Student Spotlight - Moriah McNeil

Hello CSM, my name is Moriah McNeil and I am still reflecting on the amazing “Hole in Our Gospel" series. Over the past six weeks we have been challenged in so many ways to truly take our eyes off of ourselves, refocus, and make an impact in our world. Last week was no exception when Will called us all to action.


As the rich young ruler was challenged to go beyond the safe and secure life he had acquired, even though it was good, he couldn’t walk away from his “stuff." To me this story is one of the saddest moments in the gospel. (Luke 18:18-22) Will transitioned so dramatically our playing it safe life to an amazing performance on the balance beam. We all laughed when we saw him hanging on and barely moving his feet forward; however, isn’t that the way we often live our lives? Balance Beam is an incredible athletic event unlike any other. For a gymnast the skills themselves are not extremely difficult. If we could stand on the floor and perform them on a line they would be perfect every time. The balance beam becomes challenging when we have to perform these same skills on a four inch beam, four feet in the air. Add wearing a leotard into the mix and it gets really scary. Fear paralyzes you. That’s when you have to remember your foundation, remember your basics and trust your training. When I used to perform at gymnastics meets, I would always pray “ God did not give me a spirit of fear, but of power, strength, and a sound mind.” (II Tim 1:7) Then I would go, much like last week and even after not training on balance beam for over eighteen months—the foundation was still there. I believe if the rich young ruler would have relied on God instead of his other god (stuff) he would have changed the world.
But there is more to the story, continue reading, verses 24-30 illustrate beautifully how sad this picture of the rich ruler was to Jesus and his understanding of how hard it is for the rich (that’s us) to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The comforting words of verse 27 should be our foundation. “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”. If he is truly our cornerstone, our life, our reason for being; then stepping out in faith will not only become easier, it will become our greatest reward. (v30)

How do you let go of the beam and step out into your Olympic sized dreams? Practice and train, soak in the word of God, step out of your comfort zone, put on your serving towel and wash some feet, give up your stuff, open up your life to his will, and don’t let the fear of anything stop you from trying. You might fall - rewind - you will fall, I did! But you get back up and you perform for an audience of One!

So let go of the beam, flip, jump, dance, fly. God wants to make your life a perfect 10.

Love in Christ,

Moriah

Student Spotlight - Justin Griesinger

Hello my name is Justin Griesinger and CSM this week was absolutely amazing! All the people that came, the new smiling faces, and the powerful message! What else can you truly ask for? God really moved in a big way as a eight students came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior!! God is great! This week was the combination of week four and five of The Whole In Our Gospel series it was about how Christians in America need to stop following the American Dream and follow Jesus. America today says that the key to success is how much money you make, how cool your car is, how big your house is, or what clothes you wear. Gods way is the way to go! We talked about Mark 12:41-44, this is about the poor widow that put in all she had to give to Jesus and he said to everyone she was the one who gave the most. Mark 12:43-44, "Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything-all she had to live on.'" The other people who were wealthy put more money but they didnʼt give until it hurt like the widow did.  She was living with audacious faith like Steven Furtick talks about in his latest book Sun Stand Still. Audacious faith is having total faith in God and standing for him with no fear, trusting that he will provide. I want to be known down the road as someone who had audacious faith. We need to learn that the money we get isnʼt our money at all, it is Godʼs money. This brings me to helping the people who arenʼt as fortunate as us. Lets face it, even as teenagers with a part time job if you make 100 dollars a week you are still in the top 15 percent of the world in annual income. That is 75 percent of the worlds population below even teenagers with part time jobs. Our challenge for the week was to give something up whether it be not going out for coffee to not buying that new video game to help someone! The students of CSM are deciding to do something about it we are sponsoring a well for children who donʼt have clean drinking water through charity: water. So far we are around 30 percent there and have 70 percent more to go! To be honest I wasnʼt open to the series at first, but now I am ready to go out and change the world as a youth group and this is how we are doing it! I cannot wait to see what Will Kranz has to say next week in our last week of the Hole In Our Gospel series. I want to invite you next week to come to CSM if you havenʼt been before! It is one of the highlights of my week coming to CSM and its something I always look forward to! Love you guys! God Bless yʼall!

Justin