20

June 22, 2010 2 Comments

I’ve been reading a book called Radical by David Platt.  In the book, Platt spends some time talking about how we measure the success of churches.  While it’s easy to go down the trail of “instead of looking at it that way, look at this way,” one of the points he mentions has stuck with me the past couple of days.  He talks about the commandment of going and making disciples, and the number of people doing this meaning a great deal.  So, instead of looking at the amount of people in a Sunday morning gathering, look at how many are mobilizing the mission of Jesus Christ to the corners of the Earth.

At TrueNorth Church, one such number for the past week has been 20.

Right now through June 26th, 20 people have gone to Guatemala to help out in any way they can in carrying forth the name of Jesus Christ.  20 people are running a Vacation Bible School this week.  20 people are delivering supplies and doing various relief efforts in helping Guatemala recover from the volcano that erupted there recently. 20 people are giving up some of their summer, a week’s worth of pay or a week’s vacation time for the Kingdom of God.

I encourage you to pray for these 20 people over the next few days.  Their trip can never have enough of that.  This is also the largest group TrueNorth has ever sent to Guatemala, where our partner church is.  Therefore, 20 is a number worth rejoicing.

To find out more about the present Guatemala trip, as well as the names of those who are on it, click here.

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Is That All You Got?

November 25, 2009 Leave a comment

Prayer.  This one simple word can change one complicated world.  It is you communicating with God.  Try to the grasp the bigness of that for just a moment.  Wrap your thoughts around the fact that when you pray, you are talking to the Almighty Creator who made the very ground your feet are placed on.  The One who is the reason why you’re here.  The One who gives meaning and purpose to the life it’s easy to wonder what’s the meaning of. 

With communication with a God who is powerful enough for anything, what will you ask of Him?

I believe it’s a sad thing when we let our prayers fizzle down to these minimal requests.  I’m not saying to not pray for the small things.  I’m talking about how when we’re sick, for example, we often ask for God to “help” us feel better when, in fact, He is the Healer and can completely rid us of our illness.  If your faith in God were to be measured by what you asked Him to do for you, how are you doing?

Is that all you got?  Pray as big as God is.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Continue This Prayer

February 6, 2009 2 Comments

God, I thank you for…

Love,

Grace,

Family,

Work,

Sleep,

Passion,

Unity,

Patience,

[Your word here]

… and may we see You in everything You do for us.

In Jesus name,

Amen.

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Something We Can All Do

January 28, 2009 Leave a comment

Pray.

That was the first thing requested in the letter that prefaced my record of contributions for last year at my church.

Want to take a minute and soak that in?

The bad economy was spoken of.  Cutbacks were mentioned.  The personal tolls this time is taking on people were addressed.  And the thing that prioritized the list of how we can help?  Pray.

That was the main message… of a statement sent to the regular monetary supporters of the church.  Not a drive for more money, but a message containing an action we can all do. 

Pray.

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Praying for a Former Classmate

January 19, 2009 Leave a comment

Working overnights in radio, one of my responsibilities is to make sure the news reports are ready to go by the time the morning shows hit the airwaves.  We get our news from a local TV affiliate, and then place the reports in our system for playback. 

This morning, the news was too real.

As I reviewed the reports, the story at the end had me in awe.  There was an incident that happened at the shopping mall near me which involved someone I went to high school with; he was the guilty party. 

The first thing I did after the shock wore off was check the news websites for a video of the report, as it could have been someone with the same name.  Once finding the video, I saw the photo of the guilty party who I have known since ninth grade.

Immediately, my thoughts did not rush to judgment, but rather to the need to pray… so I did.  I stopped what I was doing and said a prayer for this person.  I told God I forgave him for what he did, and asked God to show him the way.  I prayed for his family as well.  Then, I prayed for the victim, and for God to restore to her what he had taken (without getting into too much detail, I will say no physical harm was done.)

For those who know him and do not know what happened already, I know the news will soon spread.  It is upon hearing about it that the easy and natural thing to do will be to judge.  I thank God that I did not, as I am just as capable.  Prayer is an action we can all take for this person.  God loves both him and the victim the same.  Pray for the victim as well, and for the families of both.  Chances are, it is going to be a rough few months of this incident being at the forefront of their lives.

God will forgive if we ask Him, and He wants us to forgive those who have done wrong as well.

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