What’s a Madda, Scared?

I was at a small group meeting at church tonight where men discuss overcoming life’s hurts, habits and hang ups. It’s called ‘Celebrate Recovery’. It’s a 12 Step Program that is for anyone, any age with any issue. The 12 steps were originally designed to help alcoholics and addicts recover from the grips of their disease. However the steps can be applied to any life situation! Tonight the discussion was about overcoming fears that hold us back in life; whether in our relationships, goals, or even just our peace of mind. I wanted to share what God has been showing me about overcoming fear. What’s the opposite of fear? Faith. But how do you get faith? Not just faith that God exists, or that you are saved, but real, life changing, FAITH? That’s the magic question all of us Christians and non believers alike struggle with every day. Well, it’s simple but not easy…Simple? Am I crazy?! Well no, actually I have a more realistic, grounded view now than ever before! Are you ready? Ok, here goes… Fear is the wall that blocks us from faith. So we’ve defined the problem, now what’s the solution? As I said before, simple BUT NOT EASY. Over the past year I have overcome all kinds of fears; fear of falling in love again, fear of rejection, fear of losing things that I already have, or fear of not getting something I want. Blah Blah Blah… The list goes on and on…Sound familiar? So how am I doing this? The answer is I AM NOT. God is. ‘Oh great,’ you say. This may not be the answer you want to hear, but hang with me for just a little longer. I mentioned the steps, and you have probably opened the link and skimmed over it and said what is this malarkey? We are powerless without God~ How do we get the power of God? By surrendering to His Will. God will reveal His plan to us by the power of the Spirit through prayer and His word. When I ask the Lord sincerely from my heart in prayer to remove the lures of this world and to fill me with the truth, He always answers. The answers can come from messages we receive from people, or from scripture, or even from a seeming coincidence. God is always moving, we just have to “tune in”. When I take the time to read the instruction manual for living (the Bible), God calms the storms of this life and and gives me purpose and certainty in an uncertain world. When I ask for direction in prayer He is always listening~ My suggestion is to say this simple prayer:

“God, I need you to direct my steps. I’m afraid, but I know you will help me overcome my fear. I ask that you would remove anything in my life that is blocking me from your will. For I know that you have a beautiful purpose for me, and a plan for my life. A life that is full of peace and freedom from uncertainty. Lord give me direction and guard my steps. Make my path clear and my heart pure. I want to be a living example of my faith. A faith that you will strengthen and perfect in me, because you love me. In Jesus name, Amen”

Romans 8:15 – So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”

In Christ’s Love,

-Vini

Volunteer Ride Call List

Hey Guys!

If  you’ve made it here, then you are probably an awesome Christ follower who wants to offer a helping hand to your fellow ASYLUM friends! As I posted on Facebook and Myspace, if you have a car and are willing to pick up someone (in your general area) who needs a ride to Journey for ASYLUM on Wednesdays you can ‘opt in’ by posting your name on this blog. We are going to be posting cool stuff here so bookmark us in your favorites ! You can also post comments, ’shout outs’, and OMG’s that will be exclusively for us here at ASYLUM! So post, post, post away!

God Bless,

The Team

Journey Asylum Youth Yard Sale

This Friday and Saturday at Journey Church we will be having a Yard Sale to help raise $$ for the ministry!! So come out and check out the deals and support your youth group !!!

Friday 8am-2pm

Sat 8am-2pm

Journey Church 4235 kelley highway, fort smith, arkansas 72904

Sermon Series: Jesus Who?

I hope everyone at Asylum is getting blessed so far by our “Jesus Who?” sermon series!  The first message, “Sar Shalom – Prince of Peace” was a good start, and we expect it to be more challenging and thought provoking in the coming weeks.  We are on this journey together to know Jesus more intimately and fully by studying various names and titles He is given in scripture.  Through this, we come to realize that Christ Jesus really is “all in all” – He is the complete fulfillment and answer to every single need of mankind.  I hope you have been praying to Jesus as Sar Shalom, the Prince of Peace this week.. may HIS peace reign in your lives and help keep your footing in all adversity.  (Ephesians 6:15 – and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.)

If anyone wants to read the full version of the article about “seeds of discord” that was read last week, it can be found here – http://www.victorious.org/discord.htm

As Jesus said repeatedly in the gospels, “Peace be with you”

Love, Barry

“Once in awhile you get shown the light, in the ’strangest’ of places if you look at it right.” -Robert Hunter

God is always moving! I had to share this with you guys because it just shows how magnificent God is, and how if you’re obedient, He will use you in marvelous ways to show His love for us! The quote in my blog title is from the long time poet and lyricist Robert Hunter. His claim to fame would be almost every Grateful Dead song ever played. The reason I chose this verse is because it really sums up what God can do IF WE LET HIM… Some of you may have noticed I left service Wednesday night before Barry had finished his sermon on sowing discord. I absolutely hated to leave, because I always get so much spiritual growth from Pastor Rooster, Amen? However I couldn’t ignore this tug at my heart that God had been putting on me all day. I knew I would be leaving, so I told the team I had a meeting to go to, and so I did! The meeting I went to was a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Before I continue, I need to set up a little background about myself. Some of you may know from my testimony in church awhile back that I am a recovering  alcoholic. ‘Recovering‘ means that I will always be an alcoholic, but as long as I am putting God in front of my problem,  I never have to take a drink again. Isn’t that awesome? We have a saying in AA: “God brought me to AA, and AA brought me back to God.” AA not only helped me find a relationship with God, it also allows me an opportunity to serve God by helping others who still suffer from addiction and are new to recovery. After all isn’t that what being a follower of Christ is really all about?  On to last night. I wasn’t sure which meeting to go to as there are several meetings all over Fort Smith at all hours of the day. A friend suggested I attend the 8 o’clock meeting, so I did. I’ve been to literally hundreds of meetings, but this was one I’ve only attended maybe once or twice. After last night, that is going to change. You see this meeting is one that a youth rehab attends. The rehab center for kids 14 to 17. There were about 30 kids of all ages, (boys and girls alike) in attendance on this night. AA meetings are an open forum, meaning; A ‘Chairperson’ picks a topic for discussion, then the individuals from the group discuss their ” Experience, Strength, and Hope” with one another in order to help each other in their recovery. These discussions are open and very candid. You can hear some pretty amazing stories and some really scary and heartbreaking ones too. You never know what people are going say! But in my experience, when you listen to and share about a common foe, and as a group come together to combat this foe, MIRACLES HAPPEN. The topic of the evening was… Drum roll please…. God! The kids were all talking about their families beliefs, their lives growing up, and how they felt about God. I heard it all from confusion and bitterness to gratitude and hope in their stories last night. One of the boys mentioned you couldn’t see God so it was hard to believe in God, especially after what he had been through! But as God would have it, I was called on to speak.  Let me tell you, I still get nervous when I speak at meetings even after all this time. We are dealing with life and death when it comes to addiction. No pressure right? LOL. When I stood to speak, God took my voice and the Holy Spirit witnessed in that dingy little room last night, not Vini.  Praise God!As I held back tears, I told these young souls about my salvation! About how God saved me from an alcoholic death. About how His glorious spirit removed the desire to drink or use, and how He has filled my life with his love and awesome power. I don’t remember my exact words, but I KNOW hearts were touched by the Lord that night, because I could see it on their faces and I could feel the goosebumps on my skin as I shared. I told them if you want to see God’s face, all you have to do is look in the mirror! He made us! We are His inheritance! Glory to God for loving us so much that he would give us the Blessing of each other! It is there that you see the face of the one true God. In the faces you fellowship with every Wednesday at Asylum, He is there. I don’t know if even one of those kids will stay clean after they are cleared from ‘Horizon’. But I do know that the Lord planted a seed in their hearts that WILL grow in His time, for His purpose. Let us all be seed planters for God, and kingdom builders! Who knows? Maybe the seed you plant will save someones life, or more importantly their very soul.

In love,

-Vini

Asylum is Born!

Well everybody, it’s official. Asylum is is born! Tonight we saw about 30 young people step across the ‘line’ and make a commitment to make a difference in their own lives and the lives of their peers. We have been hard at work as a leadership team praying, planning and plodding trying to make our vision for a life changing youth ministry a reality. And after weeks of teamwork and prayer we saw it all come together tonight at Journey! Praise God! For those of you who have been patiently waiting and showing up, thank you. And for all of the new faces we worshipped with tonight welcome! We have seen God show up in some amazing ways via guest speakers and Pastor Rooster laying down the WORD, Amen? I am so excited about Russel and I working with you guys through RED LETTER STUDY, the ‘Great Commission Competition, and the new growth ministries! Just show up next Wednesday as we begin to implement our B.H.A.G.’S.(Big Holy Anointed Goals). 100 youth in regular attendance this year? Are we CRAZY???  YES !  Because with God, ALL things are possible!(Phillipians 4:13) Be ready for fun, fellowship and a safe place to hang out and enjoy the gift of life together. See you and your friends next week!

-Vini

Asylum~July 15th, 2009

We had a guest speaker on this day, Carl Yeakly,  he came and brought the fire of God into service. It was so amazing to see God working in the youth in such a powerful way. I am pretty sure these kids have never felt God move in such an insanely powerful way before. I pray that God will keep moving through this youth changing the course of THIS generation to be on-fire crazy sold-out for JESUS!!!!!

Asylum.. thats for crazy people right?

The answer to that question is yes! The thing is what are we crazy about? And, the answer to that question is the very reason you are reading this post, the one that decides if you are going to take that next breath, the creator and Lord of everything that you smell, taste, see, hear, or touch…..Jesus. We welcome you to our safe-house of crazy people for Jesus, and if you do not see Jesus for all the reasons we are crazy about him, we would love to take you on a journey through truth, fulfilment, and joy and make your own decision on who this Jesus is to you!

Wecome to Asylum!

Welcome to the new Journey Youth “ASYLUM” blog site!  Your new information center for all things ASYLUM.  The Asylum team are all contributing to the site, so there will be announcements, events, teaching, links, video, and general blogging going on.  Also notice that Asylum leaders that have twitter accounts will have their “tweets” posted on the sidebar to the right.  Be sure to visit the Asylum Myspace page (lots of new photos) at http://www.myspace.com/asylumfortsmith ..  Lots of exciting stuff coming soon, so CHECK BACK OFTEN!  Asylum teens, enjoy your new site.. read, have fun, comment, etc.  Be very blessed and worship our God so much its crazy!  Barry (Pastor Rooster)