It’s coming

Middle School Spring retreat.

Mark your calendars.

April 11-13

Grey Squirrels and White Oaks

Allison and I were watching a video we got from the Library the other day (Let’s hear it for free videos from the library) called “the life of mammals” or something like that. It had this guy on it way older and only slightly less crazy than Steve Irwin, the “croc hunter” and he was talking about (amongst other things) grey squirrels. He said the craziest thing about them. Apparently they eat a lot of acorns (no surprise there), mainly acorns from the white oak and the red oak. Here’s the thing though, white oak acorns germinate (begin to sprout) right away, so they only last for a little while as a good food source. Red oak acorns don’t germinate until spring, so they can be stored away and eaten later. A grey squirrel knows the difference and will usually eat white oak acorns right away and bury red oak acorns to eat later. Here’s the really crazy part though, if there aren’t enough red oak acorns to save for later, a squirrel will figure that out, and will cut a little hole at the bottom of a white oak acorn to eat the tiny seedling in the seed, so the seed won’t germinate and the food in the acorn will be good months later. How crazy is that! A little squirrel figures out that it can eat a little part out of an acorn and it will be good months later. Here’s the cool part though, God did that. God made everything, and he made it all good. God made it to all point to him. So next time you see a squirrel think about acorns and how smart squirrels are and how amazing God is and praise him because of it.

Chicken what?

Get ready for the time of your life! Chicken bowling this Friday, February 29th. Meet at butches bay at 4:30, dress warm. We’ll provide the chickens.

Chicken Bowling Flyer

Expectations

Have you ever gotten somewhere and found out it was not at all what you were expecting? I think Peter must have felt like that when he heard Jesus starting to talk about rejection, suffering and death. Peter had just told Jesus that he believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah. Peter wasn’t thinking about a suffering king though who would allow us to know and love God by taking our sin and punishment for us on the cross. Peter was thinking of a king like Israel’s mighty king David. A king who would be powerful and take charge, a king who would make Israel a strong country with a big army and plenty of power and money. A king with armies, money and power doesn’t really fit with a Messiah who will be rejected, suffer and die. Peter’s expectations sure were different than what he got. That’s what we’re talking about this week at youth group. Check it out in Mark 8:27-33

Perspective

I don’t know about you, but I am at least a little bit happy that the Patriots lost yesterday (okay, so I’m really happy about it). I guess it’s that whole “root for the underdog” thing, coupled with the fact that I don’t like that the Patriots were caught cheating and they had a perfect record. It just seems right that they didn’t make it through the season without a loss since they cheated. I want to pass on some info however that I put together a couple of weeks ago regarding the Super Bowl. It can be fun to watch, and a great excuse to get together with friends, and eat guacamole, but I think it is important that especially as people who claim to follow Christ that we keep it in some perspective. I wonder what Jesus would do with the Super Bowl. Not because the Super Bowl is evil or sinful in and of itself at all, but because of the amazing amount of money and energy it represents over something that really is trivial at the end of the day. Let me show you what I mean:

1 super bowl ticket on ebay was going for about $3,000, if you gave the money to Feed My Starving Children they could provide about 20,000 meals, or enough food to feed about 55 kids for a year. That is food for a whole orphanage for a year.

University of Phoenix Stadium capacity is 73,379 and face value of a ticket was $700. Not taking into account higher prices for premium seats or sky boxes that means that the total amount spent on tickets if they were all purchased at face value was $51,365,000. If you gave that money to Feed My Starving Children, it would be enough for 342,450,455 meals, which would feed 938,220 kids for a year. Food for almost 1 million children who very well might otherwise die simply because they did not have enough to eat. 

A 30 second Super Bowl ad cost about $2.7 million. If you gave that money to World Vision, they could drill about 500 shallow wells in Africa where unsafe drinking water is a major cause of sickness and death. This would provide water for about 75,000 people (www.worldvision.com).

 

The total expected ad revenue for the Super Bowl is about $160 – $170 Million. If you gave that to World Vision, they could drill 8,900 deep wells. Each well could provide water for up to 300 people. That is enough clean, safe water for 2.67 million people in an area where clean water can mean that the number of babies who die before they have their first birthday gets cut in half (www.worldvision.com).

 

I’m not trying to make you feel guilty if you watched the Giants beat the Patriots last night. All I’m saying is that we spend a ton of money to watch people chase after a pointed piece of leather. The stats you just read don’t even talk about hotel rooms, plane tickets, restaurant bills, hot dogs & nachos, people buying new plasma TV’s, tons of guacamole consumed, or the myriad of other ways that millions of dollars were spent on the “big dance”. God cares a great deal about the poor. He cares a great deal about the fatherless and the widow, those who cannot care for themselves. As we claim to follow Christ and learn more and more to live our lives to match his, we should think about things like the Super Bowl. How do we spend our money, how do we spend our time, how are we spending our lives? There are many things that clamor for our time and money, that in the end will be shown to be a waste. Let us, by the power of God and his Holy Spirit alive and at work in us spend our lives in such a way that we will not stand before God one day and think “I’ve wasted it”.

 

In the aftermath of the orgy of consumerism and affluence that is the Super Bowl, we do well to examine our lives to carefully determine how we might best align our priorities with God’s priorities so that we might not fall into the trap of carelessly wasting our lives.