Be Committed

 It was another beautiful day in Charlotte, well, sort of...it was a beautiful day if you call 92 degrees with high humidity beautiful ;)  But like always our kids were troopers and made the best of it, neither the het nor humidity can stop them from being the hands and feet of Christ.  At all of our sites today we got the back of the roof shingled, tore off the front, and put the underlay down on the front.  Tomorrow we will begin shingling the front and hopefully putting on our finishing touches tomorrow or early Thursday.  We have 8 crews this week and 12 roofs, so far it would appear the kids are up to the chanllenge!  Tomorrow is only a half a day of work and in the afternoon each church can plan their own activities.  We plan to go to Wal-Mart or Lowes and buy a gift for each of our homeowners, go to a park to read letters from our Homefront Warriors (thank you!), eat dinner at Firehouse subs, get ice cream and weather permitting go to the Speedpark for mini-golf, go-karts, a climbing Spiderwall, Arcade, and all other sorts of fun!!  This has been our plan for the past 2 years but we have been rained out, pray for no rain tomorrow!

In worship tonight the message was "Be Committed - To God and Each Other".  We focused on the scripture in Acts 12:1-17.  We focused on Rhoda, probably the most overlooked person in the story.  In verses 13-14 Justin challenged us with the question "Are you excited about God?".  We should be so committed that our excitement never fades; unlike new shoes or a new phone when the excitement fades.  We should be bursting at the seams to share with others and continually teach them and walk with them. The challenge from verse 15 to the adults was to maintain our commitment to students, all year. Teach them, don't just provide rules.  Make them feel welcome and a part of the church and an active part, not a group that is ruled by the rest of the church or a group that is blamed when something goes wrong or gets broken.  Verse 17 emphasizes that when he was done, Peter didn't just quit or go into hiding, he went somewhere else and continued.

Justin pointed out that the church in America is beclming less and less influential.  A big reason for this is that our churches have been way more committed to making a point than to making a difference.  In our country we don't know true persecution for our faith, we are spoiled.  Sure, maybe we get mocked or made fun of for our faith, or maybe when we try to share with someone we get shut down - but compared to the persecution Jesus faced and the persecution faced in many other places around the world.  We joined another group for devotions tonight and discussed how sometimes we can have a "persecution complex" or a "whoa is me".  But the bible doesn't say if you will be persecuted for following Christ, it says WHEN.  Our persecution in America for being a Christian is so minor compared to many places, we have even less of a reason to not be excited or want to share.   So the decision we have to make is this - Is Christ worth it?