Church Signs 2
Finally a church sign I can get excited about!
Imagine that!
Church Signs
Church signs have always intrigued me. You know, the ones that have the reader board on them that allow for the message to be changed. At my previous church I was the Pastor of Signs & Wonders, meaning I was the pastor that wondered what went on the church sign!
I must confess, I think most church signs are really pretty bad. Rarely do I see one that I think will really have any kind of significant impact on the community at large.
Anyways I was driving around town this morning and I came across this one.
Any guesses as to what the message will be about this Sunday?
Cup O' Joe
Where is this guy when I need him?
What would we do without coffee?
Could it be that there is even a spiritual component to coffee? See Steve Taylor's thoughts on coffee.
15 Minutes of Fame
Youth Specialties was recently collecting pictures to be used in publications, and email newsletters they send out, and asked youth pastors to send them photos of students having fun together. I thought to my self....cool, I have lots of those! So I sent them a few and look what hit my inbox today! My students!
This is a picture of four of our Middle School girls at our recent Fall Retreat at Camp Tadmor.
Everyone deserves their 15 minutes!
What I Want
I know many are hoping and wishin' for an iPod this Christmas. Not me. Oh no, not me. This is what I want for Christmas!
Less Talk
I came across a great quote today....
“ Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a Christian experience. We think we are doing our duty when we're only talking about it.”
- Charles F. Banning
Reminds me of James 1:22-25.
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does."
At the risk of sounding cliche..... Less talk, more walk!
Price for Hip
Perhaps this is taking Pauls admonition to become all things to all people a little too far.
Taken from Lark News, a Christian satire site, meaning it's not true....
Hip Youth Pastor Now Completely Unintelligible
AUSTIN — After immersing himself in popular slang phrases, youth leader Dave Jackson has become completely unintelligible to members of his church, even the youth.
"We stopped understanding him about a month ago," says Tanya Gooden, 17, of his youth group. "It was a slow process. Now when he preaches we have to assume a lot of things by his tone, not his words."
Jackson, tracked down at his church office, told a reporter, "Fo shizzle, my nizzle, it's the big mack tizzle, you trackin'? The get-down was off the hook, bra. Big-time ace. Dey scened until the old folk rolled in and the crew got dot gone. Good Sunday, bra."
Jackson can no longer speak plain English even if he wishes to. At times he desperately tries to cross the chasm of incomprehension he has built. For senior pastor Rich Leonard, that's not good enough.
"He's about to shizzle himself right out of a job," Leonard says.
Divine Appointment
I got a phone call yesterday that I can't stop thinking about. I received a call from a lady in our church that I have never met. What she said really shook me and blessed me.
On Monday, as I do each Monday, I had lunch with a group of guys from my church. We meet for lunch once a week for fellowship, encouragement, support, etc. Well un-knowingy to me at the time, this woman which I naturally did not recognize, was seated right next to us. She of course knew who I was, as she sees each week on the platform.
In the course of our discussion I shared with the guys an experience I had on Sunday morning. For some reason, on that morning, I felt a great deal of spiritual attack. I was bombarded with feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness. I was feeling as if I was not making a real difference, and frankly just didn't want to be there. Apparently she heard all of that, and was moved in her spirit to pray for me.
She then told me how tired she was because she had not slept one minute that night, the night before her call to me. She had been up all night praying for me! I don't think anyone has ever stayed up all night praying for me. She then told me that at 4:00 am God told her that she was to call me that day, so she did.
In our conversation she told me that God wanted me to know that He was sitting right next to me that day at lunch. The chair next to me was empty. There were three of us at the table, she said that she saw four. She also shared with me that the reason I was experiencing the kind of oppression that I was, was that God was soon going to ask me to do something very big for Him. That got my attention! If that does in fact come to pass, I will let you know.
She said the Lord also gave her a song to share with me. Here it is...
Light The Fire
I stand to praise You,
But I fall to my knees.
My spirit is hungry,
But my flesh is so weak___.
CHORUS:
Light the fire
In my soul,
Fan the flame,
Make me whole.
Lord, You know
Where I’ve been,
So light the fire in my heart again.
I feel Your arms around me,
As the power of Your healing begins.
You breathe new life right through me,
Like a mighty rushing wind___.
So light the fire in my heart again,
light the fire in my heart again,
light the fire in my heart again.
What a blessing. Just what I needed!
Another interesting note to all this is, she never got her lunch! She walked in, saw me, ordered her food and then sat down and waited 20 minutes for her food. It never arrived. She then got up to check on it and was told that they lost her order. By this time she was out of time and couldn't wait any longer and had to leave. Not only did she not get her lunch but she said she had never eaten there before, and never really had any desire to, she for some reason just felt compelled to go there on that day to eat. Divine appointment!
I am still blown away by all this. Clearly God had her there for a specific reason. He used her to convey a message to me, a message that I needed to hear.
This Sunday we plan to meet face to face.
Guts
I want to be more like Paul; the Apostle Paul that is. He had conviction. He had passion. He had guts!
In reading Acts 21 I am again reminded as to why Paul is my greatest hero. Despite the warnings of many, in Acts 21 we see Paul returning home to Jerusalem after his long missionary journey. Beacause of the radical message he was preaching, and the unrest that it was causing among the Jews, there were many that strongly discouraged his return to Jerusalem.
• 21:4 "...Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem."
• 21:10-11 "...a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, 'The Holy Spirit says, 'In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.'"
• 21:12 "When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem."
I love Paul's response in the face of all this warning.
"Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." (21:13)
Guess what he did? He went! He took the risk, went, and was protected and used. God protected him from the angered crowds and in fact gave him opportunity to minister to them.
Paul had guts! I want to be a risk taker like that. It is my prayer that I might also have the guts of Paul, to be willing to live out the Gospel of Chirst no matter what the consequenses may be.
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