Will You Help?

Voice of the Martyrs has some great stuff on their website, www.persecution.com I just wrote a letter to an Iranian pastor who is imprisoned, under sentence death. You can write to persecuted brothers and sisters, too! Go to the website. Click on Prisoner Alert. A persecuted believer's "file" will come up. You can choose to look at some other believers who are also under persecution. Over to the right there will be a link "write an encouraging letter." Click on it and it will lead you through some phrases that will be translated into the prisoner's language and you can then print it off and send to the prison address they give you. "Remember those in prison, as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourself were suffering" (Hebrews 13:3)

Crazy Week

So much good stuff going on makes it a crazy week.

We have been having some small gatherings in homes, a kind of get-to-know-the-pastor meetings, and it has been wonderful to hear peoples' dreams for their church.

Tomorrow I meet with a church planting/evangelism guru from Southern Seminary. We both had our first churches in Winchester, so it's cool to swap tales...

Sunday, we started our new worship service. Pastor Bruce had really laid the groundwork for this. It sounds nuts to be in a church less than 3 months and start a new service, but the hard work had already been done before I got here. I am totally reaping where I did not sow. We start at 11 in Wesley Hall, our multi-purpose facility.

That sounds weird-- to have two services, both of which I will preach, at 11. David Peyton, one of our members and musicians had a great idea... the we could run the services concurrently, not simply offset, say 1 at 11 and the other at 11:15 or 11:30. He and Drew McNeill had timed things in the sanctuary and we realized that if I preach first thing in the new service, I have plenty of time to head to the sanctuary, where lay ministers lead the first part. After some long talks with Phil Hogg who has some experience with concurrent services, we decided it was the best way to start a new service.

We had 111 in the service, so we are feeling really blessed. But the week after the opening is always tough because the numbers go down as people who just came to check it out don't come back. Hopefully we will keep up our inviting... there's no way 111 people showed up without lots of people seriously inviting everyone they know. Emma Newton, one of our youth, stuck invitations in the lockers at the high school!

It was a great service-- awesome music. It's amazing to have so many people who can play instruments, lead worship, and then take over when the pastor heads to the sanctuary. And how crazy is it that there are so many lay people in the sanctuary who can lead the church through the liturgy without the pastor!

And to top my week off, and it's only Monday, so who knows what else will happen! I got a chance to preach in the Methodist Student Center to a group of kids totally primed for the Word by awesome music! I shared a bit of my testimony, really focusing on how important it was to have some guys around me who were Christians, and I challenged the students to be the kind of friends who will being people to Jesus.

There was a great response of students seeking God to fill them with the Spirit to share Christ!

And then... a young woman comes up and says, "I think I am where you used to be. I don't believe in God. A friend brought me here tonight. I'm a scientist and I just can't see how to believe in God."

We had some talk-- there's not a lot you can say in just a few minutes. I shared with her that God has to break through in our lives with the gift of faith. It's not something we are going to figure out or pluck from the world around us. And then she said something that hit home: "I don't have a Bible and I am not sure how to get one." I was not either. I never went to the section of a bookstore where they had Bibles! And what would you do if you saw the bewildering array of translations? If it had not been for the Gideons giving me a Bible...

So I got a student leader to tell me where Drew keeps his stash, and we got her a Bible! Let us pray that God reveals Himself in a powerful way!

Sabbath

So, today... I try to take Fridays off because it sure isn't a Sabbath on Sunday for a preacher.

And today Jessie is visiting a friend and it is Nadia and I. daddy-baby days I have been calling them for years now. I look forward to the days when I have a big chunk of time with one of the kids.

Nadia and I have played, snuggled, napped, walked around, had lunch... You can kiss a baby to sleep, and that is a wonderful thing.

When you say it's time to pray, Nadia says, "amen" and will continue saying it throughout the prayer.

Today she has been a love bug, constantly throwing up her arms for a hug.

I was reminded when I was holding her right after she woke up that we really need to cultivate that kind of place of rest. A place where there is perfect peace, perfect trust.

Tomorrow it's back to grinding hard, but today, God willing, will be an important time just re-creating with my family... Any wait for the boys to get home... That has always been my number one commitment, to carve out the real time to be with family. I don't want to be that pastor who loses his kids because they don't know him, or whose kids hate the church for taking their dad. Or wake up one day and realize how long it's been since we just hung out.

Have you had that experience with God? You know, you go to pray and realize it has been months since you prayed? Don't let it happen!


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Prayer Meeting

I just got back from the men's Wed morning prayer meeting and I want to get some things down that are fresh on my heart.

This is a group of older men-- they won't mind me saying that, they say it all the time!

What strikes me first is that they know each other. To know and to be known is a blessing, especially within the bounds of the Church, within Christian love.

But this morning I realized that it has been a while since I have had a group of godly older men around me. Maybe 10 years, I guess. They have 50, 60, 70 years of Christian experience. It was great to hear their testimonies-- things like learning to pray as an adult; learning that your name is an important thing to guard; to hear from a doctor that color vision is a miracle he enjoys every day with the sunrise...

And a devotion from Philippians 3:12-17...

________

Yesterday after school, we all headed to Eagle Lake, at the back end of Morehead State. The previous pastor, Bruce Nettleton told me about it, showed it to me and said what a great place it is to walk. So we all went and walked around the lake. The boys loved it, I loved it, Jessie loved it, Nadia rode on my shoulders and loved it. Very serene, reminded me of Germany, get around a bend and forget how small the lake is and I was remembering the Bodensee...
_________

We have been having some "get acquainted" meetings with the church in different parishioners homes. It has been a greta chance to meet people and hear a bit more of their stories. I know I keep saying it, but Morehead is a special place. So many people say they came here in 56 or 77 to stay two years... what can you do? The lake, the hills, the small town with a university... an awesome Methodist Church...

Rejoice With Me!

Back at my first church in Winchester, the Mynhier kids were part of the youth group. John and his twin sisters, Mary and Martha. We had some epic adventures. A staple of life together was for me to say to them, "Now, when we get close to your house, I'm just gonna slow down, and y'all jump out. Remember to tuck and roll!"

This phrase, "tuck and roll," became a greeting and a good bye or just something we'd say at random moments.

I think I blogged a few days ago about getting back in touch with John. So imagine my surprise and joy when, walking down Main Street today I hear someone yell, "Tuck and roll!" I look and there is Mary! With her mom Arvilla!

I ran out into the street, almost got killed. But it was so good to see them, and to meet Mary's 4 yr old daughter, Destiny.

Arvilla is the reason we had such a huge garden at the Rock, a big part of the explosion of gardening in Lexington. Arvilla had a huge garden and kept me in beans, peppers, maters, corn, you name it. She wanted it to go to the hungry, so we began a program to make sure that we could get extra produce to the people who needed it. When I got to Lexington, I knew I'd want to do some gardening-- to feed the hungry, do some evangelism, but especially to beautify the neighborhood.

So while very few people may know Arvilla Mynhier, she was huge in getting some great stuff going.

You know, there are some people I have always known I would see again, would find again, no matter how often we lost touch or for how long. The Mynhier kids are in that category. It's another reason I was happy to come to Morehead, because they are from Rowan County, and I knew I could at least start on the trail of finding them.

But Mary found me first. Something as silly as "tuck and roll" brought a tear to my eye today. Rejoice with me!

Stoked

I hope all y'all preachers are stoked to preach this Sunday and every Sunday!

Have you stopped to think how good we have it?

We get to preach the Word!

Salvation in Jesus' Name!

Or what about this: we get to study the Word throughout the week!

I'm so pumped right now-- I get to sit down with about 30 pages from that great North African Bishop, Athanasius, to prepare for this Sunday's sermon!

I almost feel bad; I mean, they are paying me to go deeper in the Word! What?!?!

I only pray I can go deeper and point others to The Way!

Faith

What is Faith?

It's not what I thought when I did not believe in God. In those days, I thought it was a crutch for weak-minded people who could not handle life on life's terms.

At best I may have said it was a kind of giving yourself over to a Fate you could not comprehend or predict, and so faith was a kind of spiritual wisdom, a kind of "let's see what happens.". But thats still just coping. It may lead to bold and extravagant living, but it is simply coping.

Faith, biblically speaking, is a sure and settled conviction that God is trustworthy because He has proven Himself trustworthy forever. There is very little leap of faith, it seems to me.

But what does it mean? What does it do?

Faith, before and after it's theological definition, makes the Word of God active in our lives. We not only find our trust miraculously placed in Jesus Christ, the promises of God become truer and truer with each new experience.

How else to describe the Christian experience of the Beatitudes, to take one example?

Blessed are those who mourn? How? If you have ever grieved and known the comfort of the Lord, then you know. In fact, you will take all the mourning you can get because God is close to the brokenhearted, and the blessings of His presence in the time of mourning is better than being free of mourning!

We are surrounded by a great could of witnesses who can testify to such phenomena in every aspect of their lives... The promises of God came to life, were made flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.


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