IMPACT

This Wednesday we kick-off summer at IMPACT! During summer both high school and middle school will worship together every Wednesday night, 6-8pm. Can’t wait to see you THIS WEDNESDAY!!!

Students and Parents,

There is no Impact this week due to graduations and Memorial day Weekend! We will kick-off our summer combined service Wednesday, May 30th, 6-8pm. See you Next Week IMPACT!!!

IMPACT!!! High School will be having a end of the year party this wednesday at 7-9!!! Our Middle School party will be Sunday, 6-8pm!!! Hope to see you there!!!

Hey everyone, just a reminder that in honor of all our mothers, there is NO IMPACT tonight. We will be back next week for our middle school end of the year party. Happy Mother’s Day!!!

This week at Impact we took a night to discuss identity in Christ, and how it is far greater to find our self image and worth in him and what he says about us, than to find our image and worth through comparisons and what the world says about us!

Often in our lives we tend to view at ourselves in comparison to others. We find ourselves longing after things others have, saying things like, “I wish I had their looks, or their skills, or their relationship” and we are left feeling incomplete, somehow less of who we feel we ought to be, as if we’ve been cheated by our creator.

However, God, in his word, tells us what he thinks about us and teaches us how we can have an accurate view of ourselves. In Psalm 139:13-14, King David praises God because he knows that he is “fearfully and wonderfully” made! The word fearfully here means painstakingly. It reveals to us that God puts thought, intention and effort into each and every one of us. There are no mistakes when it comes to us! We have been thoughtfully and painstakingly put together. All of our strengths and weaknesses given to us to show God’s glory and goodness. And the word wonderfully in this passage means that upon our completion that he was wonderfully excited about us! He looks at us and says “that’s exactly what I wanted them to look like!” “that’s exactly what gifts I wanted them to have!”, “those are exactly the talents I wanted them to possess!”. There is nothing missing, nothing forgotten, nothing left out; there are no mistakes in us because we are fearfully and wonderfully made!

But it’s not always easy to see ourselves this way, and often times, maybe even daily, we need to be reminded of this truth. So, as a way to help yourself to see you clearly, we want to equip you with this helpful practice…Say what God says, until you see what God sees!

Open up God’s word, read what he says about you, write scripture on your mirror, make it your wallpaper on your iphone, itouch, or ipad, put it on sticky notes around your room, put it on your binder, memorize God’s word and what he says about you so that, as you say what he says, you can learn to see what he sees!

This week at IMPACT we continued our series on the Holy Spirit and looked at how he gifts us. These gifts that he gifts us with are our spiritual gifts. We use these gifts not to benefit ourselves but for the benefit of the church and for others.

Spiritual gifts are not natural abilities, nor are they creepy or weird. They are not only for the “super christians” but for for all who are in christ, nor are they the fruit of the spirit.

Spiritual gifts are supernatural gifts give to all believers for the sake of building up the body and the ministry of the world. So how do we find out what our spiritual gifts are?

Here are five ways to help identify our spiritual gifts. We can study bible where it talks about these gifts (1 cor. 12, romans 12, ephesians 4). We can simply pray and ask God to show us our gifts. We can ask ourselves, what do I enjoy doing and what do I do well? You can take a spiritual gifts test, lastly we can do what what the holy spirit is telling us to do when he tells us to.

God lovingly and carefully selects these gifts for us, so we should us them and not just let Gods perfect gift for us go to waste because we don’t know what they are, or because we think they are weird. So if you don’t know what your gifts are i want to encourage you to study the bible and ask god and really examine yourself to find out what your gifts are, and if you want to take a spiritual gift inventory test. Once we find out or have a good idea what our gifts are lets put them to use and not just let them “sit around”, lets build up Gods ministry with our gifts.

Here is a link to a Spiritual Gifts Inventory test (http://www.kodachrome.org/spiritgiftyouth/download.htm)

This week at IMPACT we continued our series on the Holy Spirit. We talked about how God saves us and loves us just as we are, but he loves us to much to leave us the same once he saves us. “Jesus loves you” Im sure you’ve heard this before but have you ever actually thought about how much he really does love you and care for you? He loves us more than we could ever imagine. It might sound simple but its true, He loves you past, present, and future. It doesn’t matter what you have done or the mistakes you have made Jesus still loves and saves you just as you are. you don’t have to change the way you live to come to jesus, you don’t have to clean up your life, or stop doing all those things that you know are bad but do them anyways to have Jesus love and save you.

Now Jesus saves us and loves us just the way we are but he loves us to much to leave us the same person before He saved us. He gives us the the Holy Spirit to grow us and move us from being a person that desires things of the flesh to a person who bears fruit of the spirit. Now this Change doesn’t just happen over night it takes time. The Holy Spirit  grows us to be more and more like Jesus as we grow in our faith, Because walking with Jesus is a marathon and not a sprint. So if you have been told that you need to change to have Jesus love you or you feel like you need to clean your life up before you can be saved i want to tell you that you have been lied to. Jesus loves you and saves you as you are and there is nothing you have to do to earn his love.

This weeks message may look short and sound simple but it is so true and so great that God, who made the heavens and the earth, loves us and saves us. This is the good news of Jesus. He didn’t come to bring rules, but He came to show Gods love and to save.

IMPACT is back!!! We kicked off our new series on the Holy Spirit. This week we talked about the guidance of the holy spirit and how he Comforts, Councils, and Convicts us. First we must establish the fact that the Holy Spirit is not and it or a power to be had but, that he is a he and he is God. Once we start to acknowledge Him as a person and not as an it is when we will we will truly get to see his power and how he uses the 3 C’s to guide us.

COMFORT- Isn’t it scary to go into a really dark forest in the middle of the night if you are alone? What about going to your basement by yourself at night? How about going to a new place for school or for work? We can all agree that all of these situations are just a little bit frightening to do alone, but what if you had your best friend with you? It makes these situations seem so much easier to accomplish because we have the comfort of knowing that we have someone who is there by our side and is with us even in the scariest of times. The Holy Spirit offers us comfort like this because he is with us and he is in us. We have the comfort of knowing that no matter what we do or where we go that he is with us. Knowing that he is with us makes doing things we normally wouldn’t do so much easier, such as telling that one friend about jesus, or praying for a man in need of healing. We have comfort when we have the Holy Spirit, a comfort that makes us bold and able to step out and do things we normally wouldn’t do to spread Gods Kingdom.

COUNCIL- Last night here at IMPACT we took an offering for a woman and her family of three (who lives on only 600 dollars a month) to pay for her cell phone bill. We had a student who felt the prompting of the Spirit to give 40 dollars,(all the money he had on him). Because he,and many others, responded to that prompting of the Spirit we were able to help pay for this Families cell phone bill for almost two months. The Holy Spirit will speak to you and prompt you to give, pray, encourage, or to just love on people. Now how do we know it is the Holy Spirit that is prompting us? A Simple way to determine if it is the Holy Spirit is if whatever you feel prompted to do will bring God glory or encourage someone or help a person through a hard time.

CONVICTION- Have you ever had a feeling that something is wrong and that it needs to be changed or completely cut out of your life so that you give God more glory with your life. Now conviction is the completely opposite of guilt. When the Holy Spirit convicts us he gives us the ability to change and turn from what he is convicted us from. When we feel guilt we feel like there is no way for us to change and that we are stuck being guilty. But guilt is not of God. God allows us to be convicted so that we can have the opportunity to change.

The Holy Spirit offers us perfect guidance. He Speaks to us all we have to do is ask for his guidance and listen for his voice.

IMPACT is back this wednesday April 11th 7-9. See you there!!!

This week at IMPACT our series Dream Church came to a close as we discussed giving. In the book of Acts we see that the first church was not only a church that grew, served, and healed: but it was a church that gave and gave sacrificially. In the first church people were giving everything they had to the church. Some of the members sold their homes and gave all the money to the apostles. A few of them would have extra fields  that they would go out and sale to give to the church. They were doing this not because they wanted the apostles to be rich and wealthy, but they were doing it because they loved people more than their possessions. In Acts 4:32-35 says that all the believers shared everything and there were no needy persons among them. They were giving their money and possessions to see people meet christ and for those who didn’t have anything to have anything get to have a meal or a home to live in.

Now its not about the amount you give but it is that we give sacrificially and with equal sacrifice. Its like the story in Matthew when people are giving their money in the temple and all the rich were giving a lot of money but the one that was the biggest amount given was the least amount given. A lady came and gave everything she had which was like two dollars; She didn’t give an amount that was noticeable to all the rich but it was a huge sacrifice in gods eyes because it was everything.

We give not to give but to free ourselves of our possessions so that we can love people more than our stuff. So don’t give by amount but give joyfully and sacrificially so that we can love people more than our possessions!

* Dont forget High school and Middle school will be worshiping together this Wednesday 7-9pm. Our senior pastor will be here and will be bringing our gifts and offerings to him!