Our last series for the 2009-2010 school year will be Jesus: The Biography. It's going to be an exciting in-depth study of the man who we know as Jesus. The series will be told much like a biography examining his life in chronological order starting with his birth. The two other weeks will cover his ministry and his death all examined through the eyes of the people who wrote his life story and the people who prophesied about him hundreds of years before he was born.  

Check out the What's Going On? page to see some of our upcoming events as well as our new Wednesday series.

"Hidden Talents" was our most recent Sunday series and as an intro for both weeks we filmed videos of some of our leaders and students performing some of their "Hidden Talents"...here's part two but make sure to scroll down and watch week 1 as well.

The following was written by one of our high school students. It's awesome to see our high schoolers not only thinking about God but also trying to answer the questions they have about Him while also sharing with others. So enjoy and make sure to leave a comment...

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
God brought everything into being within a week.
Day 1: day and night
Day 2: sky and water
Day 3: land and plants
Day 4: the Sun, moon and stars
Day 5: fish and birds
Day 6: animals and man
The sixth day… the day God created man. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). Male and female. Adam and Eve.
In those beginning times, Adam and Eve were blameless. They didn’t do anything wrong, so they could walk with God. Literally. God would walk side by side with Adam and Eve in their home of the Garden of Eden.
All that changed because of an ability God gave to Adam and Eve.
He gave them free will, the ability to choose, by giving them a rule. “And the LORD God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
God gave Adam and Eve the ability to choose because he wanted them to choose to love and obey him. Which they did… for a time.
Then the devil, Satan, disguised himself as a serpent and spoke with Eve. He twisted God’s rule to make it appear that the LORD was keeping something wonderful from the humans by telling them not to eat from that one tree. So Eve broke the rule and ate from the tree. Adam followed her lead.
Sin had entered the world.
Because they chose to do this, Adam and Eve could no longer walk with God. They were kicked out of the Garden of Eden and the nature of the human race changed and became sinful. From there on out no human was ever blameless.
So God established rules for man to follow so that they could continue to have a connection with Him.
He created laws and complicated rituals that usually involved killing a perfect animal to make up for whatever someone had done wrong. Men who wanted to obey the LORD followed these for centuries.
During all that time, God sent prophets to foretell of the coming of someone who would save the people from their sins. Someone who would set them free.
The people imagined a warrior. A king. Someone who would come into the picture with trumpets and worldwide announcements.
So they didn’t recognize their salvation when he came.
Jesus. 100% God and 100% human. The Son of Man. The Son of God.
Within his lifetime, Jesus healed the sick, cured the blind and lame and mute and deaf and raised the dead. He taught people God’s will and love.
Not once in his life on earth did Jesus sin. He never thought something wrong. Never did anything sinful. Never. The only human ever to not once have sinned.
But because he claimed to be (and, in fact, was) God, he was sentenced to death like a criminal would be—by crucifixion.
Why?
Jesus was like the perfect animal that God had required for sins in the old times. He was the Ultimate sacrifice. He was God himself taking all of our sin on himself and dying for it.
But that wasn’t enough.
Six hours of suffocation, nails, thorns, mockery, and bearing every sin ever to be committed by every person to ever live was not enough.
Jesus spent three days dead. The ‘legal’ time for a person to be declared ‘officially dead’.
Then he came back to life. He resurrected.
Satan’s best punch is death. He intended to make Adam and Eve and their children die. He intended to use sin and death to keep us from our Maker.
Jesus destroyed that punch by taking it and then defying it.
What does this mean for us?
Everything.
We can go back to the perfection of the Garden of Eden. We can walk side by side with the LORD. We can take back that original connection with our Father that Satan attempted to ruin for us.
By his death, Jesus made us a gift that could make us blameless before God.
By our choice, we can accept that gift and be blameless.
How do we accept it?
Simple. “…confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your hear that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
‘What if it doesn’t apply to me’, you might think.
How could it not apply to you?
“For all have sinned…” (Romans 3:23, italics mine).
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, italics mine).
“For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13, italics mine).
This is for you. So accept the gift. He’s waiting with open arms. He’s listening. He has “loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3). He wants you.

By Alyssa Scott 10th grade

To intro our new two week Sunday study on the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25) I asked some of our leaders and students to show me their "hidden talents". The following video shows some of the chaos that ensued so enjoy and join us soon!

In an effort to keep you knowledgeable about what's going on in epic I thought I would update you guys on our last couple of events. On April 5 I had a dozen boys come over to my (Mynor) house to watch the NCAA Basketball Championship, we had pizza, soda and of course desert as we watched Duke slip by Butler to win the national championship. The event was a success in that not only did we have an awesome time but we also saw some new faces come around as well as come faces from outside of Sunridge interacting with some of our key epic students.

Our next event was the Rock and Worship Roadshow on April 9 in Ontario, we combined with Chorus Church on this event and took a total group of 32. Once up there we had an awesome time rocking out to Family Force 5, Fee, David Crowder and Mercy Me. On our way home we stopped at Denny's for a much needed time of refueling and fellowship. I love any event where our kids get to interact with students from other churches and ministry and it was amazing to see them worshipping God together especially when Crowder was the one leading the worship.

The last event was this past Friday when we met up for some Midnight Cosmic Bowling. I wasn't sure what our numbers would look like since so much had being going on and this was a late event but as usual God reminded us who was in charge as we had 34 students show up along with 8 leaders for a total group size of 42, you should have seen the line for getting bowling shoes! What made the event even more amazing was that our students all made a huge effort to invite their friends and in the end we had 8 students who had never been to epic before. My favorite story of the night was of one of the new girls who told Theresa Dalton in the car ride over that her mom had told her that "if she had fun they would start going to church". I know she had a lot of fun because she told me so now let's see if her mom keeps her word!

Came across a powerful website earlier today that I thought I'd share with everyone. The website is iamsecond.com and on it you'll find some powerful testimonies. The one that caught my attention the most was was of Brian "Head" Welch, the former guitarist for the band "Korn".

Our epic intern Kyle wanted to show the church how to use one of our "Got it Covered" promo cards so we headed over to McDonalds and paid for the person behind us...

Someone shared this story with me yesterday and I loved the message it had to share so take a minute and read the following story and leave a comment on how it made you feel...

Stories carry vision. They remind us of the "why" behind the "what," the "Who" behind the "why." They celebrate God moments. We love to hear them and share them.

So I wasn't surprised a few weeks ago when Carl, one of our volunteer guest services leaders, shared this story with me. I wasn't surprised because it's what we do and it's who Carl is. But, I was amazed! Here's Carl's story:

Four young men (middle/high school) begin playing "hacky-sack" in the atrium. Because guests were distracted as they tried to take in the service via monitors in the cafe, the guest relations team ask them to go outside.


Some time later I was called to the guest relations kiosk where I was met by a concerned member who wondered if perhaps the boys should be asked to leave. This is where things could have gone "south". I said" Let them play. They aren't hurting anything". We watched as the boys had a great time playing outside the south entrance. After they had enough and were freezing from falling in the snow, they came back into the building. As they re-entered the building, they were laughing loudly, pushing each other and just being boys. Rather than assume they'd continue to distract others, I felt there was a God-opportunity.

Seeing that they just had a great "workout", I approached them and offered to buy a Mountain Dew, because we all know how much teenagers love that stuff. We walked to cafe' 2 and I bought them 4 cans of soda and 2 bags of M&Ms. We walked together down the hall, and I offered them a seat on a bench just outside the auditorium. I talked with them for awhile and learned that the one of the boys mom had "forced them to come" (their words not mine). I told them they were welcome to sit in the hall way for the last 15 minutes of the service. They thanked me and I shook their hands. I told them," I was glad I had the opportunity to meet them and that they were fine young men." (They may have thought that was "goofy".)

After the service was over, I was standing in the atrium as they were leaving. One of them said "see you next time!" That made my weekend!!! What could have been a "forced church hating experience" turned into a wave and a "Next Time". The fact that he even said anything at all was amazing and based on their original thinking about the church, I wasn't expecting the "Next time" comment. All this to say, " What is the next right step for each one"? I don't know, but if we love them, then they're willing to take steps with us. God is good.

I finish with this. 

One ...hacky-sack....$0.99 

Four cans of soda & two bags of M&M.....$3.50 

 

Loving four young men into the Kingdom......PRICELESS

We're kicking off our new March series tonight and it's one I'm extremely excited about. During Religions of the World were going to be doing a fly by overview of some of the world's most influential religions outside of Christianity and Catholicism. I think it's important to know not only what we believe and why we believe it but also what other people believe and why they believe it. This series will be going on both Wednesdays and Sundays with each week spotlighting a different religion. The schedule will go as follows...

March 10: Tribal Religions
March 14: Buddhism
March 17: Mormonism
March 21: Hinduism
March 24: Islam
March 28; Atheism
March 31: Jehovah's Witness