Weekly e-News July 17
Hey, everyone!
Hope you’ve had a week filled with praise, singing, and, above all, hope! Isn’t THAT what we need most lately? It just seems like everyday, the news they share is heartbreaking and sadder. It’s almost the daily sadness. Our country has not been this full of tension and hate in a long time, it seems. But…
Things in America are getting better this week!
I know, because I saw it happening!
I decided to scoot up to a lovely place called “Carolina Point”, just past Brevard (which is just past Asheville). It’s a Young Life camp where Devon and Erin Accardi have spent the last month (almost) along with our own Molly Waddell and Mattie Livengood, serving our Lord Jesus (tirelessly!) so that high school kids can know things about Jesus many of them have NEVER heard before!
Devo is the one who stands up every night, in an auditorium decorated to look like a huge country barn. And after loads of singing and laughing together, he gets up there and gives a talk about Jesus, progressively “dialing in” on the specifics of who He is, why He came, and what He offers each of them!
WOW!! It was amazing to witness it all! If you could only see our people in action! Again, I say…WOW!!!
And that includes ALL the ones we have (and will have!) at Young Life camps across the country (and our own Lee in Spain!)…I feel about all of those guys the way I’d feel if I were at the airport watching various athletes waiting for their flights to the Olympics in Rio…
They look normal…
They’re just sitting there chatting and reading…
Just ordinary folks, I guess…
Until you see them in action!!
Whether it’s watching that guy leaping , dashing, and splashing his way through the 3000 meter steeplechase…
Or that girl sticking her landing after a backwards triple flip off the unparallel bars…
Or that decathlete spinning across the circle and heeeeeaving the shot put thru the air until it thuds into the turf…
WOW! They look like ordinary folks, but they ain’t!
And to see normal-looking Erin, leading a huge room of kids in singing “full volume”…
Or normal-looking Devo, standing up there making kids laugh out loud and then turning the room to seriously consider Him…
WOW! They look like ordinary folks, but they ain’t!
And America will be better for them! Because by the end of their time there, I bet there’ll be 300 kids or more who will have come to know Jesus as their Lord and Love of their hearts!
And multiply that times all the other 32-plus YL camps around the world, doing the same things every day, all summer long…
Well, America (and the world!) is a better place!
Because the only thing that will really change anything about this painful, hurtful, hate-filled world is a heart coming to know Him! And hearts coming to love Him! One heart at a time!
Would you like to make America a better place?
I have a “Seven-Step Plan”! One step for each day of the week! If you follow it faithfully and diligently, you’ll make America better!
Ready?
Monday- Wake up. Open the Scriptures. Read some of them. Write down a few things that encourage you specifically and a few reasons you are thankful for what you find there. Thank Jesus for these out-loud (or in writing) until you feel your heart fill with love for Him.*
(* The reason this is so important is that your love is what Jesus wants from you. Also, you’ll be a happier person. And since you’ll be happier, people who don’t know Him will wonder why you’re so happy and ask you about it. Then you’ll be able to tell them.)
Tuesday- Repeat what you did on Monday
Wednesday- Repeat what you did on Tuesday.
Thursday- Repeat what you did on Wednesday.
Friday- Repeat what you did on Thursday.
Saturday- Repeat what you did on Friday.
Sunday- Repeat what you did on Saturday.
If you follow these seven simple steps, there will be one more person in America who is in love with Jesus!
And since what America needs more than anything else, is more and more people who love Him…
America will be better!
Good job!