SWYC 2015: Christ Our Righteousness

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GYC Southwest

Breakout Session #1

Keala Thompson

A Safe Place

Norman McNulty

The Science of the Mind of Christ

Dwayne Lemon

National Apostasy Leads to National Ruin

Within every single 1 of us, I realize that there's a desire to belong to a safe place.

A place that they can feel accepted and loved, whether that's going to be a school, a church, or especially in the home.

And you know I recently came from a speaking engagement at a camp meeting.

And as I was trying to have these breakout groups and people were sharing and wanting to share, I'm realizing that they were having a hard time in this place that I was at.

They were having a hard time in this place that I was at.

They were having a hard time with the breakout sessions and being transparent, especially in this location.

And it's not in this country, so it's another country.

They have a hard time being real and transparent, and they couldn't do it.

I noticed that my seminars was actually decreasing and with less attendance in every session.

You know, and it's like, this getting less and less people.

And it finally clicked and people telling me, look, the people in this country, and somebody just told me recently, my head elders wife told me that this country, the people are very secretive.

I mean that's how we are in America, but even more so.

So they didn't want to open up and share, so it was getting less and less and like, wow, what's going on?

And finally it was coming out in this breakout session that people are saying look the problem is we don't feel that our churches are safe places that they cannot be real they cannot be transparent they cannot tell the struggles they're struggling with They can't talk about the pains and the sins they are going through and all these other things.

Is it only in this country or do you think it is in your home churches too?

How many of you feel you can be real in your churches?

In Hawaii, there's a place called, how many of you have been to Hawaii?

How many of you guys didn't go to Hawaii?

How many of you guys want to go to Hawaii?

So in Hawaii there's a place called Pu'uhonua, or Ho'onaunau.

How many of you have been to the big island of Hawaii?

How many of you have been to that place, Pu'uhonua or Ho'onaunau, which is actually called, in English they actually call it also the City of Refuge.

How many of you have heard of the city of refuge in the Bible?

In the city of refuge in the Bible, if you have committed a crime, you could go to the city of refuge.

So let me tell you about the city of refuge in Hawaii because it's very similar to the city of refuge in Hawaii.

So it's a place that you they had to swim to is right off the coast of Kona, Hawaii and you had to swim to this island and as you go to this island if you had committed like a murder a kapu is something like is a You broke a law a kapu where actually you broke it.

There was a death penalty for doing that.

So they would chase you down and they're trying to kill you and as you go to this island, that island was called a city of refuge, which was at, honaunau means actually refuge, a place of safety, of peace.

And it was at this place that actually you were safe.

And that's what is important about having this city of refuge.

The problem is that this city is no more, right, because there's no kapu laws.

There's only a structure of saying there's a safe place, but it's no longer truly a safe place.

And in the same way I think a lot of times we say that our churches are really safe places but I really don't believe it in a sense that I feel like a lot of people are getting baptized into the churches and they come into the church and a lot of them are ending up within 6 months or 2 years.

I saw 1 statistic up to 70% of the people who got baptized ended up leaving the church within 2 years.

People are running away from home or they actually want to leave home early.

I have a problem I guess I saw with certain culture in Hawaii where a lot of the young people were actually joining the military as a way to escape the home.

And so I see there's like a trend of people like they want to get away because they feel the home is not a safe place and the churches are not safe places.

And it looks like the city of refuge it looks like it's a safe place there.

The form and structure of the city of refuge is still up but it's not operating.

In other words that may look like the churches are safe places but it's truly not operating how God I believe wants us to operate.

So my question is this afternoon where is your Pu'uhonua?

I have a friend he works for CPS, child protective services which is CWS right now.

So he goes into the homes and he has to work with the children and he is watching out for the children and protecting them.

And he said every time he goes out he always asks the young people, the children and the young teenagers the same question and he asks them this.

In other words, where is a place that you can go that you feel safe?

You're going to get into trouble, you're getting arrested, you're getting all these problems with the police, but if you can find your safe place, because he knew that if you find your safe place, you're going to thrive, you're going to do well.

So he told me this story of 1, these 3 teenagers, where they were running away from home and they're escaping the police and running away from the police and he has a way of finding people better than the police.

He can track you down because he was born and raised there.

So he actually found them and the police haven't even found them yet.

He finds them and he talks to them and he says, where is the safe place?

And they said, think about your safe place.

And they said to him, our safe places are with grandma and grandpa.

But we can never go there because the CPS law says that if they have a criminal record they cannot take care of you.

So because they have a criminal record, Grandma and grandpa couldn't take care of these teenager children and so he said come with me.

So he went to grandma and grandpa and he said to them look I know your record but your grandkids really want to be with you.

And if you're willing to take them, then I'm going to pretend that they're not here.

And so what happened, let me tell you what happened with this story.

So these teenagers who were like getting into problems with the law and running away, They went to the grandparents, it was illegal to go, and he left them.

So they were actually being raised by the grandparents.

And you know what, these troubled teenagers, they were doing so horrible and just getting in trouble with the police and all that.

And afterward they began to do so good and so well.

And even the police still don't know where they're at.

Series

Breakout Session #1

A Safe Place

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Healing Broken Relationships

5. A Safe Place

1h

Plenary Sessions

God Invented Sex

1h 34m

Lost

03 The Lost Son

1h 3m

Man to Man

A Father’s Heart

49m

Genesis

10 The Naked Truth About Righteousness

42m

Reflections on Luke 15

30m

Teen Talk: In Search of Love

49m

What Jesus Said

2. The Unconditional Love of God

54m

What I Want

1h 11m

Revelation Today Crusade

20. The Final Prophecy

48m

Lost

The Prodigal Son

29m

Forgiveness Breaks Barriers

55m

Sound Doctrine