U2 - I believe in Father Christmas

Enjoy the season!

Election Day....

Today is the day that this country elects it's new leader. Today is the day that peoples hopes will be crushed. Today is the day that people will be ecstatic for the winner. Today is the day that thousands pray to God to put the right leader into place. Today is the day that people pay for protection from their opposition. Today is the day where people make a judgment. Today is the day that families can become divided, sometimes to the point of tears. Today is the day that people place their hope in something that will not last....



Today should be a day where people realize God is in control. Today should be a day where people realize true hope can only be found in Him. Today should be a day where we are ecstatic for Christ and His love. Today should be a day that people pray to our Lord for what he did in Jesus, because He is who we should follow, He is our leader!! Today should be a day we thank God for His protection. Today is a day we should not judge unless we be judged. Today is a day to become united in Christ, sometimes with tears of Joy! Today should be the day that people realize they need to put their hope in the one that was, and is, and is to come....

Tomorrow will not not come by having the earth turned by McCain or Obama. Tomorrow will come by having the earth turned by our loving, never failing, glorious heavenly Father!!

The Lord is in control. Praise be to God!

Halloween

So, this weekend as a non-youth group thing, me, kels, harm, kass, ryan and kyle went to yerrington. the girls stayed at Jenna's house and the guys are Joe's. jenna planned a surprise party for joe since 11/1 is his 15th bday. ALL of the teens helped out with the Yerrington vineyard's Night Of Lights. It was cool, i am so spending halloween there next year. the people from y town that hung out with us were Jared, jenna, Daniel, Joe,Ryan (purple jacket guy), joey, megan, geoff, Nick, phil....etc. mostly everyone. After the night of lights we all walked to Joe's house and had a party from like 9- 12 it was amazing we had a sahving cream fight and we sang and danced and we played truth or dare and would you rather. lets just say that the Famous reno girls strike again and make a nice huge impression on the yerrington boys!!! After the party the girls went back to Jenna's house and that whole night I was texting Ryan (from y town) and Joey , Joe and Harm was txting Joe and Nick. Kels was txting joe and nick. Jenna... of course RYAN L.!!! haha we all stayed up pretty late laughing and what not..... Then it was saturday and none of us wanted to go home just yet, so we got the plans made so we all could hang in reno together at the Summit mall. When the girls go to the mall we went into Dillards and tried on soooo many dresses it was soo much fun... but then the boys showed up while we were in our dresses and we asked them to take a pic of us (lets just say kinda akward) After that we walked around and went to see eagle eye (not the greatest moive) it was really amazing to see everyone together. And we got to meet some new people who are like totally awsome and who let into 0ur little reno/yerrington group because they became miley cyrus fans!!! I cant wait for the next that we all get to hang out!!!!!

Get your groove on.....

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From the High to the Low

Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John, and led them up on a high mountain.....and He was transfigured before them, (that means He was an awesome sight)
Mark 9:2

Later the diciples see Elijah and Moses. What an awesome place to be. So awesome that Peter is totally up with this, he tells Jesus that this is like way cool let's stay here. Now have no doubt, like you and I would be, there was some healthy fear in Peter. Elijah and Moses go and Jesus eventually take them off the mountain ending that experience.

I quote from the book "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers. Good stuff here.

"If we only have the power to go up, something is wrong. It is a wonderful thing to be on the mountain with God, but a person only gets there so that he may later go down and lift up the people in the valley. We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life-those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We feel that we could talk and live like perfect angels, if we could only stay on the mountaintop. Those times are exceptional and they have their meaning in our life with God, but we must beware to prevent our spiritual selfishness from wanting to make them the only time with Him."

I bring this up because 1, I read this and it really spoke to me 2, I hope it to be an encouragment to you.

I am a very experiential person but in the middle of the race, legs a hurting and tired, mountain top experiences won't carry you to the end. Rather a daily walk with Dad will.

You guy's are awesome,
Carl

Be thankful....

At a time when we face elections in the country, questions about where 'our' money goes (even though it's all God's we still claim it's ours!!) Watch and think...



Be thankful..The Lord is GOOD!!!!!!!!!

Cultivation Youth from reno vineyard on Vimeo.

Cultivation Video by Drew

Drew finished the video on our testimonies from Cultivation. Yay! Go check it out!
http://www.vimeo.com/1760622

Qualities of your future spouse

I read this today on an email devotional I get from Homeword for parents. It's a prayer for parents to pray for their kids regarding their future spouse. Since we're in the middle of our dating series and we just started our lists of qualities that you want in your future spouse, here's some more to consider...

Prayer for our Child’s Future Spouse:

“Lord, may he/she love you with all his/her heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. (Mark 12:29-30; Romans 10:9)

May he/she love his/her spouse (our child) with faithful, undying love for as long as they both live. (Matthew 19:5, 6)

May he/she recognize his/her body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and treat it wisely. (1 Corinthians 16:19, 20)

May he/she be healthy, able to work and support a family. (1 Timothy 6:8)

May he/she have an admirable goal in his life. (Matthew 6:33)

May he/she use his/her talents wisely and release his/her spouse (our child) to use her/his God-given talents, also. May their talents complement one another. May they enjoy doing things together. (Matthew 25:1, 14-30)

May he/she establish their home in accordance with God’s prescribed order as outlined in Ephesians 5:20-28. May he/she be strong in mind. May the two of them be compatible intellectually. (2 Corinthians 13:11; 1 Timothy 1:7)

May he/she be a good money manager. (1 Timothy 5:8; 6:10)

Lord, bring this partner into my child’s life in Your perfect timing. May they be so in love with each other and both of them in love with You, O God, that there will be no doubt that You created them for each other as long as they both shall live.In Jesus’ name. Amen.”

See You at the Pole

Have you guys heard of See You at the Pole? Students all over the world gather together at their school's flag pole on a designated day at the end of September every year to seek God together for their campus and friends. Not only are you coming before God and activating prayer in your life, but you are meeting other students on your campus that share your faith! I've been talking to a couple of you guys about getting together with a fellow follower of Jesus to pray and support each other while at school. This is a great opportunity to see some familiar faces that you didn't know shared your faith, and you can build friendships from there.

So this year, the designated See You at the Pole day is Wednesday, September 24th at 7am. Go to http://www.syatp.com/home/ for more info on this event. This website is great for resources about your rights as a student to have a faith-based event on your campus.

So who's gonna be at the pole?

Oh Yerington.......

.....I love Yerington!!!!!

Crazy kids

Just because I can...

Please don't hurt me Ness! I love you! I had to share it with the rest of the world...

VANCOUVER!!!

So this is the pic of al my new best friends :D actually this is the new youth group we have. Yerington and reno became one. this happened in vancouver. we became bffs and we learned about god and some people even where face to face with the holy spirit. we danced like crazy in the long car rides and we cried together the first night. we just really love each other and vancouver was one of the besr experiences in my life. i just want to thank the youth leaders. well i hope everyone hears about how great vancouver is. it would be hard to sum it up :D

well you all know i am a very details story teller so this one I am going to sum up

ok so the first two days it was the yerington youth group and the reno youth group. but then we got there on thursday and we went to the church. so the first thing they did was worship and it was really really LOUD . but after that jimmy jon talked about us being God's children and him being our abba. so after a while of him talking the band started worship. and I all most started crying but then taylor started crying then Jared started crying and i started crying and pretty soon every one was crying and it was all becasue God was there and i know for me he was just filling me up. So i believe that because of this night we were all vulnerable and our walls were tooken down and that is why Reno and Yerington love each other so much.

Then the second day we had work shops. the works shops were on what ever you felt God wanted you to do. There was worship, minstering , hearing, caring , and art. So after the work shops Jeremiah spoke. ( idk what on though). Then when we got back Jimmy Jon spoke and he spoke about the space between heaven and earth. Then that night durring worship was the first time that people would fall on the floor and just get filled up with the holy spirit.

Then saturday we had our out reach and what we did was we went and cut down blackberry bushes and pull ivy. the blackbush pulling was very painful but some how we still had fun or at least i did. Then that night was the concerts and i swear the ground was moving. it was the most amazing thing ever. i think that that was probably one of my favorite parts. it was soooo much fun and amazing. people again were being filled up and other people were worshipping . it was awesome.

and then the next day was church and we had drive home and every one was sad we had to leave.

Vancouver

The story is to long to tell, but from the trip i learned alot about my self and my pattern of relationships i mean i even have a patteren with God! I made new friends from y town that will be forever and i even made friendships from Reno stronger. Everytime i used to see a beautiful landscape or a pretty lake i was like WOW but now when i see something even a building im like WOW God created that, and when i look at my self in the mirror its amazing because god made me and i now believe that if God loves me than i should love my self. My life Changed in Vancouver. Its a good change. And i see the change everyday you might not see it but i do i can FEEL it! =) God has become my rock the one stable thing in my life and im proud to be a Christain im not afraid to admit it because its a good thing. R town and Y town are so close its amazing ask anyone and they will say yes. "House Keeping!!!" lol

The Couve

Oh man, Oh man. this trip was super amazing! not only did we form some awesome relations ships with the Yerington youth group. But God showed up!!!! It was so cool. I mean the the Holy Spirit came down on us like a coyote on a field mouse. I mean you could see people being filled be up: some where crying others were laughing uncontrolubly. It was super crazy. So anyways the car rides were fun too and everyone fell in love with eachother! Ahahahaha. (I mean really fell-for-each-other, Reno girls likin' Yerington boys, Reno boys likin' Yerington girls) What a mess! So there was a lot more but it will take too long to write!

What are you doing?

Hey guys! So on Thursday night some of us from Reno went down to Yerington for youth group. It was a love fest reunion. Great to see the Nevada youth group back together again!

Anyway...we listened to Acts chapter 2 where the promise of the Holy Spirit was fulfilled in Jerusalem and came like wind and fire on everyone waiting in the upper room. It brought tongues like fire and everyone started speaking in different languages about the glory of God. It was so loud that people outside that had come from all over the Mediterranean could hear them talking in their own languages about God.

So Peter, the fisherman-turned-apostle that walked on water and denied Jesus three times, got up in front of the crowd of people that accused everyone of being drunk and 9am and clarified some things. He quoted some scripture from the Old Testament that told of this kind of crazy stuff happening when God gave us the Holy Spirit, like prophesying, speaking in tongues, seeing visions and having dreams. (Does any of this sound familiar? Vancouver?)

So then Peter connected the dots for them and showed them how Jesus is God. It was through Jesus that God would change everything. When Jesus still walked the earth, they expected the Messiah to rule as a physical King of Israel here on earth. So when Jesus died, all those hopes of him being the Messiah were smashed. Peter explained to them that it was through Jesus that God did establish the King of Israel, but bigger than just on earth. It changed the way that all people related to God. Men, women, children, slaves, and people from all nations were equal and could have equal access to God.

So Peter gave an alter call. And the church grew from between 100-150 to 3000 in one day. They believed, repented and were baptized in the name of Jesus. Then they all started living together in community, sharing everything, eating together, talking about Jesus everywhere they went, praising God together. No one lacked anything. And miracles started to happen.

Here's Acts 2:42 "They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer."

So Jon made this matrix with some sweet drawings of a book, a guy on his knees praying, a hamburger, and stick figure people with their arms around each other (black, white, red, and an Asian child). And here's the question: what are you doing to continue what God had done and is doing in your life? Of those four things listed in Acts 2:42, what are you doing this week?

Let the blogging begin! (Send me your email address if you want to be added as an author to the blog and you can start your own posts.)

Tueday July 15

Harmonee,
Your view of the camping trip was great and Kassandra, I'm super stoked aswhile!

And Harm, that quote is from Juno!

ZING! Winner!

Change of plans for Scavenger Hunt

Hey everyone!

We're changing up the game plan for the scavenger hunt as originally announced in the last newsletter. Instead of doing a video scavenger hunt this coming Saturday, the 12th, we're going to do a scavenger hunt at the beginning of the all-nighter on the 18th.

We will meet at the church office (S. Virginia St. location) at 7pm and do a scavenger hunt of increasing value (explained below). Then we'll meet at 9pm at the In N Out on S. Virginia to wrap up the Scavenger hunt. Then we'll head on over to the church sanctuary (Double Diamond location) at 9:30 and be there the rest of the night/morning until 6am. There is another meeting at the church from 6:30-9 that night, so we'll jump in after they are finished.

Scavenger hunt of increasing value: This year we're going to try something a little different from last year's video scavenger hunt. We'll start each group with a small object of little value. Then you'll go around and knock on people's doors and ask to trade that item for something that is worth more. They will keep on doing this until 9pm or a little earlier depending on if people look like they're going to sleep (knock only on houses with lights on), hoping to keep trading for something of more value. When we all meet up at 9pm at In N Out, we'll compare the items we ended up with and see which group has the item with the highest value. I'll send a letter with you to explain what we are doing to make it look "official" to people in the neighborhood. But this way, if we stay in S. Reno, we'll be in the community and having them participate with us in our game. It may be a way to spread the news about our church too! Other youth groups have done this and had fun with it, so let's try it!

Any questions, let me know! If any adults are wanting to join in on the fun, we do need more drivers for the scavenger hunt. If you are interested in getting up early to make breakfast for us around 5am, you're welcome to do that too.


Thanks so much!
Dana

VANCOUVER!!!

wow everybody:D imm really stoked to go to vancouver! k..just wanted to let you know

camping harmonee's view

all right you guys. my camping story is going to be wayyy longer cuz i don't leave out any details. All just to clarify we were going down 395 and turn on to I80 (thats what kelsey meant by the turn thing.) me and kelsey were all like "don't we go strait " so Dana is all like nope this is the way the direction say to. by the way these directions were printed out as a back up. so now we think we are an hour or two away from the camp but comes to find out we are going the wrong way. James goes on to the Smith's gps and guess what it says? It says that we won't get there to 1:30 in the morning! Thats right 1:30 in the MORNING! so thats when we pulled over and got the burger king hats. Oh and there was a playground at the burger king so i went down the slide hehe. So we are driving still having a good time because me and kelsey are having a ball that we were right. and kelsey goes i want some popcorn. but she said it in like new Orleans accent. so people who were at youth group on Tuesday, that is why we had popcorn. so any ways that is when drew start talking like new Orleans and saying popcorn. Then we go to wall mart to take a potty brake and see if there is any prepopped popcorn. but there wasn't so then we got jiffy pop and was going to pop it over the fire. so then we are having a good time it would take to long to say all the things that we did but i will just hit the highlights. so we listening to life is a high way. so the song starts and i am like " do you know what i love about this trip? i love how when there is a song on and we all start sing.". so then at that very moment when is stopped saying that we all burst out sing life is highway. so then after that we are driving and we see a bunch of deer on the side of the road. then drew says"geeze those deer are small even for does" then kelsey says did you just say "doe" then dana goes" doe a deer a female deer." then we all burst out singing " ray a drop of golden sun" and we sing the rest of the song but laughing while were sing because it is so funny. so now it is like midnight and me and kelsey have to go pee but the one gas station that is open there are some guys hanging outside so drew decided to wait. but now it is 12:30 and me and kelsey refuse to go out side. so now it is like 1:00 and me and kelsey are like about to pee our pants so dana says" here's what i am thinking. it is getting later and these are all small towns and there are't going to be any place opened." so then kelsey is like okay i'll go and i am like" nope i will wait till camp." so Then kelsey gets out and then guess what! drew kind of makes me get out of the car and go. so then i get back in the car and they are like good job harmonee we are so proud ! Then when we get to camp everyone is asking how our drive was and then drew and dana tell everyone how i had my firts out door potty experience and how proud of me they are. i no not embarassing at all right. so then at like 2:15 we pull up and james is waiting for and we are just happy to be there so we turn on bring em out by hawk nelson and we are rocking out and dancing. so then we go to sleep.And that was just the drive there!

ok now the rest is east. so on saturday i wake up at 7:00 cuz you know that is what time you get up when you go camping. and then everyone waked up and we all eat breakfast. then we go explore caves. After that we came home ate lunch and went to the lake. and guess what else they told us there was no lake but me and kelsey brought our swim suits anyways because we just are smart like that. then we went swimming then come home. then after that we come to camp and i fall asleep on the way to camp. so we get there and we do some other stuff but we played this really intense version of animal and it rocked. then we did some other stuff. we aslo played phase 10 which i totally rocked at and went out 6 out of the eight times! and kelswas soooooo jellin. jk. but then we went to sleep and me and kelsey talked because we weren't tired yet.

so now it is sunday mornign. we go explore one more cave. then on the way home we play name that movie. it is when you say a line from a movie and the other person has to guess what movie. so on the way home we played with james and sarah on drews walkie talkies. so i just really want to say this line so you guys can post a commit and say what it is from " if i could have this baby right now i totally would but i am guessing it looks something like a sea monkey right now . so you guys might want to wait a few months so it can cuten up a bit."

any ways i had a lot of fun and you guys should come a long next time.

Camping

Well this is totally cool. I get to be the first blogger on the camping trip! Oh ya! Thats so Rad! Okay so this camping trip starts for on Friday at 4:30. Dana comes to pick me up and I meet her work friend. Next we go back to Dana's, and leave again to pick up Harmonee. We come back, unlode the food from Dana's house, then Drew shows up. We unlode his car, pack it all in to Dana's car, and get on the road! Now were in the car... Jamming and just hgaving a good time. Then Drew is driving and gets on a little turn around thing and starts going the way, Harm and I think is the wrong way, Dana tells us differently. So were driving along and having a great. fun car games and just having fun. So now we're going along and at this point I don't even know were we are and Dana is on the phone with James and he tells us, thats we're going the wrong way!
Oh Yeah! Go Us! so we stop at a Burger King, get Dana and Drew so crowns! ( Which Dana hated because she never wore it). Then finally get there at 2:30 in the morning.
Now it's Saturday, we get, have sourdough pancakes for breakfast, they were pretty great. Then we explored the caves. Went back to camp for lunch, then went to the lake, (Which I got to drive to) *Thank you James and Sarah* We swam. And Dana's car almost ran out of gas. hahahaha. Then Saturday night we played animal and Dana braided: Mine, Harmonee's, Ericka's and Alex's. It was Awesome! Then we played Phase 10 and that was prett fun. Sunday morning we ate breakfast and cleaned up camp. Then went to another cave... that was cool. Then we rode home and it was great! Good Weekend!
<3

First Blog

So... this is my first blog... well I guess that's pretty cool. I don't really know anything to blog about. So yup. Um... It's Thursday at like 10:30 and I'm just hanging at the computer. Okay Um... I'm done for now...

<&clubs>

Actually rose isn't my middle name. Thats just my nickname at school.

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Prayer Requests

Hey everyone, so I was thinking...and I thought we should have a section for prayer requests whether they are for us or someone else we can then pray throughout the week. Oh I also thought maybe we could post how God has answered some of our prayers, as encouragement (but if its too personal that's okay). Alrighty so given that it has taken me a little while to make this post I have a couple requests to begin with, but I'll do them on a separate comment so we can just scroll through the comments and see the different prayer requests. Have a great weekend everyone.

sorry

sorry my blog is www.harmoneeteng.blogspot.com my bad. The other one leads to another one. ok love ya Harmonee

Psalms 46

Hey guys, i don't really understand it if. if you guys can help me with that, it would be great. It really is confusing for me. k love you guys.
Harmonee
p.s if you guys want to check out my blog go to www.harmonee.blogspot.com

Cool story!

I wanted to share this with you guys last night at youth group, but I was recovering from my stomach bug and decided not to expose all of you. You're welcome.

So Sunday night I had a dream that something bad happened to one of my boss's three year old twins. In the dream, I knew it was Rosie and not Isabel. When I got up that morning I prayed for them but also logged the dream in my journal and continued to hang out with God. I made a list in my journal of some things that I wanted to seek God in a more committed way. One of them was more ways to show His love to my co-workers. So I went to work on Monday morning. And just like in the dream, I was with my boss and another co-worker when his phone rang and it was his babysitter. He tried to calm her down and ended up walking out of the room saying, "Do you need to call 911?" At that point, I went back to my lab and started praying God's protection over Rosie, knowing there had to be a connection with my dream the night before. A few hours later, my boss came back to work, so I knew that everything would be ok. At the end of the day, he came into my lab to double check on a project and I asked him if everything was ok at home. He said yes, that the babysitter was putting sunscreen on Rosie and she began to have an allergic reaction to the sunscreen and her eyes and other parts of her face began to swell. So the babysitter was a little freaked out. When he said it was Rosie, I immediately felt my face get red. I realized how clearly that God was speaking to me that he could tell me which of his kids specifically to pray for. Then I told him that I knew it was Rosie because I had a dream about her the night before and that when he got that phone call and I heard him say something about calling 911, I went back to the lab and started praying for Rosie. His mouth dropped and he said thank you and how weird it was that I had that dream. He couldn't get over how weird it was but he was very grateful.

Isn't it cool when God shows people how much that he loves them and their family? For God to give me a dream and have me praying that nothing worse would happen to his daughter before and while it was happening, that's huge! We serve an amazing God that wants to be in our lives and show us how much he loves us! I'm learning through many mistakes and missed times of sharing God's love, how to be obedient to share it when he presents me the opportunity. I'm so glad he doesn't give up on us when we are disobedient and make mistakes. And how fast is he? I asked him that morning to be able to share his love with my co-workers!

What do you guys think??

side note...Prince Caspian

Did you guys all like the movie? I wrote a little review on my blog if you want to check it out.

http://jameskitchen.blogspot.com/

Week 1 Day 2

Hey guys, any thoughts on the questions about the story in John 4:1-26?

help please

haha i'm kinda new but like wat do we do..is it like a myspace? can we contact people and stuff? sorry hehe i kno i sound like a loser but thats ok

Cultivation link

Here's the link for the Vancouver conference. Remember sign up by June 1st with $50 deposit.

http://www.nwcultivation.com/

Email listings

Do you want to be notified when someone posts a blog or comment? Let me know and I'll put you on the email notification list so you can keep up with everyone's comments.

Outflow

Hey Redemption Youth! It's Nuti. This blog was created to allow for discussion of your experiences as we embark on the Outflow series. Feel free to start your own discussions with each other and ask questions. You guys can share your stories and answer each others questions. If you guys like this option, we can keep it up past teaching and journals of the series as the series is just a tool to get us living this stuff all the time. Let's let God into our lives so we can pour out on those around us. Are you ready to jump in?