What a GREAT weekend!

What an awesome weekend we have had as a youth group here at Unite. It started Saturday morning with Unite's 1st Annual Walk-A-Thon. This was an event that allowed us to raise over 4,500 dollars for our students to go to El Salvador for a missions trip this summer! One of our students, Hannah, rocked it out for the ladies and led the whole field with 35 laps (with our size track it equaled 7.5 miles).
Sunday was just as awesome with one of our youth staff, Tamar, teaching our missions trip students a crash course in spanish. I took 3.5 years of spanish and I still learned a couple of new things in the very first class (go Tamar). Then, to have an awesome main service where our lead pastor hasn't been afraid to tackle the topics that many people just want to sweep under the carpet. Islam, Mormonism, the Oprah church, and other religions and popular idealogies and the way they line up with the Word of God. What an awesome tool for us to better understand and love the people in our community that may not share our faith.
Finally, we capped off this crazy weekend with a great youth service where we learned about how we should enter times of change, had a great time in worship, and ended the evening with some birthday cake. Happy Birthday Emily!!!!
Like I said, what a GREAT weekend!
-PMac

unChristian

I know a lot people hate to read, but there is a lot of awesome things that you can learn about if you are willing to put some time aside to read. There are some really cool books, but there is one that I think all teens should at least look at. It is called unChristian. This book is written by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons, and they wanted to see how people that don't claim to have a personal relationship with Jesus viewed christians. What they found out was not very flattering.
They not only show the importance of knowing how people view the church, but also how we can change that perception. It's up to us. If people around us can't see Jesus passed all of the nonsense that we are doing, then that is on us!
I think that the name is so fitting because that is exactly the image that so many people have, unchristian. They view christians as being totally UNLIKE Christ. We need to be loving as Christ loves. We need to start putting away our own pride and selfish ambitions and start going after what God wants for our lives.
Last, if you don't have a relationship with Jesus and maybe you feel as though christians are judgemental, hyprocritical, or even hateful, I challenge you to come out to UNITE at Victory Church sometime. I'd love to meet you and answer ANY questions that you might have.
-PMac

Thank You!!!

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that has been praying for me. I am home now and feeling pretty good. My throat hurts pretty bad when I swallow, but that's it. Thanks for your continued prayers.
PMac