Feeling The Burn

February 23, 2007 @ 2:23 pm by Pressed

Quick, go here and comment to save a life.  Once you have made a comment then you can continue reading this post.  Go on now.  Go comment.  Quickly!

Ok, so yeah.  I’m so hungry.  I decided that I would try to do the fast without juice.  So I’m doing a 30 hour fast with only water.  My head hurts.  My stomach is growling.  I can’t think or concentrate on anything.  The idea of eating food is overtaking me.  I need food!  I have 3 and 1/2 hours to go…

If you have yet to comment below, go make a comment!

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Leave A Comment, Save A Life (Year 3)

February 21, 2007 @ 8:07 am by Pressed

This is a comment fundraising post:

YOU MAKE A COMMENT AND I WILL DONATE MONEY FOR WORLD HUNGER

My youth group is participating in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine for the fourth year in a row. At 12:00 p.m. on Thursday morning we will stop eating and will continue to not eat for 30 hours to raise awareness and money to fight world hunger.

The 30 Hour Famine helps to raise money for starving children around the world. $1 a day will feed a child, that is $30 a month and $360 per year. Our students are raising money by asking people to sponsor them with $1 per hour that they go without food for 30 Hours. If each student gets 12 people to sponsor them they will have fed a child for an entire year.

Each year I donate money and we donate money out of our youth group budget to World Vision for the 30 Hour Famine. I’ve yet to decide how much and so I will let you decide once again.

For every comment received on this post I will donate $1 of my own personal money and $2 out of our youth group
budget to World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine. As a blogger you have the opportunity to help raise money for world hunger by
simply leaving a comment and by spreading the word to get others to comment.

You have until Sunday, March 4, 2007 to leave a comment in order to save a life! This is your opportunity to raise money and it doesn’t cost you anything! However, if you do wish to help sponsor our youth group you can:

A.) Send a check or money order made out to World Vision to Temple Baptist Church, 444 Beeman St., Sullivan, MO 63080.

B.) You can also pledge to donate money per comment left at avoiding evil. Once the time limit is over then you can send your pledged amount to the church with checks made out to World Vision or you donate directly to the 30 Hour Famine through World Vision.

C.) You can support us by praying for our group and leaving your comments below.

Spam does not count.

P. S. If this is your first time commenting then your comment may need to be approved. I’ll approve comments as soon as I can get to them.

Remember, you have until Sunday, March 4th to get unique comments on this post. Ready, go!

Christopher is doing this too so go comment on his site to double the money raised!

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No School, No Church

February 14, 2007 @ 8:42 pm by Pressed

Awhile back our church adopted the policy that if school is cancelled on a Wednesday then we would cancel all Wednesday night services. Because of the recent winter weather school was cancelled and thus Wednesday night services were cancelled. I think there is a flaw to this particular church policy. The problem is that sometimes in the mornings the weather is pretty nasty and school needs to be cancelled and yet by the time the afternoon comes the roads are free and clear. Tonight I don’t think there was any reason that we shouldn’t have church. I guess that is a policy that we need to re-visit and change at some point.

Since we were not having church I tried to find a nice place to take my wife for Valentines day, but since it was last minute the places I checked out were already booked up. We ended up going to Cracker Barrel for dinner. My plan was to get Kendall a pink iPod, but when I went to Wal-Mart they were fresh out of pink. I got her some flowers instead. She got me some delicious chocolate covered strawberries. Now we are just sitting at the house watching TV. It’s good to have the evening to spend with my wife. Sometimes just staying home and hanging out is more fun than doing much of anything else.

I’m sure this was the most interesting post you have ever read.  You are welcome!

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Should Your Daughter Get The HPV Vaccine?

February 12, 2007 @ 3:55 pm by Pressed

The HPV vaccine is a new vaccine approved by the FDA that is said to be 100% effective in preventing diseases that are caused by the Human papilloma virus (HPV). Don’t let this become too misleading. This vaccine only protects against four different types of HPV and therefore does not protect against all types of the virus. There are currently more than 40 types of HPV that can infect men and women. HPV is the cause of cervical cancer in women and other (less common) types of cancers. Certain types of HPV also cause genital warts in both men and women. This means that even with the HPV vaccine there is still a significant risk of cervical cancer and genital warts, diseases that will not be prevented by the HPV vaccine. This vaccine only reduces the risk, it isn’t really 100% effective. It is also less effective if you do not get all three doses (3 shots) at the right times or if you have already been exposed to HPV.

The HPV vaccine has been recommended for 11-12 year old girls, but it can be given to girls as young as 9 or as old as 26. The main goal is to get the vaccine to females before they become sexually active. The vaccine is mainly effective for girls or women who have not yet been exposed to the four different types of HPV covered by this particular vaccine. Anyone who has already been infected will not get the full benefits of the vaccine. It may still be effective for some females who have already been exposed to HPV if they have only been exposed to one or two of the four different types covered by the vaccine.

The HPV virus can cause cancer when it causes the cells in the cervix to change. While in many cases the HPV goes away, there are some cases that it doesn’t go away and instead it continues to change the cells on a woman’s cervix. This can lead to cancer. The percentage of people who will be infected with HPV is staggering. At least 50% of all sexually active people in the United States will get HPV. That comes out to be around 6 million people. Other than the vaccine to “help” prevent it there are no current treatments for HPV.

Should your daughter get the HPV vaccine? As a youth pastor should I recommend that the parents of the teenage girls in my youth group take their daughters to get this vaccine? Where should we stand on this issue as Christians and as responsible adults?

Let me first make this very clear. The only SURE way to prevent HPV is to abstain from all sexual activity. This works 100% of the time, it protects you from all 40 different types of HPV, and it almost completely eliminates the need for an expensive vaccine that may or may not prevent diseases related to HPV. Any parent who is concerned with their teenager’s health enough to make their daughter get an expensive vaccine should equally spend as much money and time making sure their daughter remains abstinent. The HPV vaccine is not a quick fix to deal with the sexual activity of teenagers. If parents are truly concerned with the health and wellbeing of their teen and desire what is best for their teenagers spiritual life then parents need to show the same amount of concern and effort for teaching their teens to be sexually pure as they show for keeping their teens healthy. The $360 it costs for the three doses of vaccine may even be better spent on $360 worth of abstinence protection and training.

Protecting your teenager from disease is not as simple as going to get them a few shots. Parents need to be actively involved in the lives of their teens. Not only do they need to talk to their teenagers about sex and sexual purity, but also they need to establish guidelines that promote purity. Parents who allow their teenage girls or boys to be in the bedroom or basement alone with their boyfriends or girlfriends with the door closed and the light off are asking for trouble. This type of freedom promotes sexual exploration, not purity. The best way for teenagers to prevent these HPV related diseases is to remain sexually abstinent and parents they need your help! They need you to set boundaries for them. The HPV vaccine is not a boundary. It is a vaccine that helps take away the consequences of having multiple sexual partners and therefore promotes teenage sexual activity rather than prevents it. Here is the rub. The HPV vaccine does not prevent pregnancy, HIV, 36 other types of HPV, or many other STD’s. All the risks of being sexually active (including cervical cancers) are still there and yet the vaccine is offering teen girls a false sense of security. If teenagers become even more sexually active after receiving the vaccine, they are at a greater risk than they were before the vaccine was administered.

In my opinion there are only a couple reasons that the HPV vaccine should even be considered. If you are a parent who, against better judgment, doesn’t really care if your teenager is sexually active, or if you are a parent who promotes it or gives your teen the freedom necessary to be sexually active then by all means get your daughter the vaccine. If you are a parent who is certain that your teenager is sexual active despite all that you’ve done to prevent it, then you may also want to get the vaccine (however, never give up promoting abstinence and remind them of all the other risks involved.) The most legitimate reason to get the vaccine is for any future risk that could be out of the control of your teen. While abstaining from sex is the best way to prevent it, you can’t always prevent the person you are going to marry down the road from making mistakes. Even if you’ve only had one sexual partner, if the person you are with has had previous sexual partners then you are still at risk. In the case that your daughter remains sexually abstinent but then desires to marry someone who may have made a mistake early in life then it would be good for her to receive the vaccine. Remember, however, that the vaccine does not have to be administered right away. Your daughter doesn’t need the vaccine right now if she is waiting until she gets married to be sexually active. When it comes to the point of marriage then she can consider getting the vaccine. Another responsible way of dealing with the issue is promoting abstinence with your daughter and waiting until she is old enough to make the decision on her own as to whether or not she wants to get the vaccine. This could prevent the early, false sense of security that teens with the vaccine could develop which may prevent them from making a choice to be sexually active.

This remains to be a sensitive subject with a lot of different points of view. From a Christian perspective, however, the right thing to do is for parents to promote sexual purity regardless of whether or not they feel the HPV vaccine is necessary. Any parent who has a real concern for their son or daughters health and future WILL do what it takes to help their teens live sexually pure. That doesn’t mean just paying for a few shots and calling it good.

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Winter Jam 2007

January 30, 2007 @ 8:23 pm by Pressed

We took our youth group to Winter Jam 2007 last night at the Family Arena in St. Charles, MO.

It was a packed house and we just managed to get in to the stadium just before they shut it down. We got seats right behind the stage, fairly close. It was fun and I think the youth enjoyed it, though we got back really late…

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