Teen Challenge Women's Ministry Group

This last Sunday we had the privilege of hosting a group of ladies from the Teen Challenge Women's Center in Graham, Washington.  Executive Director Bob Stone and his wife Carolyn led the group in a time of music, testimonials and a brief message from Rev. Bob Stone.

If you have never been in a Teen Challenge service then you have missed a bitter-sweet time.  It is bitter because the testimonials of the lives of these ladies are saddening.   Some of the sadness comes from what has been done to them throughout the years and some of it is from what they have done to themselves and people around them.  These ladies are all battling with life-controlling addictions that had left them at rock bottom.  But then they heard about Teen challenge (click to visit their website and learn more).

One of the ladies shared how this Friday is her graduation day.  She will be moving back to establish contact with a daughter that she has not connected with for years.  This is the sweet part.  To see these ladies, who just months ago were strung out on drugs and with no hope, singing songs to Jesus and talking about the new "sisters" they have is amazing. 

"God sets the lonelyin families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.." (Psalm 68:6, NIV)

You might be reading this and wondering if God really does put the lonely in families.  Notice, however, the second part about rebellion.  Our rebellion often brings us down a hard and lonely road.  But to those who will humble themselves and turn away from rebelling against God, there is a place in his family.  Each of these ladies made a choice to enter Teen Challenge's program, knowing that it was Bible-based.  They then made a decision to stick it out and embrace the message of the gospel of Jesus.  Praise God!

We had taken up a food and household items shower to bless the women's center.  We also received an offering to help advance the ministry.  If you were unable to attend and desire to donate to this ministry then you can still donate during our weekly offerings, or mail it to the church address on our home page.  Please designate any offerings for "Teen Challenge."

Let me just challenge you on several levels.  Perhaps drugs and alcohol are controlling your life.  Perhaps they have become the center of everything you think and do, that is, they have become your god.  Multitudes who have gone before you down this path have testified with their mouth, or given witness with their life, that if you do not get free from these evils then they will steal, destroy, and eventually kill everything in your life.  Turn to Jesus today.  Contact Teen Challenge through the above website and get some counseling.  Choose life and not death.

If you are a believer and have never struggled with drugs and alcohol, let me just say that it is easy to develop a cynicism that holds the sins of an individual against them.  We become a part of the world that his holding them back from Jesus.  Don't let yourself become such a thing.  These people are often "black-belts" in condemning and tearing down themselves.  But if we will listen to Jesus who said, "Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more."  Elsewhere Jesus said that he didn't need to condemn people because they were already condemned.  Their sins condemn them moment by moment, the devil condemns them constantly, and they themselves join in the raucous fanfare and condemn themselves.   Do we sometimes run into people who have no sense of guilt and need to be told that their actions are sin before God?  Yes, this is true.  But it should not be our knee-jerk response to make sure people "feel" sorry for their sin.  Jesus didn't try to execute her even though if she were to stand before God, without dealing with her sins, she would be executed.  Instead he encouraged her to walk away from sin.  This is what Teen Challenge does.  It encourages people to walk away from the sinful choices they have made in their life and find freedom.  Pray today that God would show you how to do this.

Our nation, more than ever, needs Loving-Truth Warriors who are willing to go out into the sordid and messy lives of individuals who are suffering under the weight of their own sin and the sins of others against them.  Will we get down in the mud-pit in order to help them out?  Or, will we stand on the firm ground casting rocks as they struggle to get free?  Will not the God of heaven see such a plight and intervene?  Would he not cast us down from the firm ground into an eternal mire from which there is no recovery and rescue with his own right arm the hopelessly lost soul who cries out to him?  God hears the cry of the hopeless.  Do we?