The "I" In Pride

How many of you have ever heard the Proverb, "Pride comes before the fall." What do you think it means? I think that any time anyone's fallen, they have always had a lot of pride, specifically pride in themselves.

Pride is an excessively high opinion of oneself. It's pleasure or satisfaction taken in achievement, possession or association. See the idea of pride, is, in a sense, confidence in one's own self. Pride can blind people to the truth. When someone is prideful they don't like to ask for help because they think they can do it on their own (When I was younger this was one of my biggest problems, I didn't like to ask for help).

When I say pride, I don't mean being proud of your accomplishments, or how your parents are proud of you. I am proud that I graduated high school & college. I am proud that I am an Eagle Scout, and I am proud that I belong to Christ. When, "Pride comes before the fall," or "Pride can blind people," what I mean is arrogance. Arrogance is, "an offensive display of superiority or self-importance." It's overbearing pride. Arrogance is what comes before the fall. Arrogance is what blinds people to truth and reality. Arrogance is what destroys unity.

Join us tomorrow night as we continue our study in the book of Philippians: Putting The Unity Back In Community, and look at the idea of pride and arrogance, how pride can lead to arrogance, which disrupts unity. We will also discover that we should not have pride and confidence in ourselves but in Christ' work.

There's No "I" In Team, and no "me" in Community

I am ashamed to say that when I was a kid, the words, "If you don't do this, I won't be your friend anymore," actually came out of my mouth... To my best friend... Multiple times... This is terrible and not at all a product of unity, but that of disunity.

When disunity enters community, the community starts to break down. The Bank Of Trust gets robbed. We begin to think about what's in it for us & let pride get in the way. We start to use the words "I", "Me" & "Mine" in everything. "I" am in charge of the clicker (for the T.V.). The last soda is "Mine". "I" am only going to get one Bible for "me"; you can get your own.

Tonight we continue our study in Philippians: Putting The Unity Back in Community. All Jr. high students are encouraged to join us as we continue to look at disunity, what causes it, and what we can do about it.

Let Our Powers Combine....

Unity is an important theme running through the book of Philippians. We all need each other. Often times evil can seem invincible, but it's when we band together that we, with God's help, can really over come evil. Unity means having the same goal, the same mind, the same spirit working toward the same purpose. When this happens we become unstoppable.

In Philippians 1:27 Paul states, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in ONE spirit, contending as ONE man for the faith of the gospel..." [emphasis added]. Paul is encouraging the church in Philippi to come together and be unified. When a community unifies and bands together, they can accomplish awesome things.

Join us tonight as we continue our study Philippians: Putting The Unity Back In Community. We will be focusing on unity and banding together with one spirit, fighting as one to defend the gospel. We will be asking the question, how can we, as Jr. high students who are part of the Crash community, be unified? Be thinking about that question today, and I'll see you tonight (Oh and P.S... Happy St. Patrick's Day).

Putting The Unity In Community

For the next 6 weeks we will begin studying the book of Philippians, and unpacking the theme of "Unity" and how it relates to "Community". We want to begin to answer the questions: What does a healthy group look like? What role are we playing in building unity or creating disunity? How can we as a community make an impact for God?

The book of Philippians is a short letter in the New Testament written by Paul to the church in Philippi. Jr. High can get a little messy, and full of drama, which can create disunity. The book is all about unity and community, which is perfect for Crash- a community of Jr. High students. The point of this study is to get all the students to begin thinking about unity.

So over the next month read through Philippians each week, as it is only a few short chapters long. Highlight your favorite passages, underline interesting verse that jump out at you. And join us tonight as we look at how community requires everyone to work together, in unity, to accomplish something great.

Flashback!

All Jr. High students are invited to join us as we remember all the God blessed times we had during Winter Camp. We will be showing a slideshow of all the pictures we took and the good memories we made while up in Crestline. We will be playing games, hanging out and remembering the theme of camp "That's So Messed Up" and all that we learned from Job's story.

If you have any good pictures of camp, please email me at Ccoulter@desertspringsfamily.org.

That's So Messed Up!

This is the theme for the winter camp that the Jr. High Crash students will be attending. This is such a huge topic for Jr. High students to grasp. Why are things messed up? How can we deal with it? Can we fix it? The reality of it is that there is hurt and pain in our world, our relationships and in our lives. But why? By the end of camp we're going to explore how Christ came to fix it all.

The camp is going to be held at Alpine Camp & Conference Center, near the beautiful Lake Arrowhead. There are piles of snow up there already and rumor has it that it is supposed to snow on Saturday. Pack warm, cause it's going to get cold. But that's what makes it fun!

I am so excited... and busy. I am working with the camp and a couple other churches to make this camp awesome and unforgettable. We going to be offering things like a huge snowball fight, a "Slumber Party" theme dinner where you dress up in appropriate pj's, tube run, zip-line (** at night!!!), and an event so huge that I can only tell you it's called TASMU!

We will be taking up 4 leaders and 17 students!! 17!!! I am SO EXCITED! If you are going, remember to pack warm clothes, a sleeping bag, and a Bible. Also remember that we are meeting at Desert Springs Church at 2 PM. So get here as close to 2 PM as you can. I can't wait to throw snow balls at all of you! See you Friday.

Keeping The Faith

What do you think it means to "keep the faith"? What does that look like?

This past week a friend of mine showed me an article that was rather interesting. It came from a Christian magazine called Relevant. They interviewed an actor named Zac Levi, who stars on the TV show Chuck. I like the show, and think he is a good guy. I had no idea he was a Christian until after I read the article.

The article talks about how Zac Levi is, in my opinion, keeping the faith, despite his surroundings. Hollywood is not the best place to live a life of faith. But Zac has done tremendously well. He lives in a house where he dedicates two rooms for people who struggle financially and need a place to stay, and even hosts a home church on Sunday nights. He lives life with a Christian community of friends. Zac also talks about how he is able to help himself in the work that he does. "...everything starts with the audition process," he chooses what he wants to do based on, "whether its something I want anything to do with." If he finds a script questionable, he simply won't audition (if you want to read the full article click here). Zac Levi is a far cry from the Apostle Paul but I think he's definitely on the right track.

Paul was an amazing evangelist. From the moment he became a Christian up till the moment he died for his faith, he did everything he could to tell others about God and please and serve God with everything he had. He practiced what he preached and fully hoped and trusted in God's word and guidance, despite hardships and persecution he faced. You could definitely say that he kept the faith.

For the past few weeks, we have been looking at Paul in Rome. We saw that faith and culture are in conflict, and that we can never be good enough for God, and yet He still declares us good enough.

Join us tonight as we look at how Paul "...fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith," in everything he did, and how we can do the same.