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.
