Please Read

Hello everyone,

Bean wrote a great email that I want to get out to all our youth...so I'm sorry if you get this more than once...I hope you all read it AT LEAST once!Here it is:

I don’t know about you, but I had a great time on the retreat this past weekend. Spending time together in nature reminded me again, of the beauty of community and I appreciated the reminder of how important it is to be a part of a group that is not only a safe place to be myself in, but is a safe place to grow and be challenged in.

Mark talked about the importance of the choices we make and I really appreciated the honesty you guys shared with during the sharing time. It’s hard to see the impact that the choices you are making now will have in your future; who you hang out with, how you spend your time and money, the way you treat your family, even the movies you watch and books you read. All of these things will effect the person you become.

Who do you want to be? I read a quote once that said, “Life isn’t just about finding yourself, it’s about creating yourself.” And I guess I want to challenge you to be intentional about exactly that, about creating yourself and becoming the person you want to be. Don’t just go with the flow of things and end up being a person you don’t want to be. Think about who you want to become and then make decisions that will help you get there.

Mark ended the weekend by summarizing the parable of the soils and gave us each a packet of seeds and asked us to think about the type of soil we are. I don’t know if any of you have done anything with that packet of seeds…I’m assuming that most of you haven’t, but I do want you to think about what type of soil you are and how you are or are not allowing God to work in your life and make you into the person he created you to be.

Back to me (Tom)

This Thursday for Bible Study we're going to skip a week with Shane Claiborne and instead talk about some of the things Mark talked about on the retreat. Don't worry if you weren't there, it'll still be good! So think about what Bean wrote and come this Thursday! We'll get back to our Irresistible Bible Study next week (Chpt.12)

And now for something completly different: