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Interview w/ by bro Lawrance Lybarger

Last night at Awaken, P Mike spoke about Defining Moments in life & turning your moment into a lifestyle. Basically, taking your moment and putting action behind it.

A few weeks ago, God spoke to Lawrance and he started changing his life from the inside out.  Last night he wanted to get rid of an outer persona that had been w/ him for a while, actually for 6 years, his hair.  Interview w/ Lawrance and pics below:

Name : Lawrance Lybarger, Age: 17, The kid w/ long hair, big gauges and tight pants. L= Lawrance & R= Ryan

R: When did you start growing out your hair?

L: 6 years ago, I was 11 years old.

 

R: Why did you decide to grow out your hair?

L: I had friends w/ longer hair. I started skating. I wanted to blend in.

 

R: Can a person skate w/ out having long hair.

L: Yes, for sure

 

R: So what was the draw?

L: Listening to hardcore metal, a lot of people in the bands I listened to had long hair. The band members where cool, I want to look like that.

 

R: Do you think you are cool now?

L: Of course, just w/ short hair.  

 

R: Did you have an attitude w/ your long hair? 

L: Rebellious. I like the book, “The Outsiders” I wanted to be rebellious like them.  I started doing stupid things, breaking in, drinking, smoking,.

 

R: What about God during that time, did you believe in Him?

L: Yes, but denying it because of the people I was hanging out w/. I came across as not believing in God.

 

R: Your hair was long and silky (LOL) - What made you want to cut your hair?

L: A few weeks ago, P Mike spoke about Mary breaking her alibaster box, it was her most prized possession.  God started dealing w/ me. I have been wanting to change. So one day the thought came to me to give my hair up for God.  Some of the attitudes and things I have done were centered around my hair.  My hair was my prized possession. Would want to hit people for messing w/ my hair.  If my hair wasn’t fixed right, I wouldn’t go to school.

 

R: I know what you mean.

L: Ya, you look you had long hair at one time (LOL)

 

R:So you gave up your hair for God?

L: Yes, it’s a way to start fresh

R: How is God moving in your life?

L: I have a bunch of new friends, I am doing better in school & I have a good relationship w/ God. Instead of blaming others, I taking responsibility myself, I am owning up to my mistakes.

 

R: You have made many bad mistakes, bad choices and had a bad life style, you have sold drugs & wronged a lot of people; How does Gods grace feel to you?

L: I feel his grace all the time, everyday. If I carried on, I would most likely be dead in a gutter.  He is w/ me now all the time.

 

R: Do you regret cutting your hair?

L: No, but I do miss it a little (as he throws his head sideways, out of habit, as to move his hair to one side, but has none to do that w/) I did it for a good reason.  I think it helped a lot of kids, maybe some of the kids saw God moving in my life and how big of a change I have made. Maybe He would make in others’ lives!  That would be cool, I’m stoked!

 

R: What do you think of other kids w/ long hair?

L: Not all people w/ long hair are bad.

R: I agree w/ you.

L: (Holding up the bag of hair) I am surprised how much hair I had.  I didn’t realize how warm that hair kept my head warm? Now I know how you feel.

R: Welcome to ‘beanie’ world! Smiles

Way to go Lawrance!

In the Zone

Ok, so Pastor Ted was 'In the Zone' last week and thought he could take on the pastoral staff of GJFA.

We actually caught it on tape. Here is the proof!

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Raising the Standard

Here are some notes and points on Pastor Ted's message on 1/3/10- Don't forget to click on the links for the scriptures before reading the notes.

1 Peter 1:13-25 NKJ & Message

God loves us the way we are, but He loves us too much to keep us that way.

• He wants and desires a progressive work in our hearts.
• God’s work starts at home.
• God doesn’t want you preaching on the corner if His word hasn’t had an affect in the corners of our own heart.
• God is calling us to a life, a move, of Holiness, not to be misinformed as legalism.
• Making a line in the sand and saying there are some standards we must live our life by.
• The world has adopted the saying that there are many ways, BUT, there are not many ways, but One way, which is Jesus.
• Many times we are trying to receive the message that God is sending and it is fuzzy. The problem isn’t w/ God it’s w/ us, we must adjust our lives to see and hear properly.
• He is referred to as Holy, Holy, Holy. We need to get to the place in our lives and hearts and settle the our God is a Hoy God.
• Challenge: Take your Christian life seriously.
• You do not build a house for chickens of the same foundation as a sky scraper.
• There are many times we build junky lives on the foundation of the cross- we allow so much junk into our lives, we can barley see the firm foundation of the cross.

Ex- Susan B. Anthony dollar vs. the quarter. Very similar to each other. The government took the Susan B. Anthony out of circulation because people mistaked the 2 so many times.  Many of us try to build a dollar foundation on an quarter foundation.

If we are named and called Christians, people should see a difference in our lives. Take the quarter and SBA dollar, there isn’t much difference in appearance.  People should be able to tell if we are Christians and not have to second guess what our foundation is.

• God doesn’t care about the outside, but rather the inside.  He wants to touch your heart w/ grace. Then after He touches your heart w/ grace, it shows in and through out your life.
• It’s ok to be different.  The church doesn’t need to look like the world or conform to it to attract the world.
• Be Holy for I am Holy- I am going to be like heavenly dad.
• I am going to be whole, I am going to be complete, I am not going to segregate certain parts of my life.
• God, I don’t want to be dealing w/ the same issues next year I am dealing w/ today.
• I want to move, I want to grow by embracing His holiness.

If we don’t embrace Gods holiness, 3 things can happen-

1. When we don’t embrace who are heavenly father is we become posers. (acting as if everything is ok, but it really isn’t)
2. We become uncorrected, and lack of correction produces a brat.
3. We become unfruitful, we lose the fruit in our lives. 

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Church-Wide Fast

What if you could do something that would bring amazing blessings to your life, would cost nothing, and wouldn’t hurt anyone?  Blessings like;

·       Deliverance from bad habits

·       Revelations from God

·       Divine Healing & Protection

·       Broken Addictions

·       Answered Prayers

·       Constant Supply of your Needs

You can receive blessings and benefits like these through fasting.

So you may be thinking to yourself; what is fasting? Let me take a few minutes to help explain a little bit of this.

Fasting is weaved through out every part of the scriptures. Fasting always involves abstaining from something specific. Food is an easy illustration. Many fasts involve abstaining from 1 meal a day, a certain food for a specific period of time or a total food fast.

There are many types of fast’s to cure different diseases and to break people free from addictions.

David fasted often and was called a man after God’s own heart. David fasted while interceding for a friend. Nehemiah fasted while seeking guidance from God. Daniel fasted often and received many revelations and visions from God. John the Baptist fasted regularly. Jesus began His public ministry w/ forty days of fasting.

If God took fasting so seriously, I believe we should do the same. Matt 6:16 says, “Moreover, when you fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast.” Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “if you fast”, He said, “When you fast”, there was no option left for guessing.

Eph. 6:12 says we wrestle against flesh and blood- and this war must be fought w/ prayer.

Let God know what you are praying for, be specific and expect the reward.

There is much power in multiplication and many people praying.

So in preparation for our church wide fast, here are some scriptures you can read. Is. 58, Mark 2:29, Daniel 9:3, 2 Chron 20, Matt. 6:17-18 and Ps. 35:17.

On Sunday, January 10^{th @} 6PM we will be kicking of our 3 week fast w/ a special Plugged in Prayer time. This prayer time is for all ages, young and old alike. Our fasting will run for 3 weeks w/ Saturday & Sundays off. The first week will be from 1/11-1/15 and we will be fasting Television. The next week, 1/18-1/22, we will be fasting 1 meal a day and replacing it w/ prayer. Then the final week of fasting, 1/25-1/29, we will be fasting 1 meal item. For instance this week you may want to fast all sweets, all caffeine, all meats, something like that, but it must be a sacrifice to you.

I hope you can join in our 3-week church-wide fast w/ us. We are expecting miracles and breakthroughs during this time, don’t miss out!

Be Blessed & Happy Fasting,

Pastor Ryan

www.ryancook.net 

 

What do your kids watch on TV?

The local news did an interview w/ our MOP's (mother's of preschooler's) group at GJFA about what they let there kids watch on tv.

Here is the interview for your viewing pleasure....

If you are receiving this in an RSS email feed and can not view the video, log onto www.ryancook.net to view.

Things We Take For Granted

In our staff devotion time the other day, I spoke about things we sometimes take for granted. Here are some of the points we took and angles we went at. Also included are some of our pastoral comments- enjoy.

Some of the things we take for granted could be:

• Orbit and gravity- Do you ever thank God we are just the right distance from the sun that we dont burn up?
• Waking up in the morning. Do you thank God every morning for waking up with a new day to live?
• Family and friends.  We think they’ll always be there.  Sometimes we put off calling them, or saying good things to them because we think they’ll always be there the next day or week for us to tell them how much we care about them- that we love them.

In the book ‘The Wild Goose Chase’ (which is a great book, highly recommend it) Mark Batterson talks about how we should not take the constants for granted:

God is constant: Constantly loving, constantly faithful, constantly merciful, constantly full of grace. How often do we tell Him ‘thank you’ for those constants?

• Marriage: sometimes you lose a lot of joy from when you first got married.  We begin to take our wives/husbands for granted.
• Childbirth: When a babys born, its one of the most joyful times in your life. But as the newness wears off, and you have to change diapers at 2:00 in the morning, or they grow into teen-agers, you lose some of that joy you had at the beginning.
• Job: The first few days on a job everything’s great, but a while down the road you begin to lose your enthusiasm.  You begin to look forward to the week-end instead of enjoying your work or ministry during the week and take our jobs for granted.

We need to remember to pull back and put some things back in perspective.  We need to think about:  Are we getting too comfortable in our ministry/job/organization/home? How about getting too comfortable in our Christianity? Sometimes we get too comfortable in our ‘couch’ or ‘lazy chair’ and just lay back and let life happen, all because we are ‘comfortable’- We let situations happen and take others for granted.

Ideas to get a fresh perspective – to stay on your game: 

Change of scenery (Geographic location),

Change of Place + Change of Pace = Change of Perspective.

If we are only involved in things we can handle in our own strength, we get comfortable.  We need to take on things ‘bigger than us’- dream the impossible and involve God in the equation.- Pastor Mike

Flesh gears itself towards comfort. Newness always wears off.  Always pursue the next level. Remember what we were before. Life changes are creating enthusiasm, it’s very energizing. God has given each of us a vision and we need to look at it in the telescopic view.- Pastor Brian

When something is growing its changing. There are newness about each thing to challenge us. Just like our children, as they grow they present new challenges with each phase they go through. We can be excited about the newness in the growth. Its hard to see growth when you are in the daily grind, but we need to pray for God to help us see the newness.- Pastor Tami

There you have it, a short devo: from things we take for granted- to perspective- to newness.

www.ryancook.net

 

 

What is Love?

FINALLY! The highly anticipated & much requested independent movie of the year 'what is love' is her for all to see.
Starring Ryan Cook & Brian Steele
Special Guest Appearance by Edmond 'the janitor' Mah
Directed & Produced by Caleb Nichols

-Peace
www.ryancook.net

L7

Last night I had the opportunity to speak w/ our L7 Youth kids. What a blast. We have the best groups of kids around. Not only do we have the best kids around, we have the best Youth worship team around. Our kids rocked the house last night!

I was able to tell part of my testimony combined into a message about not being double-minded but instead serving God whole-hearted and having a personal knowing relationship w/ Jesus.

 

A few points from last nights message:

James 1:6-8

1 Chronicles 28:9

Wholehearted- completely and sincerely devoted- determined or enthusiastic/ marked by complete earnest commitment/ free from all reserve or hesitation 

3 Steps to Overcome a double-mind and Serve Wholehearted 

1) Surrender All- every secret- every thought- everything

2) Seek Him w/ all your Heart- Look for Him and listen to Him all day long

3) Know Him- take responsibility for your thoughts- talk to Him more- just like you know your friends, we need to know Him

-Peace

www.ryancook.net

1st Video Blog (that works2)

OK, 1 more try. How about this one? Effective way to blog? www.ryancook.net

Fusion Launch

Beginning August 6^th, we are launching a new worship and teaching environment called Fusion Life Groups. It will include a time of heart-felt worship and a rich relevant practical biblical series related to today’s life. Then we will break into small groups and have a discussion on the evening’s topic, build relationships and minister to one another by sharing in each other’s lives, bearing one another’s burdens.

Fusion will give you the opportunity to know and be known by others, apply God’s word, connect and build relationships. Wednesday’s offer something for everyone- we literally have a place for everyone to connect somewhere on our campus each Wednesday night. This is the perfect opportunity to invite your friends.

Sign up for a group this Sunday!!

 

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