Ministering

Is it possible that the greatest enemy to God's men who are called to preach His truth might be the believers they are called to lead? I have often sat and pondered the notion of how to be effective in leading God's people into revival, ministry, change, growth; the same arguments come back to me. They are not ready, or they will not want to do it, or it is too much like work to them. Sometimes the shortcoming of the plan is in me; I'm not willing, they'll get mad at me, I am not qualified. So the philisophical question of the day: is the greatest enemy to ministers today, the people they minister to, our themselves?

At a Loss

You ever been at a loss before in a situation? Where you could not see the right way out and then nobody gave you any help, only complained or nagged or gave their opinion on what you had done wrong so far? I have been there, I am sure you have too. Well I hope that we can hold true to the promise of Scripture that He is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble, a cleft in the rock, a shelter in the time of storm, He will carry our burdens His yoke is easy and His burden light. The point is, allow your faith to grow & to trust Him in the situation, and He will see you out of it. Good parenting requires good advice, God has the best, so take it from Him.

Wrong Way

You ever driven down the wrong way on one way street? You know you get that feeling that at anytime you will either get caught or someone will pop out and hit you? Well in our pursuit of God, I think sometimes we drive down the wrong way on our path towards God. We all know about the straight and narrow way, but we often forget the purpose of a path is to lead us forward towards new things. So many of us I fear have fallen in love with where we either are on the path, or where we have been. Many of us have pulled up a rock and have planted ourselves on the path refusing to move forward, others are actually trying to go back to where they were. If the path leads to God? The wouldn't turning around lead away from God? Just a few simple thoughts from a not so bright person who is tired of not getting farther down the path that God is leading him on.

E is for Effort

You know I loved the sign that Lanes Chapel had up a few weeks ago. (and that is ironic because usually I make fun of there signs because they are pretty corny) This one read, "Any plan will work if you will." I love the thought behind this simple plan of action. If you are dealing with a child and don't know how to handle it, try something new. I would say exercise caution by doing some research, look up on the web answers, ask trusted friends who have children a few years older than yours, or ask your youth pastor; he may not have raised a teenager yet, but he does a lot of baby sitting with them :)

Not only can we apply this principle to raising children, but also to raising ourselves in Christ. If want to see God at work in our lives then we need to be willing to put forth some effort. How many of us search the wall for the most comfortable place to serve at VBS? Or anywhere else for that matter. We often want acknowledgment for doing a mediocre job, but with God only a full onslaught of effort will really bring the spiritual value and reward that we all are searching for.

Youthfullness

Timothy 4:12 clearly teaches us that youthfullness is not something to be thought of as a hindrance to ministry. If we search the Scriptures we will find a vast amount of evidence of young men and women serving God thru faithful actions. The men Jesus chose were younger men, evidence to support this would come from the lack of any family being mentioned by any of these men, they could simply leave what they were doing. Christ Himself was 33 when His ministry ended in earthly human form. Elisha was without a family, adn king David was merely a young boy whenever he defeated Goliath. Do not allow yourself to get caught in the very thing that you despised when you were young, rather lead your children to a strong outpouring of faithful actions. never again will they have the time they have now to serve God. So we should not get in their way and more importantly His way in their lives.

No Offense BUT...

OK, so why do I bother doing blogging and newsletters and emails and lesson after bloomin lesson if nobody is going to respond read keep or care? I do the music every week and all I hear is: "when we gonna get more hymns?" I do a presentation and I hear, "why didn't you do such and such?" I beleive the problem with this line of thinking is that we have fallen desperately in love with us and our way of doing. I would love for people to come into worship on Sunday morning and not be so cynical, critical, and overrly analytical! We need to come before GOD on Sunday mornings prepared to be inhabited by the Holy Spirit! We expect for things to be done well and correct, but church is not supposed to the end game nor the climax of our worship, it should be where we shelter ourselves from a week spent in His Word on our knees before His throne, with hoarse throats from proclaiming His message. We should have to drag ourselves into the sanctuary with a weary grin on our faces not because we have submitted to the world all week and now need a dose of make me feel good about myself, but instead we should drag ourselves totthe altar of grace praising God that we were able to lay it all on the line this week for Him, that we spent so much energy trying to be consumed by His Spirit during the week that all we have left on Sunday is a total prostrate surrender before the Lord of Lords and King of Kings! This is His servant; so be it!

Wake Up!

Hey this was my senior message from last night with the youth, hope you enjoy it, sorry for those who have already heard it.

Genesis 2:1-3 (You will need to read this first)

In the first 6 days of creation God created a lot of stuff. (If we were in class right now I would ask you to list some things created from the first 6 days) We are not in class, so I will simply name a few: animals, birds, fish, continents, oceans, day and night, light, plants, universe, & people. God created all of this and more in just 6 days. (I believe literally 6 days, you can be wrong if you'd like.) The word then tells us that on the 7th day He rested. God had done some good work and then found Himself deserving of a rest. Now some folks have asked if this limits God's power because He needed rest. (Silly people with their questions, to rest means to cease)God had done good and was able to cease His creating. Now this in itself has very little to do with being a graduating senior, until you ask the question: "God created everything in 6 days, what have you done with your ____ years of life?"

(long pause for added drama)

To this there was some stunned silence of. I know it is not always popular to ask ourselves what we as Christian are actually "doing for God", not saying or thinking, but actually "doing". But I want to ask. What have you done for God? He has creation to His credit, do we even bare fruit? It is tought to look at ones own life and judge it. We all have plenty of skill in pointing out the lackings in others, but can we see the need for action in our own lives?