I'm gonna wear your brother's skin like pajamas!

Trust me this blog post is not at all what it seems like! Yes that it is a quote from Community but it sounds way darker then it really is. Let me prove it to you, this is a picture from that same episode.

......I guess an old guy dressed up as a weed plant doesn't bode a lot of confidence.

This picture and quote are from an episode of Community, where the study group puts on an anti-drug play for high school students.

 My final blog post is going to be about peer pressure and more specifically the peer pressure that happens among Christian teens.

I remember transitioning into a leadership position at my him Youth Group and thinking to myself, "There is no way that these kids or doing that or saying things like that."

It was complete ignorance on my part because I then thought a little bit longer and realized when I was that age, I was totally "doing that" and "saying things like that."

As leaders we need to be aware that all teens in some shape or form deal with peer pressure and more then likely fall to it as well.

I was looking at some different articles, like this one http://www.creationtips.com/peer.html, about peer pressure among church teens and they had some good stuff to say but at other parts it was super out of touch.

For example, these are a few selections from a list of ways to resist peer pressure from the above article.

• Have an excuse that takes the decision away from you personally. “I can't smoke / drink alcohol / take drugs because I get throat infections / asthma / stomach pains.”
• Try humor. “I'd love to do drugs with you, but my family has a history of killing kids who get into drugs, and I'm too young to die.”

Needless to say I think we need to cut the fat away and get down to the nitty gritty of resisting peer pressure. 

I would say that we need to instill in students the sound, biblical truths that we have at our disposal. There is greater way to resist temptation by being fluent in the word and drawing closer to God. It isn't fool-proof due to our natural sinful nature but it is pretty close.

Fat Neil

I'm just going to cut right to the chase; this blog is about self harm and this is Fat Neil.

In Community Fat Neil decides he is sick and tired of being called Fat Neil and decides to kill himself. In an attempt to prevent this from happening the study group comes to Neil's side and plays dungeons and dragons with him in order to show that he has friends and meaning.

Self-harm is becoming more and more prevalent among young teens and it something that needs to be addressed. I was reading about the different statistics and causes of self harm and it is pretty scary. http://www.therefuge-ahealingplace.com/co-occurring/self-injury/effects-symptoms-signs#Statistics

From reading this it almost seems like it is a losing battle but there are a few different things to keep in mind when dealing with a teen who struggles with these issues.

1) Understand that these are real issues that real teens struggle with
            Don't just ignore it and pretend like it doesn't exist!!

2) When dealing with these issues go in with the right mindset and motives
            Don't go into it thinking that YOU are going to change anything or that YOU are going to be
            the hero of the story

3) Present them with genuine love and genuine hope
            The love and hope that is found in Jesus Christ of course!!

4) Don't pity them just love them!!
             Love needed to mentioned twice because it is so important

5) Support them and let them know that you are there for them!!
             PRAY!!

In the episode of community the group gathered around Neil. Unfortunately Jeff wanted to do it because he was the one who started calling him Fat Neil and he felt bad. That is an example of a bad motive but that groups effort to surround him and show him friendship spoke volumes and Neil is still showing up here or there in future episodes!!

Annie Edison

So this week my community reference is less of a reference to a specific instance and more of a reference to a whole character. This character is Annie Edison.

Annie Edison is a character who views school and grades as the most important thing. She sets a really high bar for herself academically and in high school it led to a brief pill addiction. All that being said I am going to talk about academic pressures that youth today face.

For me going through middle and high school, academics were the farthest thing from my mind. I was happy with a solid B and I didn't really worry about it that much. Looking back I regret not applying myself more but hindsight is 20/20.

However, when it comes to the average teen there is a lot of stress and pressure that comes along with academics.

In the article posted below it stated that academic pressure does not start in college. It is very prevalent in the younger ages.

http://www.pamf.org/teen/life/stress/academicpressure.html

There are internal and external effects to the student when it comes to academics and it can have very real negative effects.

The article goes on to say that it important for a student to have a strong support network to fall back onto to stay upbeat.

I think, as leaders, this is where we can come in. Although trying to juggle a relationship with Christ, family, school, and all the other things, having a strong leadership support team that can bring biblically solutions and encouragement is vital to helping students through these tough teen years and preventing them form gaining a pill addiction.

God Bless,

Blake Anthony

Greendale Human Being

This is the Greendale Human Being. It is the official mascot for all Greendale's sports teams.

This blog is centered around how society has made sports into the thing that the "popular" people do. If a guy isn't athletic he isn't a "real man" and if a girl isn't athletic she is seen quite differently. I was reading a post about this (http://menscenter.org/counseling-therapy/sports-culture-masculinity/) and it talked about how sports have changed teens views on what it means to be accepted and strong.

As an unathletic person myself, I can say that there was a time when I was quite ashamed to be a part of the all the choirs and the school musicals because it thought it made me less cool to the jocks and I simply didn't want to be associated with it.

I think that this is am increasingly common thought process among young teens. This is really unfortunate because it is completely untrue.

God has given each individual a particular set of skills (Just like Liam Neeson!!!) and he has created us individually to be the person he wants us to be.

We can't be held back with societies ideas of what is cool or even productive to do. We need to see ourselves as a wonderfully made human being with gifts and talents that can be used to bring glory to God.

Lets all be Liam Neeson's in our own rights!!

God Bless,

Blake Anthony

A leprechaun took our clothes

In an episode of Community Abed walks in on Jeff and Britta just after sex and they try and convince him that a leprechaun took their clothes.

So today I will be talking about sex. I was reading a really interesting article from relevant magazine about sex which kind of sparked my interest. http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationships/christians-are-not-called-have-amazing-sex

I truly believe that the church is too scared to talk about what it means to have a healthy biblical sexual relationship. The articles above touches on that a little because what the church does talk about can give a very skewed idea about sex.

I think that the church takes hollywoods ideas of sex and simply stamps the no premarital sex rule onto it. Its not fair for young Christians because it begins to seem like a rule that the church is just trying to make us follow.

We are told that if we wait that sex within arraign will be amazing!!! Like the article says though we could possibly marry someone that we are sexually incompatible with.

So I propose that the church teaches why sex is so important within marriage, but also that marriage isn't about sex because it really could end up not being the greatest sexual relationships.

I don't want to be your father.

From the title it is pretty obvious what I am talking about, which would be family pressure and issues, but that won't stop the reference!!

I want to talk specifically about the issue part of the topic. I wanted to talk about the issues because it something that is very personal to me.

Divorce is a very common issue these days, as can be seen according these divorce statistics: http://www.divorcestatistics.org

Now my parents are still together, but the issue that is personal to me is the fact that their relationship has never been a great one. There is constant tension and fighting and it has definitely taken a toll on myself and my siblings.

My relationship with my father is almost non-existent, unlike Abeds father mine would like to have a relationship with me but he is not very good at connecting on a personal level.

These types of things are not uncommon among the youths of today and it is something that can stir up emotions and students can turn their anger towards their parents and even towards God.

We need to start to take students who are struggling with these issues under our wing and show them that although the situation at home may seem dire, there is always hope in Christ for the students personally and there is always hope for some form of restoration in the issues that are being faced.

We can not let students take this pain all by themselves because no matter what pain is happening no one has to go through it alone.

God Bless,

Blake Anthony

I am Hilda, I live in the village.

This blog post I will be talking about video games!!!

In this episode of Community, the study group must play an 8-bit video-game to help Pierce Hawthorne gain his inheritance. That was simply a synopsis of the episode and has very little to do with what I am talking about, but it should show you that this show is all kinds of awesome and you should watch it...

I was reading an article about virtual reality, which is right here: http://www.theverge.com/a/virtual-reality, and it got me thinking about what it means for gaming and what kind of affect it will have on this upcoming generation.

Video games have always been a part of culture ever since I was born. I have never been a huge video game person but I have always been intrigued at the exponential growth in technology and consumerism.

Video games, along with television and movies, have always been a form of escapism. Escapism is some form of distraction away from daily life and reality. Television and movies have always been a shorter form of this, with the exceptions of binge-watching or a Peter Jackson film. Video-games on the other hand tend to take up a larger amount of time, taking up a larger amount of reality.

I have no problem with video games. They can be fun, recreational and even educational tool. The problem I see, is that with this rise of virtual reality I think people will become addicted to the idea of being able to escape this reality for long periods of time. It may even escalate into an inception situation where people can't determine what is virtual and what is real.

This is obviously a hypothesis made with no scientific data to back it up, but I think the question we need to ask ourselves is why would someone prefer a virtual reality over what is real and tangible?

Is reality that bad that someone would want to completely escape it? For some people it is and I see this as a huge problem.

Whatever issues a person might be having might cause them to think that virtual reality is a lot easier to deal with. We need to awaken people to the real and tangible love of Christ and the beauty of the reality that God has created so that they don't have to be fulfilled with some some one's and zero's.

Just a thought.

God Bless,

Blake Anthony

Meow Meow Beenz

So right off the bat I am going to get right into what I am talking about, after of course a pictoral reference to Community.

This quote is from an episode surrounding the idea of a new social media app called Meow Meow Beenz. The app was based on rating people and very quickly people turned against each other and joined different groups based on their ratings. Not only does this reference have something to o with social media, I also think that it is a quite exaggerated view of how people use social media today.

People base their social status and their identity on how many likes they might get on an Instagram picture. In a Relevant Magazine article it said that social media has has caused people to become more "rude." We are creating people with split identities. One side is able to say whatever they want with the protection of some form anonymity. While the other side is not able to stand up for what they believe in.

All this being said, I don't think this "split personality" isn't necessarily permanent. I think that this is where culture is headed and we can learnt to adjust to this curve, especially when it comes to Christianity. Social media is a great way to reach people with the Gospel. Of course the church tends to be about 10 years behind on everything so that could be an obstacle but in due time I think social media can be used as a powerful tool in reaching the lost.

Here is a link to another Relevant magazine article that explains some ground rules for ministers on social media:
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/next/blog/6-main-slideshow/1264-7-ways-pastors-fail-at-social-media

God Bless,

Blake Anthony

Pop Pop!

So I'm back at it, and I genuinely hate to say it but I may be enjoying blogging. Not because I consider myself a deep person with really awesome thoughts that everyone should listen too. Instead it is because I consider myself a sarcastic person with some somewhat funny thoughts, and although I may sometimes hide behind the jokes if you really dissect the sarcasm there could be some thing to think about. Who knows?

So onto the homework assignment. As Magnitude once said,

There are probably two questions you're thinking right now. The first being, is this dude ever going to run out of Community references? The answer to that is a resounding NO! The second question being, what does this Community reference have to do with anything? The answer to that is that Magnitude, pictured above, is a one-man party. This means that I will be blogging about partying/drugs/alcohol today.

This blog is not going to be about my opinions on whether or not any three of these things are wrong, instead I want to ask, why do people do them? 

My thoughts were sparked by an awesome article that was written by Jon Foreman for Huffington Post. The link is here if you are interested in reading it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jon-foreman/when-we-come-alive_b_5793222.html

The article talks about what it means to come alive, to really live, to really breathe. From my perspective and observation many people do these things because they are looking for some sort of fulfillment in life. They haven't been able to find anything else that completes them so they turn to artificial fulfillment. A quick high, and fleeting moment of false completion. 

Society today is very self-focused, we can't seem to see outside of our little bubbles. We try and find wholeness within ourselves and/or with a substance because that substance might seem more real and genuine then anything else.

I think we need to turn towards Christ to find true fulfillment and to find never ending love and grace. We don't need to look at another empty bottle and reach for another thinking that "this one is going to be the answer, this one is going to fulfill me for good."

 Instead we can be filled with strength and love that not only fills us but overflows and spills out of our bubble and infects the people around us. 

God Bless,

Blake Anthony

Ha, Gay!

This is my very first blog post, and frankly I never thought that sentence would ever be typed by me. There are a few things I would like to be upfront about before I get into things. First, this is for a class so I'm doing this for a grade. Second, I will be talking about some pretty controversial topics and I will be talking about them through the point of view of a born again Christian. This means that I am basing my views on the Bible and the Biblical authors. Lastly, since this is for a class I am not going to be responding to any comments whether they are negative or positive.

So now that you've made it this far you are probably wondering what I am going to be posting about and I think Senor Chang said it best when he said

That's right I'm talking about Homosexuality. This topic has been a hot topic in society and a controversial one in the church. There has been a lot of division in the church because some people have taken the stance that the church should accept same sex couples, and on the other end of the spectrum there are people who want to bring back some of the Old Testament laws and stone anyone who happens to shop at H&M, because everyone knows that H&M is a gateway clothing line.

Besides these two groups there is a large group of people who probably fall somewhere in the middle, in the "I still am not sure about the whole thing" group. This is a topic I personally have wrestled with for a while so I would probably put my self in that middle group.

 I do have a definite opinion on the subject, but it is still something that I think and rethink about from time to time. This opinion being that homosexuality is a sin as clearly defined in the Word of God. I would however agree with the phrase "I was born this way" in the sense that according to the Bible all people are born into sin and in one way or another are subject to its grip. I don't think that this means that there is some sort of gay gene or that God made someone gay I think this means that we are all sinners and each struggle in our own ways with sin.

I think that the church doesn't really have any idea on how to properly handle the situation so they respond in the only way that they historically know how to do. With legalism, and I hate to say it but hatred and unfortunately this means that anyone and everyone who is part of the church gets lumped into this heaving mass of bigotry.

I want to be part of the church that responds in love, and when I say love I mean true Christ-like love. To be clear loving doesn't mean acceptance of a lifestyle that does not line up with the Word of God. God does not accept any form of sin, not even my own. This is why I want to love, because Christ first loved me despite my shortcomings and I want others to be able to experience this love.

This seems harsh, but the simple fact is we are all dirty, lousy sinners and without Christ we are lost.

I follow an awesome web-comic called adam4d.com and he made a response to a book that was recently written called "God and The Gay Christian" and I think that it beautifully sums up everything that I said or tried to say in a way more efficient manner, so check it out below:

http://adam4d.com/gay-christian/

Over all I think the church needs to take the necessary steps to true understand homosexuality and respond to it in the way that Christ would and that is all that I am going to say on the subject.

God Bless,

Blake Anthony