Mission Trip of 2012

This Friday at 2 PM I will be headed towards the city with the big apple. Salem Baptist has hosted a mission trip for three years running to this site, this is my fifth mission trip but my first year in New York and boy am i excited. Soup kitchens, prayer stations, worship, and much more! There is nothing better than serving the Lord. Please pray for those with unopened hearts to be exposed to the love of our AWESOME GOD and that they see things they’ve never seen, feel things they have never felt, and experience things they didn’t expect.

I’ve been talkiing to a few of the girls attending and I am so blown away by how this is their first mission trip. Their going into a battleground with their Bibles and new Faith shooting the bullet head on.

I’ll be back with updates from New York Citys Mission trip in a few.

March 16th-17th, Planet Wisdom a.k.a The Weekend of a Lifetime

This weekend a few kids and I from the youth group I attend traveled to Potomac Mills, Virginia. Now the first thought majority people think of when Potomac Mills is mentioned is S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G. However, the reasoning behind the travel is even better than shopping! That’s right even better than buying Starbucks, strutting the large open ways of the mall, and purchasing a pair of Oxfords from Urban Outfitters. We attended a conference called “Planet Wisdom”; the point of this conference is to study and read, and achieve studying and reading the Bible on your own. The theme was 24:7:66; 24 hours, 7 days, and 66 books. The theme alone taught me something i didn’t even know, 66 books as in 66 books inside the Bible. Obviously not knowing the precise numerical data of all the books in the bible meant that I definitely needed to study up on my Bible studies.

I experienced a whole new direction of worship. I have been singing since elementary school and co-joining and leading worship for almost two years. However,I have never felt the pull of God as I did the night of Planet Wisdom. When I say pull of God I literally mean pull, during the song “Welcome Home” God had grabbed a hold of me and lifted me to my tip toes, I eagerly reached out and jumped lightly trying to get as close as I could. I have never wanted so much to be close to Him, it was and is a glorious feeling.

Any Twilight fans out there? Remember in Breaking Dawn Part 1 when Bella and Edward engaged in wedding vows and during their kiss for a slight moment it felt as all else had disappeared and they were the only ones left at the ceremony? The exact same moment happened the morning of the second day of worship. Praising him with a energized, electrifying heart I began to settle down. The roar of the crowd ceased and all I could hear was my voice with Jesus standing in front of me. We began to rejoice together smiling and dancing, and moments after the crowd was brought back in. It was a privilege to worship with my brothers and sisters of Christ.

The entertainment of the night-THE SKIT GUYS!

Tommy and Eddie are a true hoot! Throughout their humorous games and incredible tear-jerking skits they always reveal a deep message of God. What really opened my heart is a skit I like to call “Yes Jesus Loves Me.”

In this skit is “Little Billy” and a Teacher…The teacher tries to teach Little Billy a different song other than “Yes Jesus Loves Me,” throughout the skit the teacher and Little Billy bicker over singing the song “My God is so Big”. Finally Little Billy throws a tantrum and asks why the teacher would like to sing that song, the teacher reveals a background piece of his life. While the teacher explains that his wife has cancer and he just wanted to hear that song to know that everything was going to be okay, Little Billy begins to sing.

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty
There’s nothing that He cannot do, for you

This skit opened up my heart to the encouragement of others. I had always realized that to love others was of much importance, but i didn’t realize that encouragement was an even bigger part of that.

Mark Matlock was the main speaker of the night. I’ll be honest, he didn’t completely hold my attention, but overall he delivered every lesson fantastically. My heart was opened up to so many different ways to read and study the Bible. My heart is leaping in joy knowing that when i arrive back home i get to work out those ways and study, Study, STUDY!

Some of you may be confused as to how you can study the Bible so here is a break down for you in many areas of Studying the Bible:

1.Read the Scripture 2.Read Scripture Again 3. Pray to God to reveal certain words to you 4. Figure out why God revealed them

5.Place the scripture in your life, relate to it 6.Live out what it says.

Don’t just read the Bible, absorb it.

A video they showed the second day made me realize the noise we face everyday…here are a couple questions they asked.

How many messages do you recieve a day?

How many messages do you send a day?

How much music do you listen to in a day?

How many post on facebook do you make weekly?

How many times do you talk to God?

How many times do you read your Bible?

How many times do you listen for God?

During this video there was no music, no speaker, no noise at all. Just a video and people reading. After the video was over the speaker, EJ Swanson, admitted how seven minutes in that quite made him feel awkward. I never noticed how we just don’t need to talk to God, we need to listen as well. The video has inspired me to begin a quite time my preacher at RocSolid has been daring us to do.

To just give 5-15 minutes up in a day of 1440 minutes is not much.

I hope you could learn a bit throughout my word vomit of my weekend experience. I highly recommend going! Every year is a different lesson and a new experience.

So give up some of your time, some of your comfort, all to the One who created it all.

(After all, He gave up much comfort when he let His Son sacrifice Himself. )

To find out more information visit: http://planetwisdom.com/

 

 

 

 

 

I WASN’T MADE TO FIT YOUR PREFERENCE!

God made us all beautiful; some of us are made to where we are viewed beautiful in nearly everyone’s eyes. As for others they’re made where “every once in a blue-moon” they are told how truly beautiful they are. As sisters and brothers of Christ I genuinely believe that no matter what our society advertises of true beauty we are to build each other up with constructive criticism, AT THE LEAST. (Constructive criticism: accountableness) When God created us and told us we are made Beautiful, I believe he was referring to our hearts as the beauty makers that transform our flesh into abundant beauty. Majority of people today, when forming relations with others, depend on physical attraction to transform into that relation between one another.  Yet physical attraction only last for so long, once you get to know a person thoroughly there personality drags onto their physical attraction causing your first judgment  of physical  attraction to differentiate. If our personality is the “negative end of the stick” our physical attraction weakens and our flesh loses its “light”, if our personality is the “positive end of the stick” our physical attraction enlightens and our flesh “glows.” I’m not saying that if you’re a negative-inappropriate word that you’re not beautiful on the outside, but true beauty is what lies on the inside and what matters most. Personality is eternal, physical attraction is only temporarily. God made you beautiful; it is only in your ability to destroy that beauty. If you enlighten on the “positive end of the stick” your beauty is true and will remain everlasting. Whereas for the “negative end of the stick” your beauty is nothing but flesh with “harsh lighting” and will fade. It is never too late to absolve your “harsh light” and re-form it to “aglow”. 

I’m not Contradicting:

1 Peter 3:3 Let your beauty not be external – the braiding of hair and wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes – 3:4 but the inner person of the heart, the lasting beauty of a gentle and tranquil spirit, which is precious in God’s sight.

1 Peter 1: 24 For all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of the grass; the grass withers and the flower falls off,1:25 but the word of the Lord endures forever.