Monday, September 30, 2013

Mary Delivers Again!

We just wrapped up a 3-week message series called Mary the Mother of Jesus. We live in a predominately traditionally religious area and we thought it would be a great idea to address some of the differences between Evangelicalism and Traditional Religion as it relates to Mary. We promoted it as a series honoring Mary and her role in the gospel story and used excerpts from the gospels that demonstrated things we can learn from Mary - What she said, what she did, etc. We encouraged our people to pass out invites to their Traditionally Religious friends, neighbors, coworkers and family and actually distributed 12,000 invitations. We ended up averaging typical attendance and visitors during the three weeks so our effort to get new people in the door fell short of our expectations. However, I feel good about the fact that our people got a chance to see how you can point out the differences between Evangelicalism and Traditional Religion without being rude or condescending and we had over 100 salvations during the series! 

The thing we focused on most was the extraordinary faith that Mary had. She was willing to lay aside her own plans to carry out God's plan for her life. We must be willing to do the same. She went directly to Jesus with her needs and so should we. However, when bringing her needs to Jesus, she didn't try and tell Him how to meet the need but trusted that His solution would be the right one! 

Although Mary was the one chosen to literally bring Jesus into the world, we all can "deliver" Him to that part of this broken, hurting, messed up world that we have influence over! All we have to do is submit to His plan and trust Him to use us any way He see fit! 

Monday, September 2, 2013

Syria: A Call to Prayer


What's happening in Syria is frightening. The fact is, none of us know what's really going on. From Regime to rebels - All of them are capable of unthinkable acts of brutality. Should the USA get involved? I have no idea! I just know we need to pray. Pray for our leaders making the decisions concerning our involvement. Pray for the innocent people in that part of the world that are being victimized. Pray for missionaries and ministries that are there carrying out covert efforts to share the gospel where it is unwelcome. 

Through this entire ordeal the question keeps rising in my mind: "Is this the beginning of the end?" Perhaps this is setting the stage for the return of Jesus Christ and the great years of tribulation. We all need to be ready and we all need to be praying!

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