A.C.T.S.

Our teen group this week learned about a practical and easy approach to prayer.  My focus was to make prayer a natural behavior for them.  I believe teens tend to think of prayer as something intimidating and complicated whereas in fact it's just like talking to a friend.  A friends who's trustworthy, loyal, loving and unchanging.  So I brought in a worksheet that will hopefully help them in their prayer time.  It focuses on thanking God, asking for prayer for others, things they need to work on, their own requests and answers to their prayers or how God has helped them that day.  I also had them write down the A.C.T.S. format to help them have a better outline for their prayer time:

Adoration is the act of praising God.

Confession is the act of telling God the sins that we are struggling with.

Thanksgiving is giving Him thanks for all of the gifts that we have received.

Supplication is when we come to Him with our wants and our needs and our requests for others.

The kids were really open to this; taking notes and asking questions.  I'm so excited to see this group grow!   

Kirtland Building Project

We are so excited to be starting the process of building our Ministry Center in 2017!  This past week we met with a member of WGM's Men With Vision who will be heading up work teams and promoting the project.  We shot a promotional video and took lots of pictures on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to help with this portion of the project.  It will be awesome to provide a center focused on reaching our Kirtland community for Christ.

                                 Many games must be played outside and on our uneven ground.

With our house being a regular house, there's a lot of broken up space that makes it difficult to use for Club. Expanding this house will provide the space we need to minister to these kids better.  We'll also be able to even out the land to build a bigger play area.  We plan to provide a community garden that will be not only educational but also relationship building and tasty, of course!  This project will grow our current space to accommodate our growing kids clubs and provide many more ministry opportunities.  By expanding our current house we can provide life skills such as cooking, parenting, Bible Studies and more.

Our Neighborhood Ministry Center will expand our ministry further into building relationships with our kids' families and the Kirtland community.  Providing a multi-purpose building creates spaces not only for sports but also a platform for community meals, get together's, plays, concerts, skill learning nights for crafts and music.

Please pray for this exciting new project! I'm thankful to serve a God who goes before us and has everything in His hand.  Please pray for more full-time workers to help us with these many plans. Also pray for the many work teams that will aid in the building of center.  And pray for Chris and I as we watch and participate in this exciting undertaking.

Create in Me...

Sometimes I'm not very loving.  In fact I'm pretty terrible at it.  I love to be loved, but I don't always love others well.  I've been very convicted lately about this condition of my heart. Sometimes I'm just not in tune with others' needs and sometimes people are just plain unlovable.  During my quiet time with the Lord a few weeks ago Psalm 51:10 came to mind.  David writes, "create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." I paused on the word create so I looked up the meaning. It says "to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes. to evolve from one's own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention." Anyway you look at it creating takes work and a willingness on our part. Because without the willingness to change there's just no point.  And to love in a way that reflects Christ's love is not natural in our world's standards. 

I started to think about my heart condition and how each day (or hour) it could use other things too, not just cleanliness. I started to fill in the blanks, create in me....

-A forgving heart

-a compassionate heart

-a love-filled heart

-a joy-filled heart

wisdom

discernment

motivated...

Whatever you need for today just ask for it. Love, patience, kindness, motivation...forgiving. Joy. But it starts with you. Are you willing to change?  To be re-imagined? Because God does all things well. Complete. Full. Good.  Therefore we can too. we just need to ask.