Vacation Bible School is not just an event at Liberty – it’s an experience!

When people new to our church experience VBS at Liberty for the first time most are just “blown away”. It’s not unusual to have the adults as fired up as the kids are about it. There are some churches that spend all of VBS “hushing” the kids and trying to keep them quite – uh hummmm…. we don’t do that. We turn up the volume and have a blast with them. Our attendance normally increases every night as kids go back home and tell other kids – “You’ve gotta experience this!!”

How important is this “experience”? Consider these statistics from 2007:

• 2,876,877 children, teens, and adults participated in a Southern Baptist Vacation Bible School.
• Of those participants,  267,771 identified themselves as unchurched – many more are most likely unchurched in practice.
• Of those who identified themselves as unchurched, 37,888 enrolled in Sunday School following VBS. Think about this – 37,888 sounds like a lot of people, but when you consider that each person represents a home with additional siblings, parents, and other relatives living in the home, that number can quickly becomes 1,000,000.
• One of the most amazing statistics is one of every sixteen 1st – 6th graders was enrolled in an SBC VBS in 2007.
• VBS 2007 accounted for 88,097 professions of faith during the week of or immediately following VBS, resulting in 26% of all 2007 SBC baptisms.

Wow!!!

You are doing a good work church. Yesterday I had everyone stand up who was saved as a teen or earlier – easily 80% of the church was standing. That’s how important VBS is.

So, roll up your sleeves ~ put on your cowboy boots ~ drink a 5 Hour Energy ~ and lets tell some kids about Jesus!!

Is your family crazy? Probably!!

I’m not talking about your crazy uncle or cousin that everyone is ashamed of at the family reunion. {if you don’t know of a crazy uncle or cousin you’re probably it }I’m talking about how crazy our family and home situations can be at times.

The days of the perfect family seem to be over. Where did ‘Father Knows Best’ and ‘Leave it to Beaver’ families go? Fact is, our family lives don’t resemble that well ordered life anymore.

So what does that mean? Can God still do something with your family? Can God still use your family? Can some “sense” come out of your crazy family?

Believe it or not – He can do great things with your Crazy Family! There are a lot of crazy families in the bible and there is help and hope for yours!

Join us beginning on Mother’s Day and find out how. Invite someone to be with you. Almost all of us know a family that is hurting and needs help. You can really make a difference in their lives by just inviting them to church.

PS. If you click on the picture you can watch a video where I talk about the upcoming series even more.

Yesterday was another good day at Liberty. God seems to be continually blessing our church. Even though it was Spring Break weekend {and we had a lot of people traveling} we had a building full and the Spirit of the Lord was real!

Some highlights to relive:

• Guess what? Jesus is God!! Don’t get His identity confused with anything else. He is not a good man, good teacher, or all around great guy. He is God!
• We had another saved yesterday – in my office – and join for baptism. I can’t really remember the last Sunday we didn’t. Keep inviting your unchurched friends so they can know Christ as well!!
• Choir and worship yesterday was great. I love singing about the name of Jesus.
• Last night our skit team did an awesome job – if you missed it you just missed it! And, I have some of the “Stop Leak anointing oil” on sale for $4995.00 if you are interested. You can make 100 easy payments of ………………… you get the idea. It was all very funny but really hit home!
• And finally. We had ‘em runnin the aisles yesterday morning! Yep. But….it was a toddler that broke lose from his mama at the 11:00 service!! He made it all the way to the front right when I was a preachin up a storm!! Great grab Ryan. And, one of those moments you don’t forget. I wouldn’t want it to happen every Sunday – but since it was the first time in 8 years  – very funny!

Be praying for this weekend’s services.

Love you Liberty!!

According to new stats released by Barna, having your youth in Sunday School makes a huge difference later on in life. If you consistently go to Sunday School when you are young it has a direct bearing on church attendance when you grow up.

According to Barna, “More than 8 in 10 adults in the U.S. claim they had weekly religious education before age 12. Of those, 69 percent now attend religious programs weekly.”

What does that mean?

Parents that means you cannot overestimate the importance of having your child in church when they are young. Being part of a good children’s program and youth program has  a great impact on their spiritual lives later on.

So, to all of the parents reading – here are some admonitions:

1. Model a consistent Christian life for your child / teen. It is even better if they see Jesus in you!

2. Make Sunday School and Wednesday night youth worship/AWANA’s part of your regular routine without fail. I know your child has homework on Wednesdays but if they need to stay up a few minutes late it won’t harm them for life. Being detached from the youth group might. Make sure they are in Sunday School every Sunday. Don’t be a “hit or miss” family when it comes to Sunday School – your children will pay the price later on!

3. Make Christ the center of your home. Talk about Jesus / church all the time in a positive way. Don’t ever let them hear you complain about something going on at church.

We all want our children to grow up to be good citizens and good Christians. It doesn’t happen by accident!

Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Last week on Wednesday night we had 165 youth and children on campus – that is 91 youth and 74 AWANA kids! What an amazing number! This week there were 173 on campus - 90 youth and 83 AWANA kids. Wow!

And its not just the numerical growth that is great, but Spiritual growth is taking place as well. Next week I will baptize over 1/2 dozen teenagers and college kids who have been saved recently. I am texted & Facebooked regularly by college and high school kids who ask me Bible questions and Christian living questions. Right now, we have college kids who are fasting from food, media, and television in order to draw closer to the Lord. Every week when I preach it is a huge encouragement to look down at the first 5 or 6 rows in the middle section and see our youth sitting there listening to every word or raising their hands in worship!!

With all of this going on here, I am reminded of something – God often sends revival through youth. One of the greatest revivals the world has ever experienced was the Great Welsh revival of the early 1900′s. Evan Roberts, who was just a young man, went about the countryside preaching a 4 point sermon:

1. Confess all known sin
2. Deal with and get rid of anything ‘doubtful’ thing in your life
3. Be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly
4. Confess Christ publicly

Evan was full of the Spirit of God and for 2 years (until he collapsed from exhaustion) he saw hundreds come to Christ. People were changed in so many ways. The crime rate dropped, drunkards were reformed, pubs reported losses in trade. Bad language disappeared and never returned to the lips of many – it was reported that the pit ponies failed to understand their born again colliers who seemed to speak the new language of Zion – without curse and blasphemy – even football and rugby became uninteresting in the light of new joy and direction received by the Converts.

So, pray for your youth at Liberty. Pray for revival at Liberty. If you know someone who has a teenager invite them to church.

One of the greatest things they can do is to get that teenager involved in a youth group that is on fire for Jesus!

Right now – @ Liberty – they are on fire!!

Over 4,000 10 & 11 year olds  were studied in Canada. The study was done to determine how their body shape effected their happiness. What they found … http://twurl.nl/ftk0oi … was that society is putting too much pressure on kids. If a young girl has an overweight body, she had lower levels of happiness. If a boy was too skinny, he had lower levels of happiness [hold on boys it will change later in life : -)  ]

You know we are living in a hedonistic society when 10 year olds are worrying about their body shape. Obviously, there may be some extreme cases where they should worry. That would be the exception not the rule. A few pounds here and there shouldn’t even be on the mind of a 10 year old!

If you are one of those kids – don’t fall into that trap. Don’t set the rock / country music or Hollywood stars up as your idols.

If you are a parent, don’t push that on your child. Let them be a kid. Teach them the greatest qualities in life are character & integrity. Teach them that their walk with God is far more important than their external looks.

1 Timothy 4:8 Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the next.

Johnny Diaz recently spoke to the same issue in his new song…enjoy….