So it Begins!

Our 24 hours of prayer has started!  One of the elders here at Ontario Christian Church kicked things off this morning!  I am thrilled that people are still devoted to prayer!  Out of all the slots of time to fill, only 2 remained unfilled as of this morning: midnight Saturday and 4 am Sunday!  That is exciting!

I have encouraged our people to fast during this time also.  We don’t talk a whole lot about fasting, but Jesus assumed we would do it just like he assumed we would pray!  Matthew 6 says, “When you fast” not if.  We assume that fasting is supposed to be completely private, but it is shown by Jesus to be just as private as praying, and we don’t hesitate to tell someone that we are praying for them.  Maybe we need to encourage one another to fast more regularly and offer ourselves as living sacrifices holy and pleasing to God!

WHEN YOU PRAY!

WHEN YOU FAST!

Power of Prayer

This weekend Ontario Christian Church will be participating in our 2nd 24 hours of prayer.  This is an incredible time of corporate and individual prayer where I have asked members of this body to sign up for 1 hour time slots to come to the building and pray.  While they are here, they are asked to pray for the lost, pray for our community, pray for this church, pray for the universal Church, and really anything that comes to mind!

Too often we ignore Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount regarding prayer.  Jesus never said, “If you pray” he said, “When you pray.”  How often do we spend an entire hour in prayer?  I mean really in prayer.  Last year, after I had been at this church for just over 2 months, we organized the 1st 24 hours of prayer and the reaction was the same from almost everyone, “1 hour?  How can I pray for a whole hour?”  The reaction afterwards was the same also, “That hour went by so fast – I could have gone for another hour with no problem!” 

Amazing things happen when we enter the throne room of God!  Time seems to either stand still, or fly by!  Allow God to meet you in prayer this weekend as our church meets God on Saturday and Sunday!

 WHEN YOU PRAY!

Memorial Day

I am not entirely certain what happened on Sunday!  I had prepared a sermon on Gideon and his battle with the Midianite army.  I thought this was going to be the perfect Memorial Day sermon.  Before I preached, there was a video shown with all of the people associated with our church who have served in the armed forces.  Somewhere in the middle was a picture of an elderly lady in our church named Mary.  Mary is just a tiny little thing, and is getting up there in years.  On the screen was this beautiful young woman, and it said she was a nurse during WWII.  Immediately my mind began racing about the stories she must have, and I wondered how many people listened!

The way my mind works, that got me thinking about our own stories…the stories that we have about our redemption…the stories about what God has done in our life, and God kept taking me to Deuteronomy 6.

“Deuteronomy 6:4-9

4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. “

We have a responsiblity to tell our children…to tell them every opportunity we get about the One God whom we serve!

Tell your story!

It was painful, but I scrapped my sermon on Sunday, and spoke briefly about this passage…I have never abandoned a sermon completely 2 minutes before I was supposed to preach it, but I couldn’t do anything else!

Impress your story on the people around you!

Easter is Over!?

So, the eggs have all been found; the tomb has been shown to be empty; Jesus has appeared to his disciples…now what?

We had an incredible easter weekend with a record number of people in attendance at our current building!  What do we do now?  Hopefully, somewhere on your journey this weekend, or before, you have encountered the living God!  Even the angels, when the followers of Jesus were looking for him, asked, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?  He is not here.  He has risen.” 

Don’t just stay looking longingly into the empty tomb, go out into the world and tell about how encountering the risen savior has changed your life! 

No one leaves an encounter with God unchanged!  Allow people to encounter God through you this week!

Quit looking for the living among the dead, and quit acting dead when you should be living!

Good Friday

Good Friday services aren’t really done in the independent Christian Churches very often.  This year, I decided to do one.  We really didn’t know what to expect, but all in all it went pretty well.  One of the Elders said that at anything on a Friday night in the past would pull in maybe a dozen people.  We had about 80 for the service tonight.  We have been running in the 130’s the past several weeks, so I feel that was good response!

I tried to stay away from people after the service, because I didn’t want the empty platitudes, I wanted them to be meditating on what Jesus actually went through for them.

I stole the idea for the sermon from Terry Bowland at Ozark Christian College!  He had said in class one day that “There they crucified Him” would make a great 4 point sermon, and sure enough it does!

1. There – The most unholy place
2. They – The most unholy people
3. Crucified – The most unholy death
4. Him – The most Holy Person!

I gave each person a carpenter’s nail as a reminder of the spikes that were driven into the hands and feet of Jesus to take on our sin. 

I hope people encountered God!

Feeding Ourselves?

I am not sure how many of you who read this are in ministry, but I am going to assume that at least 2 of you are, since the only 2 people who read this are ministers!  Maybe you are not in occupational ministry, but you volunteer your time at your church.

Can I ask you a question?  How seriously do you take the responsiblity to move from the milk to solid foods of biblical teaching?  I am sure that everyone will say that they take it seriously, but how do you go about it?  It makes spiritual growth difficult, but isn’t it worth it to be serving the almighty God?  If you were teaching a Sunday School class, and a small group on Sunday night, but doing nothing on Wednesday night, if you did not feel like you were being fed, wouldn’t you go to a Bible Study on Wednesday?  Or, do you just gripe that you are always teaching, and not do anything else about it?

I guess I am just venting, but it really isn’t the responsibility of a preacher, or an elder, or anyone other than you to make sure that you are going deeper! Right?  I want to help volunteers and ministers grow as much as possible, but if you won’t go to study times available to you, there is only so much I can do. 

 Volunteers, do your pastor a favor, study and grow on your own, and take advantage of growth opportunities given to you!

Done ranting now!  Go about your business!

Church in a Bar?

I just heard about it on the news.  A new church in Cleveland, Gateway Church, has launched by meeting in a comedy club.  Their target audience is urban professionals, and they wanted to meet them where they are at. 

I truly hope this works for them!  If they will hold unswervingly to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I am sure that it will thrive.  15 years ago, the church I am now the minster of met in a bar.  They rented a VFW (or something similar) hall, and had to clean off the bar before having church each Sunday morning.  I can’t tell you the number of men that I have talked to who used to belly up to that bar, and are now serving God faithfully at OCC!  Even the owners of the building came to know Christ throught the ministry of Ontario Christian Church, and when they passed away, they sold parts of the property and gave part to the church.  That building is still on our property, but has been completely remodeled to now hold a fellowship hall and classrooms.

Jesus certainly had dinner in some strange places.  I don’t think that people thought too much about that meal that he had at Matthew’s house after calling him from his tax collector’s booth.  His only friends were theives and prostitutes, and Jesus was questioned about this.  If only we could all be having a greater interest and presence in our communities.  Not all of our churches would do well in bars, but again, if God is for it, nothing is going to stop it!

I still remember Mike Breaux talking about eating lunch in a bar, and taking a lot of slack for it, but he ended up having great discussions about God and church with those who gathered in that bar. 

 Let’s not move all our churches to bars though…I would strongly recommend that recovering alcoholics stay away from a church in a bar!

A Selfish Prayer

I just laid down the newborn, hoping that she falls asleep now!  (I think she is a little gassy)

My 7 year old daughter who has the cyclical vomitting syndrome went to bed tonight feeling “a little queasy.”

My other 3 children struggled going to bed tonight because they were so tired! (strange, I know)

My parents are in town.

I still have some sermon work to do for Sunday.

My selfish prayer tonight is for sleep!  Sleep for my beautiful bride, sleep for my incredible children, and selfishly, sleep for myself!  I guess Jesus prayed for himself one time, but it was only after being ultimately concerned about those around him.  Although, even Jesus’ prayers for himself involved honoring God! 

I pray that my life somehow bring glory to the almighty God, yet I fall so miserably short every time!  I know that I am not Jesus, but I hope that I can reflect the glory of the Son in some way so that the Father may be glorified!  If it is about me, God will not be glorified.  Father, forgive me for the selfish prayers!

Not my will!

For obvious reasons, I have been thinking a lot lately about the death and resurrection of Jesus.  I was thinking about Jesus’ response in the garden that night he was betrayed when he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)  Jesus, who certainly knew the will of God was asking if there was some other way to redeem us.  He was asking if his own life could be spared and our souls still be spared at the same time.  His resolve was that whatever the will of God was would be good enough for him. 

I think sometimes we forget to consider the will of God.  I serve as the preacher for a small church in Ohio.  I am extremely fortunate to serve with 3 elders who understand what this means to seek the will of God.  It would be very easy to get caught up in the numbers game, and try to strictly grow our church numerically, but the will of God isn’t about this little extension of the body of Christ.  God’s will is that the greater Kingdom of God be strengthened and added to.  We talked about this during our prayer time this week.  There is a church we recently heard of who was having a membership drive (huh, I don’t see that anywhere in the Bible).  What was frustrating was their purpose for the membership drive.  They were moving into a new building, and in order to close on their loan, they had to meet a stipulation for x number of members in their church.  They actually announced from the front that this was their purpose in pushing for people to become members.  Was God grieved that day?  I certainly can’t answer that, but it doesn’t sit well with me.

Please, don’t get me wrong, we would love to have people place their membership here, but nowhere is “membership” in the Bible, so our greater concern has to be the salvation of their soul!

Maybe when we stop being so concerned about our little corner of the world getting bigger, and start being concerned about the kingdom of God growing through additions anywhere with people getting into any Bible believing church, God will begin to bless our little corner!

 Unless of course, yours is the only church teaching the truth: ; )

I love what I do!

After my rant of that last post, I had to post this!  I love what I do!  I was told once that if I could be happy doing anything other than being a minister, do it!  I truly don’t believe that I could do anything else, because this is what God has called me to do. 

I work with the most incredible people at a pretty incredible church!  We are all just a bunch of flawed people trying to draw closer to God together!  I am blessed by great elders to work with, and a very supportive congregation.  Who could ask for anything more?