Monday, January 7, 2008

Desert Challenge 2007 - Renovate - Notes

Well, I finally got around to typing them up. Was gonna do it yesterday but got hit with some sort of flu. Not fun.
Still feeling a little tired and sick, but well enough to practice music and do chores and school rather than sleeping all day.

Desert Challenge 2007 – Renovate – Notes.

Main Sessions:

Opening Session:
Speaker: John Welkner
Passage: Matthew 7:15-29

Renovate: the process of improving a structure.
Follow Jesus’ teaching and your house will be on a rock and you will be wise. Don’t follow his teaching and you become a fool.
When storms in life come, fools will fall apart.

So what’s His teaching?
Examine the fruit of your life. What does it say about you?
v. 21-23 – What if that’s me?
His teaching is the will of the father.
Am I His? Or am I not?
(Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37-39)
Love what He loves, hate what He hates, can’t serve two masters.
We want a heart that takes God’s side, admits imperfection, hates sin, and fights the world.
If God hasn’t changed you, He hasn’t saved you.
God is the ONLY renovator of your life. He doesn’t make mistakes or do only half the job. He completes and changes us.
If there’s no renovation, we must repent and believe.
God has to possess your heart before he can change it.
Does He have your heart?
- The world has nothing for me. Only knowing Jesus is my life. –

Main Session One
Speaker: Carlos Devitis
Passage: Ephesians 3:13-21

- You don’t renovate something perfect.
- Peter’s letters are prayers for the Churches.
- Context – gospel is for ALL people everywhere. Groups then were very finite and defined. The Church wasn’t.
- Renovation isn’t something you do alone. We’re renovated together (as iron sharpens iron)
- We claim to love others SO MUCH, but we fight, let others down, etc…

Renovation begins with God’s love and heart for you.
2 Reasons God’s love in Renovation is Good:
1. Because Renovation begins with God, it means we can trust him with EVERYTHING. Proverbs 3:5-6
If we are in control, we let ourselves down. Trust Him with ALL your heart, every single area. When life is critical – every moment – lay down what you want and let someone bigger take control.

2. Because God loves us so deeply, we have incredible purpose, value, and worth. John 3:16 tells us WE MATTER!
If being a part of a sports team matters, being a part of God’s team REALLY MATTERS.

Concluding thoughts: Jesus saved us TO LIFE, not from death. When our identity is wrapped in Christ, we live so much higher than we could on our own. Sure, we may have more pain, but our joy is GREATER!

Main Session Two
Speaker: Carlos Devitis
Passage: Ephesians 3:16-17
Review: Renovation starts with God’s heart for you.
But it’s also your heart for God.

What does someone whose heart is wholly God’s look like? Matthew 14:23-36.
Somebody who sees what God is doing and wants to do it, too.
Peter’s the disciple who really follows God, because he wants to do what Jesus is doing. When he sinks while walking on water, the word Jesus uses for doubt is “why’d you look at me AND the waves?”

- Renovation is obedience.
Jesus is worshiped when we are renovated.
Obedience: what God commands/asks us. What we ask God.

What is God doing around you? The disciples weren’t doing anything, Jesus was.
Renovation continues when you have a heart for God.

Main Session Three
Speaker: Carlos Devitis
Passage: Ephesians 3:20-21, Matthew 5:13-16
- Your Heart for Others -

You have the opportunity to renovate your world.
Get rid of junk before renovation.
We pile brokenness and sin into our backpacks. It circulates over time and causes us to be bitter.
We must get rid of it! What are you carrying around that doesn’t need to be there?
He’s a renovator forever and ever.
If you follow Christ, you need to think you’re always the right person, in the right place, at the right time.
Salt and light = good deeds.
Deeds = anything connected to what you do and how you live.
To renovate – take what we do and put it out front Get creative and take it out.

How you live – explanation and demonstration.

Clearly understand we’re not here to judge

Stop poorly imitating the world and create good.

Closing Session
Speaker: Neil
Passage: Ephesians 4:1
God has a plan for you, even though you’re a mess. Don’t just sit and wait for it. For God to carry out that plan, He needs our hearts.

Even if you’ve stopped believing in yourself, God always believes in you. He’s 100% for you. He’s got a broken world to fix, and through him we can do all things.
What am I doing in my life for the world around me?
Compassion isn’t a project – it’s an act of love until it becomes a lifestyle.

- preach the gospel on all occasions and only sometimes use words.-
John 20:21
You can change the world through Christ.
What are you going to do about it?


Mega Tracks

The Body of Christ
Speaker: Pastor Kyle
Passage: Ephesians 2:19-20

  1. Who we are in Christ.

Who were we BEFORE we came to Christ? Strangers and foreigners. V. 19
Stranger: a person with whom one has had no personal acquaintance.
Foreigner
: a person who comes from a foreign country, who doesn’t owe his allegiance to the country.
We’ve all been strangers and foreigners in the household of God.
Therefore… the rest of the passage speaks of how Jesus’ blood makes us citizens of the household of God.

Citizen: a person entitled to the protection of the country and owing loyalty to that country.
Different backgrounds, different jobs, one body of Christ held together by His cornerstone.

  1. Our role in the Body of Christ.

Build on the foundation Christ has laid. Don’t start a new foundation.

  1. The importance of belonging to the body of Christ. Become a dwelling place for God, corporately and individually. 1 Cor. 6:19 (Mr. Kyle had us all write our names on cups and build a pyramid with them) Alone we’re just a single cup. Together we can start to build something.

We are chosen to belong to one another and to Jesus.
If we can join together, we can do much more.
EVERY CUP HAS A PURPOSE IN THE STACK.
Join forces and the problem looks smaller.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t get along with them, the citizens of the household of God build on the same foundation.
Joseph was always a servant, even in prison. Understand our role in Christ, understand belonging to Christ. WORK! Things WILL happen!

Value and Worth
Speaker: Amy Kellogg
Passage: Ephesians 2:8-10.
-
Where do people get their value? (mirror, friends, stuff, achievements, talents, money, popularity).

Our problem is that so many people and commercials tell us that having something, doing something, or relationships make us truly happy. But really those things are temporary and will let you down.

-What’s God’s job in this passage? (He saved us, created us anew, planned things, and gave us things).
- What’s our job in this passage? (believing, not taking credit, doing the things he’s planned for us).
Who comes first? God or you? Sometimes we think we come first, but God made us and we are His masterpiece.
God knew all about us before we were born.
He made us with great care and value. The creator makes a creation valuable, not how it looks.
God gives us a name and makes us just how He wants us. He puts specific things in us so we are UNIQUE.
He wants us to live to the full ability He’s created us to do.
Sometimes we feel like anything BUT a masterpiece. But God’s chipping away at a block of wood to make a full masterpiece.
Michelangelo’s David was once a block of rock.
Pray about what God has put in you.
Then pray about how to testify and live your life.

Surge Tracks:
1. The Family Room – Family Life
Speaker: Donny
Passage: Romans 12:1-3

Relationships are why Jesus died.
Family relationships are important because family knows you best.
God will change a relationship even if you don’t want it to change.
Honor: treat with kindness and care. Doing nothing to harm one’s customs. Accept and think that rules are important.
Relationships aren’t about us.
- call yourself a Christian, how do you relate to your family?

2. The Living Room – Social Life
Speaker: JW
Passage: 1 John 2:15-17
There’s something taking control of our lives.
It’s a battle we fight every day.
What are you letting control you? The fleeting, or the eternal?
Imagine a battle, two sides preparing for war. You’re standing in the middle, both sides groping for you. One side is the world, ads, friends, food… the other side is God, the author of life.
The world is trying to take you away. Fight against the world.

3. The Library – Influences
Speaker: Chris
Passage: Proverbs 1:7, Philippians 4:8, Luke 6:44, Romans 12:2, Matthew 12:35
What influences you and gives you knowledge?
Are we being changed/transformed by the world or God?
These things affect our mind, heart, soul.
Whether you encourage or put down shows your heart. Heart à mouth.
Are your thoughts Philippians 4:8?
Is what your friends online say or what God says more important?
Do you choose your influences by God’s standard (Philippians 4:8) or Man’s standard?

4. The Exercise Room – Our Health and God
Speaker: Brad
Passage: Mark 12:30
What’s the most important thing? Loving God (Deut 6:5).
Offer our bodies as Holy Temples for God.
Choices we make with our physical bodies affect our spiritual lives (lack of sleep = lack of attention to God’s word)
2 Common mistakes – segmenting lives (setting exercise apart from faith), obsessing about exercise (idolizing it).
1 Timothy 4:8 = right perspective.

5. The Bedroom - Secrets
Passage: Hebrews 4:12-16

  1. Hidden sins aren’t secret to Jesus.
  2. Jesus allows our secrets to hurt so he can bring us relief. Forgiving frees you from anger. Not forgiving says you’re greater than Jesus cuz He’s forgiven you.
  3. Relief from Jesus allows His grace and glory to shine in us and through us.

The road to relief is confession and companionship.

6. The Bathroom – Self Image
Speaker: Mr. and Mrs. P
Passage: Luke 15:1-7, Ephesians 2:9-10, Genesis 1:27, Psalm 139:13-14, Galatians 4:6-7.
What words would you use to describe yourself?
We’re individually crafted by God, a masterpiece.
God’s seeking us – we’re sought and bought by Him.
We’re His children – our daddy is the king.
What difference does this make if it’s true?
Make God’s voice bigger than the world’s, it’s what really matters.
Whose voice will you listen to?
Romans 12:2.

7. The Kitchen – Appetites and Desires.
Speaker: Kyle
Passage: Psalm 37:4
It’s possible to have your heart’s desire – if you delight in the Lord.
He will give you Himself – enough to fulfill your desires.
The world makes you think they can give you your heart’s desire. It’s pleasing to the eye, but leads to destruction.

What you put in is what you crave.
Alcoholics crave alcohol, etc…

One side of you desires violence and sin.
The other desires love and joy.
The side you feed gets bigger (Larry Boy and the Big Fib)
If you crave God’s presence, spend time with Him.


Small group notes:
Just a few things I gathered from things Donny said... You can control your influences - if your influence is 10% from God and 90% from the world, the world is going to have a bigger impact.
Make Jesus your best friend, you'll do what He does and go where He'd go. If you're not comfortable going somewhere with your best friend, and Jesus is your best friend, then you'll go where He wants you to go.
We're witnesses - to speak the truth, not to judge or force people to change.

Pegs: People were walking around "pegging" people - a clothespin with a verse written on one side, along with the words "read it, think about it, pass it on!"
These are a few of the references from pegs:
- Leviticus 19:18
- Romans 14:1
- Philippians 4:13
- Titus 4:12
- 1 Corinthians 6:19
- Matthew 5:3-12

Over'n'out
Kilo-Yankee

2 comments:

Autumn said...

DC seems pretty awesome.
I hope that you feel better soon!

ScribblinScribe said...

Hope you're feeling better pretty soon...I'm trying to find blogs of others serving the Lord--your hit the mark! Keep dancing! :D

His, Abigail Joy