn’t want any of us to be lost—to end up far from him and to miss out on heaven. Of course, we all have the freedom to accept God’s instructions or reject them, but we have to understand that God warns us about stuff and tells us the right way to live for a reason.

That’s one of the reason why we have CATALYST on Friday nights, it’s why people get together in churches all over the world. Whenever we get together, we want to have fun together and be a great community, but we also want to check out what God has to say about life, so that when we “build our lives”, so that when we make important choices and face big decisions, we would look to that instruction book direct from our manufacturer instead of going our own way, doing whatever we want, and possibly making a real mess out of things. Be committed to be a regular part of CATALYST youth! Be a regular part of some kind of church community! During the week, take a few minutes each day to read the Bible and think about what it says! At CATALYST we offer a bunch of different Bibles and even devotional books you can borrow to make it easier for you to make Bible reading a daily habit.

Jesus said in Matthew 6:24, “-“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.” Let's be like the wise builder!

DISCUSSION FOR HOME

1. Have you ever ignored the rules or instructions for something (like a recipe, something you built, something your parents told you) and it ended in disaster or really regretted it later? Share that story with your teens. Have they ever decided to ignore rules (maybe as younger kids) and were nearly seriously injured? Talk about it why rules exist.

2. As much as we don't like rules, they are pretty essential for survival. Encourage your teen to spend a few minutes each day reading the Bible or using a student devotional (there are some online resources below). Maybe that might look like doing family devotions together after a meal? 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

DAILY DEVOS
FOR KIDS/YOUNGER TEENS: KEYS FOR KIDS

Kids Worship and Lyric Videos 2017

Here's a list of songs we've done in our KIDZONE program over the last year. In some of these cases, we've made our own lyric videos and purchased the songs/videos whenever possible.

1. SONG OF LOVE- HILLSONG KIDS

Purchased through: http://hillsongstore.ca/crazy-noise-digital-lyric-videos/

Listen on Spotify

2, BE STRONG- HILLSONG KIDS

http://hillsongstore.ca/crazy-noise-digital-lyric-videos/

3. FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT- KIDSPRING

4. THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT- HILLSONG KIDS

Purchased through: http://hillsongstore.ca/crazy-noise-digital-lyric-videos/

5. GOD MADE A WAY- KIDSPRING

6. STOP AND GO- YANCY

Purchased through: http://www.worshiphousekids.com/

7. SUPER WONDERUL- YANCY

Purchased through: http://www.worshiphousekids.com/

8. MY GOD IS NUMBER ONE- YANCY

Purchased through: http://www.worshiphousekids.com/

9. LOVE WILL NEVER FAIL- KIDSPRING

10. PRAISE THE LORD EVERYDAY- KIDSPRING

11. JESUS SAVIOR- KIDSPRING (CHRISTMAS SONG)

CATALYST YOUTH- "The Greatest Stories Ever Told", Friday, November 10, 2017

I LOVE a good story! I can burn through a novel in DAYS, sometimes HOURS, but it takes me FOREVER (and sometimes NEVER) to read a book full of facts and statistics.

I would say that most people LOVE stories! It’s why some movies make HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS! We want to escape from reality for a bit and be taken on a journey through our imagination. There actually isn’t a lot of difference between sitting in a movie theatre, and being a kid, sitting on the lap of your mom or dad while they read you a story. (Except a movie might not help you learn to read and its budget is a whole lot bigger).

Jesus was an amazing storyteller! In the Bible, Jesus’ stories are called PARABLES- which means that they’re made-up stories that communicate to us some important truth about God or life (they have a moral). The reason why Jesus told stories is because he lived during a time before TV and the Internet, and he KNEW that people would remember a story WAY better than they could ever remember a bunch of facts, and if they remembered the story, then hopefully, they would remember what the story meant and would be able to pass it on to other people!

This week we kicked off a new series called, “THE GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD”, by looking at three stories Jesus told about people who lost something valuable.

STORY 1: THE LOST SHEEP (Luke 15: 1-7)

STORY 2: THE LOST COIN (Luke 15: 8-10)

STORY 3: THE LOST SON (Luke 15: 11-31)

You can read all of the above stories here.

All of Jesus's stories here have a few things in common. They all involve something that was lost. The thing/person/animal that was lost was incredibly valuable to the person who lost them. They searched for the thing that was lost (The dad didn't leave home, but the Bible says he was on the lookout for when the son decided to return). In all of the cases, when the thing that was lost was found, there was a huge celebration. As we talked about, parables are stories meant to convey some truth about God and life…and there’s really ONE BIG THING that Jesus’ “lost stories” tell us.

“LOSTNESS” ISN’T GOOD

In all of these cases, the caretaker of the sheep, the owner of the coin, and the dad were all pretty stressed—they were sad—they were worried, they were freaked out—and these are all pictures of God.

Last week, I talked about how God is our creator—that he designed all of nature and humanity and that WE”RE HERE FOR A REASON. We’re not a result of some cosmic accident where we have no purpose. The Bible tells us that one of the main reasons why we exist is to know God and to have a friendship with him. To be close to our Creator and to live life the way he designed it to be lived so that we’re happy and fulfilled and have as few bumps and scrapes as possible.

I remember one time when I couldn’t find my daughter at the playground, and in those few seconds (which seemed like an eternity) the worst things flashed through my mind. Someone kidnapped my kid, my kid is lost forever, my kid is in trouble or hurt somewhere and I can’t help her. In those few seconds I felt complete fear and horror.

Thankfully, I ended up spotting her, and when that happened, all of those fears suddenly melted away and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. My heart rate returned to normal. But that experience reminded me just how much I love my kids and how much of a wreck I would be if either of them ended up being lost or in trouble.

Jesus is telling this story to remind us that God loves us like a good parent loves their kid, and that if we don’t know God…if, like the son in the story, we walk away from the closeness of our Heavenly dad and live life apart from him, we’re in trouble. The word the Bible uses to describe this ”trouble” is “sin”, which basically means to go your own way instead of God’s way—to choose to do life without him—and this is a bad thing, not only because we’ll likely make a lot of bad choices and live with a lot of regrets in life, but because we’re separated from the God who loves us. The Bible says that if we’re separated from God, we’ll never be a part of heaven one day!

That separation HORRIFIES GOD like it HORRIFIED me when I couldn’t find my daughter on the playground. These three stories Jesus told reminds us just how much God loves each one of us- that we are VALUABLE to him! That we are meant to be “in his sheep pen” or “in his pocket” or “in his living room”. We’re meant to be close to him! We're meant to "do life" with him!

At the end of all these stories, when the person who represents God finds the thing that’s lost, the person becomes super excited! They jump up and down! They call their friends! They throw a huge party! This reminds us that being SAVED FROM SIN—being forgiven of all of the bad things we’ve ever done—and having a restored relationship with God, is a HUGE DEAL. In fact, Jesus said that when a person who is lost returns to a friendship with God, there are angels in heaven throwing a huge party! They’re dancing! They’re cheering! They’re screaming! All of heaven is celebrating!

These three stories that Jesus told tell us something really important—that we are MEANT to know and follow God—that we are ALL MEANT to be close to him- that he doesn’t want any of us to be lost and to live life and spend eternity without him! The really great news is that, just like the son in the story, even if we’ve done stupid things and made a lot of terrible mistakes. Even if we’ve done things that we know God isn’t proud of—he offers us forgiveness and a brand new start. The thing he wants most is for us to be found, for us to come home!

DISCUSSION FOR HOME

1. Do you remember a time when your teen was lost or you discovered that he/she was in trouble? Talk about it. How did it make you feel in that moment? Remind your teen that this is how God feels if you don't have a close relationship with him.

2. Ask your teen what they think it might mean to "stay close to God". Ask them about Jesus' story about the lost son. What might that mean for us?

5 TIPS ON HOW YOU CAN HELP US BE A MORE WELCOMING CHURCH COMMUNITY

Last week, I shared "5 tips on how YOU can help us be a more welcoming church" with our CONNECT: Family & Friends group. It's such good stuff, I thought I would post it on our parents blog for anyone to view or share. Feel free to do so.

We don't do a terrible job at community. In fact, I often have people tell us about how blown away they are at how welcomed and at home they feel at Arlington Woods. But, the simple truth is that it's VERY TEMPTING to only sit with the people you know, to only talk to the people you know, and to never walk across the room to be a friendly face to somebody new. Have you ever been in a room full of people but felt completely alone- that no one would miss you if you were gone? It's a terrible feeling. We don't want any kids, teens, or adults to EVER feel that way when they're a part of something at Arlington Woods.

In Matthew 5, Jesus spoke in the Sermon on the Mount about the importance of loving others. He emphasizes that "loving others" doesn't mean just loving people who love you back, but even loving your enemies! He goes on to say in Matthew 5:47- "If you greet/welcome only your friends, what’s so great about that? Don’t even unbelievers do that?" That's a pretty big challenge. Jesus expects us not to just be welcoming and friendly to people we know, but also to the outsider. To someone who isn't yet known.

In Matthew 25:35-36, Jesus has some super awesome things to say to some believers: "When I was hungry, you gave me something to eat, and when I was thirsty, you gave me something to drink. When I was a stranger, you welcomed me, and when I was naked, you gave me clothes to wear. When I was sick, you took care of me, and when I was in jail, you visited me.”

Are you welcoming to those who are "strangers"- people you don't yet know? Are you hospitable? Often times we think this passage is talking about how we treat homeless people (who literally have no home), but we need to remember that guests on a Sunday or a church event might also be "homeless" in the sense that they are looking to be a part of a loving, caring, community. They want to feel welcome and valued. If they leave not feeling that, the odds of them ever coming back are slim to none.

To continue to be a warm, friendly, and welcoming church, it takes a bit of effort and work on our part. It means stepping outside our comfort zones. Here are 5 simple tips that I DARE you to try out this (and every) Sunday.

1. OPEN YOUR EYES

Before you stop and chat with the people you know, look to see if there's anyone who you don't know at the church. That might mean a brand new person, or someone who has attended for years but you don't really know.

2. WALK ACROSS THE ROOM

Make it your mission to welcome that new person you see before you get caught in a conversation with your usual circle of friends. This is tough because the person you talk to might not be the best conversationalist or might be an introvert, but Jesus wants us to welcome those people too! Please don't assume that someone else will welcome them. That "someone else" is YOU!

3. REMEMBER THEIR NAMES 

Make an effort to remember that person's name! I'm horrible with names--and often times when I meet someone, I forget their name one minute into the conversation. Write it down! Think of a celebrity that shares that name or a rhyme to help you remember.

4. INTRODUCE THE PERSON TO YOUR CIRCLE 

Being hospitable doesn't mean that you have to manage the conversation on your own. Bring that person and introduce them to the people you know so that they can feel invited into community and get to know others. It's such a SIMPLE way to help people feel welcomed and valued. You can also introduce them to one of our pastors too!

5. LOOK OUT FOR THEM

In following weeks, look out for that person you met to welcome them back. Call them by name! Follow up with them! Introduce them to others! Invite them to sit with you! Get to know them better!

CATALYST Youth, "ORIGIN STORY"- November 2, 2017

In superhero movies, we often get an ORIGIN STORY- the story of how the hero (or the villain) was just a regular person until something amazing happened- where they were bit by a radioactive spider or struck by lightning, or a container of toxic waste fell on the person’s head, or they were hit with a gamma ray…and all of a sudden this normal person’s genes changed at a molecular level and they became a superhero or supervillain!

Of course, none of us would be dumb enough to let ourselves get struck by lightning or to actually take a swim in some radioactive waste in the hopes of getting superpowers, because there really isn’t any scientific formula that you can follow to be a superhero like in the movies. There is no actual evidence that something like that could actually happen!

This week, we looked at OUR origin story. The origin story of our planet. Where did we come from? How did our planet come to exist? Are all of the plants, animals, and people alive because of some weird cosmic accident… or were they CREATED?

In nearly every text book, class, or scientific article, we’re never told that we were CREATED… we’re never even given that as an option. All of those sources usually tell us that we are a result of some weird cosmic accident that happened billions of years ago, and over the process of time, that accident somehow produced LIFE that evolved into living creatures. But here’s the problem- no textbook or scientist can explain where LIFE came from or how it came to exist out of nothing! It’s a big question mark in the scientific community.

Recently, there was a science and technology report from CBCnews about how Canadian scientists believe (AND TAKE NOTE OF THAT WORD…BELIEVE) that life on Earth came about because they THINK that a few billion years ago a meteorite that carried a molecule that contained some of the building blocks of life splashed down into a pond of water…and that SOMEHOW, life began. Of course, where those life-infused molecules came from is another huge unanswerable question for our scientific friends.

This is humanity's best guess at our origin story. This is what is being taught in schools and presented on the news as if it’s 100% true. But personally, I think it’s as crazy as saying you’ll get superpowers if you stand on the roof with a metal pole in a lightning storm.

Now, the reason why scientists, our textbook writers, and the people on the news choose to believe that life came about because of a big bang or a rock falling into some water, as far-fetched as those things might seem, is because they start off with the assumption that there is no God. If you don’t believe that God exists and you don’t believe that God created life, then I guess you don’t have any better option than to say that we’re a result of some weird cosmic accident. I mean, what other option is there? That aliens did it? If aliens did it, where did the aliens come from? When scientists try to explain life without factoring God into it, they’re left with a lot of big question marks. And sadly, you’ll read in your textbooks that the weird cosmic accident is the TRUE origin story. Scientists say that this is the TRUTH to our existence, even though their version of the truth, in my opinion, takes a whole lot more faith than it does for someone who believes in God.

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT OUR ORIGIN STORY?
The Bible says that we’re not a result of a random space rock landing in some water but that we were CREATED—that we have an intelligent designer! John 1:3 says, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made”.

The Bible says here that EVERYTHING we see or use originally came from something that God created! This verse tells us that God is the only way for us to adequately explain the complexity of life and nature. For example, if you were to walk in the woods and happened across a chair—would you assume that it just grew out of the ground or would you assume that someone created it? By looking at it, you would see that it was sanded or painted, that pieces of wood were cut, that metal or plastic was melted down and poured into a mould—that someone shaped the materials and put it all together. A chair, in comparison to humanity or what we see in nature, isn't really that complex. Just look at an apple tree. It grows apples, and if you plant an apple, it’ll grow another tree. And the fruit is DELICIOUS to eat! Look at our bodies—our eyes compete with some of the best cameras that technology can build! When we cut ourselves, our body has the ability to heal itself! Look at our minds—we can create and invent all kinds of amazing things, from a tablet to an amazing piece of artwork! Nature, our bodies and our minds are far more intricate and complex than a chair—and we say it’s OBVIOUS that someone made the chair, but it’s not OBVIOUS that someone created life?

Our textbooks always say that the first spark of life came from nothing. That a big bang happened (and there’s no answer to who might have caused that big bang), and somehow a spark of life occurred and it started as a plankton and it took billions of years for that plankton to slowly improve and eventually become a human being. Our textbooks say that the answer is in the "billions of years"—that somehow, when you add a long period of time to the equation- ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! But, that doesn’t make sense.

To use another illustration. I’m a fan of LEGO—I actually have a big collection of Star Wars Microfighters in my office. A LEGO set isn’t very complex. You can have a box with around a hundred pieces that contains ALL of the parts inside to build that exact model. If I shook that box for billions of years, do you think at the end, a fully built LEGO set would be inside the box? No. If anything, the pieces would wear down and degrade over time! But, that’s what our textbooks are trying to pass off on us as truth—that the building blocks of life (and remember, they can’t explain how those building blocks of life came to exist in the first place) somehow became something as complex and intricate as a human body over billions of years WITHOUT SOMEONE ACTUALLY CREATING IT! Our bodies and minds are WAY more complex than a few pieces of shaped plastic! To say that we evolved over a process of billions of years with no intelligent designer or creator is a HUGE stretch of logic! It’s like saying that a simple LEGO model built itself! It’s like saying that a simple cake or casserole came about because all of the right ingredients (with the exact amounts of ingredients) happened to be in a pot, and they happened to cook at the right temperature, and someone happened to take it out of the oven at the right time.

Let’s take a look at a few other things the Bible has to say about our ORIGIN STORY.

Job 12:7-11- “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind”.

Again, this is saying that by scientifically examining animals, the earth, plant life and all of the things we find in nature, the intricacy of those things lets us know that they didn’t all appear out of nothing by complete accident—but that “the hand of the LORD has done this. In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.”

Psalm 19:1-4 says, “The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world”.

Here, the Bible isn’t saying that nature LITERALLY talks to us—but that everything in nature, is in a sense, SCREAMING out that it was created by a “craftsman”- by an intelligent designer!

Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”.

This is saying that when we take a walk outside, when we see the birth of a child who grows up to think and create and have a unique personality, when we see animals around us—these things all SCREAM OUT THAT THEY WERE CREATED! All of this complexity doesn’t exist because of random chance.

Here are some amazing facts about our planet- all taken from scientific studies. It's important to note that in ALL OF THESE CASES, these scientific studies say that these things are all a result of random chance.

AMAZING FACT #1- THE POSITION OF THE EARTH 
There's a reason we've found life on Earth and nowhere else. Our world orbits the sun at just the right distance — it’s not too hot, it’s not too cold. If the earth was just a fraction closer or farther away from the sun, we would all freeze or burn up!

AMAZING FACT #2- THE EARTH’S ROTATION 
The earth's rotation brings the sun up each morning and, thankfully, puts it back down. If it weren't for this, one side of the world would be unbearably scorched and the other would be so cold and dark, it couldn’t sustain life. The only place where people could survive would be right at the border between constant sunlight and constant darkness.

AMAZING FACT #3- GRAVITY 
Science can’t really explain where gravity comes from, but it’s something we experience every single day. To put it in simple terms, gravity provides a certain degree of weight to things. Gravity holds us perfectly to the earth. With less gravity, we would float away like a balloon or an astronaut floating off into space. With more gravity, all life would be crushed under the weight of this force.

AMAZING FACT #4- MAGNETIC FIELD 
The Earth has this magnetic field that gives us our atmosphere. Without our atmosphere—the gasses in the air- nothing would survive. The magnetic field also protects us from the radiation of the sun.

AMAZING FACT #5- WATER 
70% of our world is covered by water. About 60% of an adult’s body is composed of water. Without water, no life would exist. Nothing would grow. And water is something VERY unique to our planet. So far, it hasn’t been found anywhere else.

AMAZING FACT #6- VEGETATION 
When you look out your window and see the colour green, It is nature's sign that sunlight, carbon dioxide and water are being converted into plant food by photosynthesis. Those plants give off oxygen so we can breathe, they provide us food! If trees didn't exist, we would have more carbon dioxide than oxygen and we wouldn’t be able to breathe!

Just these few amazing facts tell us that this world is perfectly suited for us. If just one of those things were missing, life wouldn’t exist. If we were just a fraction farther or closer to the sun, life wouldn’t exist. The odds of all these things happening by accident are just impossible! But, because the scientific community starts with the assumption that there’s no God, they really can’t adequately explain how and why life exists beyond “an explosion happened, the building blocks of life came from “somewhere”, and happened to land in a place perfectly suited for life, AND those tiny living organisms (which again, can’t be explained) somehow changed to become incredibly complex living beings who can think, create, and reproduce".

Textbooks contain a lot of truth. Science is very helpful at discovering how a lot of things work. But if you're looking for answers about our ORIGIN STORY- those textbooks and scientific studies are asking us to believe something that takes a whole lot more faith than believing that life and our world exists because of an Intelligent Designer. The scientific community is biased. They start with the assumption that there is no God and then attempt to somehow explain the intricacy of biology and nature without the supernatural. This is why their best guesses are so far-fetched and illogical.


The Bible tells us that we have an Intelligent Designer. It tells us that a loving God created this world that is perfectly suited for us. It tells us that we're not here by accident, but that we're here on purpose. It tells us that all of the intricacy of our bodies, plants, animals, and our world didn’t come from nothing! All of that intricacy is God’s signature. An artist’s signature.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Have your teen take a look at a fruit or vegetable. Cut it open. Taste it. Ask them where they think it came from. How does it grow? (Look it up online). Ask them where the first seed came from? Do they think it's amazing? Discuss how this can't grow on any other planet- that our world is perfectly suited for this to grow and reproduce. Something this simple reminds us how amazing nature is and how perfectly suited this world is for us. To suggest that all of this happened by accident is pretty incredible.

2. Can your teen think of an example in a book, textbook, or class where it conflicts with what the Bible has to say about our origin story?

3. What stood out to your teen the most from Pastor Ben's talk at CATALYST? Was there something in particular that reminded them that God is our creator and that we're not all here by accident? What fact did they learn that might help them explain to a friend about how we have an Intelligent Designer?

CATALYST Youth, October 20, 2017- "GHOST STORIES"

Most of us are familiar with ghost stories. On TV, there are reality-type shows about people exploring haunted houses, abandoned insane asylums, and dingy prisons (which would all be pretty creepy, ghosts or not) where they document their supposedly “real supernatural experiences” with night-vision cameras. Every year, they come out with movies like PARANORMAL ACTIVITY which tells the story of people living in a haunted house…again, using those weird night-vision cameras. There have even been a few movies that involve someone who’s alive who ends up FALLING IN LOVE with a ghost! Imagine how hard it would be to to make THAT relationship work! Disney/Pixar is coming out with a brand new animated movie in November called COCO that deals with a boy who becomes a ghost and has to solve some kind of mystery about his family before he gets stuck as a ghost forever! Usually in movies and tv shows, we see a lot of stories about someone who can talk to ghosts and help them to somehow solve their own murder or to help them “walk into the light”. And of course, there are all of those nasty, downright evil ghosts that need to be busted using lasers and high-tech traps in movies like GHOSTBUSTERS!
 
Hollywood aside, what’s the deal with ghosts? Did people believe in ghosts in the Bible? Are ghosts really dead people with a terrible sense of direction, wandering around looking for the light? And if they’re not dead people, WHAT ARE THEY? Do they REALLY have answers to all of our questions? Those are some questions we tackled this week.
 
DID PEOPLE IN THE BIBLE BELIEVE IN GHOSTS?
 
People have been telling ghost stories for thousands of years! There were even a few times where Jesus's disciples thought that HE was a ghost because when they were around Jesus, some abnormal stuff was happening.

In Matthew 14, when the disciples were in a boat in the middle of a storm it says, “A little while before morning, Jesus came walking on the water towards his disciples. When they saw him, they thought he was a ghost. They were terrified and started screaming”. (Matthew 14:25-26)
 
Can you picture that? You can’t really blame the guys for being freaked out--- after all--- they were witnessing someone WALKING ON TOP OF THE WATER. In that case, when Jesus got into the boat with them and saw that he wasn't some spooky apparition, it says, “The men in the boat worshipped Jesus and said, ‘You really are the Son of God!”(Matthew 14:33)
 
Another time where the disciples thought that Jesus was a ghost was after he had been killed on the cross and appeared to them in Luke 24:37-39: “They were frightened and terrified because they thought they were seeing a ghost. But Jesus said, “Why are you so frightened? Why do you doubt? Look at my hands and my feet and see who I am! Touch me and find out for yourselves. Ghosts don’t have flesh and bones as you see I have.”
 
Again, you can hardly blame the disciples for thinking that Jesus was a ghost—they saw him killed in public in front of hundreds of eye-witnesses, and Roman soldiers were REALLY GOOD at the whole “killing thing”. Jesus wasn’t just “a little dead”—he was COMPLETELY dead. They buried him! So, the fact that Jesus stood right in front of his followers a few days later—where they talked to him, touched his wounds and even ate with him, again proves that Jesus wasn’t just an ordinary dude! This was one of the most amazing things to ever happen in all of history (which is why Easter is still celebrated THOUSANDS of years after it all happened)!
 
ARE GHOSTS DEAD PEOPLE WITH A PATHETIC SENSE OF DIRECTION—SEARCHING FOR A LIGHT?
 
The Bible gives us a pretty clear answer to this question—and it sounds like, after we’re dead, we won’t have a chance to go sightseeing, haunt the bully at school, or to team up with someone who’s alive to solve crimes like in the movies.
 
Hebrews 9:27 says that, “We die only once, and THEN we are judged”. What that’s getting at is that AFTER we die—barring some kind of miracle where God raises one of us from the dead—we’ll stand before God and he’ll judge us based on whether or not we’re tight with him and have experienced his forgiveness through Jesus. (Despite what people think, the Bible tells us that's the only thing that matters to God. Simply being a "good person" isn't as important.)  
Ecclesiastes 9:6 says that dead people, “will never again take part in anything that happens on this earth”
 
Job 7:9-10 says, "Just as a cloud dissipates and vanishes, those who die will not come back. They are gone forever from their home—never to be seen again".
 
2 Corinthians 5:8 gives a pretty awesome promise for Christians—it says that death shouldn’t be something scary, but we can even be CHEERFUL about it, because when we die, we’ll be “AT HOME WITH THE LORD”. I’ve been to some REALLY sad funerals because I didn’t know if the person had a friendship with Jesus, and I’ve also been to some Christian funerals that were AMAZING…because they were times of celebration;  celebrating someone’s life, celebrating that they’re in heaven and celebrating the fact that I’ll see them again one day! This verse says that for Christians, when you die, you’ll be with Jesus!
 
So, the Bible is pretty clear on this one—ghosts AREN’T dead people. When you’re dead, there’s no coming back for a visit or haunting the dude who got your order wrong at McDonalds. 

WHAT ARE GHOSTS?

OPTION A) GHOSTS ARE FAKE

The fact is, that a lot of the people who claim to chat with ghosts are people looking for a quick buck—even con artists who study human behaviour and look for gullible people to take advantage of—to fool people into believing that they have special knowledge from beyond the grave or they have the ability to ask their dead loved one a question! Even though there are HUNDREDS of shows about ghost hunters…they never seem to catch any, but still manage to make thousands of dollars in the process!

OPTION B) GHOSTS ARE EVIL SPIRITS (DEMONS)

It seems really weird in our modern, intelligent, skeptical society to say that evil spirits exist—although in some countries, they don’t have a problem believing that at all. Whenever I’m feeling sceptical about the whole thing, I have to remember that Jesus and his disciples encountered evil spirits quite a few times in the Bible!
 
In Matthew 4, Jesus spent time praying in the wilderness and experienced temptation by Satan (the devil)
 
In Mark 5, Jesus encountered a man who was possessed by evil spirits and was harming himself, and Jesus actually HAD A CONVERSATION with the evil spirits and commanded them to come out of the man! And this was done in front of a ton of eye witnesses!
 
In Acts 19, it says that there were a lot of people in the city of Ephesus who were practicing witchcraft and were encountering evil spirits…and after they became Christians, they burned those books and experienced freedom from the evil they were dabbling with!
 
In Acts 16, it tells us that there was a young slave girl who was basically a medium (someone who would listen to evil spirits and tell people what they said about their future for money)—and she was bothering Paul and Silas as they travelled around and told people about Jesus. Acts 16:18 says, “This went on day after day until Paul got so exasperated that he turned and said to the demon within her, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And instantly it left her”. What’s so cool about that is that they were actually thrown in jail because her slave owners couldn’t make any more money off of her!

Yes, there’s lots of places in the Bible where people encountered evil spirits, but the common thread in all of those encounters is that Jesus is WAY more powerful, and that as Christians we can be protected from a lot of that stuff. When people even mentioned Jesus’ name, it sent the evil spirits running! The Bible tells us that there’s no such thing as a friendly ghost—and when people think they’re seeing or communicating with a loved one from beyond the grave, when they think that it’s harmless fun—if it’s not a scam, then they’re messing with evil spirits! It’s not ALL the stuff of Hollywood, and it’s not ALL make believe--- which is why the Bible gives us some pretty solid warnings about it!
 
In Deuteronomy 18, God spoke to the people of Israel and told them to be careful about hanging out with their neighbours—because most of those neighbours didn’t care at all about following God or doing what was right. “Be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there…Do not practice fortune telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. ANYONE WHO DOES THESE THINGS IS DETESTABLE TO THE LORD”.
 
That’s one reason why a lot of Christian parents won’t even let their kids watch or read stuff that involves witches, ghosts, or magic…because the Bible warns us to stay away from that kind of stuff! A few years ago, a big craze on Youtube was people putting pencils on their hands, wanting to talk to an evil spirit. Some people have Ouija boards which you can buy at Toys R Us to make a game out of talking to spirits. The Bible says not to mess with that stuff, because when you do, you’re basically welcoming evil spirits into your life!
 
Isaiah 8:19-20 says, “Someone may say to you, ‘Let’s ask the mediums and those who consult the spirits of the dead. With their whisperings and mutterings, they will tell us what to do.’ But shouldn’t people ask God for guidance? Should the living seek guidance from the dead? Look to God’s instructions and teachings! People who contradict his word are completely in the dark”.

I love that passage! It says that if we need directions or want answers about life, it’s kind of dumb to try to consult dead people or visit someone who claims to see the future, when we have a direct line to God! We can ask him for help, we can look to the Bible for wisdom and to help us know what we should do with our lives.  The Bible tells us that there ARE evil spiritual forces at work in our world, and their goal is to trick and deceive us, to have us place our faith in things besides God, and to pull us away from the God who loves us and wants the best for us—and because of that, we’re warned to keep our distance from those things.

That doesn't mean that you can't watch COCO when it comes out in theatres (unless your parents don't want you to), but anytime we ghost stories in movies or TV shows, we have to be aware of the fact that those are just STORIES…they’re works of FICTION…they don’t tell us how the afterlife REALLY works. 

In EVERY ghost story I’ve ever seen, one of the main messages is that if someone is “good”, or if their ghost manages to solve their own murder, they’ll end up walking into the light at the end.” And while that’s a really nice thought and a nice way to wrap up those stories, according to the Bible- that’s not true! 

In John 14:6, when his disciples asked Jesus how to get to heaven, he told them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life! Without me, no one can go to the Father”. It’s through Jesus that we can have a friendship with God, be forgiven of our sins, and one day be a part of heaven when we die. It has nothing to do with solving the mystery of our own deaths, completing some kind of checklist after we die, doing more good things than bad things in life, or successfully haunting our friends and family (and we can all breathe a sigh or relief about that last one).

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Ask your teen if they can think of any tv shows or movies that deal with the supernatural or ghosts. Why do you think people watch them? Why do you think some people visit psychics or people who claim to be able to communicate with loved ones from beyond the grave?

2. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life! Without me, no one can go to the Father”. How does this compare to the "messages" we see in movies or TV shows about ghosts and the supernatural?

3. Why do you think the Bible contains warnings about things like dabbling with witchcraft, consulting spirits, or visiting psychics? What does Isaiah 18:19-20 say about where we should look for answers about life or the afterlife?

CATALYST Youth- October 13, 2017- "GOOD GOD? BAD NEWS!"

As we get closer to Halloween and I see a lot of the disturbing and violent decorations hanging from the store shelves, it reminds me that our world, in REAL LIFE, is disturbing enough! Do we really need to put plastic heads on top of sticks on our front lawn? You only need to look at the news or check out social media for a reminder that our world is REALLY MESSED UP! 

Every day we see and hear all kinds of bad news: terrorists driving cars into crowds of people or planting bombs, mass shootings at concerts, North Korea launching missile tests, crazy racism and mistreatment of people just because there skin is a difference colour, people living in poverty, starving to death, or refugees risking their lives to escape their country because it’s just so incredibly dangerous! All of those things can leave us questioning the goodness of God. If God is so loving, why doesn’t he just fix everything that’s broken with our world and stop evil from happening? That's the question we tackled this week.
 
GOD ISN’T TO BLAME FOR THE EVIL IN OUR WORLD
 
We often blame God for a lot of the evil in the world—because if he’s all powerful and all loving, he should stop all this stuff from happening. He should cause cheeseburgers to rain down from heaven to feed starving children! He should swoop in like a superhero to stop all of the drug dealers and child abusers, leaving them all tied up for the police like Spiderman does! If God can create all of creation with just ONE word, than he’s DEFINITELY able to put an end to violence and crime.
 
So why doesn’t he? Doesn’t he love us? Doesn’t he care about starving or abused children? Doesn’t he care about the families of the people who were shot while attending a concert in Las Vegas? Well, to answer that question, we have to look at the book of Genesis (the very first book of the Bible). In it, it tells us that God created everything- including people- and when he was done, he called it all GOOD. What that means, is that there wasn’t any lying, there wasn’t any greed, there wasn’t any hatred, there was no jealousy, there wasn’t any violence or killing- animals didn’t even eat other animals! Basically, it was heaven on earth!

That all changed, not because of anything that God did, but it was because the first two people he created made a choice. It was the first sin—or in other words, the first choice to do the opposite of what God wanted for them. Adam and Eve were tempted and decided to disobey God.
 
All of the evil and violence in our world is because of one thing- God created humans with the freedom to CHOOSE. All of us have the freedom to choose to love and follow God and live the way that he wants us to, or to go our own way and do whatever we want instead. That included Adam and Eve, that included that crazy gunman in Las Vegas, and that includes you and me. So then, why did God create us with the ability to choose?
 
When I was a kid, I got a robot dog for Christmas. It was called a Spot Bot- and at the time, it was one of the coolest toys ever. You would put in the batteries, flick a switch, and it would roll around on the floor in circles, wagging its little plastic tail and “barking” with a weird robotic dog voice. As much as I loved my little Spot Bot, it wasn’t anything like having a REAL dog. Sure a real dog would do nasty stuff like poop or pee on the floor and you would have to clean up after it, but a real dog would also run up to you and lick your face and snuggle with you when you come home and really love and depend on you. Now, we aren’t dogs to God. In fact, James 1:18 says that humans are God’s prized creation. We aren’t animals to him. BUT, when God created us, he didn’t want robots that were programmed to love and follow him—he wanted people who would FREELY CHOOSE to love and follow him—because THAT’S REAL. You wouldn't want someone to marry you one day because they were forced to do it. You would want someone to CHOOSE to marry you because they love you and want to! God wants us to WANT to have a friendship with him. He wants us to choose to love and follow him!
 
Adam and Eve were the first humans, who made the first terrible choice to reject God’s way and go their own way instead…and we’ve been doing it ever since. God made a perfect world for Adam and Eve and told them not to do ONE THING—and they did it. In the Bible, God tells us how he wants us to live our lives…but do we really care or listen?
 
Some of us do, but most of the people in this world do whatever they want. Sometimes what they want is to be kind, caring and thoughtful, and sometimes what people want is to be greedy, to get revenge, to say or do unkind things, to be selfish, and even to hurt or kill other human beings. It’s our choice to SIN—to do the opposite of what God wants us to do—that makes this world so evil and messed up. This doesn’t thrill God at all. In fact, it horrifies him! It makes him totally sad! When God sees the evil things his creation does, that breaks his heart!
 
God doesn’t let children starve in poor countries—that happens because those countries might have evil leaders who keep wealth for themselves while allowing others to go hungry, or it’s because people would much rather help themselves than to help other people. For example, did you know that each year about $400 billion dollars worth of food is wasted because it goes uneaten or spoils in the fridge? If that food could be collected and passed out or shared- the waste alone would be enough to feed the world’s 870 million hungry people! We can’t blame God for starving children.
 
God isn’t the one firing bullets into crowds of people. That’s because people are CHOOSING to do something that God hates! The bully at school is choosing to be a bully. The greedy corporation is choosing to be greedy instead of paying employees a fair wage. When you make fun of somebody at school and hurt them, it’s because you CHOSE to do the opposite of what God wants you to do. When we all choose to live the opposite of how God intends life to be lived—when we SIN- is there any wonder that our world is so evil and messed up? Sometimes I’m surprised that it’s not MORE messed up! So, it’s not God’s fault that there’s so much evil in our world… and if he were to take away our choice to do right or wrong—the world would be a perfect place—but we wouldn’t be humans- we would be robots—so God is letting this play out for awhile.
 
GOD WILL MAKE EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THIS WORLD RIGHT AGAIN.
 
2 Peter 3:9 says- “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent”.
 
This verse gives us the reason why God hasn't yet become so fed up with the evil and injustice in the world that he puts an end to it all. God promises in the Bible that one day, he WILL make everything wrong with this world right again. He’s going to judge the world. While we can look at the news and wonder why God isn’t doing it right now, this verse tells us that it’s because God is being PATIENT hoping that more and more people will come to follow him. It tells us that God doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed! He wants everyone to repent!
 
That word “repent” means that he wants us to turn away from our bad choices, to accept his love and forgiveness and CHOOSE to follow him! The good news is that all of the evil and terrible things in this world aren't going to last! Everyone who chooses to live their lives the opposite to how God wants will one day stand in front of him and be judged based on the choices they made. 

If we want to be a part of heaven one day, if we want to be a part of the perfect world that God will restore, it all boils down to a choice. We can CHOOSE to ask God to forgive us, we can CHOOSE to follow God’s way instead of our own way…or we can do the same thing that Adam and Eve did, and CHOOSE to do what we want instead (SIN). When we make that choice, the Bible says that our sin separates us from God. While we can't control how others choose to live their lives, what choice will YOU make?

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS


1. When you see all of the bad news on social media or on TV, how does it make you feel? Does it make you angry? Does it make you sad? Does it frustrate you? Why?

2. Read 2 Peter 3:9 together at home. Ask your teen why they think God is so patient and is allowing us to freely choose to do evil things at this time?


3. That verse says that God wants EVERYONE to repent. Ask you teen what it means to "repent"? (It means to turn away from sin- to choose to love and follow God instead of doing whatever you want.)


4. Encourage your teen that the everyday choices they make are either making this world a better place or a worse one! Pray with them and ask God to help them resist the temptation to do what's wrong, and to make the tough choice to do what's right-- even if it's not what they naturally might want to do.