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March 2017 Kids Happenings

Hello Church Family,

These past several months have been amazing!  I am so thankful for all the volunteers that have helped out with our Upward ministry.  I want to say a very special thank you to the Townsend  family, Kilgore family, and my husband and girls.  You have sacrificed so many hours to this ministry and given of yourselves for the sake of others.  Thank you for your patience with me, your time and energy to the league, and for loving the children and their families in such an amazing way.  So many people have been praying for the children and families involved and God has answered prayers.  Each year we pray for life change within the people of the ministry, good coaches, referees, concessions help, set up /clean up, and prayer warriors.  And, each year God provides all of this.  Our Upward ministry offers opportunity and responsibility  for our church family, as well as an opportunity for life change within our community.  It’s so much more than a ministry of our children’s department.  It is a ministry of our church. 

If you like numbers, here you go!  We had 40 basketball coaches and 169 basketball players.  We had 10 cheer coaches and 32 cheerleaders.  We were able to house 11 games each weekend at our church during the months of January and February. And 26 practices each week between our church and the AIS First Ave School.  Of the 202 participants in our league 51% of the participants have either no church affiliation or no solid biblical teaching and 25% are our own children.  Over half of the families in our Upward ministry need to hear the word of God!  This is a huge responsibility and opportunity and I am so blessed to have volunteers to come along side our Upward leadership team and do just that.  I give praise to God for providing all of our needs and opening hearts to proclaim His name and opening hearts to hear the message.

On a separate note, please be on the look out for sign up sheets in the lobby for our upcoming Easter Eggstravaganza (April 15th 1pm) and Vacation Bible School (June 26th-30th).  These are both great ways to serve our community and church family.  I would love to have all of you be apart of these awesome opportunities that God gives our church to minister and love on others.  Thank you for allowing me to love on your children.

March 2017 Spiritual Development

Do you ever feel discouraged?  I found a helpful article about how to fight against discouragement and I wanted to share it with you this month.  Here is an excerpt that I found to be very helpful in combatting feelings of despair and resting in the promises of Jesus.

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. (John 14:1)

Discouragement is a temptation “common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13).  And in dealing with it sometimes we need tenderness and other times we need toughness.  But either way discouragement is not to be tolerated or wallowed in.  It’s to be fought.  If we linger in discouragement it can be costly.  Its sense of  defeat and hopelessness saps us of energy and vision.  It can consume a lot of time.  It can keep us from doing what we need to do because we don’t want to face it.  And it can even be contagious, weakening others’ faith.

When we feel discouraged we want comfort, which is right to feel.  But the comforts we often turn to are ways to avoid our fears rather than ways to muster our courage to face and overcome them. When this happens discouragement simply becomes sinful indulgence in unbelief, no different than indulging in lust or anger or other sins of unbelief.

Jesus does not want us to be discouraged.  In fact, he commands us not to be.  Listen to what Jesus says to his disciples just before what probably was the most discouraging experience of their lives — his brutal death: “Let not your hearts be troubled” (John 14:1, emphasis added).  Note Jesus’s words, “let not.”  These are not merely comforting; they are commands.  He knew they would be tempted to fear.  Things were going to look very bad, like the whole mission was imploding.  What were they to do instead of being afraid?  Believe! “Believe in God; believe also in me.”  In other words, “Don’t let your hearts be ruled by what you see.  Let them be ruled by what I promise you.”  And that’s what he’s saying to you and me too.

What’s tempting you to discouragement today?  Are you having a hard time believing that God really will work for good what looks so bad to you (Romans 8:28)?  Then it’s time to fight, not pout or shrink.  Think of discouragement as your faith being choked.  When you’re choking, it’s not the time to plop down in front of the TV with a plate of comfort food to medicate your melancholy.  You need to dislodge the obstruction so you can breathe.  You need to fight for life.  You may need to get someone to give you the Heimlich.

Go get encouragement — faith-fueled courage.  Don’t let discouragement choke you.  It’s dislodged bybelieving promises.  God gave us the Bible so that “through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4).  Don’t let your heart be ruled by what you see.  Let it be ruled by what Jesus
promises you.

(Excerpt from "Don't Let Discouragement Choke You" by Jon Bloom from desiringgod.com)