A ministry of Cornerstone Community Church, CRASH is a high school youth group with a purpose. As a verb, CRASH means "to make a loud, clattering noise" or "to collide, esp. violently and noisily." As a noun, a CRASH is "a sudden loud noise" and "characterized by an intensive effort." Like a car accident or the sinking of the Titanic, what we want to happen at CRASH is a sudden, unexpected, life-changing, and sometimes noisy, encounter with Jesus Christ. And while a car or oceanliner crash often results in tragic loss of life, and collision with our Savior will change your life forever.

High school and junior high meet at Crown Point Community Center in Johnston (6300 Pioneer Parkway) for games, food, music and life-changing lessons on Wednesdays from 7:00 to 8:30 PM. Need more info? Email us, and check out the news, calendar and photos below. Also visit us on MySpace or Facebook for other news, blogs, photos and videos.

Graduating Seniors

will be honored at our Senior Banquet Wednesday night May 28th at Crown Point. Instead of our regular CRASH we will meet at 6:30 for dinner, slide show, games and more. This will be a formal red carpet/black tie affair (and color tie is fine, actually).

CRASHtube!

We’ve added a page to feature movies from CRASH events. Click here to go there. Click here for a free Quicktime plug-in if you don’t already have it installed.

Missions Trip

The trip is June 5 through the 15th. His Mansion is a Christ-centered residential care program in Hillsboro, New Hampshire founded to help men and women between 18 and 35 years of age that have difficult life situations. We will be volunteering to help with a variety of service projects on the grounds and as well involvement as being part of the ministry to the students at His Mansion. We have 15 SEATS reserved for high school students and 15 seats open for other adults from Cornerstone that may be interested in going. If interest is a lot higher than the space in two vans, we will arrange for a 3rd van, opening it up to as many as 15 more. The total cost will be approximately $150-200 a person. We will plan on doing some fundraising to offset everyone’s final cost. If money is a serious issue, DO NOT let that deter you from signing up. Other financial help may be available. Anyone interested in signing up can do so at CRASH on Wednesday nights or Sunday morning during Cornerstone’s services at Johnston Middle School. You will also be asked to fill out a skills development form. Need more info? Visit His Mansion’s web site or contact Nick or Heather.

Our trip itinerary, subject to change, begins with departure from 6000 Douglas at 4pm on the 5th. We hope to arrive at His Mansion about 1pm on the 6th. On the 13th we will leave Mis Mansion and drive to Groton, CT, spending the night with the youth at a church there. On the 14th we will travel to Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. We will fiinsh the last leg of the journey to Des Moines on the 15th.

The 5 Pieces of CRASH

CRASH is the central hub of youth ministry at Cornerstone. This is evagelism central. Christ followers have a responsibilty to share the Kingdom with their friends. Wednesday nights is the time to bring friends and know that they will hear the gospel.

S.E.L.L. (Students Equipped to Live and Love). Fellowship and meaningful relationships are truly what we believe God wants our lives in Him to look like. This is our fellowship ministry. Students will have the chance to spend time in a positive and fun environment as they take part in fun activities together. S.E.L.L. will meet about twice a month on Sunday nights (times will vary).

DEEPER. God wants us to know Him more. DEEPER is for those students who want to study God’s word in a deeper, meaningful way in order to know God and learn how He has worked in history and how He still works today. DEEPER will meet twice a month on Sunday nights, the opposite Sundays as S.E.L.L. Sign up here.

PENDEO (Latin for “depend”). We believe that God has a mandate for all of His people to serve the poor. We need to continually be reminded to depend on God for all the things in our lives. Twice a month a group of students will go into downtown Des Moines and serve the poor free food and by simply sowing God’s love. PENDEO will meet twice a month on Saturday mornings. Sign up here.

HANDS is our worship ministry. We believe that we are created to worship God and love Him with our whole being. Students involved in this ministry will learn what true Biblical worship is. They will learn how to lead worship in more ways thatn just music. Art, talking, expression through your body language, etc. HANDS will meet every other Thursday night at 7pm. Sign up here.

Looking for CRASH photos?

Browse Cornerstone’s Photo page, the photos on the CRASH MySpace or Facebook. The latest are pictures from the round robin ping-pong/game night on March 2.

Life’s Big Questions

Mike Johnson 4.28.08

Amy and I saw the movie EXPELLED last Friday, a documentary everyone should see. Ben Stein investigates the intolerance that secular science seems to have for theories other than evolution to explain the origin of life. In it, Ben Stein interviews well-known, outspoken atheist Professor Richard Dawkins, author of "The God Delusion", who asserts that God (be it God of the Bible, Allah, Buddha, whoever) does not exist. He also insists that evolution is fact. Ben asks him pointedly how life could have originated in the universe without God. In short, Professor Dawkins could not answer the question. This antagonist of "Intelligent Design" admitted he wasn't sure but then suggests the possibility that life could have somehow formed (again, he doesn't explain how) on another planet and some intelligent being could have planted life on earth. A leading atheist could not answer the simple question of the origin of life. He didn't know the answer.

In the last lesson we went through in our small group, we saw a clips of Bill Jack interviewing members of the Humanist Movement and of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, both organizations that deny the existence of God and say that morality depends on the individual, not God or any moral guide. Bill asks them both, among other questions, how they knew what they were saying was true. Neither could answer, and in fact went to great length in some cases to avoid the questions.

In the lesson we learned 4 key questions to use to open up a peaceful, respectful, and productive dialog with atheists, humanists, evolutionists, etc. to get them thinking about their positions. They are:

1. What do you mean by what you're saying?

2. How do you know what you're saying is true?

3. What difference does what you're saying make on your life? (or, So what?)

4. What if you're wrong? (or, What if you're wrong and you die?)

It can be amusing to watch interviews like this where the key questions are asked and people, lacking real answers, fumble around with goofy ideas and far-fetched theories. While it's easy to laugh at them, the fact is they are lost. That is not amusing. Christ died for them too, and the whole point of these questions and the dialog they hopefully lead to is not to make fun of them and dismiss them as ignorant. The point is to lead them, by way of getting them to discover the inconsistencies in what they believe, to the truth.

Overcoming the hold Darwin's theory has on modern science is not only a challenge of the mind but also the heart. In my opinion, the reason a lot of people don't want to accept the Bible's account of creation is because they fear they would then have to accept the Bible's account of everything else, including salvation. They would have to deal with sin and moral responsibility. They would have to change. They would have to admit they were wrong the whole time. It's a pandora's box the world would rather not open. Thus, Big Bang and evolutionary theory as a way of explaining the genesis of life and the universe, as illogical as they are, seem the more comfortable alternative.

As a Christian, you know the answer to the question of origins, and can be confident that the evidence we see in the structure of a living cell, the complexity of life, the fossils we find, geology and archeology supports what the Bible says about the origins of life and the world around us. We all have a responsibility to know what the Bible says about these things (and to tell it to others). Read it. Study it. Know it. Know what you believe, and "see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." (Colossians 2:8). "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." (1 Peter 3:15) You can hardly be equipped to convince others of the truth if you don't know it well yourself.

We have one more small group session in this Demolishing Strongholds series. Date and location will be announced soon.

Looking for Answers?

Unless you're buying into the fib that the world is billions of year old and just happened to form on its own, the planet we live on is about 6,000 years old, according to the Bible. The first eleven chapters of Genesis describe what happened in the first 2,000 years. Where else can you read just eleven short chapters and cover the first third of the world's history? Not in world history class. If you're looking for something in the Bible to read, try Genesis 1-11. You get the account of creation of the world and universe, people, animals, the story of sin and its affects on you, geneologies that allow you to count for yourself the age of civilization, the worldwide flood, a preview of Jesus Christ, how different languages and ethnic groups came to be, and more. Lots of answers in Gen. 1-11. Go find 'em! Then join us for our next DEEPER/HANDS small group (check the calendar soon).