Screaming, Kicking, Spitting

  (This is not my son’s pic, by the way.)  It was bound to happen, Josiah got his first BIG spanking.  It all started at Wal-Mart.  Isn’t it strange that the tantrum never occurs in the quiet confines of home?  We had just finished shopping and I was pushing the cart of groceries out to the car.  Marilyn was holding Josiah’s hand and decided to go get a pop out of the machine.  I got the car loaded and was just getting ready to go pick them up at the door when I saw them coming…Josiah was throwing a HUGE FIT.  Screaming, kicking, and spitting…even slapping at his mom!

 

I jumped out of the car put him in the carseat, where he continuted to throw his fit.  I warned him that he was going to get punished as soon as we got home.  There’s something about knowing that punishment is coming to help drive home a point.  As soon as we pulled into the driveway, I told Josiah it was time.  He began to cry as he realized judgement day had come. 

 

The thing was, I hated to have to punish him.  But I knew that if I did not teach him to treat his mom with love and respect, that he could grow up to be a real problem and even put himself in some real danger one day.  It made me realize that God’s heart hurt the same way when he punished his Son in place of us.  He knew that it was going to hurt.  But the end result was worth the moment of punishment. 

 

God cared that much about us.  He didn’t leave us screaming, kicking, and spitting so that we never really mature.  He sent His Holy Spirit to lovingly, but sternly correct us so that we will grow up into people that reflect the character of His son.  Are you letting him shape you today?

Prayer Request

  Please be praying for some things for me this week:

1. Our friends Justin and Ashley are having some complications with their pregnancy.  Their baby’s name is Danielle and she’s due about the same time as our baby.
2. My sister is awaiting some test results that we’re praying come back negative.
3. Pray that Marilyn’s pregnancy goes full term and that her and our baby girl are both healthy.
4. The church needs to be unified under leaders who understand their position on the team and who are willing to serve TOGETHER.
5. Pray for the upcoming Revival services next week and that REVIVAL does not end up just being a name for these services, but an actual movement of the Holy Spirit on Powell Valley.
6. Pray for the success of other area churches in reaching the lost in our community.
7. Pray for the upcoming elections.

Mind Dump

• Wow…Preaching truly does wear a person out.  I can only imagine how taxing it must be for you pastors that preach multiple sermons on Sunday!
• Yesterday’s message was hard, but some things needed to be said.  Too many times preachers are guilty of tip-toeing around the REAL issues instead of tackling them head on.
• Marilyn’s pregnancy is going great.  After a miscarriage and Josiah being born 10 weeks early, it feels great to have Marilyn breaking her own record…YEAH GOD!
• The upstairs of our house is being completely remodeled.  The folks that are doing seem to be doing a GREAT JOB!  I might finally get an office!
• Marilyn came home with a whole car load of goodies from her baby shower yesterday at ACC.  Thanks ladies for all the gifts. 
• My mind is running a hundred miles an hour with some things I can’t quite post for the entire cyber world to see.  Not that I don’t trust you, it’s the others that are checking this thing out each day!
• I get to pray at this year’s National Day of Prayer meeting at Loogootee High School this Thursday at 7pm.  I’ll be praying a special prayer for our schools.  Hope to see you there!
• I’m taking Marilyn along with a bunch of peeps from the church to a CASTING CROWNS concert this Saturday in Evansville.  LOVE THOSE GUYS!
• My yard needs mowed bad…and does anyone know why God made dandelions?  They’re taking over my whole yard (3 acres)!
• That’s all for now.

UNCOMFORTABLE!

  Marilyn is in the home stretch of her pregnancy.  Only about 8 weeks left until she’s full term (Praise God!).  At this point, I’ve read that the baby is increasing at a dramatic rate….the brain is becoming more complex and weight gain is about a half an ounce a day!  Just between me and you blog readers out there, she’s getting VERY UNCOMFORTABLE!  And when she gets uncomfortable, she gets grouchy.  Josiah likes to say, “Mommy wike a bear!”.  She’s getting really impatient and ready to give birth.

 

To be honest, what Marilyn is going through physically, I’m going through spiritually.  God has given me some promises, and given me glimpses into the next phase of the ministry.  I’m SO PUMPED about what the future holds, but until then I feel stuck….waiting on that part to arrive.  And it becomes so easy to get discouraged and sometimes even angry when I’m so uncomfortable.

 

I’ll soon give birth to that ministry God placed on the inside of me, but God doesn’t want to deliver it prematurely.  Only after it is fully developed and I’m fully ready will God give me the green light.  Until then, I’ve just got to deal with the uncomfortableness, try not to freak out when I don’t see things happening, and just trust that the work that God has began in me will be completed.

 

So how about it?  Are any of you feeling the same thing spiritually?  How are you handling it?  Please leave me a comment…I’m sure it will be more help than lamaze class!

Learning To Serve A Smaller Crowd For Bigger Impact

  When I try to summarize the main thing God has been trying to teach me lately, the title of this blog entry says it all.  When you know that you’re called to do big things for God with your life, it becomes easier to focus solely on what lies ahead.  This tends to build frustration, disappointment, and sometimes flat out anger when you take a look at your current situation and realize it’s nothing close to what you want.

 

Satan loves to trap us into an abyss of hopelessness.  He wants you to believe that you’ll never get to see what God has promised you.  But if Satan’s talking, YOU CAN KNOW HE’S LYING! 

 

Be reminded of Peter…Christ had called him out to where no man had ever walked before–the water.  Peter was making history until he began to get his eyes on his current situation and off of Christ.  Have you allowed yourself to stop looking at the Son of God? 

 

God has been teaching me to serve a smaller crowd for a bigger impact.  The crowd is much smaller than you may think…I serve an audience of ONE.  I am where I am, I do what I do, because God has seen fit to use me in such a manner.  When He changes the plan, He’ll let me know.  HE will open the door.  Until then, and forever more, I will be honored AND JOYFUL to serve my AUDIENCE OF ONE!

Simple Church

  It amazes me how complex the church world can become.  For those of you who have spent any significant time serving in a church body, you understand that politics, position, insecurities, and those with axes to grind always try to creep onto the scene.  This is extremely dangerous for the health and future growth of a church body.  Yet, it is also a battle that can eventually be counted on.

 

Churches can get themselves into many problems if they stray from their two fundamental purposes:

• TO BE SCRIPTURALLY FAITHFUL–The Bible gives us specific direction as to who should be a part of leadership, what constitutes sin, how to discipline unrepentant Christians, and answers any question you may have (whether it answers directly or through principle).
• TO BE CULTURALLY FRUITFUL–It is a sin for a church to willingly ignore its culture and to choose not to EFFECTIVELY reach out to those that do not know Jesus Christ.  We are called to bare fruit by saving souls, not just sit around talking about how bad the condition of the world is.

Shouldn’t church be simple like this?  Aren’t these two things, the only obligations we should focus on?  Then why do we let others come in and complicate the things that God intended to remain simple?

Knowing How To Answer

  I woke up early this morning and heard the Lord whisper to my heart, “If you listen closely, I’ll teach you something that will save you YEARS of experience.”  Well, obviously God had my attention.  I’m the type of guy that if I could learn from others to keep myself from a long, hard road, then I’m all ears…ESPECIALLY if that other person is God!

 

He took me to Acts 4:20.

“For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.”

 

A short verse, but it’s packed full of truth and wisdom.  Someone called me the other day to ask me a question concerning what the Bible had to say about a certain topic.  If I were to mention what the topic was, more than likely, you would have a strong opinion about it.  That’s because we are so often conditioned to believe we should always have an answer for things.  However on this particular topic, as on many others, I have stopped just going by what I have been told.  At some point, we have to stop living out of the doctrine we’ve accumulated from other people!

 

Instead of giving this person a flat out answer, “Yes, this is biblical” or “No, this is not biblical”, I answered like this:  “Well, I was just this past week wondering that same question.  There is a pastor named ______ that talked in depth about that topic.  You might go listen to him on that subject.  Also, go and read what Paul and Timothy each had to say about it, but make sure that you also look at the situational and cultural context before coming to a conclusion.”

Now to some of you, that may have sounded like I was running for President and was trying to side-step the question.  However, I’m a firm believer in Acts 4:20.  I cannot answer anyone unless I have first experienced something OR been given a revelation of that thing by the Holy Spirit.  And plus, I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors, or be helping them to mature spiritually if I could not show them in the Word of God where the answer to their question is.

 

This will require you to sacrifice on two parts:

1. Your Pride.  You must be willing to speak only what God speaks.  Not your opinion, not what you heard someone else say.  Understand that true wisdom is from heaven.  Everything else is just worldly babble.
2. Your Reputation.  God’s Word is not always easy to swallow.  Sometimes the things God asks you to say will scare you to death!  But if God wants to say something, and you KNOW he has given you the right spirit and insight to speak, then speak!  Your reputation is one of those things you must be willing to lay down, as you put on and wear the name of Christ.  But remember, it is now his reputation that you either help glorify or disgrace.

So spend time in prayer and study.  Be educated in God’s Word.  Submit more and more to the Holy Spirit and let His fruit become more and more evident in your life.  THEN, you’ll know how to answer!

Roosters and Reminders

Luke 22:61-61says:

“And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, ‘Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.’  And Peter went out and wept bitterly.”

 

Why did Jesus even bother to tell Peter that he was going to deny that he knew Jesus?

• To prove the vastness of His love.  If I give my love to someone only with the hope that they will in turn honor me, love me, and be faithful to me, I have just given them conditional love…A love that lasts only so long as certain conditions are met.  Jesus wanted Peter to see that his love was unconditional.  Peter didn’t have to prove anything, say the right words, or live a certain way to earn the love of the Son of God…AND NEITHER DO YOU!!!  He loves you just because you ARE you.

Why did Peter weep bitterly?

• Love like Christ has for you and me does not come from too many places.  At the moment the rooster crowed and Jesus looked into Peter’s eyes, Peter understood this love at a deeper level than he ever had before. 
• Jesus knew Peter would be tempted.  Even after telling him this, Jesus gave Peter two chances to prepare himself for the test.  In Luke 22:40,46 he told Peter to pray to avoid temptation.
• At this point in my life, it’s Christ’s love for me, not the threat of punishment, that keeps me living right.  I just don’t want to let Him down.  But if, and when I do, I know that unconditional love will be right there wating on me!

 

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!

Struggling Seeker-Sensitive Services

  The church that helped spawn the “seeker sensitive” church movement is changing the way it does church.  Willow Creek, with senior pastor Bill Hybels, first pironeered the seeker sensitive structure on a large scale.  Hybels leads a newwork of 10,500 churches and trains more than 100,000 pastors a year.  He has also been named one of TIME magazine’s 25 Most Influential Evangelicals.

 

In the fall of last year, Willow Creek came out with some results of a new study that shows big elaborate programs do not increase the amount of Christ-following disciples.  Hybels said:

“We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.”

 

Evidentally, people are not nearly as concerned with anonymity and low-pressure services as once thought.  Here are three things revealed by a survey:

1. People want help understanding the Bible at a greater depth.
2. People want help developing a closer personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
3. People want to be challenged to grow and take the next step in their faith.

So here’s a question I hope will stimulate some conversation in the “COMMENTS” section…

HOW CAN WE AS A CHURCH PRACTICALLY TRACK OUR EFFECTIVENESS AT MEETING THESE THREE NEEDS?

Let’s hear your comments!  You can read the new strategy for Willow Creek in THIS ARTICLE.

 

 

A Hole In The Head

  Well, it was bound to happen…Josiah got his first possible scar.  He was standing on his chair in the bathroom looking at his freshly brushed teeth in the mirror when he lost his balance and cracked his head on the corner of our bath tub.  Blood IMMEDIATELY began pouring all over his hair, down his neck, onto his back, and through his shirt.  Had I not grabbed a rag and put some pressure on the open wound, he would have been covered in blood!

 

Spiritually, there’s a lot to be learned from Josiah’s war wound:

 

1. The head is one of the worst places to get wounded.  Pastors and church leaders walk around with a 24/7 target on them.  Satan knows that if he can strike the shepherd, the sheep will scatter.  We need to pray for extra protection on these men and women.  They can take a lot of crap, but once they get hurt, it REALLY cuts deep!
2. When the head is wounded, the rest of the body feels the hurt.  Just as the blood from Josiah’s head naturally flowed to the lower parts of the body, so it is in the church.  When the pastor is hurting, he can’t lead, counsel, pray, serve, love, and defend as well as he used to.  I know of many churches that don’t help when the pastor is hurting.  They just continue to scream, “FEED ME!” and “TAKE CARE OF ME!!!”.  Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing (heck, maybe even BIBLICAL) if the body of Christ would run to the aid of their pastor when someone inflicts a wound on him?  What if they defended him as the Father of their faith and the protector of their souls?  NOW THAT WOULD BE A CHURCH!!!
3. Wounds can heal with time and the proper care.  The doctor cleaned the wound, taking all of the junk out and getting down to the real cause of all the bleeding.  Sometimes with all of the false accusations, rumors, and confusion, we need to help our pastors work through all of the stuff that is clouding us from seeing the real cause of all of the pain.  Once we find it, let’s seal it up and give things time to heal.  Don’t keep taking him back to the same pain as before and don’t let others do it either!  Give God time to fully heal your pastor.  Time and the proper attention can make the leader of your church stronger, wiser, and healthier than ever before. 

 

So church, let’s guard the head…He’s watching out for you through the mandate of your heavenly Father!