battle is a sport.

Good morning friends! the sun is shining, its “warm” out and its Friday…good stuff! :)
We had our Thursday ALIVE gathering last night…what did we do? quick version…
1) Bethany is a fearless warrior who attacks water-bending demons and
who also happened to turn 20 yesterday
2) Chocolate cake & red flavor starbursts are very good things…but
the former is hard to cut into pieces and serve with a plastic fork
3) “why is it worth it?”
4) Telephone Pictionary…upside down sumo wrestler, penguin commando, an
attempt at drawing toats ep…
5) Battle is a sport.
But I assume everyone’s night pretty much looked the same way… :)
but, just in case it didnt…a LITTLE more detail.
we celebrated Bethany’s birthday with a watercolored card/epic tale of her future, cake & starbursts. If that doesn’t welcome in another year of life – idk what would.
Then we settled in, gave everyone a piece of paper and writing utensil and read them this verse…
Philippians 3:7-12
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Earlier this week a few of us had met
up and were working on a new Project and a question came up as we were talking about the theme of the whole thing.
Here it is… “Why is Jesus worth it?”
Think about it for a second…why would we even think of giving anything up for Him, let alone everything? why is it worth it to risk our safety, our comfort, our desires – for Jesus? To follow Him? Why?
So we all took some time and thought about that, wrote down some things, and then prayed. Some people shared what they wrote…definitely something good to think about and be encouraged by other people who have decided that He is absolutely worth it.

Then we had chocolate cake. yum :) sarah labored over it for hours and made every crumb out of pure love – while being a fabulous mother and wife…and we are forever grateful to her for that.

And then we traveled into the “studio” for a little creative game time.
Aka…play hug tag for a few minutes (never stops being funny to watch) to get rid of excess energy and then sit down and play telephone Pictionary. Love that game. So funny to see the drawings and what people come up with. We laughed quite a bit.

And then all of a sudden it was 9 o clock and ppl started to leave. It went SO quick. and as ppl were leaving some of us were just sitting in a circle and having our standard, super deep, intellectual conversation…
And if you ever wondered...here is just a quick glimpse into what you would talk about if you came to ALIVE…

Jillian: oh – so I was just at comedy sportz, and they played this game…
Sarah: the three word game
Jillian: (looks at sarah confused) they don’t play that game…
Sarah: no, but its fun.
Jillian: oh…(continues on to tell a really really great story about comedy sportz and one of the games they played as everyone listens SUPER intently, not wanting to miss a moment)
(story ends)…slight pause
Austin: oh! One time for (drama thing at school…?) our teacher had us write the funniest skits we could and then we had to give them to each other to act out in front of everyone.
…another slight pause.
Sarah: what made you think of that? (as we're all thinking the same thing)
Austin: (looks down…) idk…comedy, sports, it was like a battle, kind of…and well, battle is a sport!
The rest of us: team.

Have a beautiful weekend! Enjoy the sunshine :)

-ALIVE