Looking Back

“Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully perfected, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus…forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”

-The Apostle Paul (Philippians 3:12-14)

Hey friends!

The Infuse party last night was SO EXCELLENT! I hope you all had as good of a time as I did. If you weren’t able to make it, ask one of your friends that did to hear all about it. It was such a good time celebrating the love God showed us and the love we could show each other. Good times! Remember: If you want a FREE copy of the DVD showed last night, please join us on Wednesday in the Family Center from 7-8:30PM for the Rewired Christmas Special!

This has been an exciting few months already! For you 7^th graders, you have now made it officially one semester into your Junior High life. For you 8^th graders, you now only have one semester left before you continue your grand journey into High School! With all of these changes, though Christmastime is a great time to celebrate with friends and family, it is also a great time to take a breath, slow down, and reflect on the year thus far! It has been an eventful few months, and I thought it’d be good to look back on them to see what we’ve learned from them and how God has acted through them.

I put together this picture with a bunch of the slides of events or series since the summer. Please look over them and try to remember one excellent moment, one thing you learned, or anything that is burned into your memory.

To all the commenters, 1) What is the funniest memory you have so far this year since the summer? 2) What event did you totally forget about until you saw the slide for it? 3) If you had to sum up ONE MAJOR THING you’ve learned so far this year, what would it be?

I hope you all have an absolutely wonderful Christmas filled with celebration, good times, family, friends, and a time set aside to thank God not only for all of these things, but also for His son, Jesus, who gave us freedom from sin and brokenness!

Merry Christmas!

-Brandon

Weird!

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”- Jesus (Matthew 7:13-14)

I’m sick of being normal, aren’t you? People look the same, talk the same, walk the same, think the same groups of people are cool, dress the same way, follow the same fashions, hold to all the same trends, like all the same popular music, and often, end up carrying the same hurts, wounds, failures, frenemies (friend/enemies), broken friendships, and guilt because of these “normal” choices.

Jesus does a radical thing: he calls us to be different…like majorly different. See, there’s a type of weird that looks weird to the outside world because it is so different than the way everyone else does things. It is so different because although it is easier in the long run, it sometimes takes that little bit of extra thought, prayer, and wisdom up front. This is what Romans 12:2 is all about!

So, during the next few weeks, let’s commit to being weird in all kinds of ways. You’re Junior Highers, you could teach the rest of us adults how to do that better! By the time we finish this series, let’s stand out at our schools and among our friends by how we treat others, let’s stand out by the words we do and don’t use, let’s stand out by the things we get stoked on, let’s stand out because of the stances we take, let’s stand out as if we are followers of the One, True God! Yeah?

I’m pretty excited about this. I hope you are, too!

For Him,

-Brandon

PS: Two questions for you commenters. 1) What is the weirdest thing you’ve seen/done/eaten. 2) What is a way you can stand out in your school this week?

The Most Basic Fear...defeated

“For none of us lives to themselves, and no one dies to themselves. If we life, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”-Romans 14:7-9

Start by picturing in your head something that you are afraid of.

I’m pretty sure that whatever it is you pictured in your head, it probably goes back to the most basic fear: the fear of death, which is what we’re dealing with this final week of this series “No Fear”.

We have all been confronted at some point or another with this fear (whether we know it or not). It may have been before getting on an airplane, when you see a spider scurry across the floor, when you almost get in a car accident, or when you hear about something horrible that has happened on the news. Though we don’t like to talk about it much, I think we’re all pretty scared of death. It weirds us out, it feels just not right, and we just don’t really know what to do with it!

And there’s a reason why! See, God didn’t design us humans for death…death isn’t supposed to happen! The beginning of the story of Genesis has Adam and Eve chilling with God with no boundaries between them, complete community and friendship with the creator of the universe, pretty sweet. If you read Genesis 3, you’ll see what happens…Adam and Eve decide connection with God isn’t enough, instead, they want power like God. The result is disastrous.

This is the point death entered the world. What many think to be the first sacrifice, God uses the skins of an animal to cover up Adam and Eve, who were shamed when they realized they were so busy being cool with God, they forgot they were naked…bummer that they lost that level of being stoked on others and started being afraid and worrying about themselves and what they looked like.

Here, God took His first step toward helping us not be afraid of death. Even though we were now prone to something we weren’t originally designed for because of our rejection of Him, God jumped in to redirect some of that impact. This is why the Old Testament is filled with animal sacrifices, because these represented the death we were supposed to have by rejecting God.

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But, as usual, God wouldn’t just leave it there. We don’t have to be afraid of death because Jesus defeated it! Check this out…Jesus, who was God in flesh, was the source of all creation, the source of all life (John 1)! If the source of all life is killed, what happens? I’ll tell you what happens, life wins! After being killed on a cross by people who, like Adam and Eve (and like us) wanted power instead of connection with God, Jesus rose from the dead and defeated death! Crazy awesome! This is why we celebrate like crazy on Easter.

The deal is, because of Jesus, we don’t need to be afraid of death anymore! Now, we’ll still die at some point, but instead of ending in separation from God (something to definitely be afraid of!), we know that we’ll still be in God’s hands and in community with Him and others. To Paul, who wrote the verse at the top of the page, this was a good enough truth to not worry then about every little thing!

With this crazy, awesome truth presented, there are a couple things I need to make clear:

1)     This crazy awesome truth is for those that think being friends with God is better than doing it on our own, seeking after power. Jesus has provided the way for that to happen, but you’ve gotta decide to follow Jesus, otherwise, that original consequence of choosing away from God will be just as applied. See, since Jesus defeated the results of death, it is only THROUGH Him that we can escape it!

2)   This doesn’t mean we get to be not super smart with our lives. Being afraid of death is different than not caring about life. When someone loses a loved one, you’ll still miss them for the rest of your 70 or 80 years or so here. We should still be careful about how we live, not making bad judgments that put our life in major danger.

With that said, though, we have the opportunity to live a life free of paralyzing fear, because if we aren’t afraid of the results of death, if we know that we know that we’ll be in God’s hands no matter what, then what could possibly scare us! As you go to school in the next couple weeks, how could you be afraid of how you are viewed by someone else if you aren’t even afraid of death because you know you’re in God’s hands!? God’s got your back, there is NO reason to fear!

“Death has been swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?...But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! SO, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable.” – 1 Corinthians 15:54-58

Loneliness Stinks.

Loneliness Stinks.

Maybe you’ve experienced that feeling that you get when you walk into a room and don’t recognize ANYONE! Panic, awkwardness, and fear. What if someone sees me just wandering around alone? What if I don’t see anyone I know? What if I just show up and leave without anyone talking to me?

It seems like we have a fear of being left alone, left out, excluded and isolated. I think we fear this loneliness because it makes us feel like something is wrong with us or with everyone else…or both!

Yesterday, we talked at Rewired about how this fear of finding friends impacts:

• ·        What clothes we wear
• ·        How we act the way we do
• ·        Why we care so much about how we look to others
• ·        Why commercials that tell us “everyone else is getting this” has such an impact on us…

…we don’t want to be left out.

The deal is, though, that our wants for friendship and community come out of a desire for good things! In Genesis 2:18, at the start of our story, God decided that it was “not good for the man to be alone” (matching the community that goes on even in God’s very nature of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!), and made Eve, bringing community to humanity!

We know that this community didn’t last forever, though, as Cain (Adam and Eve’s son) killed Abel (their other son), and so, made the first person that was ever alone and isolated, Cain. From here, the rivalry and exclusion between people started. We started gossiping, being jealous, being greedy, being selfish, etc. towards others, and started isolating them.

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BUT, as usual, God stepped in to do something about it. He gave us the law and the prophets (the Old Testament), which all point towards two commands: 1) Love God, 2) Love Other People.  As 1 John 3:10-14 states, if you are really someone who loves God, you’ll love those around you.

Beyond that, Jesus, even while suffering and dying on a piece of wood outside of the city, saw out of the corner of his eye his mom and one of his followers, John. Both people, because of Jesus’ death, would have been left alone, but showing the type of care he has for those people excluded and alone, Jesus says with one of his last statements, “Woman, here is your son,” and then to John, “Here is your mother.” SO cool, right!?

Besides the fact that if there is anyone at your school or your church event or your sports team that is fully following Jesus, you can be confident you won’t always be left alone (how cool that no matter where you go across this world, there will likely be a church of Christians that will invite you in and be like your family?!), besides this, Jesus also tells you something personally. He tells us this in the last words of the book of Matthew:

“And remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Now THAT is a promise that can help us put away our fears!

For all you commenters out there, let me know: 1) What is the strangest conversation-starter you can use to include someone who is hanging out alone? 2) What would an ice chunk say to the glacier it broke off of as it floats away? 3) How can you/did you practice community and friendship at the Amazing Race on Wednesday?

Thanks all, have a splendid week!

For Him,
-Brandon

Questions, Doubts, and Fear of Doubt!

We've all got questions. 

I don’t know about you, but “Why” was my favorite word growing up. “Hey Mom, WHY is this leaf that color?”, “Hey Dad, WHY do you wear glasses?”, “Hey Ryan (my brother), WHY are you always talking to pretty girls?”

Questions fill our lives, because that is the major way we learn! However, when it comes to our relating to God, I think we can sometimes be afraid to ask questions about this whole Christianity thing we’re a part of.

Since we’re talking about fear this summer, this week seemed to be a good week to talk about doubt. The great thing about God is that we don’t need to fear as we stand on Him. 1 Peter 1:21 says “Through Him you have come to trust in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.”

Here’s the problem, though, what if your faith in God is shaky? If it is, your fear about everything else will probably stick around! BUT, don’t be afraid, because even in our doubts, God wants to work with us (A guy one time asked Jesus to help him in his doubts, and Jesus totally did!).

Somehow, somewhere, we got the idea that having questions about God is bad. For goodness sakes, TOTALLY NOT TRUE! Like I said before, questions help you get to know someone or something better. Your questions about God will help you get to know Him better.

SO, next time you have a question, don’t just try to swallow it down and pretend like it isn’t there (that’d be like eating a bunch of beans and expecting for everything to be TOTALLY fine….!). Instead, ask your parents, ask a Jr High leader, ask some adult that you know, dig into the question and deal with it! God is absolutely alive and real (His name in the Old Testament is “I Am!”), so a question about how something works doesn’t scare Him, in fact, it shows that you are really trying to get to know Him!

If you have any questions, you have a chance THIS Saturday to ask any and all of them to some smart people that’ll have some good answers. So, come by the family center at 10AM on Saturday!

Finally, for all you commenters out there, let me know: 1) If you could ask a talking penguin any question, what would the question be? 2) If you could ask God any question, what would that question be? 3) What is a question you’ve been carrying around for awhile that you haven’t really found an answer to?

Thanks all, have a wonderful week!

For Him,

-Brandon

Finding our Worth!

Starting out with our "NO FEAR" Series, we jumped into the first fear God has something to say about: The Fear of Feeling Pointless Or Worthless.

This week, we're talking through the fear of having no purpose or value. Especially during these Junior High years, we have a tendency to grasp on to whatever thing we can to find value and purpose (video games, relationships, always winning, being popular, etc.). On Sunday, we checked out 2 Cor. 5:17-20, which says:

"17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: ¹⁹ that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. ²⁰ We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.^"

In this AMAZING verse, we find that our ultimate purpose is one that God gives us, to be "ministers of reconciliation" as "God reconciles the world to Himself"...

Now, "reconcile" means to "bring to agreement or harmony". What this means is that we get to take part in making the world look like God originally intended it to look (no tears, no hunger, no hurt feelings, no fighting, no loneliness, tons of: joy, hope, high-fives, tasty food for hungry people, and people being surrounded with laughter and friends that care for them)! This means fixing the broken, supporting the hurting, giving attention and love to those that don't get attention and love, including and welcoming those that are left out, and helping people far away from God get to know Him. With a mission like this every day, our fear of waking up one day without having a purpose is one that we don't need to worry about anymore! 

So, in hoping to show the awesome mission we have, we're going on Saturday to some people that could use some love and some help in Los Angeles. It'd be awesome if you came! Check out the graphic up top for info!

Now, I've got two questions for you:

1) (This has nothing to do with this topic, I'm just interested :) ) If you could populate a deserted island that you lived on with just one species of animals, what would it be?

2)What is ONE thing you could do today to make this world around us and our lives look more like God would want it to look? In other words, How can you, today, be someone that helps God fix things that are broken?

SWEET! Have a great Tuesday and I'll hopefully see you all on Saturday at the Dream Center or Sunday @ Rewired!

Peace,

-Brandon

Introducing: Our Summer 2012 Series!

Hey everyone!

First of all, welcome back to all the students that just got in from summer camp today! If you or your student went, What was your (student's) favorite moment? Leave a comment to let me know!

Now, I've got a couple exciting things to let you all know about. First of all, THIS Sunday at Rewired (1:30-3PM @ Family Center @ Hillside) we're going to be kicking off our Summer 2012 Series entitled: "No Fear". Check out the slide:

Pretty sweet, right? I jumped off of that rock in Hawaii right after taking this photo! Anyway, we're going to be digging into the reasons why we shouldn't be afraid of some things that usually get us down. Come by THIS Sunday for an intro. to the topic!

Also, THIS Wednesday we're going to be kicking off our Summer 2012 Infuse Event Calendar by having an excellent Pool Party at an incredible house. For more details, check out the "Upcoming Events" page. There is no registration necessary, just show up at 6:30PM!

Have a great weekend and I'll see you all Sunday!

-Brandon

Welcome to the FRESH, NEW Junior High Blog!

Hello everyone, Brandon here! I just wanted to welcome you all to the new Junior High Blog for Hillside Community Church. Please feel free to look around, click on a few links, and check back in regularly. As we dive into our first series in a few weeks, I'll start posting some thoughts and questions that you (students and parents) may feel free to interact with! In a world where we are bombarded with a constant barrage of advertisements, influences, and voices, I figure a place like this can be extremely beneficial in being reminded of this ministry's weekly content and the focus.

May God be with you this beautiful Wednesday!

For Him,

-Brandon Bathauer

(Pastor of Junior High and College Ministries)