Run to me
Kalena is one of the most outgoing children that I have ever seen. She loves people and always tries to put smiles on grumpy faces! It is so fun to watch. At church, she doesn’t really want to held after church is over, she wants to run around and talk to people.
So what happened a few weeks ago, came as quite a shock. She was having fun, playing with little children, smiling and giggling at people and having fun. All of the sudden, I heard her scream. I started walking toward the direction of the scream, and she came running around the corner right towards me, with her arms stretched out wanting to be picked up by her daddy.
Something had scared her, and she needed rescued. She needed to be picked up and comforted. She buried her little head into my shoulder and was content to be held until everyone was gone.
As I was reflecting on the incident later, God spoke to me. “Son, there are so many times in your own life that you need to run to me like Kalena did to you. There are times that you try to do things in your own strength, when you don’t have to. There are times that you need to be strengthened, comforted, rescued. Run to me.”
God’s Missionary Standard // March 2010
The March 2010 issue of God’s Missionary Standard, the official publication of God’s Missionary Church is available to view. You can view the PDF copy here or subscribe to receive future print editions for free.
Almost one hundred archived issues of the Standard are now available to view and download as PDF files at godsmissionarystandard.com. There are still hundreds of issues that will be scanned and posted over the next year or so. I recently acquired the entire set of the inaugural year. They are scanned and available to download.
fourteen inches
The National Weather Service says that Lebanon received fourteen inches of snow last night and this morning. I believe it! I haven’t seen this much snow in years. This amount of snow creates a small challenge living in the city as there is simply nowhere to put the snow.
top two posts of January
I hardly ever check what the top posts are for my blog, but I did a few days ago to see what people read. Here are the top tw0 posts for the month of January.
What is the greatest need? This was a post that I am still processing on the needs of the Holiness movement. I just did a post this week on the strengths of the Holiness movement and received little feedback. Interesting that it is easier to point out the flaws of a movement rather than the strengths.
Are the glory days behind us? This was another post on the holiness movement. I still believe that the best days can be ahead of us.
Among the other top posts were these posts on the Gospel Center; hope, love and redemption.
Thanks for reading my blog! One of my passions in life is to write. I started out 2010 with the goal of writing something for my blog everyday. I have made it a little over a month so far. We will see how long we make it!
how you can pray for the Gospel Center
As you can imagine anytime God is moving, you can rest assured that Satan is NOT happy. The Gospel Center has experienced spiritual warfare in the past few years like never before – but we are confident that God is working in many lives!
Many of you have asked how you can pray for Gospel Center. So I thought I’d give you some things to keep you busy in your prayer time:
Pray we stay focused on the vision God has given us. It is so easy to get caught up in everything but the reason we exist.
Pray for our volunteer staff. I believe we have the greatest volunteer staff in the world and you will never know the work they put in to make our ministries work.
Pray for them. for their families, and pray for their walks with God.
Pray for our people. We are living in hard times and we need to remember to be lifting each other up in prayer.
Pray for our space issues. We are doing all that we can, but are limited with our space issues.
Pray for Discover Recovery. When we launched this ministry a few years ago, is when the devil took the attacks to the next level. This ministry is going to change people’s live in huge ways.
Pray we reach our communities. THAT is why we exist. We exist to reach people far from God.
Pray for Angel Food ministries. God has been doing some exciting things through this ministry and we are looking for even more things to happen!
Pray that God will help us in training leaders to assist us.
Pray for up7street – our ministry to teens. Great things have been happening at up7street.
Thanks in advance for your prayers. Together, we offer hope to hurting people.
random thoughts on a wednesday
- Had my annual doctors visit yesterday. Everything seems fine, except he wants me to lose a few pounds – shock!
- I had some great aspirations for exercise last year. I just need to do it!
- Dr. Ken Schenck has a nice rundown on the situation of Hebrews.
- The CEO of Thomas Nelson, Michael Hyatt interviewed Seth Godin about his new book.
- Speaking of Seth, he has a GREAT post on modern procrastination.
- Kalena is now calling me daddy instead of dada and freely giving me little kisses
My heart melts every time. - Another semester at Evangelical Theological Seminary started for me yesterday. After this semester, I will have completed a third of my masters degree.
- I registered for the Whiteboard Sessions. I attended the first one in 2008 and loved it. Instead of it being like a normal conference, Ben Arment structures it around seven speakers sharing one compelling idea each.
- looking forward to some of our teens being at the Central PA Youth Convention. We have some of the best teens in the world at the Gospel Center. And the devil is bidding high for them.
- Thats it, have a great Wednesday!
Our greatest strengths
As I mentioned in a previous post a few weeks ago, I love the Conservative Holiness Movement. I was born into it and I plan on staying in it until Jesus comes back or I die. We discussed some of the greatest needs that need to be prayerfully and carefully asked. I am soon ready to tabulate the results of that post. If you haven’t commented yet, here is the original post.
Register for Outreach & Bus Convention
Just wanted to put this out there. If you are planning on attending the Outreach and Bus Convention (hosted in Lebanon PA this year) registration is now open. Looking forward to a great convention this year. Many great training opportunities throughout the convention. Register here.
Word of God Speak
I have a set of rituals that I do when I wake up early on Sunday morning. Besides drinking the strong coffee, showering and looking over my notes a few more times, I spend time being quiet before God.
About fifteen minutes before I go downstairs to set up my Mac, and make sure things are in order, I listen to a song sung By Mercy Me called Word of God Speak.
Here are a few of the phrases that speak volumes before I preach.
I’m finding myself at a loss for words
And the funny thing is it’s okay
The last thing I need is to be heard
But to hear what You would say[CHORUS]
Word of God speak
Would You pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty
To be still and know
That You’re in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In Your holiness
Word of God speak
shot to death in a card game
At least one of my relatives was pretty serious about playing cards. So serious that he was shot to death in a card game! I was going through some potential relative files on ancestory.com the other evening, and there was a dreaded, dark, family secret.
James Booth in all probability was the brother of my great-great grandfather, D. Booth. His legacy was that he was killed playing cards. No wonder my mom did’t allow to play cards growing up
