 |
| The Beards: Bendecidos! |
"A Thousand Thanks"
We give thanks this holiday for the many lives that God has allowed us to touch via our labor of love, Rancho Oasis, established 2010.
Thank you, support team, for your constant prayer, service, gifts and words of encouragement! We share an equal weight in this work for the Kingdom!!!
Take some time to reflect & give thanks for the individuals that invested in YOU and the importance of reaching the next generation for Christ...
One of my favorite podcasts shared some valuable lessons during an interview with Christian researcher &
speaker George Barna. Barna’s comments encouraged me with our own philosophy of ministry here at Rancho Oasis.
Excerpts from Warren Smith's interview with George Barna.
(Aired May 11th, 2017 on the podcast “Listening In.”)
 |
| U-12 Boys Soccer Team |
“[Reading the Bible] is necessary, but it’s not everything that you need to do [to have a Biblical world view]. Because when Jesus was working with his apostles he wasn’t constantly quizzing them, “What do you believe?” He was saying, “Well, whatta ya gonna do?” And ya know his measure, he’s quoted in John as saying when you will be my disciples if you bear fruit….
… And
so it’s really the fruit that determines whether or not we’re serious about
this quest to be Christ-like. And so that’s why in this particular study unlike
all previous ones we’ve incorporated behaviors into the measuring process. And
that I believe is why simply reading the Bible may not be enough to get you
there. Somebody might have to help you
translate those beliefs into behavior.”
 |
| Children & Youth Bible Studies |
“Well let me even go back a step and talk about how does a world view develop because what we’ve learned over the many years that I’ve been doing this kind of research is that a person’s world view develops essentially between about 18 months of age and age of 13…
…It’s really in those first thirteen years
of life that a person’s world view develops. During the teen years we found
that once you have that world view pretty well set in stone you refine it a bit
and then when you reach your 20’s and beyond you become an evangelist for your
own world view. You think that you’ve
got it right and so you want others to embrace your world view….
 |
| Trade School Bible Devotionals & Life Talks |
…So
what that says to me about the developmental process is we may have it upside
down in our churches we put almost all of our theological development and
behavioral development resources into trying to impact adults and what we know from the research is you are
who you are going to be by the age of 13 or 14, somewhere in there in that
range….
 |
| Hosting Short-term Missions teams & our Intern Program |
…So we ought to be putting most of our
resources into trying to reach children. Now having said I’ll say that it
is not impossible for an adult to have their world view refined or even
radically changed the Holy Spirit can change anybody’s life in an instant and
then you can be on a different growth trajectory. So that’s a great thing. But
what has to happen there. It’s not just
about information. More than that it is about seeing how that information gets
applied.”
 |
| Raising our own third-culture kids! |
An intelligent heart acquires knowledge,
and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.
-Proverbs 18:15 (ESV)
By wisdom a house is built,
and by understanding it is established;
by knowledge the rooms are filled
with all precious and pleasant riches.
-Proverbs 24:3 & 4 (ESV)
Les Queremos Mucho!
