(February 7, 2011)
Prayer House News!
We had a great start to our newest CORE focus. For this whole month we will take a look at The Knowledge Of God. This will take us deep into the word of God. It's going to be a powerful month. Our Wednesday adult class will look into how the Bible came into existence and why it can be trusted. My message is attached.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is Family Week for us which means a scaled down schedule for the week with no mid-week classes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By The Way the Packers Won the Superbowl!!!
=================================================
Devotional!
The Widows Heart
I read something yesterday that I thought was great. It was talking about churches that are not growing: churches that have not won anyone to the Lord for the past several years. The article said, “Why do churches that have not had any significant growth, in terms of salvations, for the last several years, continue to do things exactly the way they have always done it?” That is the problem with change. We tend to believe the past is sacred and that it should not be tampered with. That is why we tend to want to go back to the way it was years ago.
So the question is: how shall we change? Here is my answer: we shall do according to the need of the people, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Let me explain this. I just read about a church that had been running around 400 people. Then they decided to become a praise and worship church and started spending an hour and a half to two hours in worship each service, and started losing people. If there was time after the worship and the Holy Spirit led – the preacher would then preach.
An acquaintance of mine attended the church as a guest speaker. The church had lost 300 people since the time they made the change. After about an hour and a half of worship the pastor said to the speaker – “We decided to become a praise and worship church and 300 people have left. But, we need to get rid of about 40 more; and when they’ve left, then the church will really grow.” Worship was never meant to be more important than a love for people. You might react and say, “But worship is adoration to God, isn’t that important?” Yes it is, but just try to get close to God while you ignore the needs to those around you. There are plenty of “train-wrecks” of people and churches that have been unnecessarily wounded by change. Spirit-filled change does not treat people like commodities. God’s people are not disposable assets.
Just think of what that pastor is saying. He wants to get his church down to about 60 people then they will really grow. Suppose they grew from 60 to 400 in a short amount of time. That would be terrific growth but they would only get back to the place they were before they decided to change for change sake.
It’s very similar to 1 Corinthians 13:2…and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. “Faith without love does not impress God at all, (paraphrase).”
In the 1980’s an Assemblies of God family made international headlines when their 10-year-old son died due to their withholding his insulin. The parents had embraced the extreme faith teaching, “confessing” that he was healed. After the father was released from several years in prison, he and his wife wrote a book about their experience. The lesson they learned was incredible. They said they came to realize that they had put faith above love. He said. “We could hear the cry of our son and we knew that insulin would have given him relief but we had so convinced ourselves that that would have been a lack of faith that we denied it to him.” When you have faith without love you have nothing and you are nothing. This all comes down to love. Change for the sake of change is never the Spirit’s direction. Change for the sake of love is a different story.
====================================================
Medication: A Merry Heart
Whacha Doin'?
My wife asked me this morning, "Whacha doin' today?"
I said, "Nothing."
She said, "That's what you did yesterday."
I said, "I wasn't finished."
Prayer House News!
We had a great start to our newest CORE focus. For this whole month we will take a look at The Knowledge Of God. This will take us deep into the word of God. It's going to be a powerful month. Our Wednesday adult class will look into how the Bible came into existence and why it can be trusted. My message is attached.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is Family Week for us which means a scaled down schedule for the week with no mid-week classes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By The Way the Packers Won the Superbowl!!!
=================================================
Devotional!
The Widows Heart
I read something yesterday that I thought was great. It was talking about churches that are not growing: churches that have not won anyone to the Lord for the past several years. The article said, “Why do churches that have not had any significant growth, in terms of salvations, for the last several years, continue to do things exactly the way they have always done it?” That is the problem with change. We tend to believe the past is sacred and that it should not be tampered with. That is why we tend to want to go back to the way it was years ago.
So the question is: how shall we change? Here is my answer: we shall do according to the need of the people, and the leading of the Holy Spirit. Let me explain this. I just read about a church that had been running around 400 people. Then they decided to become a praise and worship church and started spending an hour and a half to two hours in worship each service, and started losing people. If there was time after the worship and the Holy Spirit led – the preacher would then preach.
An acquaintance of mine attended the church as a guest speaker. The church had lost 300 people since the time they made the change. After about an hour and a half of worship the pastor said to the speaker – “We decided to become a praise and worship church and 300 people have left. But, we need to get rid of about 40 more; and when they’ve left, then the church will really grow.” Worship was never meant to be more important than a love for people. You might react and say, “But worship is adoration to God, isn’t that important?” Yes it is, but just try to get close to God while you ignore the needs to those around you. There are plenty of “train-wrecks” of people and churches that have been unnecessarily wounded by change. Spirit-filled change does not treat people like commodities. God’s people are not disposable assets.
Just think of what that pastor is saying. He wants to get his church down to about 60 people then they will really grow. Suppose they grew from 60 to 400 in a short amount of time. That would be terrific growth but they would only get back to the place they were before they decided to change for change sake.
It’s very similar to 1 Corinthians 13:2…and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. “Faith without love does not impress God at all, (paraphrase).”
In the 1980’s an Assemblies of God family made international headlines when their 10-year-old son died due to their withholding his insulin. The parents had embraced the extreme faith teaching, “confessing” that he was healed. After the father was released from several years in prison, he and his wife wrote a book about their experience. The lesson they learned was incredible. They said they came to realize that they had put faith above love. He said. “We could hear the cry of our son and we knew that insulin would have given him relief but we had so convinced ourselves that that would have been a lack of faith that we denied it to him.” When you have faith without love you have nothing and you are nothing. This all comes down to love. Change for the sake of change is never the Spirit’s direction. Change for the sake of love is a different story.
====================================================
Medication: A Merry Heart
Whacha Doin'?
My wife asked me this morning, "Whacha doin' today?"
I said, "Nothing."
She said, "That's what you did yesterday."
I said, "I wasn't finished."
0 comments:
Post a Comment