Join the SRO family by becoming a member.  When you become a member, we will send you quarterly newsletters and we will send you information on our upcoming retreats, camps and conferences.

Join today!

http://events.constantcontact.com/register/event?llr=ejze5icab&oeidk=a07e4ib7wpq3efb372c

How many of us can say that we honestly know God?  If you know God its because you are picking up the bible and are doing everything possible to understand his word.

If you know God, then you know that he is our PEACE..

Stop asking for things you already have..

- We are loved unconditionally
- We are forgiven
- We are delivered
- We are his inheritance
- God works out everything out for our good.
- We are justified
- We are new creatures
- There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ
- Success, prosperity is part of God’s plan for us

God wants us to believe and to rely on him and to trust that he has your life in his hands.

I want you to stand in front of a mirror and find positive things to say about yourself and don’t let the enemy rob you of the plans that God has for you. Whatever comes out of your mouth is what you believe, so, choose to believe that you are wonderfully made.

God Bless!

SRO Ranch 2011

We held our first official camp in April 2011 for College age young ladies and many of the girls renewed their commitment to pursue God’s plan for their lives.  Our presenters spoke to the girls and provided them with tools that will help them as they plan for their future.

We had guest speakers from Mercy Ministries participate in our final session and also shared their personal testimonies with our girls.  Their stories of hope really put things in to perspective for our College girls who really appreciated their honesty and their ability to be genuine and real.

God is moving and changing lives, he wants to brighten our future if we are willing to trust him and believe that he has our best interest at heart.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  This is the first and greatest commandment.  (Matthew 22:37-38)

This verse doesn’t say Jesus I want you to love the Lord with whatever is left of your heart, soul, and mind.

Jesus wants us to love God more than any of the other things that demand our time and attention.  We are to love God above anything else in this world, with as much strength and passion as each of us possibly can.  We demonstrate this love for God by focusing our thoughts and energies on those things he’s prepared for us to do and that are pleasing Him.

Start your day with a bible verse and continue to memorize it through-out the day, say a prayer before your day get’s too crazy and continue singing songs to the Lord as you go about your day.  Prepare yourself to be a responsible student, employee, friend and parent, so that you maximize the potential God has placed inside all of us.

Keep your eyes open and stay aware of the people God brings into your life that need encouragement.  If you think we are saying that God is supposed to be the only thing you think about, No.  But we are saying, you can still love God with all your heart, soul, and mind and share His love with others even while you maintain a busy life.   When you demonstrate responsible stewardship of the life He has given you, your life offers undeniable proof of your love for him.

He will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in him, whose thoughts turn often to the Lord!  Isaiah 26:3 (TLB)

So your walk with God has become distant and you’re feeling lost, alone, confused and just not able to function. You’re wondering, what am I doing, where am I going? I’m so lost and not focused. I’ve lost my way!

Often the fast pace of life and its worries get the best of us, and this is when we need to connect to our heavenly Father who understands exactly where we are and what we are going through.

God says;
“Come to me all of you who are struggling and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28)

Can you remember a time in your life when you were completely in God’s rest? If you can, take a moment to reflect back on that time, and how it felt. If you are comfortable doing so, feel free to describe it below in the “Comment” section of this post. My guess is that during that time you felt God’s peace, love and grace. You knew that no matter what happened, God was in control and having God leading the way, you’d surely get through.

Well, God is on the throne, and there is nothing too big or small for him. Put him first in all that you do and watch him change the course of your life.

“Jehovah reigneth; he is clothed with majesty” (Psalm 93: 1)

Ask God to help you find that place of rest, and when you ask, be prepared to receive it. When God gives you that place of rest and peace, don’t clutter that time with other things, force yourself to say NO to things you don’t need to be doing right now and feed your mind, spirit and soul with God’s word.

God Bless You!

We are excited to launch our new SRO website and presence on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube! There is so much in store and more rolling out this next year. We love what God is doing and are looking forward to all of it. New coaching programs and events scheduled for the new year. Stay tuned for more updates!

After a two year search and lots of emotional changes, we found this 5.2 acre piece of land to host our outreach camps for “at risk” single girls. The emotional choices were that in order to make this move, we would uproot our families and sell our home so that we could afford this piece of land.

We can relate to the story of Peter when he gets out of the boat to meet Jesus.

Jesus comes to the disciples, walking on the water. This terrifies the disciples and they think they are seeing a ghost. Jesus tells them in (Matt 14, Mark 6, Luke. 28) “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Peter replies, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.” So Jesus invites Peter to come. Peter gets out of the boat and begins walking on the water toward Jesus. But when Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and sees the wind and waves, he begins to sink. Peter cries out to the Lord and Jesus immediately reaches out his hand and catches Peter. As they climb into the boat together, the storm ceases. Then the disciples worship Jesus, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Five years ago, we took our first leap of faith and got out of the boat and answered the call and founded this outreach ministry. We decided that no matter the cost, we were going to walk in faith, a walk that reminds us that God’s ways are not our ways, but his way is awesome and complete!

SRO Campsite

A parent’s mistakes are often reflected in the lives of their children. In the life of King David (2 Sam 15:1-13) he saw a bitter replay and amplification of many of his own past sins through his son Absalom. God had warned David that his family would suffer because of his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah and seeing this actually happen horrified David.

God forgives but he does not always cancel the consequences of our sins.

Absalom had a lot of great qualities and would have made a great king and the people loved him. But he lacked the inner character and control needed in a good leader. His appearance, skill, and position did not make up for his lack of personal integrity.

David’s sin took him away from God, but repentance brought him back. In contrast, Absalom sinned and kept on sinning. Absalom relied on the advice of others, but he was not wise enough to evaluate the counsel he received.

Can you identify with Absolom? Do you find yourself on a fast track toward self-destruction? Absalom would not own up to his mistakes and admit he was wrong or even acknowledge he needed forgiveness. Forgiveness cannot be experienced until we genuinely admit and confess our sins to God. Absalom rejected his father’s love and ultimately God’s love.

How often do we miss entering back into God’s love through the door of forgiveness?

Don’t allow the sins of your parents, rob you of your promised inheritance. God wants to change the course of our lives so that the mistakes of our parents end with us. Can you imagine your kids repeating your sins and so on? When will it end?

It ends when we surrender our life to Christ and we take personal responsibility for the decisions we make for our own lives and the lives of future generations. Stop blaming the people around you and remember that God has the power and is able and willing to help us overcome any situation as long as we are willing to live a life that honors God.

Do you know what honors God? If you don’t know, start reading the bible so that you begin to get a better understanding of who God is and what he expects from all of us. He wants to give us peace, joy and happiness, just to name a few things. Everything he asks of us is to help us, not him. God does not need our help, he wants to love and care for us because he knows that we need him.

Mistakes can be forgiven, the question is, can you put your pride aside and acknowledge that you need God’s forgiveness so that you can forgive yourself and those that have hurt you!

Read Romans 12: 1-21. If you can take the advice of the apostle Paul as written in Romans, you are on your way to seeing some incredible changes in your life.

God bless and keep you strong.

Is There A Reason To Question Evolution, we believe there is. Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed with questions about the whole Evolution Theory but can’t really defend or provide a good argument to support your feelings? Read on..

There are many people who think that humans were created in God’s image, like it says in the Bible. There are also many people who think that people were created through a process called evolution. Wikipedia defines evolution as follows: “Evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. After a population splits into smaller groups, these groups evolve independently and may eventually diversify into new species.”

What do people commonly mean when they use the word evolution? They are usually talking about creation, or the arrival of various species, ultimately man. They mean that once upon a time there was a great big primordial ooze, and that out of this chemical soup sprung biological life. These cellular biological life forms evolved little by little, species by species, over time. Eventually these species evolved into human beings. Evolution sees the world and its inhabitants as a tree of various species, which all evolved from a common ancestor. Although people say “Theory of Evolution”, this theory is frequently presented as fact. It’s good to remember the definition of the word theory: a set of statements, assumptions or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena. Theory by definition does not equal fact.

Some people use the word evolution to mean change over time. When you look at it this simpler way, many evolutionary changes are evident: for example, animals have fur that gets thicker in the winter, and they shed in the summer. This is an adaptation made for their survival, based on their environment. You would not find polar bears in the freezing Arctic climate without fur. They need the fur to survive. Various characteristics of animals adapt according to their environment. But there is a big leap from traits that arise through adaptation (“survival of the fittest”) to the creation of totally new species from other species (“arrival of the fittest”).

Charles Darwin wrote a book called “Origin of the Species” about 150 years ago. This book described Darwin’s theory of evolution, and is the foundation for evolutionary biology. Darwin however didn’t say that his theory was fact. He said in the introduction to the book “I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question, and this cannot possibly be done here.” We all need to make sure that we hear all the arguments from all sides before making an informed decision.

There are definitely some problems with this biological evolutionary thesis:
William Paley made a very interesting observation back in 1802. If you were walking down the street, and you saw a watch lying on the ground, what would you think? Would you guess that maybe molecules slowly formed into metals, which somehow evolved into gears? That screws, pins and levers also slowly evolved from elements in the dirt? And one day all of those tiny pieces somehow combined together to make a watch? No, of course not, you’d just think someone had dropped the watch! The reason for this is that a watch is a complicated thing, a created thing, and it’s complexity indicates that it’s existence must have been planned, intended, or designed. It could not have happened randomly by chance. Is the human being a complex organism? Absolutely!! More than a watch? Of course! So maybe there is some reason to doubt that something as complex as the human body just evolved….

The fossil record is also a problem for evolution. The fossil record is basically a history of the organisms that have lived on the Earth previously. It’s the remains of plants, animals and cells preserved in stone. If Darwin’s theory of evolution is accurate, we should see many gradual changes throughout the fossil record, records of one species branching out and turning into another. Instead, we see abrupt appearances and disappearances of many different creatures, which don’t seem to change much during the time they are here on earth. Darwin thought that as more fossil discoveries were made they would support his theory. That has not happened, even though people keep looking for the “missing link” between species, particularly between apes and humans.

Our universe is a very complicated place. There are many different parameters that have to be exactly right in order for our planet to sustain life. For example, if the earth was farther from the sun, the earth would be too cold to provide stable water for it’s inhabitants-humans and animals. If the crust of the earth were thicker, it would absorb too much oxygen-taking it from us. If the crust were thinner, there would be too much volcanic activity. If the tilt of the Earth’s access was greater or smaller, the temperatures would be too hot to support life in many areas. If gravity was stronger, we would have more poisonous methane and ammonia in the atmosphere. If gravity was weaker, our atmosphere would lose too much water. The bottom line here is that our tiny planet is “fine tuned” to support life. Astrophysicist Hugh Ross lists 35 different elements of our universe that have to be perfectly tuned in order for our planet to sustain life. Is this scientific fine tuning just chance, an accident which allowed us to evolve? Maybe, but maybe not…..

Information is always intentional. Whether it’s a book, a song, or DNA, information indicates the intent of one mind to transmit an idea to another mind. This idea could be something like music, a story, or a code. There is information on this page, there is information on TV, there’s information in our DNA-about as much as in a volume of an encyclopedia. Our DNA is smart, and we’re learning more all the time just how smart it is. DNA stores information, retrieves information, and corrects errors when it copies itself. It determines if we have black hair or blonde hair, brown eyes or green eyes. No one disputes that information is encoded into our DNA. What is disputed is how it got there. DNA is encoded information. Remember information is intentional, it does not occur randomly. DNA has all the hallmarks of intelligence, just like a book by Shakespeare or a song by Beyonce. Books and songs are created, as was DNA. If something is created, doesn’t it follow that there must be a creator?

Is there a reason to question evolution? Absolutely. Keep your minds open, that is how they work best. Keep questioning, learning and thinking. That is one of the reasons God gave us brains. God is big enough for questions. Human beings are complex, created, non-randomly occurring beings, full of information and intent, living in an environment that is so perfectly suited to their needs that it boggles the mind to believe it’s by chance. A famous 19th century scientist, Lord Kelvin, stated the following: “Do not be afraid of being free thinkers! If you think strongly enough you will be forced by science to the belief in God…You will find science not antagonistic but helpful to religion.”

Often we are faced with the challenge of making the right choice not the easy choice. The right choice is usually clear and it always aligns us with God’s word. Making the right choice might not be the popular choice and it might put you in an uncomfortable situation, but it will be a choice that you can live with everyday knowing that you did what was right.

We must ask God to give us a special awareness and a renewed commitment to his calling upon our lives so that we can walk courageous and strong in the midst of a world that is always looking for the easy way out.

The strength of a person willing to do what’s right usually includes:
- A person of his word.
- Sensitive to those in need.
- A keen sense of responsibility, integrity.
- A successful and shrewd businessman/women.

Lessons:
- It can be heroic to do what must be done and to do it right.
- God often uses little decisions to carry out his BIG plan.

God bless you and do what’s right not easy today!