Awesome God!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hxmlUWceHg

Third Day at the Schottenstein Sept 29th

Since the change in the schedule of the Men's Leadership Retreat at Round Lake Third Day at the Schottenstein is a greater possibility to attend. Pretty good tickets are still available for $34.50 each. Need to know pretty fast!

Aerobics Building Needed ASAP!

This is our last week to be able to use the church building for our aerobics class. We are in great need of a building with enough room to hold around 10 to 15 women comfortably. I just sent an email to my friend that works at the Nazarene church near my home and asked her about their fellowship hall as well as their gymnasium. I also thought about the Porter Church near Gampp's but don't know who to contact. Naturally, the class is free and open to anyone. We desparately need to keep this ministry going! We are just starting to look good and feel better about ourselves in front of the mirror and gaining more and more strength as time continues. I just simply am not willing to give this class up. We need somewhere to go!

Please see what you can do to line up a building for us on a regular basis. Thank you so very much!!!!!

Jennifer

From Abraham to Jesus

A large collection of artifacts dating from the time of Abraham through the first century is starting a tour of the U.S. in September and will be at the Greater Columbus Convention Center for two weeks in November. The exhibit includes one of the Dead Sea Scrolls along with over 300 other artifacts plus multimedia presentations and some high-tech 3-d holographic images. The self-guided tour takes from 90 minutes to 2 hours.

Rich Book brought this to my attention and we thought it might be fun to get a group together and go see this once in a lifetime exhibit. A bonus to that is you save $4 a person if you go as a group with more than 20 people. I suspect this will be a popular exhibit and tickets are limited, so if we want to see this we probably should start making plans and make reservations ASAP. Date for the trip will probably be either Nov. 18th or Nov. 25th, depending on what's more convenient for more people. Cost if we can get the group rate is $15.95 for adults and $6.95 for children (3-12).

I'll be mentioning this in the bulletin next week and will probably post a signup sheet in the foyer soon for folks that want to go, but I'm interested in hearing comments here from anyone that's interested...does this sound like fun?

For more information, you can visit their website: http://www.fromabrahamtojesus.com

The Way of the Master

www.wayofthemaster.com is a fantastic website full of practical information on how to approach a person with the gospel of Christ and get them to understand their need for a savior. There are people in the world who not only aren't saved but they don't know that they even need saved from anything. They've simply never been told OR they have never really understood the whole gospel message.....they've been "turned off" because something or someone has abused the gift of evangelism and really messed up what Jesus intended about how to deal with people.

"The Way of the Master" also is a television show I use to watch on SkyAngel often. I think it's shown on cable channels now, too. Anyway, this program is absolutely fabulous and yet at the same time, it makes me very sad and I'm often brought to tears while watching it. People on the street are discussing with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron (and I think a few other people now), about what what that person on the street believes and why they believe it, etc. Ray and Kirk show us step by step how to talk to these same people about the gospel in a way that will not cause the person to close their ears but actually stay and have dialog with you. They talk to everyone from all different walks of life and some are even quite dangerous.

They have something they teach us...... Are You A Good Person? Are you good enough to go to Heaven? How do you know? There is a "test" on their website that you can take to find out the answer. It's based on The Ten Commandments and how we end up failing at keeping the law and therefore need a savior so we don't have to take on the punishment that we deserve for our sins. They tell the person "Do you know what Jesus did for you so you don't have to go to Hell?" This is the same technique they get us to use with lost souls we meet everyday. They show us how to reach people through thankfulness to Jesus for dying for us. People have to know that they are wrong and God is right but they also need to know that there is hope and Jesus came to bring it to them.

Anyway, check out the television show and the website. Take the test for "fun". It will probably work best with high speed internet access. On the website, you can watch video clips from their talks with people out and about and the kind of discussions they have. These guys have guts but more importantly, they have a love for the lost.

Change happens in relationship

This past Saturday, I was in Abilene, TX with 12 classmates and 1 professor, celebrating 10 years since graduating from ACU's Marriage and Family Institute. I had a wonderful time; however, I'll spare you the details. Likely, you would find my ramblings about a reunion no more exciting than watching someone else's vacation slides. Nevertheless, the reminiscing has brought to mind important lessons learned. I would like to share a few of the things that seem relevant to our situation here.

Change happens in the context of a relationship. I took for granted the significance of this point at the time. I was so focused on learning techniques for building a therapeutic relationship that only later did I grasp the more general and profound insight. We can best serve as witnesses for our Lord to those people with whom we have a relationship. Statistics have repeatedly demonstrated that above 80% of people who join a congregation, do so at the influence of friends and/or family. As our congregation moves toward being more intentionally evangelistic, we must strive to build relationships with those whom we would evangelize. So when we begin to question how Sunshine can be more evangelistic in the Minford community, we need to ask how can Sunshine build a genuine, authentic relationship with our community.

If we can seriously engage in this line of thinking, we will discover what every therapy student learns: The most significant barriers to relationships are those within. Just as the student must decide if being a therapist is worth the price of dealing with his/her own issues; we, as a congregation, will have to grapple with the genuineness of our desire to reach out to others. Can we admit that we do not reach out because we really don't want to? The issue here is not doctrine, but rather depth. We must take the gospel where it has never gone before- the deepest recesses of our own hearts and minds. That is a great challenge!

Jesus is our great example. Think of how his outreach was integrated with building relationships. The 12 Disciples were to him, friends. Jesus did not expect people to come to him, he more often went to them. It is so common to read of him eating a meal in someone's home. Jesus was the son of God, and yet he did not intimidate, interrogate, or condescend. On the contrary, he comforted, encouraged, and empowered those who would hear him.

Striving for change in the midst of a relationship is messy business. Relationships bring some issues into clearer focus while leaving others more distorted. I have a good friend who is a Freewill Baptist minister, another who is a Methodist minister, and yet another who is a Seventh-Day Adventist minister. I challenge these men to grow closer to God, and they challenge me likewise. In my relating to them, I have come to see that we have a great deal in common despite our different doctrinal affiliations. As a matter of fact, when I think about the most important dynamics of my life with regard to my quest to know God, it is here that I find the most commonality with these men. The content of our religious practices differ but the processes of striving to know God are starkly similar. As you can imagine, this reeks havoc with my adherence to tradition CofC brotherhood boundaries. And it challenges me to expand my thinking about how God is working in his world. It is messy. When one wrestles with such issues out loud, he often is labeled liberal or wishy-washy. Can we wrestle with such things as a congregation without turning against one another?

Relationship take a great deal of energy and often result in great personal pain. Ultimately, there are no foolproof techniques and no black-white rules. Change is almost always a two-way street. There is no guarantee of success. Actually, failure is far more common than success. Even Jesus only reached a minority. The most successful therapists report around a 30-45% success rate.

Finally, when you get to the center of things, boil it all down, get to the end of the road (choose your favorite metaphor here), it's a relationship between you and God. Set aside your favorite convictions, doctrinal predispositions, and religious culture, what is the status of your relationship with God? You may find it hard to think about your relationship with God independent of doctrinal stances and worship practices, but it is important to get there. In prayer, we can grapple with the very being of God. Congregations that take seriously the being of God, pray. In prayer the power of God is unleashed. That is where it's at!

We are empowered by our relationship with God to relate to others. In our relationship with others, God will effect the change He desires. It is not primarily about doctrine but rather depth.

What do you think?

I'm back in the saddle

Church camp, recovering from church camp, and preparing for my 10-year reunion with my ACU MFI family has exhausted any energy I might channel to write posts on this blog. But, that is all behind me now! I am feeling renewed.

I am anxiously anticipating the upcoming Leadership Retreat, or whatever we are calling it now. I have been thinking, and more importantly praying, that God's work in us will proceed unhindered. I sense that I am nearly the only one that gets excited about the leadership retreat, sometimes that discourages me a bit, but that's o.k. We all have our roles. I suppose part of mine is to get excited about things that bore others to tears.

Unusual enthusiasms have always characterized my attempts at ministry. I recall, many years ago, teaching the youth group about the significance of the Dead Sea Scroll findings. I was pumped, they were less than moved. Then there was that time, just a few years ago, that Terry asked me to lead a discussion with the young men regarding masturbation. Once again, my enthusiasm was not shared by the audience. Actually, I don't think any of them actually lifted their head off the table. Very few give a flip about our Stone-Campbell heritage or hermeneutic principles, two areas of study that I find exciting. BUT, that's O.K.

I am very blessed to be a part of the Sunshine Church of Christ. God has made us all unique. We have all the necessary ingredients to bear marvelous fruit. We are a family. We need each other to be faithful to Lord that works in His community. I do not need you to share in any of my unusual enthusiasms, but I do need for as many who will, to get enthused about the power of God at work in us.

What do you say?

Third Day at the Schottenstein

Third Day is going to be at the Schottenstein on Friday Sept 29. Unfortunately this is the same day as the Men's Leadership Retreat at Round Lake.