Squeaky Clean Spring Retreat: Sign up Now...!

Commercial #2...

DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION FORM HERE:

{Squeaky Clean Purity Retreat}

Mosaic's Annual Purity Retreat at the Country Springs Hotel and Waterpark. This retreat is available for all 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. In addition to learning sessions, we have a lot of pool time at the waterpark and a late night pizza party planned. There is a snack bar available in the pool area, if you wish to bring your own money.

Timeline:

Friday, February 15th 6pm: Registration begins at the Country Springs Hotel **** NOTE: Dinner will not be provided on Friday Evening.

Saturday, February 16th 12:30pm: Students should be picked up at the Waterpark Lobby at 12:30 **** NOTE: Lunch will not be provided on Saturday.

If you have additional questions, please contact Cheryl Milnes at 262-786-7051 *676.


DOWNLOAD REGISTRATION FORM HERE:

Paparazzi comment round-up: What students are saying.

>~The Leson last Week was awsome Brandon i hope this week will help as much as they have in the past. I really dont have a positive outlook on myself looks at sometimes and these weekly lessons help,


~Hi Brandon! I really liked your talk on tuesday! When you talked about girls like one guy and just acting like the bug zapper with them not even thinking about god, it reminded me of our school. There is one guy that is one of the most "popular" people at school. EVERYONE likes him and the girls don't even think about God. He is one of my bestest friends and he tells me that his church is really dumb and boring. So when some of my friends are around him, they focus more on him then God and always say yeah church is dumb. You never learn anything. We shouldn't be tricked by outer beaty but insides what counts. (as you said) I just hope they learn that they can still like him without not thinking about God. well, thanks again for the talk! It was really good!


~hey brandon
i really appreciated the message you spoke at nexus about the hot r not thing
i can use that at my school when people judge other people for what they look like and they judge you on who you hang out with and who you talk to. thnx


~You are so right! I have a friend, that nobody ever hanged around with and she didn't have the best selection of clothes, anyway I got to no her and she is like one of the nicest encouraging people I met. People just didn't take enough time to realize it.


~the talk really go tto me because i can relate to stuff like that. becuase there is this girl who i know that is on the cheer squad with me. she is alot bigger than the other girls and everyone always makes fun of her. only the people on the cheer squad know that she gives alot of effort inot what she is doing. even though she cant get her legs up as high as the other girls, she gives 110% effort. she is now one of my close friends.


~hey brandon, so i was thinking about this one the day after nexus. and i was thinking..how much is God worth to me? because i was also listening to this song about the Columbine shooting and if someone asked me with a gun to my head Do you believe in God? i was thinking..is he really worth that much to me that i would say yes and die? and i really want to be able to say yes and know that i'm living my life fully for Him. So not only (in my thoughts) should we ask the question: How much are we worth. we should ask as well: How much is God worth


~What your saying is so true. eing free is not all its cracked up to be. There should be limits and thats what keeps us from buying french fries for 5 billion dollars,


~hey brandon i really want to thank you because you helped from making a gigantic mistake on wednsday night because like the last girls school its like a real giant thing to have sex and my girlfriend was like pressured to have sex and it was reallt like all of the guys say like your a coward if you dont do this and like "dude c'mon do this if you dont your a total lame so we had planned to have sex after school that wedsnday so after school that wedsnday i told her like the whole little you said and she was like yeah your tottaly right and i dont blame her for wanting to have sex because the girls was like pressuring to do it so after we talked it out we dicided not to do that just because what you said so to make a long story short me and my girlfriend want to thank you "thank you brandon"


~this new series is great. it has helped me tremendously with my faith and conscience. keep up the good work!~~

Celebrity Video

What do you think?

Paparazzi 3: Celebrity

"It's all about the money shot!"

Well, at least to the thousands of Paparazzi that flood to every celebrity sighting around the world.

The money shot is exactly what it sounds like:

A photograph which captures a celebrity in a pose, position, or predicament that one or more of the gossip mags will pay millions to get their hands on.

You know, the magazines that are as thick as wallpaper by every checkout line in every grocery store in the country. The magazines that teens read religiously, almost devouring their fashion tips swallowing whole the magazines world-view.


The whole gossip industry builds up celebrities, so that it can tear them back down, all the while profiting on both their rise and their fall. But there is an ugly underbelly to all these dreams of fame and fortune. Young students buy the lifestyle even more often than they buy the magazines. While they joke about the train-wrecks that Britney, Paris, Lindsay, Nichole, Tara, and others have become, they also idolize and imitate them.

I am always amazed by what people will do to get famous...

Our obsession with celebrities, is just an extreme demonstration of our everyday tendency toward favoritism. I mean, Miley Cyrus is cool... but she is not worthy of worship.

Only God is.


Here's the thing...


While we are focused on the greatest, but God is unaffected by human greatness.

He is in the least.

The cultural obsession with worshiping pretty people is a direct result of them not worshipping God.

Once we stop plunging in to the worship of physical beauty, we are free to see true beauty and interact with it...


We begin to notice Jesus in the invisible spaces of our lives, families, and schools.


Matthew 25:34“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Celebrity Video Text:

Celebrity:


Two thousand years ago, a Man named Paul entered into the Greek city of Athens. Paul was sent there by Jesus Christ, to tell the city of God's incredible love and forgiveness.

In Athens Paul tried to tell people about Jesus and his Heavenly Father, but the people were confused because they had many gods... each god was worshiped through little statues called and idols.

Paul stood up in the center of all of these idols and said, "I see that you are very religious people! You have hundreds of Idols for worshipping your many gods. You even have even built an altar "To an Unknown God,"

This is the God I want to tell you about. Your unknown God is actually the very God who created the world and everything in it. He is the King of Heaven and earth, and He does not live in statues built by human hands. We are his children and he has proven his power by raising his son from the dead..."

This is the God who deserves your worship, not these powerless idols.

Today... we no longer worship carved wooden idols...

Today... our idols are statuesque humans with "hot bodies" carved from exercise, anorexia and silicon.

We call these idols Celebrities, and there are hundreds of them that we obsess over and even worship.

Think about it ... what else would you call the insane obsession with those who are famous. Hundreds of magazines and TV shows are dedicated to maintaining the Celebrity worship.

We have hundreds of gods to choose from in our worship: Musicians, actors, comedians, athletes, and the rich all worshiped with greater devotion than would even be considered for the true God....

Like the Greeks, we even have an altar to an unknown god... or in our case... and unknown celebrity...

(Flash to American idol.)

So Kelly joins ranks with the likes of Britney, Christina, Paris, Lindsay, Leonardo, Zac, Vanessa and more. And we keep looking for more unknown celebrities.

Why?

Because something deep inside us knows that the Celebrities who we worship are just as empty as we are. They are supposed to have "everything" but look at the stupid lives they live. DUI's naked pictures, broken relationships, lost custody of children, drug rehab, eating rehab, divorce, suicide, and more...

They are just as desperate for meaning as their fans are...

They are not the real unknown celebrity that our hearts are looking for.

The real unknown Celebrity is far more famous than any of them.

This unknown Celebrity is actually the very Celebrity who created the world and everything in it. He is the King of Heaven and earth, and he does not live in Sitcoms, cd's, sports, or Gossip mags built by human hands.

We are his children created and he has proven his power by raising his son from the dead..."

We were made to worship him, and him alone.... and our hearts will not rest until we have encountered him!

He is the one we should be worshiping... because he is the only real God... the living God.

Show and Tell

SO... today... a very cool student dropped off a little art for my office. It is pretty cool!

Oke Doke Karaoke TONIGHT!!!!

Friday, Jan 18th, 2008
6:30 - 10pm
Oke Doke Karaoke is a great time to come to the Student Lounge and hang with your friends. We will have Karaoke, Dance Dance Revolution (DDR), Guitar Hero, the Wii set up.
THIS IS A FREE EVENT!!!!!
You only need to bring some extra cash for food...we will have candy, soda and pizza available at the snack bar for purchase.

Mosaic News Update: 1.15.2008 (SnoRodeo Recap & Red Carpet Interview!)

Paparazzi 2: hot R not.

"Am I hot?" While the culturally uneducated may think this question has to do with weather or possible heath, in fact it has nothing to do with either. It has become one of the most significant questions that teens, and even pre-teens wonder about themselves.

Note an important shift: this is not a question of whether or not they are pretty, cute, or even beautiful. They question is whether they are physically attractive...

Imagine a 9 year old pondering how "Hot" she is, and you see the true poison our cultures obsession with "hotness" is.

This is sad.


It is sad that cute lost out to hot, and even more to the point, that people feel more pressure to appear attractive than to actually be good... They try to look right rather than to make a difference.

However, it should come as no surprise that God is un-effected by human hotness

Where we look at outward appearances, he looks at the inside, our heart, and sees who we really are.

There is no doubt that the culture we live in treats "HOT" people better than others. The real question is about you...

How do you treat others?

Where do you find your worth?

Remember this: Looks don't last. If you put your confidence in looks, then - if you are lucky - it might last for a while, but as you grow older you will find your confidence sagging, just like you six pack,

or.... falling out one strand at a time, like your well producted hair.

New Web Address Same Great Blog!

So... in order to make it easier to tell people how to find this blog, we just changed the web address. It is now: http://mosaic678.blogspot.com Please make it a bookmark on your web browser and visit it often!


Or if you want the feed you can bookmark this link instead: feed://mosaic678.blogspot.com/atom.xml

If you bookmark the second link your web browser will inform you when new posts are posted.

Paparazzi Week 1: The Proposition.

What would you do for one Million dollars? It is an interesting question leads to another questions.

How much are you worth?

This questions is really important when thinking about decisions that we make.

If you are not worth much... then it almost doesn't matter what you do.

This is what is often communicated in the media. They communicate that your worth is found in how famous, pretty, and willing to show off that you are. If this were true, however, you would think that people like Paris, Nicole, Lindsay, and of course Britney would be really happy... Do you think the seem happy?

Jesus communicated something far different when he died for us... we are all worth enough for Jesus to be willing to die... this is a lot of value!

So... when you make decisions about how you will live, consider how much you are worth.

Don't just take the worth and through it away carelessly!

Life is precious, you are precious. Be careful how you live so that you can fully protect how valuable and unique that you are!

Freedom is overrated

If I have something of singularly great value... if I own it...

then I am free to use of abuse it as I choose... but I would be a fool to not respect it.

Suppose this object was for example, the world's largest diamond. And further suppose that I decided to take it with me to McDonalds one day.

While there I suddenly grew very hungry; the smell of freshly fried thin potato strips overpowering my willpower... but low in behold, I have brought only my billion dollar diamond and have no cash....

bummer, they don't have change for 5 billion...

hmmm...

Well, I am free aren't I... I will just let them keep the change...

So in a ludicrous moment of unyielding gluttonous hunger, I do it...

I give them the world's largest diamond in exchange for a super size order of fries and a few packets of ketchup...

Now I am really showing how free I am right?

No... I am the world's largest idiot...

I have traded that which had no earthly equal for a fast food experience which could be replicated by anyone possessing $1.69

Student Video: The ultimate roadtrip

Hey a little shout out to Orlando for making a picture montage of our ultimate road trip! Thanks!

A weeks worth of food.

So I was surfing the web, and noticed an interesting post on one of my friends Blogs... it had pictures of what a weeks worth of food looked like around the world. Take a look for yourself.


The first picture is from the US... ($341.98)












This second form Mexico... ($189.09)












and the third is from Chad. ($1.23)









My Friend Michael had some good questions about these images:

1. What might we learn about others by what they eat?
Food is a window into getting to know others – their customs, values and traditions. I would like to begin inviting others from my community who are racially and ethnically different than my family to involve us in some of their meal customs, so we can learn about their lives and build friendship.

2. What would my family’s week worth of food look like?
Would it reflect good stewardship or overabundance?
Would it show a commitment to health, wholeness and local economy?
How could we share what we have with people in our community?

3. What can we learn from those who have less?
How can we help families locally and globally who struggle to provide food for their family?
What groups can I contribute to that help those in need?

THINK ABOUT THIS…
When you look at these photos, what do you notice?
Which of those families food would you most enjoy? Which would you not enjoy?
What thoughts and questions come to your mind?

What are your thoughts?

Next up at Nexus: Paparazzi

Flash bulbs explode as people pursue their obsession with finding the next big thrill... extreme sports... extreme partying... extreme clothing... extreme everything... Our culture has gone wild. The message is clear: DO whatever you have to do... give up whatever you need to give up... go as far as you need to go.... all just to have the next thrill... and whatever your do... don't let your values get in the way of your fun.

... but does it really deliver? Or could it be that after experiencing all the extremes people are still extremely empty?
Life is a treasure. Don't throw it all away to fast.


So I am not sure which of the two images I like better.... do you have any thoughts about them?

Also... the byline: "Modesty is not a sin" is still open for negotiation...

Here are some other ideas:
I See London...
Modest is the Hottest...
I'm bringing Modest Back...
Modest is the new hot
Modesty Redefined.
Redefining modesty
Naked Modesty
Revealing modesty


Any other thoughts?


Plus... How would you define Modest?

SnoRodeo 2007-2008 Recap Video.

Just a little recap of all the fun that we had. I will post a new video soon that incorporates the video that I shot on tuesday before we left.

The pictures are online....

Click Here

Sno Rodeo 2007 - 2008

The pictures are online....

Click Here