Sabbath – my engaged learning project
One of the classes that I took last year was Spiritual Formation in Ministry taught by Dr. Laurie Mellinger. It was a pretty intensive class with a ton of reading and writing (what a concept!). One of the major projects that we were to do was an engaged learning project. We were to take a spiritual discipline that we weren’t currently doing or had questions about and to do research as well as live that discipline out for a part of the semester.
After praying, I chose to do the Sabbath because I felt like I don’t know what keeping a Sabbath entailed for the life of a pastor. Sure, I honor Sunday, set aside that day as a holy day, but it isn’t a day of rest for me. Most weekends I preach three times and usually am exhausted come Monday morning just in time of another busy week.
Here is the engaged learning project report if you are interested in reading it. Please understand that it is an academic paper and it reflected my current understanding of what a Sabbath means to this pastor. [PDF]
redemption project
Over these past eight years, we have seen countless individuals start on the right path, but never go all of the way. We have seen them come through the doors with a multitude of problems, and give up. We can either accept this as collateral damage of ministry, or we can do something about it.
We are going to do something about it! We are pleased to announce the redemption project. The redemption project is the second step toward furthering the vision that God has for us. We have worked with many who have never really had a shot of starting over. Some dropped out of school, others only know how to deal drugs. It is very difficult to start a new life when you are in terrible surroundings.We want to offer a safe place where individuals can live for 2-3 months, maybe longer if needed, and start a brand new life. We are in the process of lining up counselors, job-training, GED opportunities and computer training.
One of the main obstacles is a location. We do not have the right facilities or the finances to acquire the buildings that will be needed. But we aren’t going to allow lack of space to stop us from beginning this project!
Would you pray with us for this project? We realize that this will be a huge undertaking, but we believe that this step is essential for the ministry hear. We need to do something to help stop the decay in our society.
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 hurting people.
- 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.
saturday morning video [nuts & bolts]
Here are the videos from the main sessions of the 2010 Nuts & Bolts conference. Michael Lukaszewski is one of the smartest church-planters that I have come across. His church recently did a how-to for church planters. I watched the first session and it was incredible.
Michael also blogs frequently at www.heretolead.com
God’s Missionary Standard
For those of you who are new to my blog …
One of the projects that I am slowly working on is making every issue of the Standard available online. The Standard is the official publication of God’s Missionary Church. This is a project that is years in the making. As of now, there are around 200 issues that have been digitized and made into PDF files. Feel free to download any or all of the PDF files at www.godsmissionarystandard.com
links of interest
Here are a few links that I found this week that I pass along to you.
Five tips for writing effective web content.
Philanthropy Journal [online based journal geared toward helping non-profits]
ESV has a url shortener. Try it out at ESV.to.
random wednesday thoughts [kalena edition]
- Since Sunday evening, Kalena and I have been “batchin” it.
- Arlene is in Chicago until Friday afternoon.
- Kalena has been saying so many cute phrases.
- Today, I asked her if she was hungry. Her reply? “Yep. Eat out.”
A daughter after my own heart. - Tonight as I was giving her a bath, I asked her if she was done. Her reply? No. See you.”
- We have had lots of fun and she has been very good for me, so far
- Going to put her to bed after story time.
exits and entrances
- The success of change is determined by the leader’s attitude about change.
- Change allows us to exit the comfortable and enter the improved.
- Remember that change represents the unknown.
- People always resist change.
- People usually don’t understand why change is important
- Understand that people resist change and help them move positively through the change.
Some thoughts from chapter seven of Monday Morning Mentoring by David Cottrell.
snapping wet footballs
In “The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows“ author James Bryan Smith shares this incredible story about Peyton Manning.
Peyton Manning practiced indirection. He was the winning quarterback of Super Bowl XLI. It was a rainy night, and the ball was slippery. Rex Grossman, the quarterback for the losing team, fumbled several times. But Peyton Manning never fumbled. A few weeks after the Super Bowl a reporter discovered that every few weeks during the year Manning has his center (the one who snaps him the ball), Jeff Saturday, snap him water-soaked footballs. He practices handling wet footballs so he will be ready in case it rains—even though his team plays half of their games in a dome. Manning did what he could do (practice handling wet footballs over and over) to enable him to do what he could not without this preparation (play great in the rain)
remembering Rev. H. E. Schmul
As a child, I never knew H. E. Schmul was the director of the Inter-Church Holiness Convention, I only knew him as the platform chairman of Clinton Camp Meeting and the one who always encouraged people to read books. It was through his prompting that I picked up multiple classics by Holiness writers and read them. I never knew how important and essential he was to the Holiness movement until I was in my late teens. But I knew that he was a man of God exhibiting Holiness, love, and compassion.
I remember him standing on the platform of Clinton Camp worshiping God. I remember him stopping by my grandparents cabin and chatting with them. He seemed genuinely concerned about people. That was attractive to me. I was able to hear the last message that he ever preached.
One of the photos I treasure the most was taken by the Victory Trip. They were the youth workers that year and we as a youth group gave all of our offerings to some project for the camp (I forget what the project was). The Trio had me present the money to Rev. Schmul and Rev. Hobbs. I still remember standing on that platform almost twenty years ago.
Rev. H.E. Schmul pictured on the left, and Rev. Walter Hobbs pictured on the right.
What is your favorite memory of Rev. Schmul?
