Browsing Tag

Teens

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Guest Writer–Seventeen and Sanctified

Posted on January 21, 2016
1459053_1056971667657927_2195731218135519110_nRecently, while visiting a congregation in Memphis, Tennessee, I met (or even re-met, I think) Kaleigh Barringer. Keleigh has a lot of renewable energy about the gospel, about putting the Lord first, about the challenges of coming nose-to-nose with the temptations to sin in ways that are so accepted in our modern teen culture that they make teen life in the Lord seem an everyday exercise in extremism. Kaleigh submitted this to “Bless Your Heart”. It did bless mine.
Seventeen and Saved : The Challenges of Sanctification When Everybody Just Wants To Have Fun.     
Picture this! You’re on a chair or table and your friend is on the ground. You reach your hand out to pull her up, but it’s easier for her to pull you down, than for your friend to pull you up.                           
It’s hard sometimes being a Christian when we have people around us who party all the time, curse, and go against everything thing we believe. Often we call these people our friends.
We want to try to be good influences on our friends because we love them. Sometimes, though, if you don’t agree with what they’re doing, they’ll say you’re not being very loving or say “Judge Not”, or maybe just stop being friends with you all together. It’s important to know that all you can do is plant the seed.
” Dear friend we stand here
After a life of friendship as deep as the sea
But As I stand here at His throne, I wonder
Why you never mentioned Him to me.
You held this knowledge in your heart
You knew I was lost in sin;
And as I ask you why you said nothing
You say you were afraid you would offend.
You kept this saving secret
Of love beyond compare.
If only I had known…
If only I had been aware…
You could have told me something;
Could have shared this gift.
You watched my every mistake
Maybe you didn’t realize how life could so quickly drift.
“I never knew you” is what He said to me;
But I never knew Him either;
You never mentioned Him to me.
As I look back on my life
I wish I would have seen
How different my life would have been
If I knew He was my king.
I wish you would have taught me.
I wish I had lived differently.
I thought you were my friend
But you never mentioned Him to me.
Now that life is over
And He has sealed my fate,
Maybe you thought about telling me
But now it’s much too late.”-S.E.L.
Being a Christian may not be the most popular thing, but in the long run, it’ll be worth it.
Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Girls Who Have the Spirit (The Meek and Quiet Spirit!)

Posted on June 4, 2015

Pic1This week, it’s been a real source of gladness for me to work with girls at POINT, one of the best camps I’ve ever attended. It’s small. It’s fun. And it’s jam-packed with the spiritual! I’m looking at a round table of girls right now who are planning a class for young children about the prominent woman of Shunem in II Kings 4. They have baked bread, put together costumes, and, just now, they all sneezed loudly in unison. (You’ll have to read the chapter!) They’re auditioning for the best sneezer!

These are girls who have the right spirit. They’re working in his service. They are meek. They will tell you that their cause is bigger than themselves. They may not sound so quiet in this video, but they do remind me of this poem. They are working to be virtuous women!

 

The Virtuous Woman

A MEEK AND QUIET SPIRIT

LET ME WEAR WITH JOY I PRAY.

LET THOSE JEWELS OF THE HEART

GRACE MY SPIRIT, LORD,TODAY

TAKE FROM ME THE PEARLS OF RICHES

THAT WOULD KEEP ME, LORD, FROM THEE.

DRAPE ME WITH THE PEARLS OF WISDOM;

THAT THY SPIRIT I MAY SEE.

LET ME NOT, LIKE JAMES AND JOHN,

SEEK THE PLACE OF GRANDEST FAME.

REMIND ME THAT THE SAVIOR

AS A SERVANT HUMBLY CAME.

LET ME BE THE VIRTUOUS WOMAN;

SEEKING GOOD THROUGH ALL MY DAYS.

GIVE ME WEALTH FAR MORE THAN RUBIES;

IN THE GATES, REWARDS OF PRAISE.

CINDY COLLEY

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Mama’s K.I.S.S. #34–Ladies’ Day Participation

Posted on January 20, 2015

10930887_10152530654641384_8560838046804738628_nAs you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been presenting installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” This is number 34  of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids (today our girls, particularly) to have servant hearts. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

Perhaps this service suggestion is more to the women-at-large in our congregations than to individual moms. I want to implore you to keep having ladies’ days, women’s conferences, sisters’ seminars, ladies retreats and women’s sessions at lectureships and I want to tell you that I have personally seen the lasting benefits of involving our young girls in the execution of these events. I have traveled to speak at both kinds of events—those events in which there were no young women on the program and those where fresh young faces were before us leading us in songs and prayers and reading scripture. After having participated in these programs for over thirty years now, I can tell you that typically the congregations whose teen members (and even younger girls) were included in the ladies events are the ones which are, still today, enjoying a more vibrant, working local sisterhood. I have watched teen girls who gave short devotionals at women’s events or ladies’-nights-out develop into excellent ladies day speakers, who are now holding the line in sound teaching for women and faithful women’s service areas—the ones we read about in Titus 2.

I’m very excited that, this past weekend, I sang with a large group of women led by two teen girls. Young women lead the prayers and introduced me to the audience. I’m even more excited that, in a couple of weeks, I’ll attend our own West Huntsville ladies retreat where about a fifth of the women in attendance will be high school and college girls. I’ve watched them grow up. I love them, in some ways like they are my own. I’m thankful they are plugged into the work of the West Huntsville family. But that kind of zeal and that sense of inclusion doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years of offered opportunities and encouragement following successful participation. But you want it in your congregation. It makes for great mothers and wives and zealous workers in the kingdom. It makes for great people raising our future elders and preachers! So use those girls in your ladies’ activities and when they finish the job, give them big hugs, write them notes of encouragement and then look for ways to use them again.

Just yesterday I planned a fall ladies’ weekend with ladies in the coastal area of Virginia. They have elderly ladies who are comfortable driving to activities in the daytime only, so they entitled the Friday night session  “Planning your Happy Home,” a “prevent-disaster” type of lesson for women who are not yet married or are young wives and mothers. This kind of planning is wise on the part of the older ladies who are “teachers of good things” as Titus 2 instructs. The younger women who are able to come will not only benefit from leading women in worship, but they will get a full dose of practical home-making tips from the Scriptures. And when I say home-making tips, I mean the wisdom from the Father that makes homes strong enough to get to the golden shore intact, with all family members in the spiritual boat.  I know there are no guarantees, sisters, but there are spiritual life preservers and inflatable life boats if we plan ahead and know how to use them.

Getting to heaven is a family affair… in your little unit and in the family of God. We need each other. I’m glad God bought the church. It was expensive to purchase the worldwide family unit I needed so much (Acts 20:28). I’m glad for the security of that large purchase.

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Got Boys? Make a New Year’s Resolution.

Posted on December 31, 2014

images-10Satan is trying so hard to turn your teen boy’s head and heart from the purposes you’ve diligently cultivated in him. He’s a teenager now. You don’t cuddle with him in your lap, read him stories or play Candy Land with him anymore. In fact, it seems there’s more “device-time” now than there is real parental communication going on in his world. So, what’s a mom to do? Do we really raise them for the first twelve years just to watch our relationships and influence slowly erode, making us virtual strangers in the same houses?

No!! You and your husband can foster a close bond with your teenage son. I see it happening all around me. It’s challenging because of what the devil is doing in your son’s world of school, peers, and media. But it is possible and it is eternally rewarding! I hope to include snippets throughout the coming year in this blog about ways we, as moms, can enable our sons on the path to holy living and godly leadership. For today, let me tell you about an upcoming day in Tennessee that’s worth your drive for a great and intentional beginning of a better 2015 for your son (or in the case of my correspondence this morning, your whole boys youth group!)…

Just this morning I got a text from a friend who works with youth in a small congregation…a group of kids who want to be active, have good hearts, but just cannot afford the large hotel-housed youth events that are doing much good these days.  I am going to suggest an event for your boys that will cost you nothing but gas to get there and may possibly even exceed (in individual hearts) the great good done at a mega-youth event. I say this because of the subject material and because I’m a little biased regarding the speaker.

If you have boys in your home or youth group, please consider the following. I can personally attest to the fact that, if your boys take to heart the material presented  from the Word on January 17th at Fairview and if they make the practical applications in their lives (applications that will be clearly taught in this short seminar), they will live the rest of their teen years in purity and become leaders in godly homes.

I’d pay a lot of money and drive a long way for that kind of training. But you don’t have to pay a lot! Free admission, free housing for out-of-town guests in Christian homes, free breakfast and lunch, and a free t-shirt?!  It’s like getting all the best things about an EU or a EYC or a CYC (or some other letters) without the cost that might be prohibitive. It’s also a great event for dads and sons to attend together. (Makes for some great family Bible time discussions later on.)

Your guys will hear about dating behavior, leadership skills, how to combat the temptations pornography presents in our world, and how to make spiritually healthy media choices. They will hear about the way real men choose women of faith and then how they treat those godly women.

So here’s the lowdown. Be sure and make your reservation within the next few days. The t shirt will be the least valuable thing your guys come away with, but still, they will want one!

Boys to Men:  Doing it God’s Way 2015

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.

Time:  9 am to 2pm

Speaker: Glenn Colley

@ Fairview church of Christ, Pulaski, TN

1765 Industrial Loop Road, Pulaski, 38478

**Breakfast and Lunch provided

**Out of town housing available on a first come first serve basis.  We will do our very best to make sure everyone has a place to stay.

Also find us on FB.

Free T-shirts available if you pre-register by January 7, 2015

Link to register: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1TbcIZOd_1T1jmYLnqGlf8z0IXsNe31iTsgh040v5JA0/viewform

 

Boys to Men: Doing it God’s Way 2015 – Registration Form

docs.google.com

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Seminar with a Guarantee

Posted on January 9, 2014

unmadebedA father who wears the name “Christian” reveals to his recently divorced wife and to his teenage children that he is a practicing homosexual. A young minister’s wife leaves her husband for another man. A young married couple walk down the aisle to ask for the prayers of their church family as they struggle to hold a marriage together in the wake of revelations of adultery on the parts of both spouses. A young woman, raised in the body, lashes out at Christians who try to convince her to stop living in fornication with her boyfriend. A young woman stops just short of fornication after inviting a friend into her apartment when he drops by to return something she had left in his car. She’s not sure if he is a married man or not.

These scenarios have a few things in common. First, they are all real scenarios–situations about which Glenn or I have been contacted within the last two weeks. Second, and sadly, they all involve people who were once faithful New Testament Christians. Third, they all involve sexual sin.

The devil loves to attack the people of God with sexual temptation. He did it to one of the families in the church of Christ at Corinth (I Corinthians 5). He did it to the church in Thyatira through that wicked woman, Jezebel, in Revelation 2:20. We should never let our guards down in our homes and congregations when it comes to sexual purity. If the devil can get us to succumb to fornication, he has succeeded in defiling our temples (I Cor. 6:19), inflicting injury to our bodies (I Cor. 6:18), grasping glory from our Lord (I Cor. 6:20) and endangering our congregations (I Cor, 5: 6). It’s a big win for the devil.

Through our society, which is saturated with pornography, sexual content in entertainment venues and so-called “tolerance of sexual choices”, our children are often targeted by Satan at very early ages. In fact, I would venture to say that if your children enter God-approved marriages having maintained sexual purity throughout the dating years, it will not be accidental. It will result from intentional parenting and early decision-making that happens primarily in the home.

But intentional parents will also take advantage of resources that help enable kids to make early choices for purity. Let me illustrate it this way:

Suppose I told you that a seminar was occurring in a couple of weeks about ACT test preparation. Suppose I told you that tips would be given at this seminar and that I could guarantee that, if you diligently applied all of these tips, your child would be able to score a 33 or above on the ACT during her senior year of high school. You, being the smart mom you are, would have made your plans in the first thirty seconds of a New York minute to be at that seminar.

Suppose I told you that a seminar was occurring in a couple of weeks about preparation for sexual purity. Suppose I told you that tips would be given at this seminar and that I could guarantee that, if you diligently applied all of these tips, your child would be able to navigate the single years in sexual purity. Would you make plans to be at that seminar?

The difference between the two scenarios may be more than singular. But one difference is this: No one can guarantee your child a 30 on the ACT. But I really can guarantee that tips will be given at any purity seminar at which I speak that, if diligently applied, will take your child through the single years in purity. This, of course, is true, not because I’m giving the advice, but because it emanates from the Creator Who knows what’s good for your child and Who made a way of escape from every temptation (I Cor. 10:13).

I understand that you can get this advice without coming to a seminar (We all read the same book.) I know it may not be possible for you to come. I know your child can navigate the teen years in purity even if she doesn’t come to a seminar. Many have successfully done it. All the same, though, using every tool available is a great idea in this sex-saturated climate.

So here is just one upcoming seminar. If you live within driving distance of Pulaski, Tennessee, I hope to see you there. It’s just one stop on a long journey we’re making together to a place where impurity will be a thing of the past. Can’t wait for that! Register Here!

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