"Hey, I got an extra taco in my bag at Taco Bell and didn't have to pay for it!  Awesome!!"  Everyone else proceeds to 'like' it and congratulate their bro on the big accomplishment and the good news.

It's human nature to get excited about sharing good news and experiences we've had with others, so what is it that holds us back as Christians from expressing and sharing the joy that we have because we have made a decision to follow Jesus Christ?  Why is it that we are silent about our faith?

Is it because we have bought into our secular society's view that things concerning God are simply personal and should be kept just that...personal?  I want to remind you that Jesus died for the world, and in his closing remarks before leaving planet earth, He gives us, His followers, instruction on how we can heal society and the effects that sin has had on our friends, family members, and neighbors.

Matthew 28:19-20  "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

In order for us to go and do, we must realize that our faith needs to do more than simply be something that occupies our lives on Sunday mornings.  Our faith must be life-giving not only to us, but to those that we encounter each and every day.

In other words, God has a mission for all of us to accomplish, and like his early followers, we must "ACTIVATE" our faith on a whole new level and get serious about healing the heart of our communities.  Sin is making a mess of lives and hearts are open to the Gospel like never before.

Paul said in Romans 1 that he wasn't ashamed of the Gospel because it contained the power of God.  There is a power within the Gospel message that speaks to the deepest desires of the human heart.  We all want to be loved, accepted, and a part of a loving family.  The Gospel, the Message of God's love for mankind, holds and provides that as reality for every one!

Recently, my friends and I went to El Salvador, on a mission trip to evangelize.  Although there was a language barrier, there was no Holy Spirit barrier.  When the Gospel is intelligently and presented in an emotionally connecting way, it's power begins to change lives.

So are you ready to ACTIVATE your faith?

Here's a few easy steps that I think can help us all do just that.

"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." - Jesus

But this past week on a date with my wife Kara, I had the opportunity to see the movie for myself, and I must say that it took everything within me to choke back the tears of this feel good movie of the year.

A personal, eyewitness experience made all the difference in the world, because I was able to see it with my own eyes, not through the eyes of another.

When it comes to our personal faith in Jesus Christ and our spiritual development, many times we attempt to depend upon the eyewitness account of another to inspire us spiritually, but sadly we are doing ourselves an injustice and ultimately we will lose interest.  Believe me I know.

Being raised in an Christian home, I was constantly exposed to the message of God’s love and His grace week in and week out as my parents drug me to church, but I must say that my faith was simply a second hand experience, depending upon my mother and grandmother’s first hand account.

I always wondered why I lacked the wild passion that I would see in the eyes of other believers, and oftentimes I would lay in bed awake and ask, “What’s wrong with me?” “Why am I not ‘feeling’ anything real in my soul when I attempt to follow Jesus.

Have you ever felt like that?  Sure.  I think a lot of us have.

I recently shared a message about following Jesus, and how we must truly focus to see Him and experience His grace for ourselves.

Let’s go to the Word of God to find out how to do just that.

John 14:1-9 (CEV)
1Jesus said to his disciples, "Don't be worried! Have faith in God and have faith in me. 2There are many rooms in my Father's house. I wouldn't tell you this, unless it was true. I am going there to prepare a place for each of you. 3After I have done this, I will come back and take you with me. Then we will be together. 4You know the way to where I am going." 5Thomas said, "Lord, we don't even know where you are going! How can we know the way?"
6"I am the way, the truth, and the life!" Jesus answered. "Without me, no one can go to the Father. 7If you had known me, you would have known the Father. But from now on, you do know him, and you have seen him."
8Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father. That is all we need."
9Jesus replied:
Philip, I have been with you for a long time. Don't you know who I am? If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. How can you ask me to show you the Father?

Here's what we need to do:

I did something different which I feel was impactful.  We brought a large cross into the sanctuary and placed it on the corner of the stage near the altar.  During the service I encouraged students to write down their biggest prayer needs on a sticky note that we provided and go place it on the cross.  The response was astounding. 

Students are hurting today and many are looking for help.  We are committed to being that help to them at E3.  One particular prayer request caught my attention and ripped my heart out.  It said, "My dad says I was a mistake and that he wishes I wasn't a part of his life."  Wow!  When students are faced with that kind of pain, how can they make decisions that will lead them to good places?  The answer is, they won't unless they have an Encounter with the Lord Jesus.  That's where we as a church family and student ministry come in to the picture. 

At E3, we are committed to creating a culture where the Holy Spirit is free to move in the hearts of this generation.  Continue to pray for us, and together we will shape this generation for God!

I'll take the next few blogposts to share the big ideas of each week.  In week 1, we learned that Jesus desires to expose us to an exciting life full of adventure and fulfillment not one of boring religious ritual.

His call to the fisherman in Matthew 4:18-20 was a call out of the natural and into the supernatural where faith is integrated into every part of our lives and where He can do things for us and through us that supercedes our own natural human abilities.  The thought of catching "men and women" instead of "fish" was one that I'm sure baffled the disciples, but nonetheless, they were captured by His call and the rest is history.

The cool thing is that Jesus didn't go to the elite establishment of his day.  The fisherman weren't the bottom of the barrel either.  They were normal people just like you and me.  Were they perfect?  Are you kidding me?  If perfection was a prerequisite for being used by God, we wouldn't be reading this blog today.  But that's exactly what religion teaches - works, works, work.  Religion wants to keep us in a paralyzed state where we feel as though we could never "measure up" in order to be a tool used for God's purposes.  The truth is that Jesus is not limited by the mistakes of your past or the hangups of your present.  He is able to use you today for His glory!

So are you ready to take a walk on the "WILD" side?  Here's how:

Imagine the difference we can all make together when we "follow" Jesus everyday.  We can change the world.  Let's go do it!

Just the other day, I was sitting on the couch, watching a football game, feeling a little cold.  I had a little blanket with me, but it wasn’t covering my whole body.  When I tried to change the channels with the remote, I had to take my hand out from underneath the blanket, losing valuable heat.  I honestly said to myself, this snuggie thing looks pretty appealing. Now when I first saw the snuggie, I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical, but I can see that the weirdness of it all is totally justified because of the comfort it provides.

Who doesn’t want to be comfortable?  We all love comfort don’t we?  Sometimes our desire for comfort will cause us to take steps that once seemed a little irrational and downright weird.  We'll wear a blanket as a piece of clothing won't we? 

This desire for comfort that we all want doesn’t always stop with our outside, natural world.  Many times, our desire for comfort even affects our heart, our walk with Christ and how we interact with the world around us.

If we're not mindful, we can be introverted and a little hesitant to connect the Love of God with the hearts of the people God has placed within our lives.  As a Christian, this is definitely irrational and a little weird don't you think?

Real love is not a feeling designed to make us feel warm and fuzzy, it is an action that produces selfless, sacrificial giving.  So we must be willing to step out of the comfortable and begin to fulfill Christ’s cause.

1 John 3:16-18 (NIV)   16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.

"This is how we know what love is..."

What an example Jesus provides for us!  So this Christmas season, allow the love of Jesus to flow through you.  That means we might have to step out of a comfort zone and make the shift from the selfish to the selfless.

Here's what can happen when we do that:

1 John 4:12 (NLT)  No one has ever seen God.  But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

In other words, when we flow in the Love of Jesus with others, God is seen by our friends and our family, and when people catch a glimpse of Jesus, everything changes!  Give something other than socks or a tie or even a gift card.  Give someone a first hand encounter with God's love.  Thanks for being people like that!

This past week, we celebrated Thanksgiving.  I'm sure that if you're like me, you ate too much and enjoyed a great time with friends and family.  i know that I did.  I also took some time to think about how good our God really is.  Just to think that God has been so kind to us and that His grace is so rich.  Let's face it, none of us could be good enough to earn God's richest blessing, but He blesses us anyway.  None of us could be good enough to earn salvation, but He forgives a repentant heart.  He is a good God, and although there are things in my life that I would like to change, I can relax and know that God is at work, that He is good, and that He has never disappointed me yet.  I'm so thankful for the goodness of God!

This past Sunday, i was super pumped and honored to be able to share the pulpit with Pastor Jim as he finished his latest series, Mending Family Fractures.  What a redemptive message of hope that our community needs to hear!

I mentioned in my part of the talk that I had a student ask me during one of our services where they can text in their questions LIVE, "Pastor Josh, how can I get my mom to slow down and listen to me?  I need to talk to her."  That is always a tough question to answer.  For the student, they battle feelings of rejection and frustration which lead them to make choices based out of their pain instead of the vision that God has for their lives.  I answered the question to the best of my ability and then asked a followup question of my own to the crowd, "How many of you feel the same way?"  The response was overwhelming.  90% of the hands went up!  We would all agree that students need their parents, but many times, they have a tough time showing it don't they?  Statements like, "Mom, get out of my face!" can be intimidating and discouraging to parents, but what they really mean is, "Mom, I'm hurting and need you to love me more than ever."

So parents, let's live out Acts 2:17 and start dreaming about what God can do in our homes, and when you do that, the younger generation can start receiving fresh vision.  I think we can do it.  I think we can heal our families and see God do incredible things in the hearts of our teens!

Here's a few things to try:

For questions or comments, please contact me at jjoines@ffcvictoria.org.

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/joshjoines

But that's not what we're talking about at all.  Check out what 1 John 3:18 says:

1 John 3:18 (NLT)  Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.

In this series, we'll learn how to practically share the love of God with a hurting world because the love and grace that we have experienced for ourselves compels us to do so.  God's love alone can heal the deepest wound and soften the hardest heart.  The world doesn't need to see another Christian T-shirt or a "snazzy" bumper sticker.  The people of the Crossroads want to feel and see God's love in action in a tangible way.

So go ahead, give a high five, a hug or an encouraging word.  Serve at a food drive, host a school outreach, buy someone's coffee, brag on a co-worker to the boss...share the love.

I'm always impressed and encouraged by their answers to some pretty tough questions.  Time after time I hear answers that are based upon the principles found in the Word of God.  Not only is it engaging, fresh and fun, the student audience responds so well because when a teen hears another teen's point of view, it is so powerful!

Our last "Own It" revolved around our House Party series where we talked about what we must do individually to make our house a happy home full of the joy and peace of God.  So ?s were posed with that in mind.

One particular question caught my attention:  "What do I do when I don't feel as though my mom will slow down long enough to talk to me about some things that I need to talk with her about?  How can I get her attention?"  This question touched my heart.  I followed that question with a question of my own for the audience.  I asked, "How many of you wish your parents would spend more time with you?"  The response was overwhelmingly "yes!"  Over 80% of the crowd in both services shot their hand up quickly.  I know parents, you're probably thinking that they (your teens) have a hard time showing that at home. I get that and I don't want any parent to feel "bad" in anyway.  I simply want to help bridge any gap that may be there and encourage you mom and dad to reach out because your young person is open to it.

Something powerful happens when the lines of communication between students and their parents are strong and open.

Malachi 4:6 (NIV) "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers..."

God desires to do something amazing in every home and make it a true, "house party".  How can that happen?  Great communication.  Great communication between students and parents. 

I think we all agree that it takes time to accomplish this doesn't it?  Spending time with your teen communicates so many great things.  Here are just a couple:

So this week, why not set up a time to spend with your teen.  Cancel an appointment, block out some time and make it happen.  Don't come with an agenda other than just hanging out and enjoying one another.  Get ready because some cool things are about to transpire! 

In today’s world, everyone seems to need and want more energy.  Why?  Is it because we find ourselves running around attempting to cram more “activity” in the 24 hours that have been given to us all?  I think so.  

Many times, we can find ourselves tired, worn out, lacking energy because we are burning the candle at both ends, so to speak, running kids around from here to there, pulling overtime at work, appointments, meetings, deadlines all the while wishing we could add just one more hour to our day or simply get away from it all.  

Ephesians 5:15-17 (NLT) So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. 16 Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. 17 Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.

 Here we see the Apostle Paul encouraging us to comprehend just how important the way we use our time is.  “Make the most of every opportunity he says.”  In other words, “Go ahead and make a maximum impact.”  Each and every one of us get the same amount of time everyday, but not everyone gets the same results.

The average life expectancy for a human being today is about 77.5 years with is about 28,288 days, 678,900 hours, 40, 734,000 minutes and how we spend those 40,734,000 minutes is exactly how we will be remembered and how we will be rewarded.

Time is a resource that God has given us, and He expects us to steward this resource wisely with an eternal perspective, and make a maximum impact.  Because after all, we have been created by Him and FOR Him.

Learning how to apply what Paul is talking about here takes more than good intentions. 

 “I think I’m gonna start working out," I said.  I was fired up.  I was passionate.  I bought the workout clothes, the new tennis shoes, and the holder for my ipod, but my failure to incorporate that into a daily schedule led me to say the next year…“I think I’m gonna start working out.”

“I think I’m gonna start having a consistent quiet time with the Lord.  Man, I’m so hungry for God’s Word, but you got too hungry for that breakfast taco!”  Failure to incorporate that into a daily schedule.  “Repeat.”

We have to ask ourselves, "what’s filling our time?"  What are we really doing? 

What if we really could get it all together, put in a schedule, and go for it?  Wouldn’t the be awesome?

 “Yeah, but Josh, things come up.  Things come up out of my control.”  You’re right!  They do!  But what does that mean?  Does that mean that we never get on a budget with our time?  You know what it really is going to take…a new level of discipline, and I am learning that the pain of self-discipline is far less than the pain of regret!

 Now I know that we all want to honor God with our time, there’s no doubt about that.  The great thing is that God wants to give us wisdom on how to do just that.

 Here's what you can do:

Am I running at an unhealthy pace?  How is my time with the Lord?  Am I close with the Holy Spirit and in tune with him?  Am I In balance, spirit, soul and body?

Have I confused activity with accomplishment?   There is a difference between the two.  Accomplishment produces a desired outcome, activity is effort without effect.

 I remember one time early in my ministry where I was really being stretched.  Oh man, I thought I was so busy, and I was.  I was busy doing things that I didn’t need to do.  I remember one time editing a TV Show late at night.  Kara and I had just had Caleb and I wanted to be at home hanging out with the baby but instead I’m sitting here trying to render a TV Commercial that was taking forever and I began to feel sorry for myself.  I called my friend the next day and told him, bro, I can’t do this anymore.  You’ve got to get me out of here.  I wanted to run so bad, but he told me Josh, you’re just out of control.  You need to chill.  You need to reevaluate your pace.

I was out of control.  I was trippin’.  You ever felt like that?

I am here to remind you that there is no redbull, no monster, no pill, no espresso shot that can sustain a lifestyle and a daily schedule that is out of control.

Living with an “out of control” schedule can cause us to lose the proper perspective of our God-given purpose in life and our leadership responsibility within the Kingdom of God, because let’s face it, time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin, into the future.

How many of you want to fly like an eagle?  Feeling free from stress, worry, drama.  How many of you want to make a big impact with the time you have been given?  I know you do, and God does too!  He wants us all to be in good balance, enjoying life, making the most of our time and living free from stress and the drama that can so easily fill our lives.

Jesus Had Priorities – Mark 1:35-38 (NIV) He spent time with the Father and modeled for us on how to stay fresh in His heart so He could do what God had sent Him to do.

We as Christians should have priorities:

• Great Commandment - Love God.  Love People. – Mark 12:30-31
• Great Commission – Serve the World. – Matthew 28:19-20

Church Leaders have a priority. – Acts 6:2-4

• Do the Work of the Ministry.
• Do I know what I am being asked to do?
• Own it. – Personal investment.

Understanding our Purpose as a Christ follower and as a leader helps us to set our priorities with an eternal perspective. – 1 Corinthians 9:24

As we draw closer to our God-given mission, we will experience deeper fulfillment.

Here’s what I know.  Jesus is coming back someday and I believe that is very soon.  I also believe that God is going to do His greatest work in hearts during our lifetime.  What’s that going to mean for us?

It’s going to mean that we as leaders are by the grace of God, at the top of our game, and you know what…we will be!  We’re going to see the greatest move of the Holy Spirit take place within this family, within our ministry teams and the people of the crossroads and beyond are going to learn how to experience the Grace of God and live under the fullness of His blessing!  Amen?!

Week 1 was the Living Room where we interact with our familiy members, and we talked about how we can live under God's authority by honoring our parents so that we can experience God's maximum blessing.  God didn't place students on the earth to "straighten" out their parents. (Although students can help their parents stop wearing socks with their sandals and get with the program when it comes to fashion. haha)   Parents are to help us grow and become everything God desires for us to be. So we talked about honor and obedience from Ephesians 6:1. It was an encouraging and challenging message.  I  encouraged the students to go home and reconcile their difference with their parents.  The next day, a lady came to the church office.  She didn't attend our church, but her high school daughter did come to E3 for this message.  She began to cry as she described how her daughter had come home, asked for forgiveness, and the two of them talked for hours into the night.  Wow!

Week 2 was the Bedroom, the place where students retreat, sometimes when their angry, to get away from it all.  I actually preached that message last night.  It was so fun.  I talked about how a slammed door to our room leads to a slammed door on our heart and when that happens we rob ourselves of the blessing that a great family can give us. 1 Cornithians 13:5 in The Message Bible tells us that "love keeps no records of wrongs".  So intead of students and parents expecting perfection out of one another, they can learn how to work things out in an emotionally healthy way even when the tension gets thick. 

I remember one time when I was a teen, I got angry at my parents in the living room, said things I shouldn't have said and then ran away to my room and slammed the door and locked it.  I was there a few minutes fuming mad when I heard someone moving the door knob.  In a few minutes, my dad had removed the knob, came in my room and then took the door off the hinges, and without a word he was letting me know that we were going to have a house with open hearts.  We weren't going to allow anger and rage to control us. (Ephesians 4:31)  What a lesson learned.

Next week, part #3 is the Kitchen and students will learn that just like putting together some awesome meals requires a variety of ingredients, a great family doens't just happen.  We all can bring something to the table so the family will experience everything God says we can experience.  It's been fun.  I'll write more about it later.  Thanks for reading.

Here are some questions to consider parents: