Church Directory Prayers

One of the ways I get to serve my local church, Grace Baptist, is as an elder.  The elders of our church meet every Saturday morning for a couple hours to pray for the people of the church and for wisdom for the direction of the church.  This morning we prayed as always and we used a method for prayer that I'd like to encourage you to use, too.

Many of you have a church directory at home or can get ahold of one.  I know every person at our church has a directory or has access to a directory.  The church directory is often used as a piece of church history or as a way to contact other people in your church.  I want to encourage you to use it as a prayer tool.

Take your directory and pray for the people in it by name.  You can pray a page at a time if you want.  You can pray for the A's and then the B', etc if you want.  Or you can pray for one family or person a day if you want, the options are plentiful.  Just take out the directory, perhaps blow off the dust if necessary, and begin to pray.

You might be thinking that you can't possibly know the prayer needs of everyone in the church and you're probably right in thinking that.  You don't always have to know specifics.  When you know specific prayer needs, lift them up; when you don't know specific prayer needs, pray for that person to have more of one of the fruits of the Spirit, pray that they have strength to stay faithful to God today, or ask the Holy Spirit to pray for what He knows and you don't.  There's not an excuse to skip a name.

How much good could God do in your local church if you were faithful to pray for the people of your church by name?  How much more would you grow to love the people of your church if you spent time praying for them individually?  What more powerful thing could you do for the people of your church than to ask the God of the universe to act on their behalf?

Praying for the people of the local church is not just for pastors, elders and deacons.  Praying for one another is a work of and for the church.

So, take out your directory and devise a plan to pray for the people of your church.  Whether you pray one page a day or one name a day you will do a Kingdom work if you practice this discipline.  I love knowing that somebody's praying for me.  In fact, at our wedding my dad sang the song "Somebody's Praying for Me" as a thank you to all those who do pray and as a plea for others to pray for us.  We need the prayers of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Grab your church directory and pray for your local church today.

My Wife's Smart

Here is a post my wife wrote the other day. Take a look at this and when you're done look for the miracles in your life today.

Our God is a God of miracles.  This is a phrase I recently read in a book by Karen Kingsbury.  Which is funny because earlier today I was thinking about a question they asked us at the end of confirmation (when I was in 7^th or 8^th grade).  Talk about random…

The question was something along the lines of “What is something that you consider a miracle?”  At the time, I wrote down that a baby was a miracle.  This is very true-I mean think about it.  How do our bodies form exactly the way they’re supposed to the majority of the time?  If something was even the tiniest fraction off from the way it’s supposed to be, life wouldn’t exist.  We have exactly the right level of acids/bases in our cells.  We hold the only temperature that we could survive at. Our cells couldn’t survive on their own and yet they come together to make a human that can think, feel, read, write, or encourage.  I work as a labor and delivery nurse, and trust me, hearing babies take their first breath and cry for the first time is one of the greatest miracles there is.  We were after all, knitted together perfectly in our mother’s womb.

So my answer back then was true.  But I was so narrow minded-I’m sure that about half the people in my class had the same answer because that’s the cliché, “Babies are miracles.”  Honestly, I remember thinking that that was the only thing I could think of.

If I had to the answer that question today, I have no idea what I would say, and not because I can’t think of anything.  I was driving home from today and thinking about that question and about the possible answers.  A rainbow is a miracle.  The water bends the light just perfectly to send bands of color across the sky.  Snowflakes are miracles.  Every snowflake is different and if you’ve ever seen pictures of snowflakes up close-you know what I’m talking about.  The mountains are miracles.  Someone seeing that God is real and giving his or her life to follow him is a miracle.  It says in the Bible that we can only see God and know that he is real when he removes the veil from our eyes.

There are endless miracles all around us.  Miracles happen every single day. We just have to open our eyes to the possibilities that simple things can count as a miracle.  Miracles aren’t always big and flashy.  They aren’t always unexplainable. (Many of the things I wrote about above can be explained by science, but that doesn’t make them any less of a miracle.)

God Loves You

Below is a passage from Zephaniah that I read today.

"Sing, O Daughter of Zion;
shout aloud, O Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
O Daughter of Jerusalem!
The LORD has taken away your punishment,
He has turned back your enemy.
The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
On that day they will say to Jerusalem,
'Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The LORD your God is with you,
He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.'

'The sorrows for the appointed feasts
I will remove from you;
they are a burden and a reproach to you.
At that time I will deal
with all who oppressed you;
I will rescue the lame
and gather those who have been scattered.
I will give them praise and honor
in every land where they were put to shame.
At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortunes
before your very eyes."  Zephaniah 3:14-20

What words of hope.  God takes delight in us, He loves us and rejoices over us.  The same God that created the universe and holds it all together delights in us.  That is nearly unbelievable, but we must believe it.  The Bible teaches us that we are nothing in comparison to God and it teaches us that we are loved by God for who we are.  We must remember both are depravity and that we are loved.  I encourage you to remember that God rejoices over you with singing and that He takes great delight in you.  Meditate on the fact that God loves you and rejoices over you today.

Gotham and the Old Testament

I haven't had a TV show that was appointment television for me since The Office went off the air.  The Office was the only show that I had to watch and if I missed it I caught up online.  Well, The Office was the only show that was appointment television for me until I got hooked on Gotham.

Now, Gotham is not a squeaky clean kids' show by any means.  It's very violent and dark much of the time, but as a man that used to be a little boy in Batman underwear it's a show that I was trapped by and now I can't get out.  I enjoy watching every week as this prequel to Batman plays out.  See, Gotham takes place while Bruce Wayne (Batman) is a boy.  During the show you get clues as to what characters turn into what bad guys or what characters get promoted to higher positions or who marries whom.  As a Batman fan I can see all the little hints that tell me who's who in the near or distant future in the show and I enjoy that.

Gotham is a prequel and the fun of watching a prequel is seeing how things all come together to make the story you know is coming.  In the TV show Gotham, Gotham City is a mess.  Violence, injustice and corruption reigns and those who are trying to do good are by far the minority.  When you watch the show Gotham you can't help but cheer for Batman to come sooner rather than later, but you know you have to wait for him.  The TV show Gotham would be depressing and hopeless if you didn't know that Batman was coming.  But we do know that Batman is coming and that eventually justice, peace and civility will have their day.

Reading the Old Testament is a lot like watching Gotham.  Parts of the Old Testament are filled with violence, injustice and corruption.  Read the book of Judges and see how futile the efforts of each judge seems to be because evil always come back.  In fact, Jim Gordon on the show, who is like the one good guy, tries his best to do good but you know he can't do it alone.  In the Old Testament read the corruption of some of the kings of Israel and of the nations that oppress Israel and see if you don't ache for things to be fixed.  Reading the Old Testament can be depressing and hopeless if you don't know that Jesus is coming later on in the Bible.  But we do know that Jesus comes later on in the Bible.

When we read the Old Testament we read for clues and hints about how Jesus will come and what He will be like and what He will do.  The Old Testament isn't a prequel to the New Testament, but in some ways it is like a prequel.  The Old Testament is meant to be read to get the meaning intended for the original audience and it is meant to be read knowing that Jesus and the New Testament is next.

So, I'm going to keep enjoying watching my show Gotham, but this post isn't about encouraging you to get hooked on a super-hero prequel show.  I want you to read the Old Testament look for Jesus and long for Jesus just like the men and women of the Old Testament must have longed for the Messiah.  I want you to read the Old Testament and see the beauty of God's arching narrative penned across centuries by several different men. Read your Old Testament looking for Jesus and loving God's story today.

Church Membership- A Repost

Below is a post from March 3, 2013.

Church Membership

Have you ever thought to yourself, "Why does my church talk about church membership?"

I mean, is this a club or organization that is driven by numbers and boasting about how many members it has?  Do the local pastors beat their chests at breakfast with one another bragging about the number of church members they have?

While some pastors may brag about the number of members their church has and some churches are driven by the pursuit of numbers; I doubt that is why your church talks about church membership.

So, why does your church talk about church membership?

I hope there are a couple reasons why your church hopes that you'll become or remain a member.

First, churches are concerned about membership because we need one another.  John 15:12 says, "My command to you is this: Love each other as I have loved you."  I believe this command is not for us to love every person in the world (although there are other commands to be loving toward all mankind).  I believe this command is for us to love other Christians.  As a universal Church family we should love each other as Christ has loved us.  But how well can I love my Christian brothers in Chechnya?  I mean, I've never met a single person from Chechnya.

The local church is how we can begin to love each other as Christ has loved us.  In order to love each other fully we have to be living amongst one another.  So, we stress church membership because it allows us to more fully follow Christ's command to love one another.

"But can't I love people in a church without becoming a member?"  Yes you can.  "Well then, why should I be a member?"

This brings me to my second reason for church membership.  Church membership is making a commitment to love and serve with the people of that local church.  Church membership is a public declaration of devotion to a body of believers.  While this pledge isn't necessarily covenantal, I believe it to be important.  I don't know about you, but when I make a commitment public it holds me accountable to that commitment.

Church membership is not a ploy by your local church to win some sort of numbers game.  Church membership is an effective and powerful tool to help us better follow the commands of Christ; namely, the command to love one another.  Being a member of a church allows you to better love your brothers and sisters and to be loved by your brothers and sisters.

Now, have you ever thought to yourself, "Should I become a member of my local church?  Should I commit to loving them and serving God with them?  Should I move beyond being just an attender to being a member?"  I encourage you to discover the joy of pledging to love a local body of believers.  If you're not a member of your church, pray about becoming one today.

3 Tips for Youth Leaders

In September of 2005 I was asked by my friends Phil and Nick if I wanted to help them with the youth group at our church.  I had just gotten to the church a few weeks prior because I'd just moved to town as a Freshman at Wartburg College.  I was only 18 and had no idea what I was getting myself into and I had very little to offer the youth I was working.  Now, nearly ten years later I'm starting to almost understand be getting the hang of youth ministry.

Over the past 10 school years I've matured as a youth leader and learned some skills for the position.  I've met amazing kids and leaders.  I've lost sleep from lock-ins and worries.  I've confronted kids about sex, drugs, alcohol and the like.  I've looked at students knowing I was looking at a future leader in the church.  And I've looked at students and wondered if they were even listening.  I've been the cool college kid leading youth and slowly I'm becoming someone "so old" that I just couldn't possibly imagine what it's like to be a teen (or so I've been told, although I know I'm still extremely young).

Working with youth has given me some of the biggest highs and the biggest lows of my life.  I'm far from an expert and won't pretend to be one, but I feel I can offer three tips to my fellow youth leaders.

1) Don't assume the students know something.

Bible literacy appears to be low and getting lower.  It's not your students' fault, but they might not get what you're talking about if you don't explain it well.  You can't just say, "It's like the story of Gideon" and simply move on to the next point.  Many of the students you lead have never heard of Gideon, let alone know his story.  So, don't treat your students like they're stupid, but don't make them feel lost because you assume they know something they've never been taught.

2) Don't assume your students can't do something.

This may seem to contradict the previous tip, but it doesn't.  Don't assume a student knows something, but by all means believe they can do something.  Often I've thought that a subject was too deep for teens.  Often I was wrong.  We shouldn't look down on students because they are young, we should be some of the first people in their lives to challenge them.  When I've not underestimated the students that I lead I've been blown away by the things they can do and the thoughts they can think.  Don't underestimate your students.

3) Don't neglect praying for your students.

This is by far the most convicting tip, mainly because I've had times when I've excelled at this and times when I've been lacking.  Prayer is the youth leaders most potent weapon.  I'll take the praying youth leader over the youth leader with the best games and lessons any day.  If there's one thing that I've learned in youth ministry it's that I can't make a kid love Jesus, I can't make a young man or woman desire to obey.  But I know someone who can.  Take your concerns, hopes and dreams for your students to the One who can do something about it.  Don't ever neglect praying for your students.

Over the years I've done well with those three tips and I've failed miserably, too.  I'm far from perfect and sometimes I'm a long way from good, but God has blessed my efforts.  Don't get me wrong, I still worry about some of the students who seem to want nothing to do with Christ and His Church, but I trust that my work in Christ will not be in vain.  And don't misunderstand me, I have several current and former students that I'm simply happy to be in their story because they amaze me.

So, youth leaders, keep plugging away.  We don't always get to see fruit in the lives of students, but trust that the Gardener does good work.  Work hard in youth ministry and take those three tips to heart today.

Sunday Sermons

I hope that you got a chance to worship with your church family today.  I love Sundays because I get to be with my church family to worship, fellowship and be taught.

For some of you Sundays mean work so you can't make it to a worship service.  For some of you hearing one sermon a week isn't enough.  You may listen to podcasts or watch YouTube to get more or to get some because you missed good Bible teaching.

Below are some resources for good Bible teaching that you may have not heard of.  These are not links to mega churches, these are links to the teaching of some men in local churches that I admire and respect.

Here is a link to hear sermons from my church Grace Baptist in Waverly, Iowa where Jim Lee is senior pastor. 

This is where you can listen to sermons from my cousin Nate Ray's church Jacob's Well in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Finally, here is a link to hear sermons from my friend Erin Bird at Riverwood in Waverly, Iowa.

These churches preach the Word soundly and I encourage you give some of the teachings a listen during the week because Sundays are great but we can always use more.  So, take a listen today.