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

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!

This week I went and saw the new christian movie "To Save A Life". Now as a movie lover and critic I'm always skeptical about Christian movies, "Facing the Giants" for example was a powerful movie with a great message that almost got lost on the fact that none of the actors could act their way out of a paper bag. "To Save A Life" is the rare Christian movie that not only has a powerful message and halfway decent acting but also is the kind of movie that you can take your unsaved friends to without worrying about having them make fun of you afterward. From a youth ministry stand point I thought it really dealt with a lot of real issues in real situations. It doesn't shy away from the "tough" or "awkward" subjects but rather takes them on without compromise. After watching it you will no doubt examine your life and maybe even be motivated to make some changes. So bottom line: go check it out and take your friends (unsaved preferably), you won't regret it. 

One of the highlights of every single year happens during the month of December right before Christmas. For two years in a row now we have organized a gift drive for Rancho Damacitas, a local group home, in which we have been able to sponsor Christmas for about 35 kids. All the items are donated by members of Sunridge who go above and beyond during the holiday season to live out Matthew 25:40 and "do for one of the least of these brothers of mine". Today I received an awesome package from Rancho Damacitas that included a dozen handmade and handwritten cards from the kids there expressing their gratitude to Sunridge. Since so many people played a role in making this generous gift happen I thought I would post a picture of a couple of the cards. So without further delay...enjoy and thank you!

On Wednesday we begin our new series titled "Messy Spirituality" and so in preparation I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the word "spiritual" means. I asked my team of leaders what came to mind when I asked them to think of spiritual things and found that most of them visualized a sunset at the beach. It's one of God's most beautiful and simplest creations and when we look at it we can't help but be drawn to God. Well what it is about a sunset that draws us to God? If something as simple as a sunset at the beach can be spiritual then why do we dismiss ourselves as nonspiritual beings?