Ministry

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Never Too SMALL

Windows of Heaven 

“parable” — “An earthly story with a heavenly meaning.”

Never Too SMALL (Matthew 13:31-35)

Our main text this week is a series of two parables that Jesus tells to the crowds about things which are small yet yield great results.  The first is about the mustard seed which was known as the smallest of all seeds.  When this seed is placed in the ground and allowed to do what it was created to do, a huge bush grows up that even the birds of the air can nest in.  The second is a story of a woman who took a small amount of yeast and mixed it into a large amount of dough.  As the woman did her work and the yeast did what it was created to do, the entire batch of dough was leavened by the yeast.

Jesus wants us to know that small things can yield big results when we place them in God’s hands.  What do you have that you think is too small?  If you place it in God’s hands, it is never too small.

Something to think about . . .
. . . Daily readings and questions to help you prepare for the August 24 AM message at Deer Run.

Monday (August 18) Read Matthew 13:31-32.

What did Jesus compare the mustard seed to?  Where does it rank among seed size?  What happens when it is planted?  Would you expect that simply by looking at the seed?  How is the kingdom of heaven like that?  What seeds have been planted to cause the kingdom to grow?  What seeds are you currently planting to cause the kingdom to grow?  How big are they?  Does it matter?  What does God want to do with that which seems small to you?

Tuesday (August 19) Read Exodus 4:10-17.

What was God wanting Moses to do?  How did Moses describe his speaking ability?  What did God say about the speaking ability of Moses?  How did Moses respond to God’s instruction?  What was God’s response?  Who did He send to help?  How often  do you pass up opportunities to share the gospel message  because you feel too slow in your speech?  What would God say to you about that?  What does God want to do with that which seems Slow to you?

Wednesday (August 20)  Read 1 Kings 17:12-14.

What does the woman in the text tell Elijah that she has?  What did she plan to do with it?  How much extra did she think she had?  What is Elijah’s instruction to her?  What happens?  When God presents a need to you, what do you consider is your inventory to meet it?  Do you ever say, “I only have enough for myself and my family”?  Is that ever true?  What does God want you to do with that which seems Meager to you?

Thursday (August 21)  Read Judges 6:11-13.

Who pays a visit to Gideon in the text?  What is Gideon doing?  Where is he at?  Why?  How does this visitor address Gideon?  What did Gideon think of the greeting?  Are there times that you are fearful to do what God says?  Do you have a hiding place where you hope no one can find you?  How can you find courage when it feels like the enemy is winning?  Who is greater, the One that is in you or the one that is in the world?  What does God want you to do when you feel too Afraid?

Friday (August 22)  Read Luke 19:1-6.

Who wanted to see Jesus?  What physical characteristic made that difficult?  How did he try to compensate for his size?  Who was looking for him?  What did Zacchaeus receive?  Do you ever feel too little in some way to make a difference?  How do you try to compensate?  Do you think Jesus knows where you are?  What does God want you to do when you feel Little?

Saturday (August 23)  Read Acts 22:6-10.

What is Saul doing when he sees a bright light and hears a voice as he travels?  What did the voice ask?  Did Saul recognize who was speaking?  Who did the voice identify himself as?  What is Saul told to do?  What message will Saul be given when he goes into Damascus?  How lost is too lost?  Have you ever felt you were too far removed from God to do any good?  How do you respond to God’s Word telling you all that you should do?  What does God want you to do when you feel that your are too Lost?

Sunday (August 24) Read Matthew 13:33.

What does Jesus compare yeast to in this parable?  What is done with the yeast?  Do you think she had much yeast?  Where does it end up?  What would have happened had the woman not mixed the yeast in with the flour?  What has God given you to cause the kingdom to grow?  What are you doing with it?  What does God want you to do with that which seems small to you?

 

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Tell the Story — Give God the Credit

It has been a joy to spend time this week at a large Christian convention where I was able to tell the story of God’s work in my life. Sometimes when God does His work in our life, it is obvious to all who see. Other times His work is done in a way that it is easy for people, even ourselves, to think it is our work. When we begin to tell the story and give God the credit it can be a great encouragement to others but it also should bring joy to the one telling as it reminds us of God’s incredible love.

The story of my first book, “Seeking God: Poetic Devotions For a Life of Prayer”, is simply a story of God’s hand at work in my mind and life. Interacting with people at the convention, some of them authors themselves, made me realize the amount of hard work that is typically represented by a book. As people would look through the book, a common response centered around how much work it must have been to reach this point. At first I felt guilty hearing that type of remark but it didn’t take long until I began to see those comments as a great opportunity to tell the story and give God the credit.

The book, “Seeking God”, came entirely out of my prayer time! Up until this book I had not written a poem nor had I spent any time reading poems. Yet on December 17, 2013, as I was praying about some decisions I needed to make and some responses that needed given, a poem appeared in my mind fully formed. It was as if it was stuck there and wouldn’t leave until I typed it out. My initial thought was, “That was odd!” Over the next weeks, the poems kept coming and I began to share them with friends and on social media. It wasn’t long before people began telling me that I needed to put them in a book. I kept putting it off — “I only have a handful of poems, not enough to even think about a book.” The excuses were easy, yet the poems kept coming and people kept asking so in early January I had a small booklet printed and began to share it with people. Then a few weeks later a second booklet soon to be followed by a third with a total of 60 original poems spread between the three booklets!

With the encouragement of friends and family, I began to research book publishing and found that no one really wanted to publish a book of poems. Yet in my search, I was pointed toward a printing company that turned out to be easy to work with and it wasn’t long before I was holding a proof copy of this book that has me listed as the author! At every level, I know that this was completely the work of God in my life and in my mind. On March 17, 2014, three months to the day of the first poem showing up in my mind, the first official copies of “Seeking God: Poetic Devotions For a Life of Prayer” were printed! It is a one hundred sixty page book of sixty original poems with prayer points written for each poem. That doesn’t happen through man’s effort or might, but through the mighty hand of God as I listened and shared what He was giving.

I don’t know what God is doing in your life but I encourage you to tell the story and give God the credit!

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Always Be READY

I had the privilege to preach at the ordination service of a good friend and fellow servant of Christ.  While it was a great honor, it was also a very difficult task for me as the location chosen was one in which I had endured years of hardship before being rescued by God’s mighty hand.  As I sat there waiting for my time to speak, my heart was racing within my chest.  The pounding of my pulse was visible and I feared the sound of it would be picked up by the mic I was wearing, in a somewhat “Tell-Tale Heart” effect.  My breathing was becoming difficult and it was only the power of God’s Holy Spirit that lives within me that was able to keep the room from spinning as I rested in His grace.  This seemed to be a true test of the words I was about to speak — I could preach about always being ready, but could I live it?

The main text that God had placed in my mind for the evening was a common ordination service text.  Not only common, but quite fitting as God had developed a similar Paul and Timothy relationship between Taylor and I.  In the text, Paul writes to Timothy with these words:

“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings — what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.  In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.   In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge:  Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage — with great patience and careful instruction.  For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”  2 Timothy 3:10 – 4:4 (NIV)

As you read the text, it is important to point out that the idea of being set apart for full-time Christian ministry is not just for a select few who take on vocational roles of ministry.  Each Christian is ordained by God into full-time Christian ministry at the moment of their baptism into Christ for the remission of their sin and God puts within them His Holy Spirit!  The blood of Jesus which covers our sin is the ordaining element that sets each of us apart for God’s exclusive use.  With that said, the Bible also teaches that God gifts some individuals to be involved in the equipping of His people for works of service.  To me, that is what an ordination service is about — setting apart those who have the responsibility to equip, train, and encourage others in the full-time service they do for God wherever He has them from day-to-day.  As you go about living the Christ-like life God has called you to, Paul makes it clear that you will encounter difficulties — “In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted”.  Yet in the midst of the hardship and persecution, we are told to be ready to preach the word “in season and out of season”.  So to you, as well as to Taylor, I say, “Be READY!”

  • Be Real:  The first part of being ready, is to be real!  If you are to represent Christ well, there must be a consistency of character and conduct that the people around you recognize as genuine.  When Paul writes about Timothy to the Philippians, he says that there is no one like him who has a genuine concern — not for his own interests, but for theirs.  We live in a society where the right image has become so much more important than being real.  The harder we try to put on a front, the further we fall from being ready when people realize we are not real.  To be ready to represent Jesus, we must live, act, and speak the same throughout the entire week as we do when we are surrounded by Christian friends during a Sunday worship gathering.  People need to see that you believe enough in what you are saying that you are actually living it!  They also need to see that you, as did Jesus, can understand and identify with their weaknesses.  
  • Be an Example:  The second part of being ready, is to be an example!  Many people like to pull out Paul’s instruction to Timothy to let no one look down on him because of his youthfulness.  Unfortunately, many fail to finish the verse to know how to actually do that!  In First Timothy, Paul writes and tells Timothy that he must set an example in speech, in life, in love, in faith, and in purity so that no one has a reason, or an excuse, to look down on him.  What we do, how we live, the example we set, can all make or break the message we tell about God’s great love for mankind.  A big part of the importance of being real is so that Jesus is not just heard about, He is visibly seen in the way that you and I live!  I believe that one of the reasons that the church seems to be making little positive difference in the American culture is because the Christians who make up the church have often failed to be an example.  Statistically, there is very little difference in the speech, life, love, faith, and purity of Christians compared to non-Christians!  Instead of being an example, our life often seems to shout out that there really is no difference.  When you wear the name Christian, how you treat others says more to them about Christ than what we tend to act like it does.
  • Be Available:  The third part of being ready, is to be available!  When you take life as a  Christian seriously, your primary business becomes people — regardless of what you do as an occupation.  While that sounds good and noble, it is not quite right!  It is that statement that gets many who enter vocational ministry in trouble.  As a Christian, your primary business is not people, it is your relationship with God!  When we get that mixed up, then it is not long before people are setting our schedule, agenda, and life goals.  We become exhausted trying to keep up with all the demands and needs of the people around us as we strive to be available to everyone.  While we need to make the most of every opportunity in our availability to people, we must make our availability to God the number one priority in our life!  When Paul writes to the Corinthians about the matter of some giving that they had purposed to do, he points out the attitude of the Macedonians who had first given themselves to God so that He enabled them to give beyond their means.  If you are going to be ready for what God has for you to do, you must live a life that is fully available to God for His exclusive use!  Doing this can change your entire attitude about service to people.  When the things that you do are based out of your availability to God, then you are truly able to work at it with all your might as one serving the Lord.
  • Be Decisive:  The fourth part of being ready, is to be decisive!  Throughout scripture, God calls people to make up their mind.  We live in a time when it seems like nearly everything is decided by public opinion.  Even within church and Christian ministry settings, it seems like we are often on that ship of doubt that James talks about — constantly being tossed from wave of survey results to wave of public opinion polls.  Yes, there is value in knowing what, and how, people are thinking, but that should never replace the authority of God and His Word in making decisions.  It is only when decisions are based out of time in prayer and careful examination of God’s Word that we are truly prepared to let our “yes be yes and our no be no”!  It is a sad commentary on the followers of God that the statements of Joshua and Elijah, calling the people to make a choice about who they will serve, are seen as such bold statements!  The church today needs courageous people who will stand up and boldly ask, “How long will you waver between two opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if (Baal) is God, follow him.”  (1 Kings 18:21)  You can fill in the parentheses as to what goes there instead of Baal in your life and in the lives of people today.  To always be ready, means that you hold fast to your decision that the Lord truly is God and His ways are the only ways to live.
  • Be Yielded:  The final part of being ready, is to be yielded!  Hopefully you have seen this element throughout the other parts that I have already mentioned.  When you live a life that is fully yielded to God, you give Him all the room necessary to work and receive the glory that is due Him.  When Peter writes about always being ready to give an answer for the hope that is within you, he begins by instructing us to “set apart Christ as Lord”.  When Christ is Lord, He is in charge and every detail of our life is done His way.  Being yielded to God in everything means that He decides what being real looks like.  He is the example that I not only follow, but also the example that I become.  He has my full attention so that I am available for whatever tasks that He calls me to do.  His decisions are supreme, so my task of deciding is easy — I simply say, “Yes, Lord.”  Being yielded is what ties the entire idea of being ready, but it is often the most difficult part of it.  It is where the concept of complete submission to God becomes reality.  It is doing the parts of life that you enjoy and the parts of life that you don’t enjoy — simply because God sets them both before you as the work He created in advance for you to do.  It is daily praying the prayer of Jesus from the garden, “Not my will, but Thine be done.”  It is going when God says go and staying when God says stay.  It is why Paul can both give instruction to endure hardship and also praise God for rescuing him from those very hardships.  A life that is fully yielded to God is ready to preach the word both in season and out of season — and even ready to use words if necessary. 

I pray that if you are in Christ as one of His children that you will Always Be READY!  You have been set apart for God’s exclusive use so as you go about life today, live like it!

As Each Part Does Its Work

What is your part in the kingdom of God?  What is your part in the local body of Christ He has placed you in?  What are the “good works He created in advance” for you to do?

This is by no means an all-inclusive or detailed list, rather it is a starting point for you to spend time with God asking the question, “Lord, what do you want me to do?”.  If you need help in determining how to best implement God’s answer to that question, talk with one of the elders or ministry staff leaders in your local church.Each Part

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Back Again . . . Maybe

It has been a while since I have done any writing . . . and even longer since I have written on this particular blog.  My plan is to return to writing on a regular basis — whatever that might mean. 😉

As I thought about this return, I had to consider why it had been so long.  Has God not been teaching me important lessons?  Have I not been listening?  Did I miss the value in what I have learned?  Have I missed the importance of writing down the insights gained no matter what size they appear to me?  Is there no more treasure in this jar of clay worth sharing?

While each of these questions may have some element of truth to them in regard to my not writing, I think the cause is much simpler and more pervasive in its attempt to draw me away from that which is good and right.  A lifestyle of busyness and distraction has been the primary culprit in keeping me from recording and sharing the lessons I have been learning.

It has been nearly 3 years since I have written on this blog and 4 months since I have written elsewhere.  I know that in that time span there are lessons I have forgotten because I did not write them down.  Lessons that I need to be reminded of.  Lessons that others may have benefitted from if I had bothered to share.

Paul wrote to Timothy, “Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching.  Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.” (1 Timothy 4:13-14)  As I consider the gift of preaching and teaching, of writing and communicating, that God has given me, I want to be careful that I don’t neglect this gift.  I want to use it for the good and benefit of others that they would grow in their relationship with God through His son, Jesus Christ.

So, my encouragement for you is the same admonition God is placing on my heart — discover and use the gift(s) God has given you!  Do not neglect your gift but use it to invest in others to the glory of God!  Encourage others by using your gift.  Encourage others, including me, to use their gift — reminding them gently if they begin to let the busyness and distractions of life sidetrack them.  God has given us the “one anothers” in our life for both our benefit and theirs!  

Praying that we live our life in such a way that people would see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven!

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Southern Gospel Concert

Mitchel Jon  

Mitchel Jon

In Concert

Saturday, December 13, 2008

7:00 PM

Deer Run Church of Christ
2730 S Ironwood Dr
South Bend IN 46614

Free Admission

An offering will be taken to benefit the ministry of Michiana Christian Service Camp.

If you are in the South Bend, Indiana area and enjoy good Southern Gospel music, then this concert is for you.  Not only will this be a great night of music and fellowship, but it will also be an opportunity to support the ministry of Michiana Christian Service Camp.

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MCSC – The Not So Official Groundbreaking!

Michiana Christian Service Camp: 
Let The Construction Begin!

Let the construction begin!

Click the picture to go to a photo gallery of more construction photos.

 

While the official groundbreaking was yesterday, Sunday, August 10, the “real” dirt moving began today! 

I had the privilege of spending the day helping to get Michiana Christian Service Camp’s construction phase of the “Connecting Kids” campaign underway.  I helped move electric lines, replaced some septic line, helped with the digging, and put up some safety fencing.  All-in-all it was a very full and busy day that I thoroughly enjoyed!  Have I mentioned lately how much I love this camp?  Please join me in praying for Michiana Christian Service Camp as this construction project continues through the fall.   

The Connecting Kids Capital Campaign is the mechanism being used to raise the funds necessary for the work that is now underway.  In order to be better equipped “to prepare people for eternity”, the camp is putting a two-story addition on its dining hall building and adding on to the health officer’s cabin.  For more information about Michiana Christian Service Camp and the Connecting Kids Capital Campaign, visit their web site.

Michiana Christian Service Camp is an incredible place that is dedicated to sharing a faith in Jesus Christ in positive and exciting ways.  This is done through summer youth camps, as well as various youth, family, ladies, seniors, and other retreat opportunities.  You can help MCSC accomplish this task!  Contact the camp for more information on giving to the camp with your finances and/or labor.

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National Missionary Convention

National Missionary Convention PosterI will be at the National Missionary Convention this weekend to represent Impact Ministries International and Impact Prayer Ministry.

I love the National Missionary Convention!  It is an incredible gathering of worship, encouragement, learning, connecting, and representation.  There will be missionaries and mission works represented from all over the world.

The National Missionary Convention is being held at the Duke Energy Center in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, November 15 – 18, 2007.  If you are in the area, or can be in Cincinnati this weekend, I highly recommend a visit to the National Missionary Convention.  If you are there, look up the Impact Ministries International booth and stop by and say hello. 

Please pray for the convention and the missions that will be represented.  Like us at Impact, most are looking to connect with current partners and supporters as well as make connections with potential staff, interns, and financial and prayer partners.  Pray that these connections are made and that the entire convention is conducted in a way that brings honor and glory to God.