Welcome!

Welcome to the site of UUPC’s Youth Group, Rising River Youth! Scroll down to see more posts!

Here you can check out our outdoor activities, discussions, renovations in our garage and more, as we update regularly! Click the “Subscribe to blog updates” button on the sidebar with your email address and you’ll get an email every time we update the blog!

Feel free to leave comments on our activities or posts! God Bless!

What Went Down 12 and 19 February

Apologies for not posting last week’s lesson time ran away…

Both last week and today’s lessons will be posted tomorrow.

What’s Coming up…

Don’t forget: No Youth this week because of Communion Sunday!

What Went Down – 29 January 2012

Today was Sue’s first lesson of the year!  She did a quick recap of what we have learned so far in the Youth version of The Truth Project called TrueU.

World view review:

Theism – God made the world and he upholds it and is active in it.

Deism – There is a God who created the world and he is out there somewhere, not involved.

Naturalism – No God -> The Big Bang theory.

Pantheism – He is in the world, in the table, in you, the tree.  God can be anything you want him to be.

She asked us why is it important that we know these world views?

- So we can know what not to believe.

Can we prove that God created the Heavens and The Earth?

No.  That is why people are trying to prove he did not and why we need to have faith.

 

The Lesson:

The Big Bang Cosmology:

• There has to be a beginning.
• Some scientists did not like the fact that there was a beginning, a time when the world was created, because there would have to be something or Someone who created it.
• The Big Bang theory states that ‘as the world expands things pop into existence’, maintaining the density.

The Oscillating universe:

• Says that the universe is expanding and contracting, it will expand and then the gravitational pull will cause the earth to re-collapse!
• Scientists have said the earth is expanding but rapidly increasing in its rate.
• Stephen Meyer asked “what matter can you fit into an area of zero volume?”
• creatio ex nihilo – The universe was created out of NOTHING physical.

Materialism:

Matter is the thing from which everything comes.

• The “Big Bang” is not a causal theory.
• The “Big Bang” and Christianity both say there was a beginning and that is where people often make the mistake about Christianity.
• The ‘others’ says that the World always was and will always be.
• “If you’re talking about the origin of space and time it’s self, you need something that exists outside of space and time”!
• What’s the big deal with the “Big Bang”?

“Why is the evidence of a finite universe so unsettling to someone who holds a materialistic worldview?”  -> There IS a God!

Einstein, towards the end of his life said his theory was wrong;

Hoil, towards the end of his life said his theory was wrong;

Darwin, towards the end of his life said his theory was wrong.

 

“If theism and the Judeo-Christian view of creation are true, then we have reason to expect evidence of a finite universe.

We have evidence of a finite universe.  Therefore, we have a reason to think that theism and the Judeo-Christian view of creation may be true.”  -> The confirmation of a hypothesis.

• Titus 1:2 says “in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time,”.
• Pantheism:

- No matter

- No God

Therefore:

- No God

- No Matter

 

• “What is the thing from which everything else comes?”

What’s Coming Up…

Welcome to 2012!!!

The start of the year is always exciting with all the new years’ resolutions, planning and the general unknown.  There is no exception with Rising River Youth…

This Year:

- We will continue updating the Israel Tour Website.

- We are going to be doing the “Teens” edition of the Truth Project called TrueU.

- Paul and Sue will once again be helping us to grow in our Christian walks.

What’s Coming Up…

Don’t forget to join us this week Sunday for our annual Presentation at 9am in the Church!!!

Matt Bowing Out…

As you may have noticed, the updates on the RRY site and the RRY Israel site have stopped rolling somewhat…correction, they’ve dug themselves a nice deep ditch and stopped altogether. My apologies for that; matric and all that seemed to have got in my way. However there is good news and bad news.

The bad first: After much prayer and debating I have made the decision to leave UUPC (and thus RRY) to get together with people of my own age group, which, I feel, will be the most beneficial to my own spiritual growth. The journey at UUPC has been amazing and I have grown a tremendous amount spiritually and otherwise in my time here, but I feel as I open the next chapter of my life, it is time to move on. Thanks for everything UUPC!

Now for the good: Obviously I won’t be contributing any more to both the RRY and the RRY IE site, but that job will be left in the very capable hands of Chris Fuller, all updates and the like will be authored by him in future! All the best Chris!

Building the RRY and RRY IE sites and running them has been a lot of fun! Thanks for all the comments and views (Mainly to the Tabernacle stuff) and I hope you found the Truth of Christ in everything we’ve done here. Look out for more frequent updates in the future from Chris, but from myself, Matt, God bless and thanks for the ride!

 

 

What Went Down–12 June 2011

R&D for the RRY Israel Experience was again the order of the day for the youth today. I don’t need to say any more except this. CLICK HERE to find out what’s new with the Israel Experience!

Coleby Farm Trip Added

As usual for all our outdoor trips, we send ‘em to their own “perma-page.” Click here or check the sidebar under “Our Pages” to check out our trip to the Coleby farm!

As many of our members aren’t here for RRY for the past few weeks so updates from the RRY Israel Tour have been temporarily put on hold, sorry! We’ll start updates soon as time and members allow.

Kairos Prison Ministry #10

As some of you might know, our youth leader, Alex, is heavily involved in an amazing prison ministry which reaches out to the hardened criminals and local inmates in our local jails with the message, love and Gospel of Jesus Christ.

From the feedback we’ve been getting the experience was life-changing for both the volunteers and the inmates, and to find out more about this ministry, click here.

Below some images of the team that took part in Kairos #10 which took place recently:

We’ve implemented a new slideshow system! It’s more dynamic, all you have to do is sit back and relax! Seeing an image saying “Slide(r)” and a progress bar is normal. When it reaches 100% the images will play. Enjoy!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

…and after a long pause…

I know the updates have all but stopped since February, but it’s been because we’ve been hard at work on the Israel Site. Granted, that hasn’t seen updates for the past few weeks either, but that’s my fault because I’ve been very busy–I’ll send the updates online as soon as I can, you can read the R&D development on the Israel site. (click the sidebar image)

Apart from that, today is a very important day: Good Friday. The day that the Creator of the world, Jesus Christ, died so cruelly and painfully on the cross to wash away the sins of the world. The scriptures are pivotal, in fact the death and resurrection of Christ is the point which the entire Bible points to. We are truly humbled by God’s amazing grace and love for His creation. Reflect on today, take a look at this video:

Thanks to “jlokey82″ for the video.