"Show Love" by Marcus Hernandez Season 3 OneWay Intern

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (James 1:22) 

Many times we'll read the word and say "I can do that." Then we go out and we're still the same. We don't try to change or anything, we will help people when they're hurting or in trouble at the time, but do we show true love and compassion? 

Are we really doing as The Lord has asked, loving Him with all our heart and showing love to one another? 

We'd like to think that we show that love by doing as little as we can and staying ourselves. But we're not trying to change or even show real love. 

Why are we staying the same and letting others fall? Because we're too selfish to sacrifice our time to help others or even text them and ask how they are! No, it's all about us and what I'm gonna look like or what people will think of me.

Why not step out in love and in faith for our Lord Jesus, who gave everything for us! Truly open your hearts and minds to God's plan and love. 

Search for God's love so that you can show love to others. So then compassion, kindness and joy will follow. God wants you to be happy, but he also wants us to share that with others. 

If you really wanna feel love then show pure love! :) 

-Marcus Hermandez 

 Season 3 OneWay Intern

The Point Of Christ by Madison Wilborn (OneWay Season 3 Intern)

I want to take some time to talk about this love that God has for us. It’s something that I can’t seem to get over. It’s actually something I will never get over. There’s this song by Bethel Live called “Closer”. It says, “Your love is so much sweeter than anything I’ve tasted. I want to know Your heart.” I don’t think they could of said it any better.
 
A lot of us have trouble fully grasping how much God really loves us. I know I do. To think that someone endured crucifixion with me in mind… That’s absolutely crazy. But that’s our God. He’s so absolutely and utterly crazy about us.
Psalm 139:1-6 says, “God investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I’m an open book to You; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight. You know everything I’m going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there too – your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful – I can’t take it all in!”
God knows our pain, our failures, our mistakes. He knows our heart…no matter how much we think we can hide from Him. But yet, He still thinks of us as treasure – as so precious and worthy of this love that He has for us. His true and crazy love.
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”
All throughout the Bible we can read about Jesus forgiving the “notorious” sinners. You see, God didn’t just love them in their repentance and faith, He loved them in their sin. Their ugly sin. There’s nothing that any of us could do that could make God stop loving us. We get so entirely caught up in right and wrong, in “oh they’re not living right”, and in rules that we totally forget the point of Christ. Love. When we over-analyze and over-complicate, we miss out. We miss out on a life filled with grace, forgiveness, and love.We make Christianity so complicated but Jesus laid it out quite simple.

Mark 12:29-31 says,“ Jesus said, ‘The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.’”
So basically what Jesus is saying here is, “I love you. Love me. Love others.” That’s Jesus’ entire message summed up into about seven words. I don’t know about y’all but when God spoke that to me, I had breakthrough. Jesus doesn’t make it complicated, we make it complicated.
I challenge you to truly and honestly focus on love. The point of Christ. It has the power to change your perspective and change your heart.

Madison Wilborn
OneWay Season 3 Intern
www.onewaysm.org
www.facebook.com/onewaynewcaney

Summer is over, #itstime for school to start. (part 2)

Summer is over, #itstime for school to start (part 1) brings us to this past week where we had our annual "Back 2 School Bash" at One Way and just like every youth group our numbers were lower in the summer months then when school is in session but this past Wednesday we broke through with over 200+ in attendance again.

Our good friend Randy Lawrence spoke this service and we had an amazing service. It was an epic way to end the summer and end an amazing series #soulution.

And that brings us to this weekend, Labor Day weekend.

So far it's been an awesome weekend as we catch up on some well deserved R&R. And as I relax this weekend I can't help but think about all of our students who call One Way their youth group/church.

Once again school is upon us and as we begin to wrap up our 5th year of youth ministry I have noticed something trendy with students.

Even though we spend so much time fighting the fads and trends and the peer pressure that surrounds us as school approaches this Tuesday, I can see students who are beginning to lose what they found this summer. If it's because of language or because they are getting involved in sports again (we all know the pressure of fitting in with your teammates) I see students who at one point in time this summer became so on FIRE for God that they challenged my own commitment and walk w/Christ, so easily start to slip back into the way things were before summer.

It's a struggle I believe most youth pastors have and are aware of. But why is it? Even growing up in a youth group myself I experienced this and had friends who did the same. Why is it so hard to stay on fire for God? It makes it so easy for me to step back and ask the question that I hate to ask but that question we're all thinking; "Was it really true? Did they really experience God? Was it real?"

This year my wife and I plan on taking on this challenge and these questions more than I believe most youth pastors usually do.

As we kick off a new series in September called #itstime and we hope to challenge and bring up a lot of these questions and topics. We hope to challenge the students to truly live out their faith at school. To stop playing games and conforming to the world and LIVING a Christian Lifestyle in, around and among their friends.

One of our themes for this month is the idea of "going public" with our faith. What better timing to challenge students then to ask them to do TWO things that completely take them out of their comfort zone and that's what we plan to do at the end of the month.

Wednesday, September 25th will be a make it or break it kind of day.
First that morning will be the annual global event called See You At The Pole where thousands of students across the world gather together and pray at their schools flag pole. What better way to stand out and tell everyone at your school about your faith then PRAYING in front of your school as everyone else goes inside.

Then that night we hope to be one of the most powerful nights EVER at OneWay. We are doing BAPTISMALS, we are allowing sign ups but we are also planning on doing spontaneous baptisms for anyone wanting to take a stand, make a change and go public with their faith.

So pray for us this month as we GO BIG or GO HOME....

For more information on our youth group please check us out online at www.onewaysm.org or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/onewaynewcaney

#itstime

-Pastor Phil

Summer is over, #itstime for school to start. (part 1)

Well, it's been a while since we have posted a blog on here but #itstime to get it back up
and updated and ready to go.

This year and this summer has been such a life-changing year for me. In my personal life, marriage
and in our ministry.

As many of you know I lost my Dad this past winter, soon after God really begin to bless our youth group as we hit all-time record attendance in April. Then before we knew it SUMMER '13 was here!

This summer was nothing short of CRAZY! I mean at one point in time we didn't stop going and hanging out with the students and doing ministry for about a 6 week stretch.

With summerfest, national convention, 4 weeks of summer camps, 3 student deaths and the regular
crazy busy summer schedule that all of us youth pastors have (if you are one then you know what I mean) it was definitely a summer to go down in the record books.

We were blessed to see over a 115 students from OneWay get to experience some sort of Summer Camp Experience either from Impact East Texas, Discovery Camp or OneWay Camp "Relentless"

Over 40+ students were baptized in the holy spirit this summer and dozens and dozens of decisions were made (first time and recommitments)

Like I said this year has been nothing short of a life changing year for us.

And through all the high's and all the low's (and there have been some serious lows) I can honestly
say this year has forced me to grow and mature in every area of my life.

And all these things have lead up to August. And after dealing with all the issues we have this summer we kicked off a new campaign at OneWay called "Soulution" which was originally only meant for a teaching series has now turned into a HUGE ministry outreach within our own youth group.

Soulution is a ministry that entangles an Anonymous Hotline that any student can text or call when needing answers to questions, going through some tough situations like depression, suicidal thoughts and dealing with addictions. In the month of August we have received over 200 texts from students who had tough life situations that they were dealing with. And so unlike a lot of ministries out there we took on the challenge with the love of Christ and met it HEAD ON!

Now Soulution is a permanent part of our ministry and we still continue to get messages weekly from hurting and lost students who need encouragement and someone to care

(To Be Continued.....)