Greetings and a first thought.

Well hello there world! Jared here, just thought i'd give this a try for a while.

I've been reading a few of my dad's posts (http://sarchsblog.blogspot.com/) and even managed to take a little while from my life to gaze over Anna C's photography and decided that I would like to have a blog of my own.

However, my blog won't be simple stories of my life. I have been called by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to go into the ministry as a youth leader. It wasn't too long ago that I almost dismissed this calling as a fanciful whim when the Lord put me in my place through a series of events in my life which were almost All-ending to me (though in reality were probably miniscule and unimportant to the flow of life). So I have once again been led by the Good Shephard into pursuing my calling.

This blog will actually be a recording of my thoughts of Bible verses or stories as well as the occasional speaker from the interweb (i.e. Rob Bell, Mark Driscoll, Brad Stine, Louie Giglio). While that is my main goal I may even ask for lessons that God has led you to in your life.

As I intend this blog to be aimed toward Christians helping each other grow in the faith and to people I wish to lead to Christ, I would be greatly Appreciative of any who choose to challenge my faith and ideas in hopes of Refining them and helping me grow in the word.(Proverbs 27:17-- "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another")





Without further Ado I will open with my first thought, while small, I consider it of high importance because it is so overlooked in the world nowadays.

I know that as a youth, I am constantly surrounded by noise, iPods, tv, radio, friends, computers (cough,cough), etc, etc, etc. Now, I cannot make any researched guesses about adults, but I would be willing to venture the same goes for most of you. As we have grown accustomed to the constant noise we rarely notice a lack of something in our life, obviously, this something is Silence. Now you might (or might not) ask, "Jared, what is so important about Silence, nothing can get done without communication of some kind" but I would strongly beg to differ. For in the book of 1 Kings (Chapter 19 Verse 11b-12) the Bible says "Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper"

There ya go a "gentle whisper." God was not in the powerful wind, the earthquake, nor the fire, but in the gentle whisper after it all. Had the noises not all left Elijah in this moment he would not have heard the small, gentle whisper that was the voice of God; That is why silence is so important.

A couple of Months back my youth pastor showed the group a video by a somewhat well-known video pastor by the Name of Rob Bell. He does many videos that all have a different Biblical value to them all in a unique way. I like the way he addresses the issue of Silence and so I will post his video up for all of you to see, enjoy.





God Bless,
Jared