Aaaaahhhhh The Mix Blog. It's definitely been a while. We've gotten away from posting updates here for far too long and the Lord sort of shook me by the collar last night and...well...here I am. Lots has happened at The Mix since we last posted and rather than try to catch up, let's just start right now. We've been looking at a teaching series for the past few weeks that we've called "Yeah...But How?" It has basically been a VERY practical look at VERY practical things we can build into our lives to help grow our faith. We've looked at various different aspects of prayer, Bible study and sharing our faith with others...specifically, trying to share some tips and ideas as to how to build these things into our lives and stay consistant with them so our relationship with Christ can continue to deepen. We've shared some great ideas over the weeks and as a conclusion to the series, I asked the students to come this week to The Mix prepared to share what God had been saying to them and showing them over the past week...sort of 'put it into practice'. It could be a verse they read, a situation they found themselves in where God revealed Himself, a Word from God, etc. The night was amazing to say the least!!Wednesday, November 9, 2011
What's God Saying To You?
Aaaaahhhhh The Mix Blog. It's definitely been a while. We've gotten away from posting updates here for far too long and the Lord sort of shook me by the collar last night and...well...here I am. Lots has happened at The Mix since we last posted and rather than try to catch up, let's just start right now. We've been looking at a teaching series for the past few weeks that we've called "Yeah...But How?" It has basically been a VERY practical look at VERY practical things we can build into our lives to help grow our faith. We've looked at various different aspects of prayer, Bible study and sharing our faith with others...specifically, trying to share some tips and ideas as to how to build these things into our lives and stay consistant with them so our relationship with Christ can continue to deepen. We've shared some great ideas over the weeks and as a conclusion to the series, I asked the students to come this week to The Mix prepared to share what God had been saying to them and showing them over the past week...sort of 'put it into practice'. It could be a verse they read, a situation they found themselves in where God revealed Himself, a Word from God, etc. The night was amazing to say the least!!Thursday, March 11, 2010
Recognizing God
How noticeable is God? Do we always see Him when He's working and moving around us? How much of what God does around us goes un-noticed? How often do look right past the "God-Stuff" that is right in front of us? This week finds us in-between teaching series at The Mix so this week's discussion falls into our "One Hit Wonder" category...a stand alone discussion. And it all has to do with 'Recognizing God'.Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Dating, Love, Sex-part 2
We don't like boundaries. I guess it's sort of a "human nature" kinda thing. We don't like to be told what to do and what not to do. Maybe it's arrogance, or pride...or maybe just plain o' stubborness. But we humans definitely do NOT like restrictions being placed on us. Unfortunately, we need boundaries. Actually we need them very badly. Maybe we just need to change the way view boundaries...I've noticed people tend to fall into two different categories when it comes to thinking about boundaries. Many people view boundaries like this...


- Putting our trust completely in ourselves is unwise
- "Alone" removes self-restraint--Self-restraint is usually good
- We were built to need accountability
- Boundaries are easier to abide by if everyone involved understands them
- Boundaries are only effective if we commit to them whole-heartedly
- Make sure you only date Christians who share the same convictions and morals that you do.
- Don't date alone.
- Don't end up in a house with your date with no one else home.
- Establish conservative physical intimacy boundaries.
- Talk about those physical boundaries with your girlfriend/boyfriend ahead of time.
- Establish an accountability partner who will ask you often about the temptations you face while dating and how you dealt with those temptations.
- Have a proper attitude towards dating (keeping my future marriage in mind and the fact that I and my date are both temples of the Holy Spirit).
Pretty wise for a bunch of high school kids if you ask me. Dating is an exciting part of being in high school. But it also holds so much potential for long-term consequences of bad choices. We have to take it seriously and we MUST establish boundaries as we date in high school...otherwise we might end up looking like giant friend chicken legs running around...
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Dating, Love, Sex-Part 1
Well its February and that means 2 things. First, it is FREEZING COLD in Southern Illinois right now! And Valentines Day is right around the corner. I have a remedy for the 1st one...I'm leaving Florida in 6 hours and 45 minutes (not that I'm counting). But the second one is a real conundrum (yes that's the right spelling...I had to look it up.) Anyway, Valentines Day has always been kind of a waste to me. My wife likes flowers and chocolates and all that stuff and I like to give her things she likes but does it really mean anything if its expected?...if its SUPPOSED to happen then? Where's the feeling and emotion in that? "Here honey...here's some flowers that I bought you because every other husband in the entire world is buying their wives some this week so I thought I should buy you some too." See what I mean? (Alright...I realize that is a really lame excuse for NOT buying flowers but its the best I've got right now. If you have something better, let me know.) So Valentines Day isn't really that big of a deal at our house. But it is a big deal to me for another reason. Every year at this time, we take some time at The Mix to talk about the HUGE topic of love, dating and sexual issues. And this year is no different.- Alan-age 10--"You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports...and keep the chips and dip coming."
- Kristen-age 10--"No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides all the way before and you get to find out later who you're stuck with."
WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
- Lynette-age 8--"Dates are for having fun and people should use them for getting to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough."
- Martin-age 10--"On the first date they tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date."
WHEN IS IT OK TO KISS SOMEONE?
- Curt-age 7--"The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that."
- Howard-age 8--"The law goes something like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. Its the right thing to do."
HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
- Ricky-age 10--"Tell your wife she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck."
Now obviously these little guys and gals will have their ideas changed for them as they get a little older! And its easy to see where they get these ideas from in most cases. But its important to realize that we all start to form ideas and attitudes about dating and love and marriage and even sex, from a very young age. And kids carry those ideas into high school with them and right into dating relationships. So what ARE the right attitudes for students to have about dating? Our goal at The Mix is not necessarily to come up with hard and fast rules for our students to follow. Obviously, their parents have a lot to do with all of that for them. We are more concerned that they have a right attitude towards dating and that starts with some realizations about why God cares so much about their dating and sexual life. We came up with 3 big reasons why God cares so much about the dating life of high schoolers:
- God sees the big picture--You don't! (God always sees how our choices and decisions right now will affect our future. We don't always see that. So by depending on God for our wisdom, we are depending on the One who really can see the future for us!)
- God always looks out for your well-being--You don't! (God will ALWAYS lead us into what is best for us...His plans for us are not to harm us but to give us a hope and a future, according to Jeremiah 29:11. We don't always have our best interest in mind. We get caught up in the moment and make bad choices that lead to harmful things for us...it happens all the time. We don't have to ever worry about God doing that to us.)
- God always has the purpose of dating, love and sex in mind--You don't! (Again, we get caught up in the moment, give into temptations and allow or focus to shift all over the place. God never gets caught up in the moment and always has His focus exactly where it should be. He knows the real purpose and intention behind dating and eventually marriage...He should, He invented it! And He can help us to do the same if rely on His direction and operate within the guidelines He has established for us.)
So what is God's purpose for dating and eventually even marriage? Well I think God seeks to accomplish a lot of things through our dating processes and eventually our marriages. But the one thing I want our high school students to understand is this: God allows us to experience a lot of things in the physical sense here in this life on this earth that are representations of deeper, spiritual truths He also wants us to experience. He gives us a physical picture we CAN understand of something spiritual that is much harder to wrap our arms around. Dating and marriage are part of this. Its hard for us to understand the intimacy that God wants to have with us in our relationships with Him. He longs to love us and experience deep, intimacy with us. But that's sort of a vague concept to us because we can't see Him with our physical eyes and touch Him with our physical hands. So He gives us marriage...something we CAN experience in the physical. And as we experience a God-honoring marriage, it helps us to understand the kind of intimacy God wants to have with us on a spiritual level. Might sound weird to you...but I believe there's more truth to it than any of us understand. Check out Ephesians 5 for more insight on this.
SO...as we date, we have to keep in mind that some day, God wants to allow us to experience a marriage that will mirror our relationship with Him. And how we date as high school students DOES AFFECT our future marriages!! Even though we may have a long time before we get married and we have no idea who we will eventually marry, we are training ourselves as we date in high school and shaping how we think about marriage someday. So here is a good goal as we date in high school:
Our dating experiences in high school should help our future marriages to be...
-God-Honoring
-Healthy
-Life-long
If we have the future in mind as we date (especially because we don't know who we will eventually marry down the road), we take big steps towards having a marriage with our future spouse some day that will be God-honoring, healthy and life-long. That's a good attitude to have towards dating in high school!!
In Ecclesiastes, God talks about a triple-braided cord that is strong because it has three cords wrapped around each other...the husband, the wife and God. When a marriage is set up like this, it is strong and God-honoring. So as high school students who are dating, we have to ask ourselves this:
Are my actions, attitudes and behaviors concerning dating going to lead to a triple-braided cord-type marriage down the road that isn't easily broken?
OR
Am I destroying the cord before it even starts?

How we date matters to God...and it should matter to us. Over the next few weeks, we are going to talk about some practical things we can build into our lives to help us date in a God-honoring way. Hope you check back in with us! Now I have to go figure out if my wife is getting me anything for V-day so I know if I have to get her anything...and we wonder where our kids get their ideas...
Thanks for reading!
-Bob
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
What's Love-Part 3
Hey everyone! Thanks for checking out this week's entry of The Mixblog...the best way to find out what's happening at The Mix (Whittington Church's high school youth ministry) outside of stopping by and hanging out with us. We are starting to wind down a teaching series that we have been calling "So What Exactly Is Love?" and this week's discussion focused on 'Sacrificial Love'. Sacrificial Love is a lost art in our day it seems. Unfortunately, most of the 'love' we know about is totally based on whether someone else deserves our 'love' or not and what we might get in return. News flash...THIS IS NOT SACRIFICIAL LOVE! So...IF...
- Love is a choice
- Love is OUR choice
- Love is OUR choice regardless of what the object of that love does
THEN...
Love is going to involve sacrifice!
King David in the Old Testament seemed to understand sacrificial love a little bit. Check out this story from 2 Samuel 24:18-25. King David wasn't going to express his love to God unless it cost him something! Why? Why not just take the threshing floor and the ox and the wood fo
r the fire for free and promise Araunah he'd remember him during tax season? Or just promise him a 1st class tour of the palace sometime? Why did David insist on paying for everything? Why did he want it cost him something? Maybe it was to prove to God he was serious but God knows the thoughts and intentions of a man's heart so God would have known either way (by the way...I think even God has trouble knowing the thoughts and intentions of a woman's heart but that is another discussion). I think David wanted it to feel to himself as though it really meant something. He wanted there to be no doubt within himself that this act of love wasn't based on convenience or the pressure of those around him...he wanted to be sure he didn't do it because of what he would get out of it. He wanted it to be very clear to everyone but most importantly to himself that this act of love towards God was genuine sacrificial love...it cost him something and he was more than willing to pay it. So that brings us to big question of this discussion...
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF LOVE?
Have you ever thought about that? I mean, I don't think it was created to be fodde
r for 1000's of songs. I don't think it was created so Blockbuster could have another isle in their store. I don't think it was created so rose bushes would have a place in the world and nasty little heart-shaped candies would actually be used for something. If God created it and he wired us to be able to feel it and give it, what's its purpose? Love defitinely leads to pain many times. So why create it all? Well I think the answer can be found in God's ultimate act of sacrificial love...the sacrificing of His Son Jesus. Romans 5:6-8 tells us that Jesus showed us sacrificial love not only by the amazing act of giving up His life for us but also by the circumstances surrounding it. He didn't wait until we deserved it,
or until we did something to give Him a little bit of hope that we might turn out ok. He didn't wait until we proved how "good" we could be. He didn't wait until there was some indication that He might get something back in return. While we were absolutely helpless and hopeless...still sinners...Christ died for us. No gaurantees, no "deserving-factor". That's sacrificial love. And by doing so He revealed His own character and nature. Afterall, God IS love. And as His kids, He wants us to allow His nature and character to be revealed in us. God created us with ability to give and recieve love so that we could be with Him and be like Him! And the best part is that through Christ's sacrificial love for us, we have the opportunity to be with Him (see Colossians 1:13-14).
As Christians, we have to ask ourselves (and God) 2 questions...
- How can I show true sacrificial love towards God?
- How can I show true sacrificial love towards other people?
So I'm on a mission: How can I love sacrificially? I have a sneaking suspicion that if I really want to find ways to love sacrificially, God is going to provide them for me. I just have to keep my eyes open. I also have a sneaking suspicion that it won't be easy...but it WILL be worth it. It always is. And hopefully it won't involve those nasty little heart-shaped candies...
Thanks for reading. Hope you check back with us next week!
-Bob
Friday, January 22, 2010
What's Love-part 2
Hello everyone! Thanks for checking out this week's The Mixblog entry. Today we have a "guest writer"...Sheri Hargis fills us in on what was discussed this week as we continued our current teaching series on "What Is Love-Really?". Here are Sheri's thoughts...Mark 8:1-3... For the 2nd time (that was mentioned in the Gospels), Jesus met the needs of the people who were following them and fed them. He felt compassion for them because they "stuck by Him" for three days and He knew if He sent them away, they would faint before they made it home to eat...so His compassion prompted Him to feed them.

John 13:1-5... Jesus washes His disciples' feet. This was the ultimate example of servanthood. Feet washing was a job that nobody wanted to do and only the lowest of servants got stuck doing it. But Jesus His love for His disciples by getting down on the floor and washing their feet...right before He was to be crucified on the cross for their (and our) sins!!! He loved them...and He loves us...even though we are all sinners.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
What's Love?-part 1
Hi everyone. Thanks for checking out The Mixblog this week. We are starting a new teaching series that will take us through the rest of January. We are calling it "What's Love?". No...there is no "Got To Do With It" on the end (that's Tina Turner) or "How Do We Know When It's" at the beginning of it (that's Van Halen). I tried to crack a joke about this at The Mix this week and about 2/3 of the way through the joke, it dawned on me that none of these high school kids were born yet when either of those songs came out. Almost daily I'm reminded in some way how old I really am. But on to "Love"...First of all, how do you really define love? I'm talking about all kinds of love...romantic love, love between friends, love between parents and their kids, love for God, love for other people in general. It really does depend on who you ask. We hear about love all the time, see movies about love all the time (although I do have an anti-chick flick gene that keeps me from being able to enjoy these), listen to music about love all the time, see "love" thrown about on TV all the time...you get the idea. Love seems to be everywhere and yet we have a really hard time explaining what it is. Some would say its an emotion...some would say an action...some would say a feeling...a choice...a commitment...a destiny...a tennis score. Does it happen "at first sight" or after lots of "sights"? Can you choose to love someone, then not love them...then love them again? How do I know if I really love someone? How do I know if I really love God? Well before we can dive into the 'love discussion', let's establish a couple of really important things first:
- First, most of the good things that God allows us to experience in our lives are symbolic pictures of spiritual things He wants us to experience as well. For example...marriage. The Bible seems to indicate that one of the biggest reasons God invented marriage (which He did invent by the way) is to give us a physical picture here on earth of what a covenant relationship is like...the kind of relationship God wants to have with us. Its hard for us to understand things that we can't see, smell or touch (like a relationship with God). But marriage helps us to have a deeper understanding of what a deep level, intimate, covenant-based relationship is like. Its a physical symbol of a deeper spiritual understanding. This is also true of love. God allows us to experience 'love' so we will understand just a little bit, how He feels about us.
- Second, since God designed the concept of love, built us to be able to experience love, and showed us the first example of what love looks like...it only makes sense that we look to Him for the correct definition. We get lots of definitions of what love is from lots of different places. The best definition of something always comes from the inventor of it.
So what is God's definition of love? Lets check out the instruction manual: 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.
So how often do you love someone like this? I mean, the 'love' that I show to people a lot of times is more of a "love is usually patient when they do things my way, love doesn't envy unless I deserve it more than they do, love doesn't boast unless I'm really better than they are, love isn't rude unless they seem to really want me to be rude to them based on the idiotic way they are acting, love is not easily angered unless its those certain people...you know who you are, love keeps no record of wrongs (except all the people I deleted from my Facebook account and the ones I stopped sending Christmas Cards to this year...but they deserved it)...sometimes protects, rarely trusts, occasionally hopes, and actually perseveres sometimes"...kind of love. Anyone else in my boat? I think probably if we all got honest, we're all in the same boat if we are trying to love anyone in and of ourselves. In the flesh, Biblical love is absolutely impossible.
And then to make matters worse, God throws another log on the fire by saying that 'love' is more important than alot of other things. Read 1 Corinthians 13:13. God says strengthening my faith is important..but not as important as love. God says trusting in Him for amazing and powerful things is important...but not important as love. I gotta get this 'love thing' right!
So this causes me to ask some really tough questions of myself. Why do I love Jesus? Really...why do I love Him? If I'm not careful, here's some wrong reasons I can love Jesus:
- He's a good luck charm. If I keep Jesus around, good things will happen.
- He's a vaccine against 'bad stuff' in my life. If I love Jesus, he'll make sure life is a little easier for me.

- He's a Spiritual Walmart. If I keep Jesus around I'll be able to get everything I think I want or need all the time. One stop shopping...Always Low Prices-Always!
- Because someone else told me I should. Everyone thinks I should love Jesus so I do.
- Because someone else expects me to. I need to love Jesus because others will be disappointed if I don't.
Some of these are things that can definitely happen as a by-product of loving Jesus but if my love for Him is based on these things, I'm going to decide I don't love Him anymore when He doesn't do what I thought He should.
- Because I realize who He is and what He has done for me by dying on the cross and allowing me to have a relationship with God forever.
All too often, I think we decide to love Jesus based on what we hope He will do for us in the future. Instead, we need to love Him because of what He has already done for us. Our love for Him is based on the fact that He loved us first by taking the punishment for sin that we deserved. He rescued us from a spiritual death! And for that, we should love Him!!
If our love for Jesus is based on what we want Him to do for us in our lives, we will eventually turn our backs on Him. Sometimes He does what we want Him to...but sometimes He doesn't. He never stops loving us and He never stops showing that love to us. But He also doesn't always do what we think he should. What then? Unfortunately, I know way too many Christians who only loved Jesus because they thought He would always make life easier for them or give them everything they wanted or keep bad things from happening to them. And when it didn't happen this way, they tossed their faith out the window and turned their back on God, who loves them very, very much...and decided they didn't want to love Jesus anymore.
Please don't misunderstand. We should definitely believe for God to do awesome things in our lives...and He wants to. BUT...if He chooses not to, we must make sure our love for Him is based on what He's already done for us. I love to study the Apostle Paul. Paul was a guy who was an absolute jerk before he knew Jesus. He was more than a jerk...he was evil! He was basically the 1st century version of Osama Bin Laden. He wanted to kill as many Christians as possible and see to it that Christianity died off. Then when Jesus got a hold of Him, everything changed. But the thing I like the most about him is that he never forgot why he fell in love with Jesus. Here was a guy that God used in miraculous ways...he wrote 13 books in the New Testament, started churches everywhere, healed the sick, saw 1000's saved...God used him powerfully. But his life was anything but easy with Jesus. He also got beat with a cane, flogged with a whip, stoned until they thought he was dead, thrown in prison several times and eventually was beheaded for his faith. That's not exactly the path of least resistance. That's not the easy road. But it is the path of most fulfillment. The path of most purpose and destiny. And in Romans 7:21-25, we see Paul remembering all over again why he loves Jesus. It wasn't because Jesus made his life easy, its because Jesus gave him life to begin with by exchanging the sinful stuff inside of Paul for the perfect-ness of Jesus. That's a good reason to love Him!
Next week, we are going to look at what God has to say about loving people. I have a feeling I might need to work on that part too... Thanks for reading! See you next time.
--Bob

