TITLE:It's worth the effort
AIM:To encourage Rangers and their leaders to complete their advancements
TEXT:2 Tim 4:7b
OBJECT:FCF Lantern

In the olden days folk had to use candles or lanterns to see, read and write at night as they had no electricity.

If they were on a ration or on their last candle they had to be finished all their work before the candle ran out. If it was their homework for school the next day - it had to be finished before the candle ran out - or they be in strife!

It's the same with our advancements here at Rangers. We need to be finished them before our council of achievement in 7 weeks.

You know an explorer doesn't get to within eye sight of the new territory they are looking for and say "oh well - it's there all right, just like I thought. I can go home now". Imagine if Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth had got to the top of the Blue Mountains, seeing the fertile valley below and just gone home, without blazing and marking the pathway down to the new land?

Imagine if Sir Edmund Hillary had go to within 20 m of the top of Mt Everest and said "Yep - there's the top of this hill, I can go home and tell my friends that I've seen it!"

No - they completed their journey, climbed to the top, got to the valley, staked their claim - won their patch!

Don't you just get to within sight of your advancement - go home with the patch.

The apostle Paul said "I have finished the race" (2 Tim 4:7) and that we should "run in such a way as to get the prize" (1 Cor 9:24).

I want to be handing out awards to each of you at our Council of Achievement on the 5th of December.

Run as to win the prize. Complete the advancements. Earn the badge.

Let's pray.

Notes to aid translators:
1) patch - in Australia badges are cloth
2) Blaxland, Lawson and Wentworth - the three explorers who first cross the Blue Mountains up where we live. This was an essential step in opening up pastures for cattle and sheep in the new colony of New South Wales
3) Sir Edmund Hillary - yeah right...