Have a Little Compassion

Last night, for the very first time, McCarthy had a concert! It was amazing! The night kicked off with Somewhere South of Perfect and ended with for King and Country.

Let me tell you...the music was amazing! The guys from the bands were super nice, but that wasn't really the only thing that made my night.

My husband, Jimmy, was the one who organized this whole concert so we were at the church all day getting ready. When I was helping the Compassion International Volunteers get their table set up I felt like one of those kids reached right out of their folder and grabbed me! Her name is Ela.

I don't know if you know this but when I was in college I majored in Intercultural Studies. As a part of that program they paired us up with another student (yeah, Alisha!) and they sent us out to live in another country for six months. During that time we lived with an indigenous family, learned as much of their language as we could, studied their ethnic group, and worked to give back and be a blessing.

Now you may be asking yourself how this all relates so let me get to that...

Ela lives in the same country--even the same "city" as Alisha and I lived. She shares the same family name as our family and she speaks the same language. Not only that but she also has the same birthday month as me, my husband, and one of our American friends we met while living there. Needless to say, I felt very connected at her. The more I learned about her the more I just wanted to cry. That's about the time that Jimmy walked up.

As I told Jimmy about this girl, he understood. Jimmy had been on the receiving end of all my emails during the six months that I lived in West Africa. He knew as much about my family as he possibly could, and without hesitation he decided that we HAD to sponsor Ela. So I am happy to tell you that Ela came home with us last night!

If you are interested in learning more about sponsoring a child, visit Compassion Internationals Website. There are children all over the world who really need your help! Don't miss your opportunity to be a blessing in their lives.

 

Planning Events They'll Love

This past weekend our youth group went on their Third Annual Mystery Trip. We had a blast! It constantly amazes me how much fun we have on an event that we weren’t even sure would work the first time we did it. The secret…get the students involved. I feel this is why we have so many successful events.

In the fall we have our Back to School Retreat. During this retreat we play games, have fun, do worship, fellowship, eat lots of junk food, and sit down and plan out the schedule for the entire school year. Yep! We do it all from August to May in one to two days. Then we crash the day after because our brains are so exhausted!
No matter what age, if you get your target audience involved in the planning then they will love it. I have found this to be true for two reasons:

#1 They know what to expect.
#2 It gives them a sense of ownership and pride in the events because they helped come up with them and they are more likely to invite their friends.

Take Mystery Trip for example…
After we all loaded up on junk food (Jimmy would say it is vital to creativity) we sat down as a group for a brainstorming session. We have one person who writes all of the ideas down on paper and only one rule—no idea is stupid or bad or out-of-bounds. So everyone started throwing out ideas and someone said a mystery trip. We wrote it down. Once we were finished brainstorming we all pulled out the calendars that we printed for them and flipped to the first month. Someone picks a number from 1 to whatever number of ideas we come up with (usually around 150). *FYI: We keep the brainstorming lists from year to year so if we are having trouble getting started or coming up with more ideas we can always draw upon events that we originally shelved for one reason or another.*

When they chose “a mystery trip” we talked about a few things…
What would this event be?
What would we do during this event?
Can we afford to do an event like this?
Would your friends come to an event like this?

Once all of these things are considered we decide whether or not the event makes the calendar cut. If it does then we decide where on the calendar to schedule it and an assistant event director (one of our student leaders) is assigned to help with the planning and organization of the event.

Kevin, one of our college students, has been the assistant director of Mystery Trip since it was born in 2008. Every year he helps Jimmy decide where we are going to go, what we are going to do, and he keeps it a secret from everyone else…it’s a mystery after all! Some events are so popular that they become a tradition and occur in the same month every year (such as Mystery Trip)! And that’s how you plan an event that you know they’ll love!

Share your ideas for events of all ages. What has worked for you? What didn’t work for you? Do you have ideas for how an event could be done better? Share them in the comments! Everyone is welcome to participate. No idea is a stupid idea!

Pulled Down

As you know, Jimmy is the youth minister at Villebrook Baptist Church and I work with him in the youth ministry. Last night, I saw another classic example of a student whose pride is getting the better of them. This student thinks that they are SUPER mature spiritually (and they are a good Christian) and that they can hang out with whoever they want, whenever they want because they are helping the other person and they are too strong to fall into temptation. This attitude makes me so sad. The Bible calls us to be holy and separated from the world (1 Peter 1:16; 1 Peter 2:9). There is a reason for this!

Picture This
Picture in your head a diving board that’s two feet above the water. You are standing on the very end of the diving board and your identical twin is in the water below you. If you try to pull this person (who is exactly the same height and weight as you) out of the water bellows, 9 times out of 10 you are going to end up in the water! Now imagine that this person is twice your size and the odds of you getting them out of the water rather than you falling in becomes even more unlikely. So how does this apply to life?

Life Application
As a Christian you are called to be on the “diving board”. You should adhere to higher morals, higher standards, and you should remain above board in all that you do. Yes, God does call you to reach down and try to pull the people out of the pool who are drowning in their sins. However, if you are spending all your time pulling and pulling and trying to bring people up to your level, eventually you won’t have the strength to crawl out of the pool when you get pulled in. When this happens you will find that you too are soaked to the bone with sin and bad choices and low moral standards. That’s why you need to surround yourself with other Christians. They can not only help you pull people out of the pool. They can give you a rest when you are weary and hold you accountable on how close you are to falling in. Your Christian brothers and sisters should be your closest friends. They should be the ones you are relying on. If your closest friends are the people that are constantly pulling down on you that is SO not healthy for you spiritually. They can’t revived your spirit or lift you up. In fact, they will probably grab a hold on you when you fall in and practically drown you.

Closing Remarks
So while it is good to witness to people and to have non-Christian friends in your life, I urge you to keep them at a distance. Don’t depend on them to be your best friend or to always be there for you (Christ is the only one who will never let you down). Let your “inner circle” be filled with your Christian friends who should do everything in their power to build you up and not to tear you down. Don’t get caught up in the pride that makes you blind to your own weakness. If you do then you will fall.