RYM

We hear love associated with everything from romance and marriage to cool shoes and sweet bacon. Seems like love can be applied however one wants to whatever one wants. Maybe you’ve struggled to love the way you feel you should. Maybe you’ve been deeply hurt by someone who said they loved you. Maybe you wonder if you really know what being loved is like at all. Love is not an idea. Love is not a feeling. Love is a God thing. God’s love is the biggest, most complete, most perfect and wonderful expression of love in all creation - for God IS love. Because our experience of love is often diluted and misguided, we don’t fully appreciate His love and therefore miss out on the myriad of blessings He offers us in it. In the Bible God goes to great lengths to profess His love for His people using numerous metaphors and images. Join us for this elective as we consider how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God in Jesus...and in more fully knowing this love that surpasses knowledge, we may be filled with all the fullness of God, enabled to trust Him more confidently in the hard times and celebrate Him more richly in the high times.

We hear love associated with everything from romance and marriage to cool shoes and sweet bacon. Seems like love can be applied however one wants to whatever one wants. Maybe you’ve struggled to love the way you feel you should. Maybe you’ve been deeply hurt by someone who said they loved you. Maybe you wonder if you really know what being loved is like at all. Love is not an idea. Love is not a feeling. Love is a God thing. God’s love is the biggest, most complete, most perfect and wonderful expression of love in all creation - for God IS love. Because our experience of love is often diluted and misguided, we don’t fully appreciate His love and therefore miss out on the myriad of blessings He offers us in it. In the Bible God goes to great lengths to profess His love for His people using numerous metaphors and images. Join us for this elective as we consider how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God in Jesus...and in more fully knowing this love that surpasses knowledge, we may be filled with all the fullness of God, enabled to trust Him more confidently in the hard times and celebrate Him more richly in the high times.

Please note: Due to a technical error, Michael's third talk did not record at HSCO. This is a recording of the same lesson at the 2019 MSFL conference.

We hear love associated with everything from romance and marriage to cool shoes and sweet bacon. Seems like love can be applied however one wants to whatever one wants. Maybe you’ve struggled to love the way you feel you should. Maybe you’ve been deeply hurt by someone who said they loved you. Maybe you wonder if you really know what being loved is like at all. Love is not an idea. Love is not a feeling. Love is a God thing. God’s love is the biggest, most complete, most perfect and wonderful expression of love in all creation - for God IS love. Because our experience of love is often diluted and misguided, we don’t fully appreciate His love and therefore miss out on the myriad of blessings He offers us in it. In the Bible God goes to great lengths to profess His love for His people using numerous metaphors and images. Join us for this elective as we consider how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God in Jesus...and in more fully knowing this love that surpasses knowledge, we may be filled with all the fullness of God, enabled to trust Him more confidently in the hard times and celebrate Him more richly in the high times.

What’s your typical day filled with? School, homework, tests, sports, and work. What are some of the relationships you deal with? People who make you laugh, people who make you cry, people who make you mad, and people who annoy you. What do you think about during the day? School, sports, movies, girls/boys, money, future, your body, their body, dating, sex, Snapchat, music, Instagram, celebrities, video games and YouTube. How do you feel about your day, your relationships, and your thoughts? On one hand, many of these things can foster thoughts of joy and excitement. On the other hand, many of them might make you want to run and hide. What’s your day filled with? In a word…stress.

Since we live in a sinful world, nothing comes easy. Even the good things in life are hard. In this current cultural climate, middle and high school students are among the most stressed people. Worry, anxiety, and depression among students are the highest in history. But God’s Word speaks to every moment in human history. God, in his sovereignty, wanted you to live in this current time in history. How can you learn to live with the stresses of life? How can you deal with anxiety and worry in a helpful way? This elective seeks to answer those questions for God’s glory and your good.

What’s your typical day filled with? School, homework, tests, sports, and work. What are some of the relationships you deal with? People who make you laugh, people who make you cry, people who make you mad, and people who annoy you. What do you think about during the day? School, sports, movies, girls/boys, money, future, your body, their body, dating, sex, Snapchat, music, Instagram, celebrities, video games and YouTube. How do you feel about your day, your relationships, and your thoughts? On one hand, many of these things can foster thoughts of joy and excitement. On the other hand, many of them might make you want to run and hide. What’s your day filled with? In a word…stress.

Since we live in a sinful world, nothing comes easy. Even the good things in life are hard. In this current cultural climate, middle and high school students are among the most stressed people. Worry, anxiety, and depression among students are the highest in history. But God’s Word speaks to every moment in human history. God, in his sovereignty, wanted you to live in this current time in history. How can you learn to live with the stresses of life? How can you deal with anxiety and worry in a helpful way? This elective seeks to answer those questions for God’s glory and your good.

What’s your typical day filled with? School, homework, tests, sports, and work. What are some of the relationships you deal with? People who make you laugh, people who make you cry, people who make you mad, and people who annoy you. What do you think about during the day? School, sports, movies, girls/boys, money, future, your body, their body, dating, sex, Snapchat, music, Instagram, celebrities, video games and YouTube. How do you feel about your day, your relationships, and your thoughts? On one hand, many of these things can foster thoughts of joy and excitement. On the other hand, many of them might make you want to run and hide. What’s your day filled with? In a word…stress.

Since we live in a sinful world, nothing comes easy. Even the good things in life are hard. In this current cultural climate, middle and high school students are among the most stressed people. Worry, anxiety, and depression among students are the highest in history. But God’s Word speaks to every moment in human history. God, in his sovereignty, wanted you to live in this current time in history. How can you learn to live with the stresses of life? How can you deal with anxiety and worry in a helpful way? This elective seeks to answer those questions for God’s glory and your good.

Being seen and known by others is a fundamental human desire. In today’s world, though, we often live at such a hurried pace that we miss opportunities to see each other and to be known by each other. We often live without a sense of place. We’re filled with great relational longing, but we frequently lack direction and the “know how” when it comes to connecting with each other in our local communities. We can be absent in the present and feel stuck in this habit. This is frustrating, but the good news is that the gospel of Jesus offers us the promise of change! In this class, we’ll examine how God seeks to return us to a more humane way of living and a more humane pace of living — so that we might slow down enough to be known and be more present in the ordinary places in which we live. God invites us to move at His slower, better pace — to live at Godspeed.

Being seen and known by others is a fundamental human desire. In today’s world, though, we often live at such a hurried pace that we miss opportunities to see each other and to be known by each other. We often live without a sense of place. We’re filled with great relational longing, but we frequently lack direction and the “know how” when it comes to connecting with each other in our local communities. We can be absent in the present and feel stuck in this habit. This is frustrating, but the good news is that the gospel of Jesus offers us the promise of change! In this class, we’ll examine how God seeks to return us to a more humane way of living and a more humane pace of living — so that we might slow down enough to be known and be more present in the ordinary places in which we live. God invites us to move at His slower, better pace — to live at Godspeed.

Being seen and known by others is a fundamental human desire. In today’s world, though, we often live at such a hurried pace that we miss opportunities to see each other and to be known by each other. We often live without a sense of place. We’re filled with great relational longing, but we frequently lack direction and the “know how” when it comes to connecting with each other in our local communities. We can be absent in the present and feel stuck in this habit. This is frustrating, but the good news is that the gospel of Jesus offers us the promise of change! In this class, we’ll examine how God seeks to return us to a more humane way of living and a more humane pace of living — so that we might slow down enough to be known and be more present in the ordinary places in which we live. God invites us to move at His slower, better pace — to live at Godspeed.

I’ve heard it said, “If you want someone to know the truth, tell them; if you want someone to love the truth, tell them a story.” As God’s created human beings, there is something within us that responds more deeply to stories than to anything else in the world. The world itself is trying to shape and mold and form us with its own stories—false narratives that lead us away from our Creator. But the Bible is telling us a different story. In fact, the Bible is just that—a story. From Genesis to Revelation, the Scriptures are giving us one enormous, true, historical, prophetic, poetic, epic story that does way more than just tell us the difference between right and wrong. It’s a story that will shape and mold us into the people God intended us to be if we will let it. This week we’re going to talk about the power of storytelling, the deception beneath the stories that the world is telling us, and the beauty within the greatest story ever told.