PARENTS: Check out this email from Ron Luce

Friends, Something exciting happened to my family a few weeks ago. We got a call from the editors over at Charisma Magazine. They wanted to run a feature story on my family because of the parenting book we just published called ReCreate!

My wife, Katie, and I wrote ReCreate to share stories of how we made it a priority to raise Godly children and build a Christ-centered culture in the home (Charity, my middle daughter, even helped write the teen version!). It turns out that the editors at Charisma were just amazed to see all three kids in one family absolutely in love with God and pursuing them with their lives. A lot of families in ministry really struggle when it comes to their children, and they wanted to find out how we did it.

I don’t think we did anything special. It’s all in the book, but we always prayed for our kids and with our kids. And I really think the kids are doing so well because of Katie—she’s just amazing. But really what it came down to was a decision to put our kids first. After God and our marriage, our kids have been our top priority, even before ministry. That’s been the guiding principle for us as parents, and we’ve had to fight very hard to keep that focus. It wasn’t always easy, but it was worth it!

Please pray for this article! We really hope that this story in Charisma and the book itself is an encouragement and blessing to all of the families that read it. The article will be in the March issue.

Until then, you can watch some videos we recorded for each chapter in the book and order a copy online if you’re interested.

Consumed by the Call

Ron Luce

Founder and President

Youtube

We risk a lot when we give our kids an Internet connection. In my own home, I treat every media type with great responsibility, because I know the power it has to influence me, my wife and my son.

But the Internet is a special case because in an instant, students can take it anywhere—from the most innocent children’s game to the most vile adult content. That’s why YouTube is especially dangerous. It’s incredibly popular, and it bridges the gap between innocent and insidious, making it so easy for pure intentions to wander into temptations and sin.

A new study by the Parent’s Television Council proved just that. It found that explicit content is many times only one click away from children. Even sample searches on YouTube for child-friendly topics like “Miley Cyrus” led to offensive content, and many blatantly pornographic videos did not require any form of age verification. In other words, your kids can—and probably already have—gone on YouTube to watch a perfectly innocent video, and without even trying, they were exposed to much more than you wanted them to see.

We cannot be stand-offish about what our kids are doing online. It is a cultural battleground and we too often let them wander right into the middle of it! Here are a few steps you can take to protect your teens:

Talk with your teens about the dangers of the Internet.
Teach them to “run at first glance” if they ever come across something questionable, even if they weren’t looking for it.
Keep computers in open, public places, like the living room. This is the easiest and best way to protect your entire family because it keeps everyone accountable.
Use an internet filtering service like safeeyes
Build open relationships with your teens by spending quality time with them every day.

And please pray with me for God’s protection and blessing over our young people and children.

Dating. Boundaries Message Highlights

Boundary #1

The Person must be born again.

2 Corinthians 6:14

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

The word “Yoke” means to be bound together in comment to one another.  When two animals are yoked together and one turns left the other has to turn left.  It is critical that you walk with people that are going in the same direction.

Boundary #2 

The person must have the same commitment to sexual purity.  

Ephesians 5:3

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people.

They must have had this commitment before you showed up…not because you showed up.

Boundary #3

The Person must respect you. 

Does this person treat you with dignity, purity, honor, and respect?  If not move on!

4 Ways to avoid sexual Temptation

1. Avoid the places of Temptation: Romans 13:14

·         If you are around friends that tempt you – Get new friends

·         If certain movies arouse temptation – Change what you watch

·         Don’t be alone – Stay in public

2. Purpose to remain pure: Daniel 1:8

·         You must decide upfront to remain pure

 3. Hold yourself accountable to someone

4. Hide God’s word in your heart

Inside My Weekend

Friday
½ day in the office
½ day meeting with engineer and architect
Went to dinner with family at cracker barrel
Rented a video game (hot wheels racing)
Watched History Channel
Bed

Saturday
Slept In
Worked on Finances
Cleaned up the Jeep
Went to dinner with Family to Friends House (the Cuellar’s)
Stopped in at Toys R Us in Melbourne
Home Late

Sunday
Up Early
Prepared Pastor’s Final Message for Presentation
Burned DVD’s for Adults and Students that were baptized
Worship – AWESOME!
Lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s
Afternoon nap (30 minutes)
Took our son (Colin) to a birthday party
Popped in on our high school lifegroup
Watched the Superbowl at the Romer’s
Bed

Battle fo the Burgers // BIG EVENT

Through the years I have produced some really bad promotional pieces. Pormotional pieces for camps, weekend retreats, big events, or just simple information handouts detailing our weekly ministry. Years ago in a creative meeting, I decided that our print pieces needed to be done with excellence. I wanted them to represent the ministry and be somthing that our students would be proud to hand out to their friends.
Remember the key to a good print piece is quality and info! At 24.7 our quality comes from our worship pastor, Ron Gehrke. Ron, is one of the most talented graphic designers I have ever worked with. In our creative meetings every Thursday morning, we layout waht is needed for design and Ron works his magic.

Our info comes from a mixture of staff, interns and students. We mainly create pieces in our creative meeting, but there are times info is added in an intern meeting or simply sitting down with a student and listening to what he/she thinks would convey our message.
Note: We try to make our promo pieces different sizes but we always make them small enough to put in their pocket unless it is a mailer.


I have added a sample of a print piece we did this fall from one of our big events (battle of the burgers) and links to a few print companies we use.

http://www.imagemedia.com/

http://www.overnightprints.com/

Video Game: Call of Duty: World at War

Background/summary:
This World War II first person shooter game released in November of 2008. The game is a highly anticipated sequel in the famed Call of Duty series that has already made four very successful games, including the most recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which made monumental strides in weaponry, combat technology, and Internet multiplayer gaming. The rating on World at War by the ESRB is “Mature,” due to graphic shooting violence. Nevertheless, this game proves to be a big hit amongst players of all ages, as evidenced by the near-constant 100,000+ gamers playing the Xbox Live online multiplayer at any given time.

Discover: What is the message/worldview?
• The main storyline of this game involves two theaters of World War II, fighting as an American marine in the Pacific theater (against the Japanese) and as a Russian in the European theater (against the Germans).

• As you progress through the game, there are a series of cut-scenes that enact various storyline pieces and introduce the player to the tasks he/she must complete. The cut scenes show everything from brutal executions to triumphal rescues, depending on location in the storyline.

• Because of the war setting, bad language and bloody violence are prevalent throughout the game. Although this may seem a bit excessive, it does grasp some of the reality experienced by real soldiers, so is at least within context.

• The real reason gamer’s love the COD series is the online multiplayer,particularly through Xbox Live on the Xbox360 system. This allows players an unlimited supply of real human competition in various game modes including capture the flag, “war,” search and destroy, etc. These various game modes, coupled with an addictive “challenge” system that allows gamers to unlock new weapons and game features, keep even seasoned veterans coming back for more.

• While most games pride themselves on a 30-hour total game play, World at War has individuals logging exponentially more hours due to the constant desire to “rank up” through the online multiplayer challenges.

• The overall worldview of the game is one of war and carnage, but with an underlying theme that perseverance through trials ultimately can prevail.

Prism

The term “Prism” is symbolic of what happens when a single ray of light hits a glass prism and reflects in multiple beautiful individual color bands.

Last night was the annual Prism Concert at Sebastian River High School. The enjoyed the last 2 years and was really looking forward to the evening. It has been great way to support our students and kick-off our holiday season.

This year was different...we almost were not able to go. We originally bought tickets for Friday night and then realized that we had double scheduled our calendar with a Disney Trip. Then we sold our tickets thinking that everything would sold out and we would not be able to go. But not so! We got tickets for opening nights sold out show.

I am so glad we did. This year was no exception! AWESOME! Two full hours of sheer entertainment. We were even able to talk Colin and believe it or not for 2 full hours he sit in his seat and he loved it. Drums, Horns, Dance...all orchestrated together to near perfection.

Thank you Elisa, Lisa, Katie, Frankie, Ashley, Jessica, Whit and the entire cast and staff for a great evening.

Pastor Joe