Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Thought for a Tuesday

In studying about the early church I came across a story about a pagan actor who becomes a Christian. He realized that he had to change his employment because most plays encouraged immorality and were steeped in pagan idolatry, not to mention that they turned boys into homosexuals so that they could better play the roles of women on stage (women were not allowed to act at that time). *Note: does this sound like present day? This man had no other job skills. He knew he could not act because of the above mentioned so he thought he would begin to teach drama to non-Christian students. But before he did this, he submitted his idea to the leaders of his church to get their thoughts. *Note: imagine if this took place today, how would our lives be different? The church leaders told him if acting was an immoral profession then he could not train others to do it. The church leaders wanted to make sure they had given him good advice so they wrote to another church where Cyprian was the pastor (I've said that I thought the pastor of this church was Polycarp but I was wrong it is Cyprian). Cyprian agreed with their advice, even though it was his sole means of support. But he went further in his advice back to this church. He said that they needed to be willing to support this man, since he was giving up his sole means of employment. If they couldn't, then send the man down to his church and they would support him.

There are a lot of things to think about in this story. First, the man wanted to get away from his profession because of how evil it was. Second, he sought advice from his church leaders on what to do. Third, I believe (the story doesn't say) that he went along with the churches advice. Fourth, the church took care of him since he was giving up his sole means of support. In todays day and age, this is not what happens at all. I don't think any of the 4 things I mentioned above are done, though I believe there is something for us in doing what the actor did.

We don't want to give up worldly pleasures. We do not want to ask the church for advice on what to do or how to handle a situation. Besides, we would not follow the advice given anyway, especially if it is something that we really wanted to do. We are a society that does whatever we want to do. The church is to legalistic, and in some cases this is true, to ask for advice and get a Holy Spirit inspired answer.

How far we have fallen from the early church. The book of Acts sets the example and through the centuries, we have watered it down. The church is not a living breathing body of believers, it is just a building. A relationship with Christ isn't attractive, but burdensome and not worth our time. The Bible isn't living and active but an irrelevant book that has nothing for us today. Praying takes time but if God had a cell phone so I could text Him, it would be better for me. This has become the American Christian's way of thinking. Where is the love? Where is the unity? Where is the one accord that we read about in Acts? It's only a 180 degree turn away. In another words, repentance is what is needed to bring us back to the model that Christ gave us in the book of Acts. What do you think?

Monday, July 28, 2008

Monday, Monday...

Well, get ready to receive your email newsletter. I am on a completely different newsletter program that is offered on the internet and I'm pretty excited about it.

On another note, I received this in an email newsletter that I get from a pastor in Delaware. I believe it will make us all think in a good way. Blessings on this Monday!

Cleaning Up Your Act
by Rubel Shelly

When I was in junior high, a lady offered me some tropical fish. When I told my mother of the offer, she was willing. But we needed an aquarium.
It was actually my mother’s idea to be creative at that point. She recalled an old-fashioned gas pump that was rusting in an open field. Most of you aren’t old enough to remember, but gasoline pumps used to have big glass containers at the top. A manual lever pumped gas from the underground tank into a glass cylinder. Then you put the hose into your car’s gas tank, and gravity did the rest.
Sure enough, the glass in the abandoned gas pump was unbroken. We asked for and received permission to retrieve it. And the two of us set about to create the perfect environment for our soon-to-arrive tropical fish.
Only when we got it home did we realize how nasty the tank was. But we scrubbed and cleaned. Then we put in colored gravel, some plants, and an aerator. I claimed the fish and put them in their new environment. A nasty glass tank had become the ideal new home for seven beautiful and delicate creatures.
The next morning, two were belly-up. By the end of the day, two or three more had died. And by the following morning, not one was still alive. We knew we had done something wrong but had no idea what. So I went back to the lady who had given them to us and told her with embarrassment what had happened.
As I was explaining all our fuss and bother with creating just the right aquarium environment, she interrupted and said she knew what the trouble was. We had washed the tank with detergent, and that is an absolute no-no when dealing with such delicate creatures. Our uninformed efforts at trying to create something beautiful had killed what we were trying to receive and showcase.
Sometimes we do a very similar thing in families, work environments, or churches. In our zeal to clean up our lives or those of others, we use caustic cleansers – harsh criticism, nagging, condemnation, outbursts of temper. We think we are doing right and defending decency. But our harsh treatment of an immature child or fragile personality is more than some souls can bear.
Churches are notorious for being so caustic with a neophyte’s problem with drugs or a family’s breakup that the tender and still-in-formation people involved die to faith from the treatment they receive. Then people on the outside who see all the dead bodies floating to the surface (reasonably!) decide they want nothing to do with church. They don’t want to subject themselves to the same caustic process they have seen kill others.
All our acts need to be cleaned up. But accountability with patience and gentle encouragement are far better cleansers than judgment and scolding.
Rubel Shelly is a Preaching Minister at the Woodmont Hills Church of Christ. This article is from the July 21, 2008 issue of “The FAX of Life,” his weekly message, found at http://www.rubelshelly.com.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Perception

This past Sunday, I talked about how our perception keeps us going or causes us to doubt and be depressed. So many times we start the day walking in faith and then by the end of the day we are looking at our circumstances and taking our eyes off of Jesus. Even as a church, we can start out with vision for the future but as the struggles come and we don't see immediate results we begin to doubt, get frustrated, and maybe even begin to think the church is dying or just not going anywhere.

We looked at Peter in Matthew 14:29-30 AMP, where it says, "29He said, Come! So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water, and he came toward Jesus. 30But when he perceived and felt the strong wind, he was frightened, and as he began to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me [from death]! Peter started out well but then let his perception be taken off of the Lord and on to his surroundings. This lead to him beginning to sink. Our perception is important in living by faith.

Hebrews 11:1 AMP tells us, "1NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]. Now that last statement that I bolded and changed the color is a note from the Amplified Bible but it paints the picture of how our faith truly works. We cannot look at this world with our natural senses. We must look at everything through eyes of faith. And let the Holy Spirit help us in perceiving our every day situations.

Sunday, we will continue "OVERHAULIN: Rethinking Church" by looking at vision and it's importance. Look forward to seeing you all there.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

FRUSTRATED!

Alright, here it is... I'm FRUSTRATED! I am in the process of putting together an email newsletter for our church and it doesn't want to cooperate with me. I am using Microsoft Publisher and trying to send it through Outlook. However, no one uses Outlook here so I cannot get it to send. And I can't figure out how to set up Outlook to make it work. If anyone has any other ideas of how to send out a well done email newsletter that I can use with any email server, please let me know. We are in the process of putting together a web-site that is not quite functional yet, if that would help with anything. Is there anyone out there that can help me?

What a Start!

Sunday we began our series, Overhaulin, which will take us through the summer. I am really excited about this series for what it means for our church. I really believe that we need to change somethings to reach out to as many people as we can and be effective in doing this, as time draws nearer for the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I felt that things started well this past Sunday and I look forward to how things will continue to progress as the days go on. Please be willing to shake out the man-made ideas that fill our heads of what church should be and look like. We want to truly be a family where no one feels left behind or forgotten.

Also, be encouraged to begin and/or keep on praying and fasting for all of this as well, because we don't want to replace man-made ideas with more man-made ideas. We want the Holy Spirit to intervene and do the changes that He wants to do.

On a more specific note, personalize your prayers as you pray through this time. I'm asking Jesus to fill me with more passion for Him, the lost, and each of you so that I would be able to show compassion and empathy in every situation and not laziness and selfishness. We are in the people business and it is ALL about the people. It's about unity and coming together to see GREAT things take place. Let's OVERHAUL!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Coming SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!


Thanks to Nick Poole for the design of our new sermon series starting this week: Overhaulin': Rethinking Church. We are going to look at what is the New Life Center all about and begin to look at what changes need to be made so that we might be more effective in reaching out to this community. This week we will look at Overhaulin our Perception. Stay tuned for more.




Tuesday, July 15, 2008

My Favorite Athlete

I have a favorite pro-athlete and his name is Josh Hamilton. I can remember reading about him in Sports Illustrated when he was the #1 overall pick in the 1999 Major League Baseball Draft by the Tampa Bay Rays. He was supposed to be a can't miss prospect. His talent was derailed when he got caught up in going to a tattoo parlor where he began doing more than just getting tattoos. Drugs and alcohol became his life till 2005. He went through many trials during those years but his grandmother was praying for him. He gave his life to Jesus Christ and has not been the same since. After being reinstated into the MLB after being suspended for numerous failed drug tests in those early years, he began to show the promise that made him a #1 overall pick.

He now plays for the Texas Rangers. (Side note: When he is up to bat the song "Saved the Day" by Phillips, Craig and Dean plays over the loud speakers.) He was voted into the All-Star Game that airs tonight and participated in the Home Run Derby last night. He hit a record 28 homers in the first round but then ran out of gas in the final and lost. But when interviewed said he wanted to thank his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and that the glory all goes to Him. It was powerful. It's always awesome seeing the transforming power of Jesus Christ at work. Someday I will meet Josh Hamilton. What a great day that will be.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Can't Come Down!

What a blessed day yesterday! We started Sunday morning out with the reading of Joshua 6:15-16, the blowing of the shofar, and the people shouting for the city. I truly believe that the Lord has given us this city and that there is still greater things to be done in this city.

Sometimes I don't always appreciate all that God is doing here, nor do I always acknowledge it. Forgive me Lord! I truly repent for that. Lately, I've been so focused on where we are going as a church and being stretched in areas that need stretching that I can fail to see what God is doing and get focused on the task at hand. Just like in Nehemiah 4:10 where it says, "Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, 'The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.'" They had already done a lot of work on the wall but it paled in comparison with the rubble of rocks that was still left. It was enough to knock the wind out of their sails.

Many times this is how I can begin to feel. Then God begins to remind me of all that He is doing and has done and that if I will keep on saying, just like Nehemiah when confronted by his enemies "I can't come down", then things will continue to move forward. God has placed me here for such a time as this and I must use every second wisely in spreading the kingdom of God. And that goes for you as well. God has placed you here for such a time as this. There are many things that can get us down and cause us to take our eyes off of Jesus and put it on the rubble around us. Big mistake! For the rubble around us will one day be the foundation and walls in our relationship with Jesus, if we will hold on and keep our focus.

So repeat after me... "I CAN'T COME DOWN, Satan!"

Thanks to Amber (Good) Davidson for the sermon on the phrase "I can't come down." She preached on this while we were both at VFCC at a chapel one day and it has stuck with me ever since.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Pebble Beach


Bethany and I read a devotion the other night that talked about Pebble Beach in California. Here is a picture of that beach. It said how the surf pounds the pebbles and they rub up against each other making beautiful pebbles. Most people want to come to this beach and get a pebble to take home with them. It also said how if you go down the beach a little bit that there is a little cove full of pebbles. The only problem is that they are shielded from the pounding surf. So they are not as smooth and polished as the ones shown here. And nobody wants one of them.
We can be the pebbles that avoid the pounding of the surf but then we will never experience the smoothness and beauty that comes from the trials we experience in our everyday life. Trials are not something to run from they are something to walk through with Jesus Christ by our side so that we can become the beautiful creation that He created us to be.
Now when you think of pounding surf, or trials, they can come in all shapes and forms. Something that was made known to me yesterday is that other Christians can be used as the pounding surf. Most of us don't like to think about that. We try to avoid certain people because we don't agree with them or don't like the way they act. But those very things could be what we need to knock off some rough spots and polish us up a little more. As humans, we tend to run from what differs from our thoughts and opinions and take comfort in the familiar. We bring that mindsight into our walk with the Lord. But as Proverbs 27:17 says, "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another," this is what it is all about. This process, if you know about the stiking of iron against iron, is not a pretty process. You can imagine the pain that would come from this if iron actually had feelings and could talk. He might avoid it all together and be happy being dull. But who wants to be dull? I don't. Sometimes my brain tells me I do so as to avoid struggles and trials but that is not what the Christian walk is about.
I am trying to see what I can learn from everyone I come in contact with. Even those that I don't agree with and struggle with. There is still something to learn from pressing in and not letting them dictate how I grow and don't grow. I choose to love them and continue to let Jesus Christ do the changes in me and them that He needs to do.
Lord, may I accept the pounding waves that come into my life to smooth and polish me. I can get through it with You. Amen.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

More Thoughts from Yesterday

1 Thessalonians 5:21 AMP
21But test and prove all things [until you can recognize] what is good; [to that] hold fast.

1 John 4:1 AMP
1BELOVED, DO not put faith in every spirit, but prove (test) the spirits to discover whether they proceed from God; for many false prophets have gone forth into the world.

I didn't have a chance to look up these scriptures yesterday but I wanted to make sure to include them. I never wanted to do the hard work that it takes to find out what God wants to speak to you in a given situation. I always wanted someone to tell me. The only problem with that is first we need to look to Jesus for everything. Secondly, we never develop the spiritual ear to hear what God is speaking to us. The only ear we have is to listen to everyone around us. There are many great things we can learn from others and God does use others to teach us. But at the same time we must also be willing to do our homework to make sure what we are being taught is truly scriptural. It is difficult, but if we can develop our spiritual ears to hear, how much more will we know as God reveals Himself to us. You don't want to miss out on what God has for YOU! So let us all press in and do the homework of testing everything through scripture.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Dr. Marino and Theology Class

I want to begin to share somethings that the Lord has been laying on my heart. Jesus has really been teaching me some interesting lessons. One of them has been seeking Him for what to believe and what not to believe. Let me explain.

Back in the day (96-00), in college Theology class with Dr. Bruce Marino, I would always take a C in the class by passing the exam. If you wanted to get an A or B you had to do a paper. I never did the paper because I didn't understand Theology class. We would walk in and talk about topics and people would raise their hands and share their thoughts on the subject. It was very interesting discussion on topics but I would always wait for Dr. Marino to tell us what we needed to believe. And do you know what?... he never did. I couldn't handle it. All my life I was told what to believe and here I am in college preparing for ministry and no one is telling me what to believe and what not to believe. It was frustrating to me.

Fast forward now to 2008. Here I am a pastor and I'm just figuring out the important lesson he was teaching us. I need to be able to wrestle in prayer and study scripture to know what I believe and what I do not believe. Yes, we have parents and spiritual mentors to help us along the way. But my point is that we can't just look to man to tell us what to believe. We have to seek Jesus. More to come.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

What a Blessed Time Last Night!

Last night, Stan Heffner and the choir that he put together that will forever be known as Rushing Wind, did a wonderful job. Things started out a little tight, which happens when you get nervous from singing in front of a live audience for the first time, but once we all calmed down it was great. We were playing gospel music and you could see kids getting into the beat as they walked past. People were stopping and listening as they walked past. The music was impacting a wide spectrum of people. I look forward to seeing where the choir goes from here. Stan is believing for more people to be interested. If you are interested in singing gospel music with a lot of harmony and beat, send a reply to this post with your name and how Stan can contact you and I will be sure to pass it along to him.

It was also a first, as Isaiah got to ride some of the rides, thanks to Pap Pap Garris and Anna Trimarchi and Kaitlyn Brumbaugh. He enjoyed every second. When the ride stopped and the guy came to unbuckle him, Isaiah looked up at him and said, "Again." It was precious.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Join Us Tonight...

I hope to see all of you tonight, July 2, at 6:00 pm in the Ford City Park for Heritage Days to listen to the choir that our very own Stan Heffner has put together. It should be a great time and I believe you all will enjoy it. It has a little something for everyone. And I will be there strumming my guitar for a couple of the songs. Bring a friend, a neighbor, a coworker, an enemy, and bring them down. It will truly be some good ole' family intertainment.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

It's JULY!

What a powerful service this past Sunday as we continued to look at "To Eternity and Beyond" and more specifically Hell as an eternal place. I really felt the Holy Spirit moving in that message and I pray that none of us will be the same.

This week I am getting some much needed study time on the history of the early church as I prepare for my next series called "Overhaulin". I want to see us do an overhaul of the New Life Center so that we can be more effective in seeing souls saved and lives healed, not just in the church, but wherever we might be. I will need everyones cooperation as we wrestle through how everything is done in this church, making sure it alligns with scripture, and doing it with excellence. We, as a church, have not reached our potential. There is still much work for us to do and I am praying that as we walk through this series, hearts and minds will be brought into unity with one another and ultimately with Jesus. Please be praying. We are going to begin to do somethings differently which means change and I know that change can be hard but I also believe that the change that is coming is going to bring greater effectiveness in reaching out to this community in the power of Jesus Christ.

Please begin to pray that you are ready for what God wants to do here.