Why?

I'd argue that it is pretty easy to share with other people that you have faith in our awesome God. Now I'm not saying that you are good at vocalizing it (maybe you are), but I think you are good at sharing it.
Think about some of the ways we share our faith with others:

• Faith related T-shirts
• WWJD Bracelets
• The fish decals for the trunk of your car
• Your attendance at church, youth group, FCA's and other Bible Studies

If you are a Christian teen, it is likely that the people around you know that you are a Christian. 1 Peter poses an interesting challenge though. Did you catch it? Here it is again.
1 Peter 3:15
But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.

Why do you have hope in Christ? What is your reason? Better yet, do you have a reason?

I'm going to challenge you to answer that question. Write it down. Be prepared not just to share your faith, but to share why you have faith.

Did you know that 25% of American teens don't pay any attention to faith related things. A lot of people call this type of person an Agnostic, or, a person who claims that they cannot have true knowledge about the existence of God (but does not deny that God might exist).

Are you sharing with these people that you have faith in God or are you giving them a reason to have faith in God? Know your reason(s). Share your reason(s).
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Awesome Night

Last night was awesome.
It all started at 4pm when the Jr. Highers showed up for their youth group. Last year we had about 5 kids each week. Now, I'm not a huge numbers guy, but we had 11 kids on the first night this year! It was awesome to see how excited these students were to be at youth group and how excited they were to hear from God.
Last night I posed this question to the students: How do you know that God is real? We had a great discussion which was based on the idea that because God wants a relationship with us, He has taken some pretty big steps to show us He is real. (Even though we aren't able to physically see him). -Romans 1:20
At 6pm High School youth group rolled around. We're doing a study this semester based on Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. The whole premise for these students is to rethink their faith. Now, I'm not asking them to rethink having faith-instead I'm challenging them to make their faith in God their own. Make it a legit relationship, rather than just words.
We talked last night about how real faith is like jumping on a trampoline. There are a lot of ways we tied this in, but my favorite was the idea of joy. Jumping on a trampoline always seems to bring great joy to whoever is jumping. Faith in God should have this same effect.
Not only that, when people see someone jumping on a trampoline there seems to be this unstoppable desire to get on and jump with them. Shouldn't we have that same reaction when we see someone living the way Christ desires us.
As the night went on, the students got into small groups and then came back together as a large group to worship. It was great. Ethan did a great job leading the rest of the students. What was really great though is what happened behind the scenes. While the group was singing, Alaina came up to me and told me she wanted to start jumping. (Neat how she tied it in with the message). She shared with me that she wasn't a Christian but really was ready to be. It was awesome to pray with her as she accepted Christ last night. Afterwords the rest of the students celebrated with her and they started praying with her (unprompted I might add). God was definitely glorified last night.

Yes, it was an awesome night.

Oh, and did I mention the Bears beat the Steelers?

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Can I have a definition, please?

Yesterday I put up a quote on Twitter from Francis Chan: "What would it look like to live exegetically?" This is a question that I had mulled over for a good part of my day. Honestly, it hurt my brain. I figured I should share this hurt with all 10 of my Twitter followers by passing the quote along to them. When I got home yesterday evening though, my wife Kendahl told me I shouldn't use such big words on Twitter. I responded by telling her that I used big words in hopes that people would go look them up and learn something new. Well, today's post is your chance to learn something. Today I am going to expand upon yesterday's Twitter post.

Exegesis:an attempt to discover the meaning of the text objectively, starting with the text and moving out from there.
Eisegesis: to import a subjective, preconceived meaning into the text.

There, you've learned something. You now know what two large and hard to pronounce words mean. OK, learned isn't the right word. You've read something. I'm one of those guys that thinks that in order to say you've "learned" something, you really need to be able to apply it somehow. Hopefully after this post, you'll be able to do that.

How do you apply those two big words? It's simple--kind of. I want to challenge you to live exegetically, not eisgetically. I want you to really think about whether you live your life based on what the Bible says (exegesis) or whether you live your life and then try to find tidbits in the Bible that match how you are already living (eisegesis).

Francis Chan takes this a bit further in his new book, The Forgotten God. He writes on the dangers of living eisegetically. You see, it's not that your lifestyle is bad, it's not that you are living unbiblically. Rather, it is that eventually, you are likely to take the Bible out of context in order to prove a point.

"The bottom line is that we can easily pursue just about any lifestyle we desire, then find Scriptures to show everyone it's alright to live that way." -Francis Chan

That's living eisegetically.

What would it look like if you lived your life exegetically? What would it look like if you started your every day with Scripture and lived based on what the text taught you? What would it look like if instead of using Scripture to prove your point, you let Scripture prove it's own point?

Think you can do it? It probably isn't as easy as you think. But who said life was easy?

Check these verses out:

• Matthew 22:37-39
• 1 John 3:16

Those two verses scream to me about living exegetically. Take the text from those passages and live them. You might even get some more insight by clicking here.

I hope you didn't just read something. I hope you learned something. Will you apply it?


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Getting things going again...

It's about stinking time. Youth group has officially kicked off. If you weren't here last night you missed an night of unorganized chaos. That isn't a bad thing though. Sometimes chaos is nice.

If you were hoping for my first blog post in a long time to be full of inspiring things, stop reading now. This is strictly informational today. It's all good information though, so if you want to read about some cool stuff coming up, please continue to enlighten yourself.

Cutting Edge-Grades 6-8

Each week we'll meet from 4-5:30pm. We'll be at the church unless we tell you otherwise.

Some cool events to look forward to:

• October 11-Jump for Joel
• October 25-Halloween costume bowling
• November 13/14/15-Fall Retreat
• November 22-Thanksgiving Dinner

Sunday Night Live-Grades 9-12

Each week we'll meet from 6-8pm. We'll be at the church unless we tell you otherwise.

Some cool events to look forward to:

• October 11-Jump for Joel
• November 1-The Great Pumpkin Chase
• November 13/14/15-Fall Retreat
• November 22-Thanksgiving Dinner

Keep checking back for more stuff.

• www.westernoaks.org/youth
• http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=6443542588
• http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=129196383072
• Or check us out on Twitter: wobcYouth