It may seem impossible, but we know the LORD wants to bring life to this generation. We exist to resurrect a generation.

Awaken’s Mission Statement:

We exist to see a generation come alive through relationship with Jesus, grow in a life consumed by faith and compassion, and be equipped to make disciples.

See below to listen to the message:

Here’s how we applied it to the students:

1. We let them know how important they were to God
2. They have a destiny (that’s happening now, not later)
3. They are not alone

Click here for the message notes.

You can listen to the audio recording here:

He made it clear that everything begins on the foundation of Jesus and our relationship with Him. Upon that we are to build good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, and loving others. And all of this is to point back to Jesus.

Here is the audio recording:

Concerning worship:

We challenged the students in their worship. We took out all of the chairs… had a few art stations… Hannah challenged the students concerning their worship…

Below are the scriptures that Hannah shared with us before we went into an extended time of worship:

Outward expressions of our worship:

• Singing
  Psalms 146:1-2 – “Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, I tell myself. I will praise the LORD as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God even with my dying breath.”
• Shouting
  Psalm 71:23 – “My lips will shout for joy when I sing praise to you— I, whom you have redeemed.”
• Raising Hands
  Psalm 63:4 – “I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands.”
• Dancing
  Psalm 149:3 – “Praise His name with dancing, accompanied by tambourine and harp.”
• Clapping
  Psalm 47:1 – “Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy.”
• Bowing
  Psalm 95:6 – “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.”
• Meditating
  Psalm 145:5 – “They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty, and I will meditate on your wonderful works.”

Outward expressions of worship should only come out of an inward affection.

Other Ways to Express Worship:

• Living Sacrifices
  Romans 12:1 – “And so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will accept. When you think of what He has done for you, is this too much to ask?”
• All for His Glory
  1 Corinthians 10:31 – “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
• Fruitful Life
  Philippians 1:11 – “May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—those good things that are produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.

Concerning Fun:

After the service, we had a silly string war. We had been given a case of silly string from one of the organizations we served at on our Serve Pittsburgh Mission Trip. Below is a video clip of the battle:

Silly String War from Awaken Youth Church on Vimeo.

Here is the audio recording of the message:

We looked at the passages of Scripture where Paul is discussing his personal relationship with Jesus and how he had counted everything else as loss (garbage, dung, dog dung — depending on your translation).

The question of the night was: “Do you have dog poop in your life?”

If you would like to read over the message notes, please click here.

As for listening to the message, check it out below:

Here is the video from the baptism…

Awaken Youth Church Baptism from Chris Davis on Vimeo.

1. We cannot let anything hold us back from telling other people about God
   Acts 4:20 “For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard”
2. Our lives, not just our words need to point others to God
   Acts 6:5 “This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism”
3. We need to make our message contextual but not compromise
   Romans 10:14 “How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

The messag recording will be available soon.

Last night, June 10th, we started a new series called “Deeper”.

The challenge from last night can be summed up in one question: “If Heaven or Hell were not an issue, would you even care about God?”

So often our relationship with God has been limited to our ticket into Heaven and Him helping us in time of need. Both of those are part of it, but they are not the whole part of it.

If we say we love God and truly have a relationship with Him:

1. He should have our heart
2. He should have our attention
3. He should have our pursuit

To listen to the message from last night:

And here are the message notes from last night:
Click here to view them