Up late one night with nothing else to do, I was listening to a Francis Chan talk "Beware of Good Liars" which can be found here. But if you'd prefer not to listen to an hour or so of someone talking, read on for the next few minutes. Some of the things in there got me thinking and I thought I'd share some thoughts. Dr Paul Eckman is a renown psychologist. He has done a lot of research into facial expressions. Among his acomplishments, he has found that no matter where int he world you are, the facial expressions you make when an person is happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared or disgusted are the same. Dr Eckman has also done a lot of research into how people lie. After many years of research he has found that there are no reliable cues to lying. That is, if you are looking at someone who is lying, they pretty much just look like someone who is telling the truth. It seems that detecting lies isnt all that easy. It seems that liars arent running around with their pants on fire for everyone to see. But do you think that the same thing could be true with the messages we hear in church and at youth? Have you ever stopped to check whether what you are hearing is in actually from the Bible?  (Read on for more)
 
 
                       

Wow, how awesome was JG? For those of you who werent there, we spent a week looking at the Holy Spirit. I wanted to share some thoughts... Do you ever remember watching Snow White? A famous line in the movie comes from when the evil lady known only as "the Evil Queen" would ask, "Mirror mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" The mirror, would always respond by flattering her by responding, "you are the fairest one of all". Sometimes, that can be exactly how we act as Christians.
 

IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS!

We are opening up Jeremiah Generation to the entire Elevate Youth Ministry (that includes all of Impact). However, we are going to be running things a little differently for both groups.
 

Senior High (Years 8-12 in 2009) - January 13-17 (Download the JGEN 2010.pdf form)
Junior High (Years 5-7 in 2009) - January 13-15 (Download the JGEN2010 - Junior High.pdf form)

We'll all head up on the Wednesday together by bus, with next years Impactors leaving us on the Friday afternoon, and the Elevators sticking around for two more amazing days.
 

Why are we doing this? A lot of you older guys will be thinking, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" And that is a fair thing to say! But ultimately, we want to be a church of people who are responsive to God and what He is doing in our midst. And I believe that God has been doing amazing things in our midst, and desires to do big things next year...and for that, I want to bring us all together to kick off 2010 so that we can be sent out and psyched up for the year together.

So, what do we actually do for JGEN? Well, this year we head on up to Merroo on the 13th to the 17th Janurary, away from all the hustle and bustle and distractions. We listen to some talks (this year on the Holy Spirit), spend time worshipping and praising our awesome God and chilling out with one another in fellowship.
 
 

But if you wanna be part of the fun, you're gonna have to get your hands on a permission slip (and hand it in by December 4). Luckily though, you will soon be able to get them right here (once we are finished working past some technical difficulties).  You really dont want to miss out because if you do, you'll regret it.
  
 

Love to see you there!
 

Sorry for the delay in blogs. Now that its holidays, hopefully you'll be seeing a few more blogs. Anyways, the past few weeks, Ed has spoken on intimacy with God. He painted a picture of what intimacy looked like using the example of David from psalm 63. If you havent read it, check it out now. Very cool. I've also got a few thoughts on the psalm that links in with intimacy, so if you want to check it out, read on.... 
 
 

I dont want this to be overly long, so Im just gonna get straight into it.....

Yet another week has gone by. For those of you who were at SNC, you heard a cracker of a talk by Sturt and then some very personal advice from our very own Rob Jones. In fact, if you *werent* there, go to www.stjamesturramurra.org.au now and download it.  Very very solid stuff. Anyways, over the past few days, I’ve had some thoughts about some of that stuff as well and would like to share them with you...
 

Yes, thats right, its that time of year again. Its Christmas. In November. We celebrated in style. There was tinsel everywhere, over the floor and through kids' hair, the tree was bright, and beamed out colourful light, all through the house, the creatures were stirring especially the mouse, coz the music was rocking, and the poetry shocking :p But to cut to the chase, Justin gave us an awesome spin on the Christmas story and I'd like to share some thoughts, so please read on...

Well well well...second week back and this time we spent some time in tribes looking at faith and promises from Luke 1:5-80. Yes, at first, I thought it was a mistake, but it later turned out that it was correct. The amount of reading we had to do was absolutely insane! =p. Anyway, Ed and Myles both brought a solid word which Ive heard was very well recieved. As usual, Id also like to share my thoughts on the topic....

We are back into Tribes this Friday. Come along! I have the Word of God burning within my heart, and I am pumped to be preaching at Elevate (Myles is at Impact!)...so make sure you are there this Friday to hear what the Holy Spirit has got to say to you through the Word. This Friday is going to big, God is going to move in our lives, so come along, bring your friends. Let's celebrate the life we have in Jesus.

I gotta feeling that Friday night is going to be a good night....a good good night!

Hey ELEVATORS we've just started another term of MEAT on sundays. This term we'll be going through an amazing book by Francis Chan, called "Crazy Love". Its 5:00pm to 6:30pm.. So, if you're around, I wanna encourage you all to come along. Its gonna be great. We'll be chewing through some really meaty stuff, just like this dude :)