It has been a long time since I was honestly excited about conference. I am not sure why I am now, but I am looking forward to see all that God will do here this week. And to be serving as an inside usher is a great blessing.
Pray for us that God will bless this conference in such a way as to make it memorable for all who attend.
I noticed something in adult Sunday School this morning. Pastor Rubi was talking about Moses on mount Sinai. We read in Exodus a little bit of that story.
"Now mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. It's smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly." Exodus 19:18
I noticed in this verse the statement that it was like the smoke of a furnace. There was fire, and smoke, that reminded them of a furnace.
I could kindle a fire in my living room today. It would burn. There would be smoke. The fire department would come. And my house could burn to the ground. And if it burned to the ground, there would be no more fire. But if there is a fire in my furnace, it is fire under control, and it keeps me warm all winter.
On the day of Pentecost, fire from God was also present.
"Then there appeared to them cloven tongues as of fire, and one sat upon each of them." Acts 2:3
"But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;..." Acts 1:8
The fire and the power both came at Pentecost. Now obviously, those upon whom the fire came were not burned up. They did what the power of the Spirit empowered them to do. For many years.
The word power is the word dunamis. It roughly means a dynamo. It is wrongly translated dynamite. Holy Spirit power is like a power generating plant that produces electricity for an entire city or factory
Revival fire is not a raging wild fire. It is fire under control. It is not destructive power, it is power to get things done. Conference time is a time to light a fire in our hearts, and to empower us to be the light of the world.
I vaguely remember many years ago in Prescott the first time I heard a non-leadership pastor preach during conference a pastor focused message. I do not remember what it was about or who preached it. I do remember noticing that, up until then, I never heard a sermon on how to be a better pastor before.
Pastor Mitchell had said that the Prescott conference was a people's conference. That the ministry during conference was for everyone, not just for pastors and full-time evangelists. Conference was not always about reinforcing the Fellowship vision. It was about ministering to both those sent out, and to those who send and support them. It was people focused and God focused. Just like a regular church service.
The Prescott conference today seems to be Fellowship leaders preaching to Fellowship pastors to help them stay in the ministry, and to help them stay focused on keeping the main thing the main thing. As the years rolled by in Prescott it became harder and harder to just attend conference services if you were just a guy in church, not a pastor or a missionary.
My prayer is that our conference this week will be more of a people's conference. That the ministry will be on how to be a better Christian, not just a better pastor. Pastors are people too.
One last thought. I viewed the Prescott conference as a place where pastors and leaders can be preached to and can answer the alter call at the end. A place where we know you and call you by your name, not your title. It is a place designed by God to keep high fliers humble.
It's conference time again. We are gearing up to do our part to serve the conference assembly. We have prayed, we have painted, we have cleaned, we have saved money, and we are ready for conference to begin. Technically it begins this Monday night. but it has begun for us already.
I understand that it is conference season around our Fellowship. Only Prescott did conference in January and July. Most other conferences happen in the spring or the fall, when the weather is nicer.
My prayer for our conference is that we will be of one mind and that we will plant churches on Friday night. I pray for pastor that he will have wisdom.
Pray for us!
I have noticed something in many of the songs that we sing in church. These songs sound more like prayer than worship. We sing like we are asking God to do something. I first noticed how much of our worship music is focused on I, me, or my, and not on God. Then I noticed how much of our worship music is a prayer. It made me wonder if the people who write modern worship music know that there is a big difference between prayer and worship?
Prayer, at it's core, is communication. We speak to God and we listen to what God would say to us. How many times have you heard a pastor say that he was inspired on what to preach during prayer? Prayer is something that primarily focuses on my needs and my shortcomings and what I am asking God to do for me and my church.
Worship, at it's core, is about giving glory and honor and praise to God for what He has done and is doing. It is not about how I feel about God. It is about how great and awesome God is. Worship in Spirit and in truth is God focused. It helps turn our attention off of ourselves and it helps us look to God.
"We all hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God." Acts 2:11
When the Holy Spirit is present, the focus will be on God, not my needs or my feelings.
"For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God" 1Cor.14:2
Pastor Wayman went for a time when he seemed to preach on worship a lot. He must have seen something that troubled him in modern music. Much modern worship music was written by people who are not saved or Spirit filled but are clever in writing and arranging music. Old hymns may be out of date and out of style. But those that wrote those ancient hymns had an experience that shines through their music.
To sum this up; prayer and worship are not the same thing. Singing your prayers is not the same as praying. Worship ought to focus our hearts and minds on the glory of God in Christ.
"You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship...the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him." John4:22-23
True worship is spiritual, not emotional. God is still looking for those who worship Him.
Does math invent things or discover things? It depends on who you ask. Ask a math person and they might say that math invents things. I am not a math guy so I cannot give you any examples. But from my perspective as a born again Christian I think that math and science merely discovers what God set in order in creation.
"The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." Psalm 24:1
God created the known universe and everything in it out of nothing but His own wisdom. Every law of nature is God's idea. Every mathematical formula began in God's wisdom. The stars are light years away from us and yet God calls each one by name. Christ is God on a relatable scale. God became a man and dwelt among us. Christ is Immanuel, God with us. But God is the source and fountainhead of all wisdom and strength.
So it is the arrogance of intelligence that makes us think that we invented anything. You could spend a lifetime studying and only scratch the surface of God's wisdom.
God holds the universe in the palm of his hand. What can you hold in your hand?
"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" Isaiah 40:12
Talking about Pete Rose seems out of place in this space. I do not want to talk about Pete and his baseball career or his gambling. I want to talk about why high achievers and successful people find it hard to retire.
Once you have gotten past the struggles of finding your way in life, you can begin to cruise along in your success. The self doubt is greatly diminished; you know what you can do, and you do it consistently well. You begin to amass the resume and the statistics to prove your worth to a watching world. You easily dismiss the criticism. And you can continue to do this, until you can't.
What happens when you can no longer perform at a high level? You think you can. Your best supporters give you a pass based on memories. A few people begin to notice that the emperor has no clothes, but they are dismissed by the nostalgia of those who remember what you used to do. But one thing that never crosses the successful person's mind is the thought of retiring.
It is easy to retire if you have nothing to lose. Successful people cannot retire since their drive to succeed is what helped make them great. We see this in all walks of life. People who hang on thinking they can still do it, even when it is obvious that they can't.
It seems that only in organizations where the rules that govern it make provision for the retirement of executive officers can successful people step down. Whether it is based on age or length of service, there are tools set in place that no one can dispute.
Every generation thinks that it will live forever and that it will never grow old. Every generation thinks that no one can do this better than us. Even today Boomers look down their noses at their children and grandchildren thinking that they are lazy and stupid. We will never know until the old folks get out of the way to see what their children can do.
High achievers need someone who they trust and who loves them to be able to tell them how far they have slipped. Someone with the courage to tell that successful person that their race is run and their time in the spotlight is over.
