thisistheROCK

Every day students have voices speaking into their lives. These voices can be obvious, like their peers, teachers, family, etc., or the voices can be subtle, like culture, media, entertainment, etc. Every voice that they hear is speaking a message and that message plays a role in their lives! Often times they don’t even know it! Through this series, we want our students to know what God says and what the culture says about many important topics in their lives!

Have you ever gotten a song stuck in your head? Ever love a tune but not think of the words of the song. One of the major ways that culture communicates to us is through the music that we listen to. Music has incredible power and influence over the ways that we think and act. Tonight as we wrap up our Drawing The Line series we are going to talk about that influence that music has over us. If we fill our minds (through music) with the things of this world then we will be influenced to value and act on the things of this world. However, if we are willing to watch what we hear then we will learn to live out a lifestyle that draws a line and lives up to God’s standard for us!

Every day, students have voices speaking into their lives. These voices can be obvious, like their peers, teachers, family, etc., or the voices can be subtle, like culture, media, entertainment, etc. Every voice that they hear is speaking a message and that message plays a role in their lives! Often times they don’t even know it! Through this series, we want our students to know what God says and what the culture says about many important topics in their lives!

Social media has exploded onto the scene and transformed our world! It is impossible to go anywhere without seeing people tweeting, Instagramming, updating their Facebook status or snap chatting someone they know! With the advancement of social media has also come the decline in proper posting. Many of our kids follow the trend of our culture and post whatever they want, whenever they want to. My desire is for our students to understand that what they post matters to God! Social media can be a tool that can bring God glory or it can be a tool to promote the sinful world we live in!

Every day students have voices speaking into their lives. These voices can be obvious, like their peers, teachers, family, etc., or the voices can be subtle, like culture, media, entertainment, etc. Every voice that they hear is speaking a message and that message plays a role in their lives! Often times they don’t even know it! Through this series, we want our students to know what God says and what the culture says about many important topics in their lives!

Our lives are consumed by different forms of entertainment… TV, movies, video games, etc. With all these different forms of entertainment comes a battle for our minds and our time! The whole entertainment industry is based on the desire to control what our kids think about and hopefully model their lives after. Today we are going to look at that battle and see what we can do to win the battle. My desire is to help students discover the message their entertainment is communicating, determine the value it has in their life and then decide whether to engage with it or not.

Every day students have voices speaking into their lives. These voices can be obvious, like their peers, teachers, family, etc., or the voices can be subtle, like culture, media, entertainment, etc. Every voice that they hear is speaking a message and that message plays a role in their lives! Often times they don’t even know it! Through our series, Drawing The Line, we want our students to know what God says and what the culture says about many important topics in their lives!

This week is all about introducing the topic that the world around our students is influencing them every day! Our culture is continually pulling us further and further away from God’s standard that He sets for us in the Bible. Because of this influence, they have the choice daily whether or not they want to follow the world or follow God. We are going to introduce the idea that friendship with the world is hatred toward God (John 4:4).

Every January people make New Year’s resolutions. The thing about New Year’s resolutions is that very few people accomplish their goals. One of the major reasons for that is because they seek to begin things that only focus on what people do. This year at the ROCK, I have decided to focus on what God can do instead of what I can do.

Tonight Rick is sharing five prayers that he has for the ROCK. These prayers are for the students so that 2019 can be their best year yet! These prayers range anywhere from taking their next steps with Jesus to serving other people. The goal of this message is for students to think about what God can do in so that He can make this upcoming year one for the record books!

Come and see the birth of Jesus from Mary and Joseph's perspective so that you can respond just like they did!

We’ve all heard the Christmas story. It’s the greatest story of all time but so many times we miss its importance because we’ve heard it the same way each year. This year, in our series, Do You See What I See, we will discuss the different viewpoints of Christmas from the people who were able to see it firsthand. We’ll see how they viewed the nativity and how they responded to it. By looking at their response to the nativity, we can learn how we should (and should not) respond to it as well!

Tonight we’ll begin by looking at how the shepherds, wise men, and King Herod responded to the birth of Jesus. Each of these characters viewed the nativity differently and therefore responded in different ways. The shepherds responded by sharing the news with everyone. The wise men responded with worshipping Jesus. However, Herod responded with fear that ultimately led to one of the greatest genocides of all time. We will challenge the students to respond like the wise men and the shepherds to the nativity so that they can see Jesus for who he truly is… God with us!

There are few things better than talking with your good friend about what is going on in your life. Good communication is essential for a healthy relationship. It helps us feel better but it also strengthens our friendship too! The same is true when it comes to prayer. Prayer is essential for our relationship with Jesus. Everyone knows that prayer is important, but not everyone does it. So for the next two weeks we are going to discover the power of the link that we have to Jesus through prayer.

Tonight we’re going to explore the connection that we have to Jesus through prayer. Too many times we overcomplicate prayer, but prayer is simply communicating with God. When we pray, Jesus wants us to pray with gut-level honesty. He wants us to talk to him about everything that matters to us. Pray is even more powerful when we pray continually. Finally, when we pray we should spend time listening for his response. Prayer is powerful when we use it to connect to Jesus because it positions us to grow in our relationship with him!

Tonight, Zeek talks to the ROCK about being thankful and living out being thankful all year long!

Check out what we talked about when we had our big Neon Night outreach!