Visioneering

Yo, yo, and hello! How's it going everybody? I hope and pray all is well.
Jake wrote a blog about interviewing Ted Decker over the phone. How cool is that?! Pretty cool, I must say. Decker is a big time Christian novelist guy. I understand that he grew up on the mission field in Indonesia (spelling error?). He lives in Colorado now. I imagine most of his novels come from his growing up years in Indonesia (though I could be wrong about that).
Anyhow, I read chapter two in Visioneering today. This chapter is about preparing yourself to take action on accomplishing your vision. We must always be praying for opportunities to talk to whatever powers that be that can help you along the way. And we must always be preparing a plan to accomplish the vision. The Bible says Nehemiah had developed a plan to carry out the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. But he had to talk to the king where he was incarcerated. No telling how many times he was with the king, but the opportunity to talk to him about his predicament hadn't come up yet. But he had been praying about it, so when an opportunity did come he was ready to talk about it.
This is a really good book y'all. Please get it and read it. This is a good book. And read Nehemiah in your Bibles sometime too. I'm going to read it today too.
There have been some really good college football bowl games on. Last night Texas Tech had fallen behind 38-7 with a little more then 7 minutes left in the 3rd quarter and came back to win the game 44-41 in over-time. Incredible! Go Tech! And today Boston College was trailing against Navy and BC came back to win the game with a field goal with 5 seconds left in the game. Very exciting!
Guess that's all for now folks. God bless you in Jesus' name!
Zack

Visioneering/ The Dirt on Learning

Yo, yo, and hello everyone! I hope and pray all of my readers are having a great day today.
My sister and brother-in-law found out they are having a baby girl! Everyone in our family is so very excited! She's due in May I believe. Jake put the sonogram pictures on his blog risefromyourslumber.blogspot.com. She looks beautiful already, just like her mommy. I am very confident that Jake will be a wonderful dad and Angie will be a wonderful mom. I love them all very dearly! Congrats Jake and Angie!
I've started on some reading projects now. I hope to blog about them along the way. One of them is called The Dirt on Learning. It is by Thom and Joani Schultz. They both are producers for Group Publishing. They produce Christian Education materials. In The Dirt on Learning they use Jesus' parable of the Sower as a paradigm for Christian Education. They propose that teachers engage their students in the learning process. It is a very good book. I'll update more about the book as I read more and more of it. So far I've just read the introduction and chapter one. In this chapter they encourage teaching that is interactive and that the real quest of teaching is that your students learn and retain the information that you want them to learn. Very good stuff!
The second book I'm reading is called Visoneering by Andy Stanley. In this book Stanley talks about developing a vision and then helps us develop steps that makes the way to accomplishing the vision. I've read the introduction and the first chapter in this book as well.
In the Intro part of the book Stanley defines Visioneering as ".. the course one follows to make dreams a reality. It is the process whereby ideas and convictions take on substance". A very good definition, I must say. He develops a mathmatical solution to it as well. Visioneering= Inspiration+ Conviction+ Action+ Determination+ Completion.
In this book Stanley uses principles from the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. Through out the book he puts forth twenty building block principles to help us develop a vision and visioneering. The first 3 are in the first chapter. The first one is that a vision begins as a concern. Nehemiah was in captivity when he heard about the crisis in his homeland and it broke his heart.
The second building block is that a vision doesn't necessarily require immediate action.
He goes on to say that we must wait before taking action for two reasons. Firstly because the vision matures us. As stated before, visions begin as concerns and burdens. We need to wait it out to make sure what was a problem to us yesterday is still that today, tomorrow, the next day, and so forth. And the second reason is because we mature in preparation for the vision. I've heard before that God doesn't call the equiped, He equipes the called. That is certainly the case with this reason. With a great task must come great preparation. "God has to grow us into our vision" as Stanley says.
The third reason is that God is at work behind the scenes preparing the way. While Nehemiah was in captivity in Babylone, God was behind the scences clearing the way for Nehemiah to go and make right what was done in his homeland.
Lastly, Stanley talks about two ways we can conclude between what is just our ideas and what are God's plans for us. The first is a God-ordained vision will eventually feel like a moral imperative. We will eventually feel compelled to take action on what is troubleing us.
The second is a God-given vision will be in line with what He is already doing in the world.
I'm looking forward to writing about these two books. Please go out and get them. I shouldn't write so much about the books's contents so please buy them and read them. I certainly hope and pray they will help you all out as much as they are helping me.
Guess that is all for now. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

",,,To Death do us Part"

Yo, yo, and hello to all my readers! I hope and pray everyone is having a great day today.
When my brother and sisters and I were little I remember watching the movie Princess Bride countless times. I almost have the whole thing memorized. Especially the "mawage" sence.
As I recall here is how it goes, "Mawage- is what brings us togetha today!
That bwessed awangement! That dweam within a dweam will follow you all your life!
So charrich your wife! Do you have the wing?"
Marriage is really and truely a beautiful and wonderful thing. When you find a man and woman who truely love each other, they commit their lives to each other in marriage, and stay commited to each other, then it is a beautiful thing to behold.
The phrase "...to death do us part" has taken on new meaning to me recently. At my church there was a couple who had been married for 58 years. Fifty-eight years! That is truely awesome! But when they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversery the wife was starting to show signs of Parkinsons (spelling error?) disease. It quickly got worse. By the end of the year or 2 years she was reduced to being a vegtable (spelling error?). All she could do was lye there. She couldn't walk. Couldn't talk. Couldn't move. Couldn't do anything, except lay there. Her body had become a prison of sorts for her. But her loving husband kept taking care of her. Even when she had to be put in the hospital, he visited her every single day. I think he missed one day in the 3 years she was there. And that was because it was too icey on the roads to drive on. She passed away earlier this year. Her husband misses her greatly. I know he always will. He goes to visit her in the cemetary everyday. What a great example they were and still are.
"... To death do us part".
God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

Identity Crisis

Yo, yo, and hello to all my readers! I hope and pray all of you had a very Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year!
Here is something I've been thinking about. My sister and brother-in-law have one dog and two cats. The dog likes to lick himself alot. I think that he thinks he's a cat (by the way, Jake wrote a hillarious blog about his two cats and the dog at risefromyourslumber.blogspot.com). And my brother and sister-in-law have three cats. One of them likes to go on walks. Now I think the cat thinks he's a dog. They don't have a dog, so the cat has no excuse.
So, there's a dog in our family who thinks he's a cat and we have a cat in the family who thinks he's a dog. We have an identity crisis on our hands! The Apostle Paul seems to have dealt with Christians who were having an identity crisis in 1 Corinthians. In chapter 6 Paul is telling them not to bring law suits against one another in the courts of non-brethern. Instead they were to rull over these things themselves. I'll pick it up at verse 9 through 11. "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be decieved. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (notice now). And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God". Paul seems to be telling them not to keep acting like the world. They used to be doing the things described in 9 through 10, but then in verse 11 he says, "And that is what some of you were"!. He's saying, your not like that any more! Stop acting like what you used to be! Start acting like the people of God that you are now!
I guess that is all for today. Merry belated Christmas! And have a Happy New Year! God bless you all in Jesus' Name! I got a few books for Christmas. When the New Year comes, I'm going to read 2 books a month (hopfully!) and blog about them. Take care everyone!
Zack
ps. Please be praying for the AIM students especially today (those who are on their mission fields and those who are preparing in Lubbock to go to their mission fields). And please pray for Elijah and Kristan (preparing to go to Auckland, New Zealand) and for Rob and Denyce (preparing to go to Moscow, Russia). And one more thing for Rob and Denyce. I don't think I should share there circumstance, but just pray for them please. God knows. They're really hurting right now. Thanks and God bless!

Merry Christmas :)

Yo, yo, and hello!I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas! God bless you all in Jesus' name! Have a great time with your families and friends.
Zack

Sports Theology

Yo, yo, and hello to all of my readers. I hope and pray all of you are doing well today.
This is something I've been thinking about for some time now. This is what I call Sports Theology.
Sports Theology says that if team A's pitcher hits a batter on team B then team B's pitcher needs to hit a batter on team A. Or if there's a ruff play by one of the teams then the other team is expected to retaliate in some form or fashion. I don't know if any of you saw or now what happened in the Denver Nuggets and New York Knicks game from last week, but one of the Knicks players tackled a player from the Nuggets (a great play in football, but this basketball) who was driving to the basket for a layup. Then a huge fight ensued. A prime example of Sports Theology. Your team "runs up the score" on our team, so we're going to retaliate. One of your players ruffs up one of my players, so we're going to fight now. That's the way it is in sports.
But that's not the way of the Kingdom. In fact Jesus says if a man stricks you on one cheek turn to him the other also. And if a man wants you to go with him one mile, go with him two miles. Jesus also says that peacemakers will be blessed and called sons of the Kingdom. This is what we can call Jesus Theology.
Often I get highly involved in cheering when I'm watching a game on TV and even cheer when there's a ruff play and will sometimes cheer for the other team to get even. I enjoy watching Monday Night Football. During Half Time there's a segment called Jacked Up. This is where the guys who do the Half Time show choose a hand full of plays in which one player hits someone on the other team so hard it knocks him clear off his feet. Often one of these hits will leave you saying "Ohhh...! Ouch!". It's one of my favorite parts of the whole game. It might meen I have a real violent and sidistic part of me or something. But again that's not Jesus' way. I need to work on this.
Your thoughts please.
God bless you all in Jesus' name. I hope and pray all of you have a great day!
Zack
Ps. The Mavs beat the Kings a few days ago and we won last night over the Sonics. Go Mavs!

Soul Care:the Heart of the Shepherd

Yo, yo, and hello to all of my readers! There are several things to talk about today. First of all, I feel the need to apologize for not blogging the last few days. Been really busy. Now I'm back.
Secondly, I've read the third chapter in Like a Shepherd Lead US. It is called Soul Care and The Heart of the Shepherd by David Wray (Bible professor at ACU and elder at the Highland Church in Abilene). At the top of the chapter Wray tells two storys. In the first one he tells of his first ministry position in which he was thrust into a heated discussion between the eldership and a group of youth deacons. They were arguing about the youth ministry taking the teens on a swimming outting in the late summer. A reasonable solution was proposed, that they would wear cover up clothing (a t-shirt and shorts) over their swim suits. This seamed to appease the elders. On the day of the swim party, no one wore the cover ups until mid afternoon, when sun burn was a chief concern. Shortly their after the elders came by to see if their demands were being met. They came, looked around, saw everyone wearing the agreed upon cover ups, and went home happy.
Then he wrote about his second ministry venture inwhich the elders actually took part in the member's lives and took a more prayerful approach in their eldership. Wray says this second ministry experience rather then the first was a more powerfully positive ministry experience with elders who took on a more shepherding role to being elders. The first group of elders where more of managers for the church then shepherds.
Next Wray discusses a few of shepherding models in the Bible (in both the Old and New Testaments). In the Old Testament he lists Isaiah 40:11 and Jeremiah 50:6 and tells us how these "witness to the importance of shepherding". And Ezekiel 34 is certainly the most comprehensive Old Testament text on shepherding. Wray says that if we treat 34:4 (for example) as a "spirit description" instead of a job discription he would paraphrase as follows, "You have strengthened the weak, healed the sick, and bound up the injured. You have brought back the strays, searched for the lost. You have ruled them kindly and gently". He goes on to state that all of these paints the picture of the "responsibilities of shepherds in the twenty-first century, and provides us a biblical shepherding model. Tasks given in this passage concentrate on relationships and challenge us to live near the sheep."
Then he talks about the four most important tasks of the shepherd in great detail. The first of these is strengthening the weak. If shepherds really know their sheep as well as they should, they'll know which ones are "strong" and which are "weak". Shepherds really need to be out amongest their sheep to really get to know each one of them. They need to be among them, to smell like sheep (which is the book title of a great book on elders as shepherds by Lynn Anderson) in order to know what their individual needs are.
The second one is healing the sick. As was stated in the chapter before this, elders are called upon to pray for various situations. And of course one of these is when one is sick (and could be spiritual or physical). Wray brings up a great analogy of when we are physically sick we go to the doctor who prescribes medicen for us to take to bring us back to health. So when we are spiritually sick we must seek out our spiritual doctor (Jesus). We must go to our shepherd to help us go to God to recieve healing in our souls. As James says in chapter 5, "Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well, the Lord will raise him up" (5:14-15).
The third one is binding up the injured. This includes special spiritual care during times of loss and times of grief. Elders who are truely shepherds will be closely tied to their flock. Then they will visit them in hospitals, in funeral homes, at home wherever to conduct spiritual soul care. Injured sheep are at great risk. Ezekiel 34 paints the picture of injured sheep lying somewhere in the wilderness. If they aren't found soon wild anamils will find them and devour them. A sheep's wool coat can be quit heavy and top them over. If they aren't found soon they will fall prey to any wild anamil that should find it. Their only hope is to be found in time by their shepherd. Far too many times the church finds out about people who have been spiritually devoured by the devil (who's described as a lion in 1 Peter 5) and it is too late for them to be found. We need to make ourselves available at all times to them to make sure things like that don't happen.
The next part is bringing back the strays. In Luke 15 Jesus tells a parable about a shepherd who gathered 99 of his sheep and went out to find the one lost sheep. And when he found it, he scooped it up in his arms and brought it back rejoicing that the one lost sheep was found. In today's society we have little or no room for lost things. If something is lost, we too easily toss it out as a loss and move on. Not so in Kingdom business. The Cheif Shepherd will not rest until He has ALL of His sheep back home again.
The next section is on searching for the lost. When a person is lost today scores of people roam the area searching for the one who's lost. In the same way, biblical leaders search for the lost. As stated above the Cheif Shepherd doesn't rest until everyone of His sheep is found and accounted for. Far too many churches hear in the US are in decline and people are falling away from the church. We need to be about going out their and find them and bring them back.
And the last section is about kindly and gently leading them. Shepherds must gently lead their sheep. Leadership that is harsh will quickly drive their subjects away. Biblical leadership must be gentle and easy to gain the sheep's respect, then they will follow him any where. That is what John 10 talks about. Here Jesus says that He knows His sheep and that His sheep know Him and know His voice. They'll follow Him anywhere, but they won't follow a stranger. They'll run away from him. Also in this section Wray talks about the issue of authority in the elders. John 10 especially talks about that too. Here the shepherd has so much "authority" that his sheep only obey his voice. Why? Because the shepherd has earned his sheep's respect. So much so, infact, that they only obey his voice and no other. They'll run away from any stranger. They only listen to and obey their shepherd's voice.
I certainly believe Ezekiel 34 is the most comprehenisve treatise on biblical shepherding in the Old Testament. Please also not Matthew 20:22-25; Luke 15; John 10, and Acts 20 as shepherding models in the New Testament.
Well, I guess that's all for today. Thank you all for reading my e-book. God bless you all in Jesus' Name. Have a great day.
Zack
Ps. Please pray for the AIMers especially today (all those currently on the mission field and those still in Lubbock preparing to go to the mission field) and for my friends Elijah and Kristan and friends Rob and Denyce as they are preparing for their respective mission fields. Thanks! God bless you all once again.

The Spirit's Leading

Yo, yo, and hello to all my readers! I hope and pray all is well and good. Sorry I didn't blog yesterday. I was out most of the day finishing up Christmas shopping. And now I'm all done! Are any of y'all done Christmas shopping? Just over a week to go until the big day.
On Wendsday night we had a great discussion in Bible class. I asked the teacher if I could write about it on my blog. He graceously agreed. We have started a new series called The Spirit's Leading: Wisdom or Fleecing?. We started off the class by reading Romans 8:28-39. We looked at it 2 or 3 verses at a time putting them all together into the collective context. Once we got to verse 36 we stopped and focused on it. This verse says, "As it is written, 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered'" (quoting Ps. 44: 22). We turned back to that verse and read all of Psalm 44 to get the entire context. So we pondered what this verse was intended in Romans 8. Then we turned to 2 Corinthians 11 and read vereses 23-29. These talk about Paul''s hardships that he endured ( beatings, floggings, shipwreacks, and so forth). And we discussed what insight we can get from 2 Corinthians that could help us understand Romans 8. We came to the understanding that God's ultimate goal is for us to become like His Son Jesus. Everything that happens to us can shape us to that end. No matter what it is. God can take that event and us it to help us. Even an earth-shattering event in our lives can ultimately help us and God can us it to shape us into who He wants us to be.
Well, I think that's it for now. Thank you all for reading. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

The Care of Souls: Pastoral Prayer

Yo, yo, and hello to all of my readers! How is everyone doing today? I hope and pray all is well.
Yesterday I read the second chapter in Like a Shepherd Lead Us. It is intitled The Care of Souls: Pastoral Prayer. It is written by Mark Love (Bible Professor at ACU and director of their Ministry Events). Elders are often called upon to mediate to alot of concerns for people. Be it spiritual concerns or personal concerns. The elder is called upon to share a word of wisdom and to pray for the person(s) involved. In the first section of the chapter we see Paul and Pastoral Care. Here we see Paul's (as should ours should be as well) goal is for each Christian is "... Christ formed in you" (Gal. 4:19). Paul's pastoral care is seen in Galatians 4:17-19, "They make much of you, but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you, so that you might make much of them. It is good to be made much of for a good purpose at all times, and only when I am present with you. My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you ...". When Paul says "make much of" he seems to be refering to those who smother us with so much concern that we are crippled. There is no room to grow when people are too over-protective like that. Paul's Galatian opponites (those who "exclude you" in the text above) are opperating a pastoral care that is of the flesh. Contrast that with Paul's which is of the Spirit. His goal in pastoral care is for "Christ to be formed in you" as is stated above. This is Paul's goal wheather or not he is present with them or absent. This is his concern for the Philipian church as well. He says God "will fully satisfy every need of yours according to the riches of Christ Jesus" (Philip. 4:19). In these letters Paul leaves room for the Holy Spirit's healing ministry to work in there lives and we must do that too.
In the next section we see Transparent Presence and Pastoral Care. Here Love says, "Elder's need to be present for people in a way that doesn't focus on the elder himself. Put another way, effective pastoral ministry occurs when the elder is 'transparently present'. A transparent presence enables those who experience our care to see through us to God, the true source of our soul's healing". That means we need to point the way for people to see God and help them see they need to trust God for their healing and not in the one who is helping them. This is where prayer comes in. As Love says, "Prayer is the bedrock of all caregiving offered in the name of Jesus". Prayer is where we must start and where we must end. All things that we do in the name of Jesus should be bathed in prayer. We must be "intentional" as we prepare to pray. "Intentional preparation for prayer also allows deeper discernment to emerge for both the elder and the person for whom prayer is being offered. Discernment, in turn, yields richer prayer". This leads us to the next section of the chapter, Setting the Stage: The Pre-Prayer Interview. Here Love talks about something he and the elders of the church in Oregon where Love was a minister started to do. It is called the pre-prayer interview. All of this is pretty self-explanatory. It has seven steps (I guess I shouldn't list them in fear of copy write issues). The next section is Prayers For Specific Concerns. Here they talk about James 5:13-16 as the basis for what we are to be about. The next section talks about Prayer of Complaint. Here we look at the Psalms as the basis for this. And lastly the conclusion. Please, buy this book. It is really good. I think every church leader (ministry leaders, ministry staffers, elders, deacons, members, everyone concerned about leadership) should read this book. Contact me and I'll fill you in on how to order it on the internet.
As most of you, I'm you HUGE sports fan. I've been listening to ESPN on the radio regularly for some time now. In the NFL I see co-MVPs and cp-Rookies of the Year this year. I think LT (there's no way on earth I could spell his name, but most of the time on TV and on the radio he's just refered to as LT) of the San Diago Chargers and Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints should be Co-MVPs this year. And Devin Hester of the Chicago Bears and Vince Young of the Tennesse Titans should be Co-Rookies of the Year this year. Both LT and Brees are on pass to set (or have already set) new records this year on offense. And Hester and Young are having great seasons in their first years in the NFL.
Well, I guess that's it for today. Thank you all for reading today. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. Please pray for the AIM students today (both those on the mission field already and those who are still in Lubbock preparing for the mission field). And please pray for my friends Elijah and Kristan (preparing for Auckland, New Zealand) and my friends Rob and Denyce (Moscow, Russia). Thank you all! God bless!

Mission fields

Yo, yo, and hello to everyone out there! I hope and pray you all had a great weekend.
There are couple of things I wanted to discuss this morning. The first thing, I was reading in Matthew 9 today and was struck by an event that is recorded in verses 21-28. Allow me to sumerize the event. Jesus goes to the region of Tyre and Sidon. When He gets there a Canaanite woman sees Him and begs Him to heal her daughter. But He ignores her. She keeps following Him and begging Him to come with her and heal her little girl. Then the disciples tell Him to send her away. Then Jesus turns to her and says "I was sent only to the lost people of Israel". Then she falls down on her knees in desperation and begs Him to heal her daughter and help her. And He says, "It's not right to take the children's bread and give it to their dogs". And she says, "Yes Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table". Then Jesus says, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted". And her little girl is healed from that moment on.
This seems awefully cruel of Jesus to act this way to this woman. Why all of this ignoring of this poor lady? I remember one of my college Bible professors at Harding (Ross Cochran) say, He was setting her up to succed. I agree. Let me tell you why. Jesus says this woman has great faith for keeping at begging for Him to heal her daughter even when it seems that He wasn't intersted in her or her daughter's illness. It seems curel, but He was drawing out her faith in Him, and that is what pleased Him so much to see. So He grants her request.
Secondly, I just read an email report about North Korea that they are living in darkness for so long. That there is so much world news that has come from that country that shows how much they need Jesus, the true light in their land of darkness. North Korea is part of Asia which is possibly one of the most populous continents (if not the most populous continent) in the world. I remember hearing that Asia has 65% of the world's population living there. So many people there need Jesus. Now, who's going to go? Maybe I should go. Maybe someone reading this should go. I don't know. I personally have never been good at language learning, or maybe I'm just making excuses.
I guess I better let y'all go now. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field". Matthew 9:37-38.

Like a Shepherd Lead Us

Yo, yo, and hello to everyone out there! I hope and pray all is well with all of you.
I started reading a new book yesterday. It's called Like a Shepherd Lead Us. It's a collection of essays about spiritual leadership for elders, but I think anyone involved in spiritual leadership (preachers, youth workers, outreach ministers, deacons, and so forth) should read it too. I read the first chapter last night and found some very interesting stuff to talk about. It's called Spirituality For the Busy, Frantic, and Overwhelmed by Randy Harris (Bible professor at Abilene Christian University). He starts off telling a story about a minister who each month would seek spiritual guidance from a trusted Christian sage. Pretty soon he realized how busy he was getting, and thought about getting out of it. He was going to call in sick, but didn't want to lie to his trusted advisor. So he decided to just say he was doing great and leave. So the time had come for him to see his spiritual advisor. "How is your spiritual life?" his advisor asked. The man replied, "Great! Never been better!" The spiritual guide was very surprised by his answer and said, "I don't think in all the times we've talked that there was a time when everything was perfect. Maybe we should discuss what you are doing that is making your spiritual life go so well". He then saw that his plan was failing so he just came out with the truth. "The fact of the matter is, I really don't have time for this tonight. I have a meeting with the elders in a little while and then a Bible study to teach after that. Life isn't always like this but right now I just really don't have the time". His spiriutal advisor replies, "I see. In that case you better run along to your next appointment and we'll meet next month. Perhaps you won't be so busy". Usually the spiritual director would give him a list of Bible verses to read and study over, but this time he didn't do that. Before the minister left he asked, "Please give me my verse for the month". But his spiritual advisor refused, saying, "Your very busy. You won't have the time to look over them. Then you'll feel guilty all over again". But the minister persisted until his advisor finally wrote a verse down on an index card, gave it to him, and left. As the miniter huredly left and got in his car, he looked at the card. He didn't recognize it, so he pulled his Bible out and looked it up right then. It read, "Are you the Messiah, or should we wait for another?".
All too often we get busy, so busy infact that we hardly have the time to sit, read our Bibles (for ourselves and not for a sermon or class or anything else), and pray. We must realize we are not the Messiah. That job has long been taken by the only qualified person, our Savior Jesus Christ. There are 3 texts in the early part of Luke's Gospel that show what Jesus did when He got really busy. I won't write the texts out, but please go and read them yourself. I'll just paraphrase them. The first one is Luke 4:40-43. It says how people would bring so many sick and cripled people and layed them at Jesus' feet. He healed so many people in to the late night I imagine. But then in the early morning hours (perhaps even before the sun rises) He got up, and went out by Him self to pray. At least until some people found Him and asked Him to keep on healing. But He said that He had to leave so He could preach and teach else where. That, after all, was why He had come. Jesus' perpuse was to preach and teach, not to heal. Jesus prayed and after that He was able to say "no" to some great ministry opportunities in order to engage in the most important ministry.
The second text is Luke 5:15-16. It tells how large groups of people would come to hear Him preach, teach, and be healed. But He often went out by Himself and prayed. We need to take a break every now and then to refresh ourselves when engaged in ministry activites as well.
And thirdly is Luke 6:12-13. It tells us that one night Jesus went on top of a mountain and prayed throught out the night. When morning came He called all of His disciples and chose 12 of them to become His apostles. This, no dought, was a very important night of prayer to make these decisions about who would be His apostles. We need to spend much time in prayer over important decision making as well.
Next we see 4 ways that we pray. The first one being talking at God. That means our clique prayers (ie. "God is great. God is good. Now we thank You for this food"). Rote memorization prayers if you will.
The second is talking to God. This is where we develop a conversation of sorts with God. We tell Him what's on our minds. Our heart aches, our joys, our thanks, and so on. This is propably what we do the most of .
The third is listening to God. This is Bible reading. When we pray it's more of a one-sided conversation. So when we read our Bibles sometimes we'll see something that catches our attention and sometimes it can be the answer to our question. And sometimes we can talk to a trusted church leader about a problem and he can share some wisdom on the subject including a Bible verse or two that sheds some light on it for us. "Listening prayer is largely going to be done with the engagement of scripture. We read the Bible but do we really listen to God?" Randy says. He says that a trusted spiritual advisor said to him, "If I take this spiritual text seriously, what would I have to change in my life?" Now "suddenly the text got very interesting again. Now I wasn't introgating the Bible but allowing the Bible to interrogate me". And furthor down the paragraph, " at this moment our reading scripture becomes not just informative but transformative".
And the forth way we pray is being with God. That's just getting out in nature, just getting away from it all for a while. It's like, "waisting time with God" as Klaus Issler said one time. Of course anytime we spend with God isn't waisting time, you understand, but just getting out with Him and just hanging out doing nothing impreticular, shoting the breeze.
We need to be praying for our families, our churches, our leaders. We need to spend time with God in prayer all the time. At our high points. At our low points. At every point.
In 1 Kings 19 we see that God given Elijah a great victory over the prophets of Baal. Then the very next day Jezebel had sworn that Elijah's end would be same as there's. So Elijah ran scared. He ran as far as he could and was so exhaused he couldn't run any more. Then the Lord says to him, "What are you doing here Elijah?". And he says how zealous he had been in his service to Him, how his fellow prophets had been killed, that he was the only one left, and now he felt he was about to die too. Then there were three tremendous forces that occured, but the Lord wasn't in any of those. Then a gentle whisper came, "What are you doing here Elijah?". He told Him the same thing as before, then God told him to go back and anoint two men to rule over Israel and then to anoint his sucessor. And then that He had reserved seven thousand in Israel who hadn't bowed their knees to Baal.
We all must remember who we are and who we're serving. God is God and are not. He is all-powerful and we are not.
I guess that is all for now. Sorry this is so long now. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack
ps. My Mavs lost last night. Maybe we'll have better luck next game. See y'all tomorrow.

The Master's Plan for Making Disciples part 8

Yo, yo, and hello to all of my readers! I hope and pray all of you are doing well today.
I have now finished The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. The last chapter is called The Master's Plan to the Ends of the Earth. No matter how many people we teach the gospel to, there is still much more to be done. We need to nurture (disciple) them. We need to help them find the best way for them to share their faith. We need to help them pin point the people in their lives to teach the gospel to. And as a church, we need to plant other churches in the area, or maybe even abroad (spelling error?). There is always more that needs to be done. I loved reading this book. But now it's time to practice it. If you don't have this book, please get it. I think you'll need to get it from either Amazon.com or from Churchgrowth.net. It's a great book. Please get it, read it, and practice it.
Secondly, the Mavricks won last night. A new win streak is underway again! Go Mavs!
On an entirely different note, since this is Christmas season, there's something that's been on my mind. I know we don't really know when Jesus was born, but almost the entire world recognizes His birthday during this time of year. We are missing a great evangelistic opportunity if we dismiss it entirely. A lot of people focus their attention on Jesus and Mary for obvious reasons. But I want to focus on Joseph. Joseph, you'll remember is the man who was betrothed to Mary. Mary was approached by the angel Gabriel who told her the Holy Spirit would come to her and she was going to be pregnant and give birth to a child who was to be called Jesus. Of course this was a lot to take in for her. But soon she accepted it. Joseph catches on that his bride to be is pregnant, and eventually decides to divorce her secretly so she isn't brought to ridicule. But he falls aspleep and is told in a dream what was going on, that Mary is pregnant because the Holy Spirit indwelled her and she will give birth to God's Son. He accepts it as well and takes her as his wife when the baby Jesus is born. The Gospel of Luke tells alittle bit about Jesus' childhood (when He was 12 I think). But nothing more after that. Which leaves us to speculation. I believe Mary and Jesus both endured a lot of ridicule in Jesus' early years. And I think Joseph stock up for them all of those years. But in Jesus' later years, Joseph is never mentioned. I don't believe by a long shot that he abandoned and left them. He must of been dead by then. Of course we don't know if any of this speculation is ture or not.
Which leads me so something else I've been thinking about. I think the Catholic church makes a big deal about Mary being the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. I think it's more about Mary being the mother of Jesus, the Son of Man (which He calls Himself quit frequently in the gospels).
Any thoughts?
Thank you all for reading today. God bless you in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps. Please be praying for the AIM students especially today. Please pray for those who are already on their mission fields. And for those who are in Lubbock preparing to go to the field. Those still in Lubbock I believe will find out where they are going before they leave to go for Christmas/New Years. And please pray for Elijah and Kristan and Rob and Denyce. Thank you all! God bless!

Revolution part 9

Yo, yo, and hello to all of my readers! How is everyone doing today? I hope and pray all is well!
There are several items to discuss. First of all, I've completely read the ending chapters to Barna's Revolution. Chapter 13 is about critics and what they are going to say about the Revolution. Most people who havent' seen or heard of this book probably don't know anything about the Revolution. There are some who will be hard-core against it all together. Some will won't want to be part of it, but will co-exist with Revolutionaries. And some will join in and become Revolutionaries. The 14th chapter is called This Revolution is for you. This chapter talks about the implications of the Revolution on the Revolutionaries. And lastly the Appendix talks about how the local church can respond to the Revolution. There will be some will respond favorably to it, and some who will not. We aren't called to go to church. We're called to BE the Church. We're called to be involved in people's lives so much that they can't help but wonder what these people are all about. And they'll want to be a part of it too. That's what we're to be about.
Secondly, it's over. The Mavs' win streak came to a holt last night. We lost to the Washington Wizards last night. We were down by 31 points at one time, and made a valient comeback that fell just short. But that's ok. We can start a brand new win streak starting next game. Go Mavs!
Thirdly, I love reading the cartoons in the newspaper. My favorite cartoon is called Get Fuzzy. It's about a single man named Rob, his dog Satchel, and his cat Bucky. Satchel is a sweet yellow lab. Bucky (who only has one tooth) is very sarcastic and likes to start trouble. I've got 2 comic books full of this comic strip. It's quit funny!
Well, I guess that's it for now. Tomorrow I'll write about the last chapter in The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. Thank you all for reading. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack

The Master's Plan for Making Disciples part 7

Yo, yo, and hello to everyone out there! I hope and pray everyone had a great weekend and are having a great day today. There is a lot to talk about today. So, let's get started.
I have read chapter 7 in The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. This chapter is about assimilating new disciples into the life of the church. Assimilation is just a fancey word for discipleship. In this chapter about assimilation the authors give some great ideas about how to raise these new baby Christians. Then they show how the church needs to be involved in this process. Then they show the characteristics of an assimilated new Christian. One of the things they talk about all throughout the book is when family members bring in other own family the assimilation process is preety easily (spelling errors?). When this happens, the family members can introduce them to lots of friends in the church. And it's also great if other members of the church were heavily involved in the evangelism of your family member. That's some great stuff when that happens!
I wrote last week about how much our great God loves the week. I watched the first half of the 3rd movie in Rings trilogy. In one sence after Sourmen (or whatever his name is) dies and the Greateye ball (or whatevert it was) rolls out of Sourmen's cloke (spelling error?). And Pippin (who was riding on a hourse with Arrogorn) gets off and picks up the Greateye. Then Gandoff comes over and tells Pippin to give it to him (Gandoff). When he does, Gandoff gives him kind of a dirty look and goes off. Then later on in the middle of the night Pippin walks around a bunch of people to get to Gandoff who still has the Greateye. Pippin takes it way from Gandoff and "just wants to look at". He does and puts his hands on it and is imediately pulled in by it. He ends up being given a vision of future events of distruction by the enemy. Gandoff wakes up and has to pull Pippin out of this trance that was in for a brief moment. Gandoff demands Pippin tell him everything that happens. Then sometime later Gandoff, Pippin, and others are walking over to the hourse stable where Gandoff and Pippin were about to ride off to Helmsdeep. As Pippin and Merry are walking off Pippin is asking what was going on and Merry, quite ticked off at him, says "Why did you look? You always have to look!". And Pippin says, "I'm sorry alright? I just couldn't help it". It seems people get real unhappy about our failings at times. But really we get caught up in a moment of weakness. God loves the weak! We need to love the weak. We need to help them become strong. We need to trust in God to make us strong. Oh yes, our God loves "messes"! He loves the weak! I know I'm still weak.
Thirdly, how about the Mavs! We've won 12 in a row! Sorry Rob, we beat your Kings. Win number 13 here we come! Go Mavs!
And lastly, I'm almost done with Revoltion and with The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. Got two more chapters to read in Revolution. I'm going to read both of those chapters and write one blog about them in tomorrow's blog entry (Lord willing). And then, Lord willing, I'll read the last chapter in The Master's Plan for Making Disciples and write the last blog about that on Wendsday. Then it'll be time for more reading projects. We'll see what those will be later.
Thank you all for reading today. God bless you all in Jesus' name!
Zack
ps Please remember to pray for my friends Elijah and Kristan Peters and Rob and Denyce Hindman. Both couples are searching for sending churches and both preparing to leave the US and head for the mission field. And please pray the Lord of the harvest to send out more workers for His harvest fields (including me). Thanks so much!

Revolution part 8

Yo, yo, and hello to everyone out there. I hope and pray you are all having a great day today.
There some things to talk about today.
I read chapter 12 of Revolution today. This chapter is about why the Revolution matters. Here Barna talks about other revolutions throughout history and how they shaped the world, and how they shaped us. Then he talked about the Revolution (what the book is about), and how it shapes our lives. He says that change is always around us. Wheather we like it or not. Wheather we accept it or not. Change is occuring all around us. The Revolution will change us if we choose to accept it. Barna shows us that we'll be the same, but altogether different. Then he shows us the impact it will have on those who believe. Next, the impact the Revolution will have on the community of faith. Then, what the impact will be on local churches. Then what the impact it will have on our culture here in the US. And lastly, he says that this is not utopia.
This book is very profound. Very good book. Please get it, read it, and put take what he says to heart. This book will change the way we see church.
A second thing I've been thinking about. I remember watching a baseball commercial one time. Derek Jeter (shortstop for the New York Yankeeys) was doing a promo for Major League Baseball. He said that he always wants to be remembered as a Yankeey. Then he said, "you either love us or hate us". Everyone who's a baseball fan either loves the Yankeeys or hates them (everyone who knows me knows where I stand). On the other hand if you don't care about baseball you don't have an opinion one way or the other. You could care less about sports or anything pertaining to sports. But there's one thing that we don't have that option. And that's what we believe about Jesus Christ. Jesus has said, "No one can serve two masters. Either he hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You can't serve both God and Money" (Matthew 6:24). We will make a decision one way or the other about this Jesus of Nazereth. As the old song says, "What will you do with Jesus my friend. Neutral you can not be. One day your heart will be asking, oh friend, 'what will He do with me'?"
Not everyone cares a lick about sports. No one is going to come up to you and ask, "Do you like" this team or that team? Or even, "who's your favorite team?" and then beat the stuffing out of you if your answer isn't their favorite one. Why? Because not everyone likes sports. Not everyone pledges their allegience to this team or that team. Some people couldn't care less about sports. And that's ok. But everyone has an opinion about Jesus Christ. Christianity is something we don't have that option about. Everyone will have to decide one way or the other about who this Jesus is to them.
I've heard it said that when the Apostle Paul went somewhere to preach about Jesus, there was one of two things that occured. One was a revival. The second, was a riot. Either you join Him or reject Him. The choice is ours. I decide to follow Him and to go telling others about this Jesus so they can make a decision for Him too.
Any comment? God bless you in Jesus' name.
Adios.
Zack

The Master's Plan for Making Disciples part 6

Yo, yo, and hello from the Great Chickenfried nation! There are a couple of things to discuss today.
First off, I have read the sixth chapter in The Master's Plan for Making Disciples. This chapter is about the church being a partner (and central player) in making disciples. We see we need church-centered diciple-making. There are seven things listed here. Then we see six benefits for when we identify our "potential congregation". This phrase refers to those in our extended family who show the greatest potential for coming to Christ and becoming active in the church. This a great chapter. The church can (and certainly should) play an active role in getting it's members involved in outreach projects in it's neighorhoods near the building (or meeting place) and outreach to our families and friends. The members should actively find out what our family members like to do for fun and either engage in that activity with them or find someone in the church who has similar intrest in that. In this way relationships are formed, lines of communication are strengthened, and potential is there to talk about Christ and for the family member or friend to come to respond to Christ are greatly inhanced. Plus that, when the individual does come to Christ, there has already been assimilation taking place. We'll talk more about this in the next post about this book. This is a great book! If you don't already have, please get it; read it; and start using it's principles to work at your church.
Now to the next thing. I was watching a college football game last night. It was Central Michigan University playing against Ohio University for their conference championship. During the game Ohio's quaterback hands the ball off to his freshman runningback, who fumbles it and is promptly recovered by a CMU player. As the offense was running off the field, the quaterback runs over to the runningback, gives him, a pat on the back, says "don't worry about it, we'll get'em next time". One of the annoucers said, "now that's the way to do it". And he went on to say that all too often a star player on the team will yell at and berate (spelling error?) a younger player for fumbeling. But the quaterback for Ohio didn't humiliate his teammate at all. He just said "don't worry about it. we'll get'em next time". That got me thinking about God. Our God loves the weak! Praise God for that! Romans 15 starts off by say, "the strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak". Now all of us are weak in one way or another. None of us are "strong". None of us can stand on our own two feet spiritually speaking. As Jeff Walling so aptly put it in his Messy Messiah videos "God loves messes". And "you'll always be a mess, and God loves you any way". Praise God that He loves me even when I'm weak and messy.
Any comments?
Thank you for reading today. God bless you all in Jesus' name.
Zack