Devotional Blog: The "Comeback Church"

Starting Spring of 2010 the two secondary websites (highlanders and higherland) will have a fairly regular devotional posted every other week for everyone to read and reflect upon.

Here's the first one to think about:

For those of you who know, I was in the youth room at the church for quite a bit of time this Christmas break - which gave me many opportunities to read the Bible and other books. Recently I bought a book called The Comeback Church and have now only begun to soak what is presented in the book. It shows us the picture that many churches (much like ours) are slowly fading away if not dying. The current Barna Statistic is that in the last 5 years roughly 3,500-4,000 churches stop existing every year! Let that take hold, a conservative fact is that on the close of New Years Eve while we were all partying it up - 3,500 fellow churches had closed their doors never to be reopened. The Picture doesn't end their, they then show 300 churches that turned things around and more than doubled their size over the course of only a few years. The two biggest things seen in theses churches were: a willing to change to reach people for Christ and a plan to get there.

I would like to tell you that we need to become a "Comeback Youth Ministry," but to be honest that wouldn't make any sense. Because that would imply that we had been somewhere before to go back to. We haven't had that. Instead we must create that. We must be held accountable to this.

Paul writes in Galatians 2:11-14:

"When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I say that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?"

I love this passage because it gives us a look into the early church that we don't normally get. It is refreshingly honest. It is a comparison between two leaders in Christianity. The first leader to recognize is Paul, not only is he the author of Galatians he also has a lot to say concerning the relationship between the two men. If you know the bio on Paul (Seen in Acts) he is a great man of God consistently on the front lines for God. Majority of the new churches we read about in the New Testament were started by Paul being bold and telling people of Jesus in new cities. In fact, if it were not for Paul it would have taken Christianity much longer to get out of Jerusalem. The root of this specific problem lies in the Jewish-Christian unwillingness to change and share their faith with those unlike them.

The second main character in this passage is Peter. When we read about him in Acts he is the main Jewish leader who puts his neck on the line for non-Jewish Christians (us) because God challenged him to. Now years later he is stuck back in with the Jewish Tradition crowd of Christians. The Jewish-Christians were stagnant and losing adherents in several ways early records show. Peter was the leader of this group along with James, however he let James and the other stagnant Jewish Christians shape his thought to favor complacency and to not fulfill God's Will (Tell the world about Jesus)

Are we gonna be like Peter or Paul. If we are acting like Peter right now that means we are inwardly focused - and lets face it greedy for god. (lowercase because when we're greedy for god we can function as our own god) And we need someone like Paul who is doing what we should be doing to come in and thunder us! To admonish us and get us back on track like how Paul called out Peter. If we are working like Paul then we shouldn't even have to worry or have time to think about these things because our actions produce results that can't be argued against.

So who are we?

I don't see any results, but I see a lot of gods.

Let's be the Comeback Church. Not just as the Highland Christian coming back to being Christians, but Christians coming back to Highland!

Be willing to make change, otherwise you can't complain to accept mediocrity.

The Higherlanders' RAVE

Check Facebook for more information; basically it's free and everyone is welcome

Fundraiser Preparation

Hello Highland,

Another fundraiser to build up funds for our very own basketball court is coming up this weekend. It is the candy Cookie-ingredients-jar that we discussed in youth group a couple of weeks ago.

Please have at least 2 candy things made (everyone in the Youth Group) by Friday evening to the Wellness center by 5:30pm.

Then on Saturday starting at 7:45am to 3:45 pm there needs to be at least 2 youth group members at the table with me from the start of the sale to the end. I'll send out a facebook message with the shifts available or just show up please.

Please be the difference makers our church/youth-group needs.

Go High,
Don't Land,

Andy

November Manover

Chalk art and other ideas

Hello Highlanders,

If you go to D-West High School then you may have noticed some chalk art outside the main entrance of the school.... - yeah that was us (Andy, Nathan, Kat, and Josh). We did that to let know anyone and everyone at D-West is invited to come and check out our youth group. And to basically increase awareness to our friends and peers that Highland Christian Church offers a ridiculously awesome Youth Group.

If you have any ideas on how we could do this somewhat like the chalk then let your voice be known here by making a comment or starting a discussion board on the facebook group (Youth @ Highland Christian Church). Or if you want to share how the chalk was recieved at the D-west or how you yourself took it then please also make a comment.

Last thing we are grilling hot dogs for the college students next sunday so we need everyone to bring stuff to make those hot dogs. So if everyone were to bring 2 packages of hot dogs and 2 packages of buns then we would be covered - so please do that by dropping them off at the church before 1:30pm.

Go High,
Don't Land,
Andy Gibbons

Youth Group Day Change

Hello Highlanders,

Just wanted to make sure that everyone knows the meeting schedule of Youth Group:
-Almost every sunday night (Look at calendar on homepage)
-Sunday nights at 5:30pm
~ No longer Wednesday nights
-Try to be on time as best you can, otherwise if you're too late you'll miss out on the game

So main thing to take from this is that youth group meets SUNDAY NIGHTS at 5:30pm

Go High,
Don't Land,
Andy

Highlanders' Leader 2009-2010

Kyle Fitch is the Highlanders Leaders from August 2009 to May 2010.

His profile will be online soon...