Groceries that Give

There's a way to make grocery shopping a little more purposeful, in addition to entertaining the kiddos with rides on an overburdened cart and providing nutrition for your family.

 

Here's how:  become a part of Fry's Community Rewards program and link your V.I.P. card so that Aim Right receives a benefit from the purchases you make at Fry's. 

 

Click on the Fry's logo below to follow the simple process for signing up.  The first step is creating a V.I.P. online account (have your V.I.P. card number available).  Once that step is completed, click the orange/yellow ENROLL NOW button to link your V.I.P. card.  Type in Aim Right Ministries as your choice organization when asked which charity you wish to support.

 



 

 

Note:  If you signed up for the program last year, THANK YOU!  Fry's requires an annual renewal in the program, so visit here to re-enroll so Aim Right will continue to receive a benefit.  If you're like me and can't recall the password you used a year ago, simply enter your e-mail address and click "Forgot your password," and Fry's will quickly e-mail you a solution.

 

Learning from an Episcopal youth group

In downtown Phoenix, just a few blocks away from our location, is the office of an atheist turned Jesus follower and Young Life leader.  He's now an Episcopal priest and church planter.  How's that for a resumé?  Matt Marino speaks and writes about youth and the church, and has been used as a presenter at some of the UYWI trainings we have attended in the Phoenix area.

Matt wrote this post recently -- a convicting story about a neighborhood teen coming to Christ and how it almost didn't happen because a fun night was on the agenda.  If you persevere until the end of Matt's post, be sure to read the Core Values.  And then read them again.  They're that good.

"In September"

"In September."

That's an answer that's been oft repeated -- whether to the parched, sweat drenched, basketball playing guys who knock on the door for a drink of water, or the Kids Club family you happen to see at the dollar store, or the teens and children that are around the neighborhood.

They want to know when we're going to have [insert program name here] again.

"In September," is the answer.

The other day, as I was preparing to leave Aim Right, I heard a basketball bouncing, but no one was on the court.  Out of curiosity, I walked around the corner; it happened to be two girls, but I didn't recognize either of them.  They wanted to talk.

"When will the church be open?"

We got past the "in September" part, and then the questions lobbed back and forth resulted in my knowing that:

• They are sisters.
• They've never met their real dad, but they have a step-dad that lives with them.
• Their mom was out running some errands related to their brother in jail.  She was "getting their brother's booking number," or something like that. 
• When their brother's not locked up, he doesn't live with them "because of CPS."
• Their grandma takes them to church regularly, and it seemed highly important if our services would incorporate "dance" like the church they're used to attending.
• They attend a "Spanish" church.
• A sister corrected, "No, it's a Christian one."

Sometimes it amazes me how matter-of-factly children share less-than-picturesque details about their home situations.  When a dysfunctional home is all you've known, I suppose you assume that is normal.  While I didn't ask the girls many questions about their family, they volunteered the information.

These girls are still living in "the plastic years," impressionable and hungry for attention; they want to go to church.  Lord willing, "in September," these new faces will be able to join many others as we press into Him and the hope and life-giving truth that He offers.

The Hope Quotient

A quiet blog recently has been the result of a few factors:

1.  A lot of our staff (including myself) has had the opportunity to spend some glorious time away from this still-hot desert to connect with family and friends.  And rest and re-charge.
2.  That means there's not a lot going on program-wise here, other than planning for the kick-off of programs in September.

I've found myself doing quite a bit of reading during this quiet season.  A great read this summer has been The Hope Quotient by Pastor Ray Johnston.  Ray spoke briefly at the conference some of us attended in May.  He's the pastor of a large church in the Sacramento, CA, area; if you haven't heard of him before, you might recognize the name of his church's worship leader:  Lincoln Brewster.

Ray mentioned that he'd recently written a book called The Hope Quotient.  He's quite an engaging speaker, and what he shared about the book made you want to read it -- but apparently not enough that I immediately bought it.

In fact, I didn't give it too much thought after the conference until I was at the library recently and spotted the book in the new release section.  One of the first impressions I had of the book was that its writing style was so similar to Ray's speaking style.  As I made my way through it, torn-off chunks of my library receipt became markers to highlight things I wanted to write down later.  Here are a few of those highlights excerpted from The Hope Quotient:

Jesus was not focused on what people were like.  He was focused on what they could become.

Three good questions to ask to discern if you have a God-given dream:
1.  Is this dream God-honoring?
2.  Will this dream change lives and influence people?
3.  Does this dream resonate with godly, visionary people?

Living for Jesus Christ and living with hope makes all the difference in the world.

-The US has the highest teen pregnancy and birthrate in the developed world.
-Each year 400,000 teen girls give birth in the U.S.
-Every day 959 teenage girls get abortions.
-The U.S. has the highest rate of STD infection in the industrialized world.
-Every 8 seconds during the school year a public high school student drops out.
-Every 47 seconds a child is abused or neglected.

...kids only flourish in a motivational culture of hope.  We need to learn what turns them on, not off.

As kids grow older, we have to become much better at reaching the heart rather than filling the head.  One of the best ways to reach the heart is to provide hope, to help our kids see what they can become, rather than dwell on what they are.

Believe that God can use kids and teenagers. 

Never underestimate what the Holy Spirit will do in partnership with a child's life.

To be blunt about it, you could close the doors of the average church in America and the community would never miss it, because they have so little connection to the community.

The early church's pattern was that good deeds led to good will, which led to openness to the good news.

"He is risen" are the three words that give the Christian church the solid foundation of hope to offer to every person on the planet.  Those three words signal that death is defeated -- for you, for me, for everyone.  Those three words give us our hope, and there is no situation and no person that cannot be fueled by hope.

Whoever wins the kids wins the culture.

The solution to everything is not the right religion.  It's not the right ritual.  It is the right person.  That person, for your life, is Jesus Christ.

Camp Photos #7 - Wrapped Up, Tied Up, Tangled Up

Many, many years ago, when I was going to camp in Oklahoma, we used to sing a song that had these lyrics:

 

"I'm wrapped up, tied up, tangled up in Jesus..."  (The version we learned was something like this; before you laugh too hard, please refer to the opening line of this post:  many, many years ago)

 

The song has nothing to do with the team-building activity that Aim Right campers did in Colorado this summer, except that they did get all wrapped up and tied up and probably even tangled up as they scoured the playing field for little cards with their names printed on them.