Winning Ways: The Price of Admission

The boy just wanted to hide some bad grades; his marks made international news instead.

A few years ago a teenager in New York set fire to his exam papers in the privacy of his bedroom. It seems he wanted to hide the poor grades from his parents. The fire quickly grew out of control, though, and ended up gutting the entire second floor of his home.

The 14-year-old set the papers alight and threw them out of his second-floor room. An ember blew back into his room, and soon flames were consuming the furniture and licking out the window.

It began as a way to keep his parents from discovering his poor grades, but his effort at hiding his failures resulted in disaster. Far from hiding his failures, eight fire trucks and sixty firefighters responded to the blaze, and newspapers around the world ran the story as an offbeat news item.

There were no injuries, police said. Yeah, right. Anyone who can remember being fifteen knows that's not true!

The boy felt "the price of admission" was too high. The price of denial turned out to be higher.

As an old saying goes, "confession is good for the soul." This Sunday morning, October 11, we'll discover what the Bible tells us about the importance of admitting our failures to God, to ourselves, and to a trusted individual.

Take the Prayer Tour! Mark your calendars: Sunday, October 18, we’re holding a Prayer Tour through the Hillcrest facility.

It will begin and end in the auditorium, and it will take 45 minutes to complete. You can begin anytime between 8:15 and 9:15 a.m., depending on what activities you have to get to. Many of our people will choose to begin the Prayer Tour at 9:15 a.m. and end at 10 a.m. in the auditorium in time for the worship service to begin. Some of our senior adults will choose to begin at 8:15 a.m. and end at 9 a.m. in time to go to their Sunday School class.

You can choose the start-time that works best for you because the Prayer Tour will be self-guided. When you arrive in the auditorium you will be given a map of our facilities and a prayer guide. The guide will tell you where to stop in the building and what to pray for at each stop.

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Each Wednesday I post my article from "Winning Ways," an e-newsletter that goes out to over 950 subscribers. If you want to subscribe to "Winning Ways," sign up here.