Our YOUTH GET-TOGETHER on Sunday went very well. We had 51 youth from nine area churches attend. Youth from Garden City, Meade, Lakin, Colby, Hugoton, Satanta, Minneola, Ulysses and even Moriarity, N.M. were present. We bowled for 2 ½ hours, had a devotional and then shared a meal here at the building. Garden City shared the hosting of the event with us.

Thanks to John Turner for leading singing and Wes Baldwin for the devotional talk on "Nothing to Fear." Also, thank you to the men who cooked (Tracy Caffey and Glen Lubbers) and all the ladies who worked on the meal for us (Cathy Tyler, Lynda Caffey, Mary Smith, Nina Foster, Kristi Anderson, Jennifer Baker, Cheryl Baldwin ). Jennifer and Janet Newman did the registration. Others provided snacks, ran Power Point and did other acts of service. Thanks to you all! Our youth enjoyed their time with Christian teens from other churches.

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL is just around the corner. The dates are July 29 to August 1. Our theme is Here am I: Mission Possible. We will be looking at missionaries and ministers in the Bible: Isaiah, Samuel, Moses and Jesus.

We have numerous open slots for you to volunteer and serve for this event. We need teachers and leaders for various activities. Please look at the list on the window of the nursery and find an activity to sign up for!

Summer is BIBLE CAMP season and our youth attend several camps. There is a table outside of my office with applications that several area camps have sent us. Consider sending your children, and consider going as an adult staff member! Camp is as exciting, fun and challenging for the adults as it is for the youth and kids. You will make friends with great Christian people from all over.

I think it is important to encourage our youth in their faith in all the ways that are available to us. The July issue of the Christian Chronicle has an article entitled, "Are We Losing Our Young People?" Flavil Yeakley’s research indicates that 45% of our young people leave the church after graduating from high school. Outside the Bible Belt that figure is as high as 80%.

Why do they leave? One minister quoted in the article says, "We never had them." They attended, but they never caught the gratitude for salvation, appreciation for body life or evangelistic fervor. Another couple says we expect the church to do too much of the training and teaching when we as parents need to be doing more of that at home.

One way to retain children is by involving them in actual mission work. Youth today want to do. Discussions about topics do not bind them as a group or generate interest like taking a mission trip does. (John Turner is planning/leading an inner city mission trip for our youth to Dallas this August! Let John know if you are interested in going).

One thing is certain ... we have to do all we can as a church and as families to implant the Word of God in the hearts of our children. Youth events, VBS, Bible camps, Bible classes, worship services, family discussions, mission trips, Christian friends ... we can’t leave anything out!!

Please look at the schedule of activities for the rest of this summer and decide where and how you will help in these various ministries to our youth. Thanks!

On a more regular basis, think of someone in this community that you can be in ministry to: a single-parent family, an older person, a child from your neighborhood or ball team. Visit in their homes, invite them into your home for a meal, pick them up for Bible class. Not only will such mission efforts potentially help these people and encourage us who do them, it will impress upon our children that we have a heart for God and his people. It is also preparing our own kids for a lifetime of faithfulness and mission!

Note: I will have some copies of the Christian Chronicle article on the table in the lobby for you to read.

Warren Baldwin

ULYSSES CHURCH OF CHRIST WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JULY 1, 2007 THOSE SERVING US TODAY

SONG SERVICE: Jason King

OPENING PRAYER: David Higgins

LORD’S TABLE: Bill Brown, Brian French

SCRIPTURE READING: Shane Sullivan, Rom. 12:1-2

SERMONS: AM: Living Sacrifices; PM: "Out of This World"

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Jason King

CLOSING PRAYER: Neal Haddock

POWERPOINT: Rick Trejo

BACKROOM/AISLE: Rob Berry

IN OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

Perhaps the title of this article has you laughing and whispering to yourself, "Well, that shows you what he knows. I’ve had a financial problem for years!" The title is actually part of a quote by Duane Sheriff. The longer quote reads,

"People at large do not have a financial problem; they have a stewardship, discipline and faithfulness problem."

Duane’s comment appears in the book, The Storehouse Principle: A Revolutionary God Idea for Creating Extraordinary Financial Stability by AL Jandl and Van Crouch (p.160). The premise of the book is based upon Deuteronomy 28:8: "The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." (KJV)

When God led the Israelites into the promised land he blessed them with homes, fertile farm fields and fruit trees. All of their material needs would be met. But God looked for faithfulness and obedience from the Israelites. One area where their trust would be tested would be in the rest God demanded for the land. Every seven years the land was to lie fallow. Nothing could be planted. Just as the people and animals received rest every seven days, the land would receive rest every seven years.

What would people eat during that year of rest when the land would not produce food? The food grown in the sixth year would be eaten then and the extra food that God provided would be saved in a storehouse to eat during the seventh year and then into the eighth year when the people planted crops and waited for the harvest. The crops grown in year six would actually provide food for part of three years.

Would the people trust God to NOT plant their crops and allow the land to lie at rest? Would they obey God? That was a great test! At lest three spiritual attitudes would be necessary for the people to obey. They would need to be faithful. They would need to trust God and obey him whether it made sense to them or not! Secondly, they would need stewardship, meaning, they would need to manage their resources (food) responsibly. They would need to save food from year six to carry them through year seven and into year eight! Finally, they would need to practice discipline. No matter how tempted they might be to skimp on what they set aside or to dip into their reserves of food, they had to resist and practice restraint! Enough food had to be set aside to span three years, and strict faith, stewardship and discipline had to be exercised!

Drawing on this principle, authors Jandl and Crouch say the principle of God blessing the "storehouse" still applies to us today. We may not store food in our storehouse, but money. Money from every check we receive should be stored up and not touched. No matter how pressing our wants or needs (or even bills!), money must be set aside. When we practice restraint in our spending and save, we build a storehouse for the future which God promises to bless. If we don’t save, there is no storehouse for God to increase for us.

Saving in ancient Israel or today requires the same spiritual attitudes of faithfulness, stewardship and discipline. If we lack these virtues, we will spend everything we make and then pull out credit cards. Our financial world will spiral out of control. We will feel stressed, burdened and angry. We may think we need to make more money. But as one man who practiced the "storehouse principle" says in the book,"People at large do not have a financial problem; they have a stewardship, discipline and faithfulness problem." Often our financial problems are not that we don’t make enough money, but that we are not thankful for what we do have and we don’t exercise faith, stewardship and discipline. The heart of our financial woes is a heart that is not obeying God for our spiritual and material security.

Warren Baldwin

ULYSSES CHURCH OF CHRIST WEEKLY NEWSLETTER JUNE 3, 2007 THOSE SERVING US TODAY

SONG SERVICE: John Turner

OPENING PRAYER: Karl Baker

LORD’S TABLE: Gene Pflughoft, Keith Steele

SCRIPTURE READING: Brian French, Mark 9:33-37

SERMONS: AM: The Covenant Community (Jerry Palmer); PM: Wes Baldwin

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Karl Baker

CLOSING PRAYER: Ken Kistler

POWERPOINT: Tracy Caffey

BACKROOM/AISLE: Rick Trejo