Today our Casa Teresa team finished off their landscaping/fence building project, and then headed over to help at the local library.  Our Skate Park team finished off our work at the community garden and then headed over to a local riverbed to assist the city of Orange in some removal of dead brush (which was ugly and a fire hazard.)

I asked Fera and Nattaly to share their experiences from the day, they are a part of the Case Teresa team.

Today our teams were doing different service projects than yesterday.  The team at the Skate Park headed to the city park and ministered to some homeless people in the morning.  (Brought over some food and drinks, and took some time to have some conversations, letting them know about the church that we were serving out of.)

The team who was at Casa Teresa headed over to a property whose owner who passed away a few years ago.  The property is overgrown, and the fence badly needed some repairs.  You can listen to the audio to get some of our youth’s first hand reactions.

 

We are giving updates from our Mission Trip / Youth Conference.

1 Timothy 2:1–4 (HCSB)

HABIT: Don't complain, Pray instead.

Today Alex leads us on a Bible Study of Ephesians 1:15-19. We talk about what it would be like to have this prayer prayed over us, and over our church.

The Spiritual Discipline of Prayer – PT 2

The connection between the Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer

Luther says of the Psalter: “It runs through the Lord’s Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer runs through it, so that it is possible to understand one on the basis of the other and to bring them into joyful harmony.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Psalms, The Prayerbook of the Bible

Experience can’t be taught.  You learn to pray by experience.  BUT Practice makes permanent.  So we need for our experience in prayer to be in the way that Jesus taught.

Matthew 6:9–13 (HCSB)

9 “Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,

Your name be honored as holy.

10 Your kingdom come.

Your will be done

on earth as it is in heaven.

11 Give us today our daily bread.

12 And forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

13 And do not bring us into  temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

[For Yours is the kingdom and the power

and the glory forever. Amen.]

Our Father in Heaven

Fatherly love on the one hand, and transcendent greatness on the other, are two qualities in God which the rest of the prayer assumes at every point – J.I. Packer

Each point here should be discussed in detail.

We need to see that the Lord’s Prayer is offering us model answers to the series of questions God puts to us to shape our conversation with him. Thus: “Who do you take me for, and what am I to you?” (Our Father in heaven.) “That being so, what is it that you really want most?” (The hallowing of your name; the coming of your kingdom; to see your will known and done.) “So what are you asking for right now, as a means to that end?” (Provision, pardon, protection.) Then the “praise ending” answers the question, “How can you be so bold and confident in asking for these things?” (Because we know you can do it and when you do it, it will bring you glory!) Spiritually, this set of questions sorts us out in a most salutary way. J.I. Packer

DISCUSSION ON HOW TO USE THE LORDS PRAYER AS THE MODEL FOR OUR PRAYERS

Habit – Use the Lords’ Prayer as your model each time that you pray (minimum once a day)

Join our Thursday Discipleship Group as we get into some pretty interesting discussion about prayer. What does it mean to pray in Jesus name, how did Jesus learn to pray, what does this mean for us?

Its third and final week of our journey with the Spiritual Discipline of Bible Meditation.  Join us as we discuss the value of application and give a few different tools for how you can apply God’s word.

Full credit to Donald S Whitney and his book “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life”.  These are many of his points.

You can get the notes at hbcyouth.ca

 

 

Memorize scripture for the sake of godliness.

During the month of February, we are exploring the Spiritual Discipline of Bible Meditation.  In this discussion, we talk about how to use your imagination to put yourself into the stories of the Bible.

You can find notes for this episode at hbcyouth.ca

We did get help for this episode from “Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster.