The past few years have seen the emergence of “haul” videos on YouTube. In these videos young people go on shopping sprees then reveal their “hauls” for the camera. About ten thousand new haul videos pop up on YouTube each week, featuring items ranging from clothing to comic books. Many of us have fantasized about having unlimited amounts of money to spend on a new wardrobe or a home theater or the car of our dreams. Jesus warns us not to make material things a priority. LinC talks about materialism, greed, and our desire to acquire lots of stuff, and we’ll look at how Jesus calls us to a different way of living. Key Scriptures: Isaiah 44:9-20; Matthew 6:9-13; 10:5-15; 1 Timothy 6:3-11. This summer, for the first time ever, the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged the existence of Area 51, a military airfield in southern Nevada. The government’s reluctance to say anything about the facility or what happens there has inspired a plethora of conspiracy theories about what secrets the military and CIA might be hiding out in the desert. (Many of these theories involve aliens and/or science-fiction technology.) We all have secrets. Often it’s hard for us to know which secrets must be kept and which should not. Next week we’ll talk about how we can make faithful decisions about the secrets we keep and those we reveal.
