New Testament Survey Promo
This is a promo for our summer New Testament Survey course.
It’s going to meet at the church at 7:00pm on Wednesdays from June 4- July 30 and will rock your face off.
Planning & Spontaneity
On Sunday we had an unusual and wonderful interruption by the Holy Spirit. God was working uniquely in the first service so much that we kept worshipping after the sermon until 5 minutes before the 2nd service. I love it when God moves in unexpected ways! I believe it is vitally important for us to always be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit because he’s the one who changes hearts and lives.
However, sometimes I think that those of us in Pentecostal or Charismatic traditions can tend to view spontaneity as somehow more spiritual than Spirit-inspired planning… as if God can only move in spontaneous, unplanned ways. As much as I believe that we should always seek to follow the spontaneous leading of the Holy Spirit in our services I also believe that the same Holy Spirit can inspire us to plan our services responsibly in advance. I believe that God can inspire a sermon series months in advance as well as give spontaneous inspiration on the spot.
The truth is, we need both. In fact they are two sides of the same coin and are intended to function in absolute harmony with one another, not in opposition. The danger on one side is to depend on our planning efforts and not on the Holy Spirit. This extreme will only produce what men can produce. The other danger is to use spontaneity as a cop-out for irresponsible and sloppy planning.
There is however a healthy balance in which we give God our best as we always rely on his power and remain attentive to his leading. I think the key is to plan responsibly while fully depending on God as well as always being open to his redirection.
Memorial Day Weekend
I’m really excited about the services this Memorial Day weekend. We have a special guest worship leader and we’re continuing our Overcomer Series with a message on Overcoming Temptation.
Temptation is something that affects every one of us as human beings. Odds are, you’ve faced it in one form or another in the last several hours. Join us as we look into how we can live in victory over the power of temptation is our lives.
Check This Out!
Man, if anybody had a reason to curse God and die of despair, it’s this guy! Check out his amazing testimony.
Overcoming Despair
This week’s services were a lot of fun. Really enjoyed switching things up a little. For those who may have missed out, we started with the sermon and ended with worship. I think its good for us to change things up a little bit from time to time. It’s just so easy for us to check out mentally when things get too predictable.
Our main theme from this text and this text was that the best way to overcome despair is to respond to our problems with praise. I think that it’s definitely true that the times when we feel like praising God the least are the times when we need to praise him the most. That’s because our greatest need in our darkest times is to be in the presence of God. In praise we come to a greater perception and awareness of his greatness.
Avoiding Burnout- Part 3
Another factor that contributes to ministry burnout is failing to see how ministry tasks contribute to the overall mission. It’s easy sometimes to think that the visible aspects of ministry like preaching, leading worship, and leading prayer are the only ones that really matter. We have a hard time seeing anything else as an important factor in leading people to Christ.
Sometimes its hard to see how something small or backstage could really be that important. The truth is that some of the smallest things really do make a big difference. For instance, a handshake and friendly greeting on Sunday morning helps a newcomer to feel at ease and welcome and enables them to be more receptive to the message. If they have a bad 1st impression, they are less likely to hear and receive the Word.
Even the smallest tasks, like greeting people, operating video & sound, cleaning, passing out flyers, etc. help to bring people closer to an encounter with God when they are done with excellence. When things like this are done poorly, it makes it more difficult for people to hear our message. From this perspective we see that the small things are really big things.
When we begin to see that even the smallest tasks in ministry are critically important to our mission of leading people to Christ, we begin to be motivated by our mission and not by obligation. Burdens and obligations wear us out and burn us out, but mission-centered service is often energizing and rewarding.
Nationality Days ’08
This weekend we are looking forward to participating in the annual Nationality Days festival in Ambridge. Nationality Days is the largest festival in Beaver County graced with some 40,000 people each year. No doubt this is an amazing opportunity for us to meet new people and make some new friends.
This year we will again be selling chimichangas and nachos. Not sure what in the world a chimichanga is? This link will probably help you out (They’re pretty much amazing).
BTW, if you are interested in helping out at the booth, there are still some openings. If you would like to help, email us here.
Devotional Focus
We had some awesome services yesterday. Baptism services are always incredibly special. We began our Overcomer Series with a message called “A Vision For Victory.” Our theme verse for this series is John 16:33. Our ability to be overcomers in this world is directly connected to our relationship with Christ- the ultimate Overcomer.
In the introductory message our main point from this text was that: The only way to experience the victory of Christ is to be fully submitted to the lordship of Christ. In other words we can’t expect to live in victory over our battles in life if we are living outside of submission to Christ’s authority.
The main application that I challenged everyone with was to take 2-3 minutes every day to make Christ’s lordship a devotional focus. What that means is to take some time out of your normal devotional time to just focus your heart on the fact that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The fact that he is forever victorious over sin, hell, and death. Then we simply choose to submit our lives to his rule and authority. We seek to run all of our decisions through what would honor and glorify him rather than what we think would make us happy. Here are some suggested verses to help you focus on the Lordship of Jesus Christ this week:
- Monday: Ephesians 1:17-23
- Tuesday: Philippians 2:8-11
- Wednesday: Colossians 1:15-20
- Thursday: Revelation 1:17-18
- Friday: Revelation 5:9-10
- Saturday: Revelation 19:11-16
Avoiding Burn Out- Part 2
Another key factor in avoiding burnout while serving the Lord is to keep our love for him our primary ministry.
This is why Jesus listed here that the first and greatest commandment is to love God. Only when loving God is established as our top priority will we then be able to effectively love others. We will burn out in ministry and service when we switch the order and make loving others more important than our love for God.
When we neglect our relationship with him while serving in ministry, we make the subtle shift from serving out of love to serving out of obligation. Serving out of obligation will lead to burnout every time.
Our relationship with God is our source of life and strength. When we neglect it, our ministry will start to be a burden. The second commandment (loving others) will break us if we neglect the first commandment to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. When we keep the first commandment in first place, we will serve, minister, and love out of the overflow of what God is doing in our hearts.
2 Things I’m Excited About
- Tomorrow we will be doing water baptisms in the morning services. So far we have 7 people signed up to be baptized! For me, one of the greatest joys of being a pastor is baptizing people.
We’re starting a new sermon series called Overcomer: Rising Above Life’s Toughest Challenges. I feel like this is really going to be a good study for us as a church. We will be looking at some principles of living victorious Christian lives.
Avoiding Burn Out- Part 1
One of the major causes of people leaving the ministry is burnout. This is true not only of pastors but also ministry leaders and volunteers. Since this is such a huge problem, what can we do to avoid burning out while serving the Lord? In the next few posts, we’ll look into at least a few ways that we can begin to answer that question.
I was reminded this morning of this passage in 1 Peter 4:10-11, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks the oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies – in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”
We will burn out when we cease to operate in the “strength that God supplies”
We will cease operating in God’s strength when we begin working for God instead of with God. God doesn’t want a workforce, he wants a partnership. When we begin to depend more on ourselves than on him for strength we will burn out. Learning to live and serve in the strength God provides involves a few things:
- Recognize that God’s strength is available to empower you
- Recognize that God wants to empower you with his strength
- Keep your relationship with him your first priority
- Depend fully on him in every situation
Commentaries
One of my values in preparing sermons is to understand the text of Scripture as accurately as possible. I feel that since the Bible is the Word of God, it is my responsibility to do as Paul said and “rightly handle the word of truth.”
While praying and researching the text, I always consult numerous biblical commentaries. These are some that I have found to be most helpful:
Word Biblical Commentary- One of the most thorough and exegetically accurate commentaries available. Top notch scholarship.
Baker Exegetical Commentary On The New Testament- Another extremely thorough, in-depth commentary set.
NIV Application Commentary- Insightful commentary set, especially in drawing practical application points for today’s world out of the text.
New International Commentary Old Testament/New Testament (NICOT/NICNT)- Written by great scholars. An easier-to-read commentary set.
Tyndale New Testament Commentaries- These are short and to the point. Easy to read, but not as comprehensive as others.
In addition to these, I frequently consult individual commentaries that were not written to be a part of a set. These are often extremely helpful. I’m grateful to the library at Trinity Seminary in Ambridge for allowing me access to these resources. I realize that these commentaries are not as easily available to everybody, but I would still recommend them for study if you ever have the chance to consult them.
May 30, 2008 | Categories: books, ministry resources, studying | Tags: Commentaries | Leave A Comment »