Bigger is better. One size fits all. The more the merrier. Size matters. Jesus said where two or three are gathered, not 2000 or 3000. In the upper room there were 120 new converts. Not 1200.
God told Abraham that from his one son all the nations of the world would be blessed. God does not need a crowd to do anything.
There are doctors who listen and who care and who do what they can to help a person in need. There are doctors who have an agenda on what they think that you need and they are focused on you following their directions. Guess which doctor I will call when I am sick and need a physician?
There are pastors who care and who are familiar with and sensitive to the members in their church. There are pastors who love us and who appreciate us and who put value on everything we do in and out of church. Guess which one I will call when I need counseling?
When the young pastor took over his new church he began to make the rounds, visiting with and talking to the members of his church. As he talked with folks one name began to come up over and over again from church members. One day the young pastor called one of his elders and asked him if he knew the man people kept mentioning to him. The elder said yes, he knew him. He told the young pastor that the man was once the pastor of that church several years ago.
Why do people still talk about him today?
The elder replied, well son, he just loved us. He cared about us and what we did and who we were. He was a good preacher, but we always knew that he loved us.
I had an interesting experience after church tonight. A friend asked me if I ever thought about getting married again. Usually my married friends tell my that I need a wife and that I ought to get married. But this friend asked for my thoughts on the matter. I appreciate him seeking me out and asking me for my thoughts on the matter.
To answer the question, the answer is no. I probably will never marry again. I still miss my wife. No woman here will ever take her place. The best years of our marriage were the last few years. No woman will begin a new relationship with me and be like Kathy was at the end. Kathy loved me to the end. We had a lot of history together. We grew up together. No new woman for me will have that kind of history or background. The closest that I could possibly find would be someone who knew Kathy and who knew us as a couple. That woman does not exist in this church. That woman is not in Prescott either. She doesn't exist anywhere.
So it's still a bachelor to the rapture for me.
There's nothing like taking meds that you no longer need. I have been on a regimen of heart medicines since I got out of the hospital last February. But the beta blockers had begun to give me a low heart rate and low blood pressure. My cardiologist's office called today and took me off of two of the heart meds that I have been taking. Thank God for that!
It made me think. I wonder how often we go to church and hear a sermon that is too strong for us or does not apply to us? I know that a pastor must minister to the whole church. We as God's people must eat the fish and spit out the bones. You can only wear the shoe if it fits. And as you get older you find that more often than not, the sermon is for someone else besides you.
I am in a minority; not of race, but of age and experience. I do not expect the focus of our church to be on people like me. I can get by on the crumbs that fall from the table. But sometimes I look around and I wonder, who is he preaching to?
I am grateful to be a part of this church. A small part, but a part nonetheless.
There seems to be a great effort to adopt AI into business and the professional world. I cannot call my doctors anymore and talk to someone. I have to go through the portal and message their office. This is very unsatisfying. I do not expect to talk to a doctor, but nurses can be a great help.
One thing about our church is that there seems to be little chance of AI replacing our pastor. Our journey through covid showed us how worthless watching video of church is. We need our pastor to be there in person.
One thing I would like to suggest. I think that the pastor behind the pulpit on Sunday ought to be available to talk to during the week. I do not need pastoral counseling every day. But, when I need to talk to a pastor, I want to know that I can call him any time. Being available is as important as being a good preacher.
If you are too busy to be available to talk to, then maybe you are too busy. Preaching is not just a transfer of Biblical information. It is a personal connection between the shepherd and the flock of God over which God made you overseer.
AI will never work in a real church.
Budgeting works. I haven't always believed this, and I have suffered by having bills come due with no money to pay them. So today it was easy to sit down and to pay my property taxes that are due in January and to pay them early with no struggle.
Maybe budgeting and managing money would be a good topic for a Bible study group. How to be honest with money. How to plan for the future. How to set up a simple budget and how to live within your means. I wonder how many marriages struggle due to not having a grasp on the basics of managing money.
Some people never have enough no matter how much they have. Some people equate walking by faith as the same as being presumptuous and living far beyond their means.
We were taught that money brings reality to life. We also learned that money is you in a spendable form.
Pay your tithe, give beyond your tithe, and learn how to live on the rest. Contentment can be learned.
When I hear a pastor go on about revival; wanting to see God move, wanting to see multitudes saved, wanting the excitement of genuine revival, it makes me feel like he doesn't care about us who are there already. Maybe, if you want to see the exciting days of revival, you should go pioneer a new church and start over.
When we were born again we were changed. God made us new creatures in Christ. Since then our human nature has kicked in and we find that once we are saved, we become resistant to change. We want things to stay familiar. We reminisce about how things used to be. We miss the good old days. And we resist change.
God promises to make all things new. But that is in the future. A new heaven, a new earth, new Jerusalem, and new existence with Jesus in eternity.
I go to church to hear what the Lord might say to me. Sometimes hearing is easy. Other times I have to work hard to hear anything.
Enduring to the end is where some of us are today. It's not always exciting, but nevertheless, we endure.
First, I have noticed that while people look at my blog, no one follows me and no one leaves a comment. Never.
Second, you may as well know that I use this blog like a journal. I do not write everything that comes to mind. But if I choose to write, it is because something is important to me.
Third, I know that blogging is very old fashioned. But I never enjoyed journaling and I used to really enjoy blogging. So I continue to blog no matter the results.
Back in January of this year I was in the hospital with congestive heart failure. I have been on a regime of drugs since February. And as of today I am probably 99% recovered from something that they tell us you do not recover from. Ejection fraction is the percent of blood in your heart that is pumped out on every beat. In February my EF was 15%. Today it is 45%. The cardiologist today told me that 45% is in the good range for someone my age. I still take a lot of medicine. But between the meds and the prayers I am feeling great! Everything that the cardiologists did helped me to recover.
Congestive heart failure runs in the men in my family on both sides. I was born with a genetic flaw that made me a candidate for this. But I have survived and I didn't need a pace maker or a defibrillator after all. My situation was somewhat dire in February but my future looks brighter every day. I do not see my primary cardiologist for 12 months and my other cardiologist for 9 months and the third one I never see again.
The only condition that I currently have is low heart rate which is caused by meds, not genetics. If low heart rate continues I am to call the cardiologist and tell them so that I can wean off of the medicine causing the problem.
I do not always understand why the doctors do what they do. But I trust them and I pray for my doctors and nurses that God would help them help me.
We had our fall church picnic today. It is October, but it isn't really fall. It hit 92 again today. I arrived plenty early only to find everyone already eating. This is highly unusual since most of the time we eat an hour after the announced time. Then, while we ate store bought fried chicken, the guys were still grilling meat that, by the time it was ready, we were full. It's like they never did a picnic like this before, but they have been doing these picnics for many years.
There's not a lot to do besides eat and talk for people like me. I ate, chatted, walked around, ate some more, and I still left early. I'm not a volleyball player so there is not much activity for folks like me.
I almost did not go to the picnic today, but in the end I went. My life is no richer for having gone. We just had our home Bible study the night before so we had already spent time talking then. Oh well.
Not everyone from church was there, but there were a lot of people there today.
Tomorrow it's church again. I am ready to worship and to hear the Word preached.
One more thought. People like to talk about politics or sports or military service. But hardly ever do we talk about church or God or the Bible. Just saying.
When my wife died I was surprised by the depth of grief that I experienced over her. I learned that grieving is proof of your love. And by that metric, I loved Kathy very deeply.
What continues to surprise me is how much I continue to miss her. I cannot fall in love again because I still love her so much. I have hidden from these kinds of memories because I found them to be too painful. All memories did was to remind me of the life that I lost when Kathy died.
I am not actively grieving anymore. I do not mope around missing her. But the thought of meeting someone new and falling in love again is a non starter for me. I will never marry again no matter how much my married friends think that I ought to marry again.
There is a loneliness in death. It is the loss of the one person who knows you and who knows your story. It is the absence of the one person in life with a common history. Many times I have no one to talk to but the Lord Jesus because no one here knows me and knows my story like she did.
All I want from life now is to feel that people just love me as I am. I know that God loves me. I need to know that people love me too.
When I married my wife in 1974 I was 18 years old. I was a brand new convert. We never dated or went out. I never dated anyone in my life before I got married. We were married for 40 years before my wife died in 2014.
Since I moved here I have tried twice to get to know women at church. They both were single; one was divorced, one was widowed. They were both on the young side for me, but not too young. I got to know them. Recently I realized that both of these relationships ended the same way. The women both became bossy; telling me what to do and how to do it. They both began to criticize me for things that I said or did. So that ended that.
For me to fall in love a woman has to like me, and want to be my partner in life. She has to be supportive and kind. She has to have a brain and use it. And she has to be my age.
The best years of my marriage were the last years. Kathy stopped criticizing me and started accepting me as I am. I felt it when she changed. I am not going to lower my standards for a pretty face.
I am fine living alone. I have been living alone for over 11 years. It gets better with time.
One simple suggestion for a Sunday after conference. Some of our pastors need to learn that there is more to preaching than zeal or enthusiasm. Like pastor Greg preached at conference, you need a plan. You need a spark of inspiration followed by a plan of action. They need to learn how to structure a message so that it has a beginning, middle, and a logical ending. They need scriptures, and illustrations with a poem or a quote thrown in for clarity. This is all preaching 101.
We are a friendly crowd and we are pulling for you. But some sermons take more enduring than listening. Preaching is part art and part science. It is inspiration plus execution. Preaching requires a big heart and a brain. No local church will grow beyond the ability of the pastor to preach with wisdom and understanding. You need more than your testimony if your church is going to grow beyond the new convert stage.
It was a great conference. A full house Friday night. Ten new missionaries sent out and ten new domestic works planted. We are all tired but ready to get back to it come Sunday morning.
What we do still works!
The announcements can be found on our churches web site.
Pray for us as we press on in Jesus name.
All we want to do is to grow old in God. This is hard to do in our Fellowship where the focus and emphasis of our church is on young people. The focus of this conference has been on youth. On Wednesday night pastor Roman even announced that his sermon was for people under 30 years old. I understand the need to stir and call our youth to follow our footsteps in evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. But, what about the rest of us?
Last night on foreign missions night of our conference we had some exciting announcements of new works and new workers. And then they called up Tony and Pam. These are good folks. They love the Lord with all of their hearts. They are grandparents. They are not in great health. But they are going overseas to minister. So, in a building full of young people and church kids, they sent out grandma and grandpa. This is a problem that I see with old folks in a youth oriented Fellowship; the spirit is still willing even though the flesh is worn out.
We live in what my friend calls the Peter Pan generation. A generation of people who are growing older by the day and who think that acting young makes them young. A generation that won't grow up. Why is it so hard to grow up? Why do we feel ignored or useless or unappreciated as we get older? Why can't we be honest about our diminished abilities without feeling guilty? Who are we trying to impress?
The Peter Pan syndrome does not just affect people. It affects churches. We spend a lot of effort trying to stay a young or new church. We chafe at being responsible. We like the status of success but we yearn for the exciting and zealous days of our youth when we had nothing to lose. We talk a lot about when we were first saved or when our church was fresh and new. Pastor Mitchell did not do this.
It is not easy being old in a youth oriented church. But, it can be done. He who endures to the end will be saved. Flash in the pan folks don't last.
Back in olden days, you had to be saved three years to get sent out. That was the key to discipleship. Get saved, get married, get involved, and get sent out. Pastor Mitchell could do more in three years of ministry than some men can do in a lifetime.
Today we do not have new converts as much as we have church kids. Children who grew up in our Fellowship. And if they had been serious and if they had paid attention they would be powerful men of God in their mid twenties. But they are our future and we do our best to make them into disciples and send them out.
Pastors announce that their sermon is for the young under thirty people. At first I was discouraged by this. Why am I even here if this is not for me. But it is never for me. It is always for them. I play my part. I do what I can do. I pray for our kids.
I do not remember pastor Mitchell pulling so hard to get guys to go. We had young guys lined up waiting for an opportunity to minister. The times, they are a changing.
Something I heard last night hit me. The idea that successful pastors can feel lonely. We thrive in interacting with people like us. When you are a successful pastor the pool of like minded people is very small.
I feel a little bit lonely here sometimes. I have very few people who can relate to my background. I have very few people who can understand my perspective on life. My pastors are good men but they do not get me sometimes. I am not depressed or full of self pity. But I do from time to time feel the cloud of loneliness creeping over me. I guess I just miss my wife.
I wonder if successful pastors are too busy are so busy that they do not have time to be lonely. This is one reason why we send out couples and not single men. At least you have someone to talk to who understands you.
Most of the preaching at conference does not apply to me. But once in a while I hears something that resonates in my spirit and I value those moments. God still speaks.
PS: a new wife would not fix me. She would not have the deep connection and reference points that connect with me.
I learned something from pastor Warner this morning. The difference between a pastor's conference and a people's conference is simply who is allowed to attend, not the messages preached. In Foursquare, pastor Mitchell grew up attending conferences aimed solely at pastors and their wives. He decided that when he began hosting our conferences that anyone in our churches could attend.
Another genius move by pastor Mitchell from the very early days. He had no blueprint, he simply addressed a problem and God gave him wisdom to address that problem.
Most of the things that we take for granted in our Fellowship began as troubleshooting by pastor Mitchell; solving problems connected with evangelism, discipleship, and church planting.
We had pastor Warner for both services on Sunday. He is here for our conference and he agreed to minister for us the day before it started. Pastor Warner is a good man and a successful pastor. He is not pastor Mitchell.
Pastor Mitchell was my pastor for many years. I got used to his style of preaching. I was comfortable with his delivery of truth. I could count on him to bring balance to the excesses of younger more inexperienced pastors. As long as pastor Mitchell was there on Sunday morning I knew we would be alright.
Regional conferences like ours play an important role in our Fellowship. Everyone cannot go to Prescott conference. But almost everyone can go to a conference closer to them. It gives local churches a place to go. It gives local pastors a chance to preach to a larger audience. It gives our church a chance to serve the greater vision.
Pastor Warner told us that starting today we, the San Antonio church, will be forgotten as our workers take center stage. We are here to minister to those who minister.
Pastor Mitchell used to say that the Prescott conference was a people's conference. Our conference is still mostly a people's conference. As opposed to a leadership conference.
It will take years before I get that sense of familiarity that I used to have in Prescott. I may not know everyone, but I see familiar faces which makes me glad.
Conference time is an important time. I am glad to be a part of it here.
My question for today is how is it possible that while Jesus was suffering on the cross, did he have me personally on his mind? There are eight billion people on Earth today. There is no telling how many people have lived since the first century. Now I believe that God can know us all personally, I have my doubts that Christ did or could know us all. And that he had other things on his mind that day.
God knows the stars and calls them all by name. The Father no doubt knows us personally as individuals. But when Jesus died on the cross he was satisfying God's demands for justice, not you and me individually. We pray as individuals to be saved. But Christ died for humanity, not just for me.
This is too much for me. I cannot remember or know a lot of things. I cannot fathom how Jesus could know me by name way back then. But in the end it doesn't matter. I am saved today and I was born again many years ago and God knows where I live and who I am. God knows me better than I know myself.
When I was a new convert pastor Mitchell preached a sermon entitled America's Greatest Sin. Do you think that you know what that sin was, and still is? It's not pride or homosexuality. It's not even lying or stealing. Pastor said that America's greatest sin was covetousness. The greed for more no matter how much we have. The fear of not having enough. We try to dress it up and make it seem normal. But covetousness is a grievous sin with God.
In America it seems that everything is for sale. We seem to monetize everything. We tax on top of taxes. We charge whatever the market will bear, not what it cost to produce. And it seems that we have a societal dread of running out of money.
There is only one cure for covetousness and that is to give. Give God His tithe. Give your church offerings. Give you family what they need. Give your wife what she wants. My friend's wife is going out of town. He acts like this is a bad thing. He resents her going to visit her family. He is hurt to have to pay for the trip. This is what the fear of not having enough looks like in real life. Covetousness breeds resentment.
God's plan is very simple. Repent, and then give. And afterwards, rejoice.
"...It is more blessed to give than to receive."
Nostalgia is a funny thing. It is our ability to reminisce about the good old days when things were much better. We tend to look at the past through rose colored glasses.
This idea that the past was better has put a man into office as our president. This idea that the old days were better also seems to have infiltrated our Fellowship. We have this idea that our best years are behind us. We spend a lot of effort trying to recapture the glory days of our recent past.
But better is a relative term. Better than what? Better in what way? Are we saying the the best things can be are when they are brand new? That our best life was back then?
Are the best years of your marriage behind you? To recapture those exciting days do you need to dump your wife and find a new one? Or do you as a couple need to act like newlyweds to be happy? Is marriage boring now that you have been together for a few years?
Are the best years of our local church behind us? Those years of explosive growth. Those years of waves of new converts coming in. The excitement of seeing God come through with miracle money. But now that we are big and wealthy and proven, is the thrill all gone for us? Now that we have what we used to dream about, is it unsatisfying?
I grew up in a traditional household with both parents, a sister, a dog and a cat, in a suburban house. Everything was fine until my parents got bored and divorced. I became a latch key kid. I grew up, moved out, and got saved. I never dream about reliving those days.
Salvation was exciting when it was brand new. Now, over 50 years later, it is satisfying and comforting and fulfilling. But not exciting.
I believe that our best years are still to come. Comparing now to then is a fools game.
