Posts from 2014
A Pastor’s Prayer (Part 5)
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas is a traditional greeting during this particular time of year. What are we to make of such a greeting when we wish upon our family and friends a Merry Christmas? Obviously we are wishing for them good fortune and happy times during this traditional holiday season. But is that all there is to this Christmas season, good fortune and happy times? First off I have to admit I’m a certified sentimental sucker for traditions and especially…
A Pastor’s Prayer (Part 4)
The other day I had some pastors pray for me. And what they prayed for in particular was that God would bless our church and that God’s favor would be upon me. I’ve somewhat wrestled biblically with what exactly we mean when use those phrases. Of course I desire to be blessed by God, and who wouldn’t want God’s favor upon one’s life? And when we pray those types of prayers of blessing and favor, what do we want blessed…
A Pastor’s Prayer (Part 3)
When one thinks about church growth what does one think about? What comes to your mind when people discuss church growth? Believe me, the topic of “church growth” is constantly on the mind and heart of almost every pastor. And sadly in today’s American church this is what characterizes and stigmatizes and distinguishes a supposedly good pastor from a bad pastor. If you can grow a church numerically, and better yet if you can do it in very short time,…
Prepare Him Room
Oh for a fall that would last forever… Or at least until spring could come. The last week has been pretty hard on the notion that maybe winter might skip us this year, and already the stores are filling their aisles with things of Christmas. You have to admit were we to miss winter, we would skip over Christmas, and that would be a shame. What a wonderful time built into our year to draw us to reconcile the notion…
A Pastor’s Prayer (Part 2)
Acts 1:14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers. Acts 2:42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 6:4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Romans 12:12 rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, Colossians 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert…
A Pastor’s Prayer
Greetings beloved family of Common Ground, My heart beats for Christ and His beloved bride. My hope and prayer is that we as a family would continue to go deep with God as we cry out to Him for His sustaining grace and power in our lives. Would you please beseech our Lord with me this week with this prayer? Oh most gracious Lord and Father, You’re not surprised at the size of our church. You knew far in advance…
Last blog from Africa
Greetings in the name of the Lord, We have returned from our jungle expedition and it was simply stunning to experience. Some of it was so primitive I thought I was part of the cast in a Tarzan movie. Below are some more of my observations. Observations from Africa: There is no speed limit or speed signs in Liberia. They still have leper colonies. Our favorite phrase we use is “ok, yeah” with a nod of the head, because most of…
Graduation Day in Liberia
Day 9, Blog 6 Today was our graduation ceremony and all who attended received wonderful certificates of graduation. Yes we are all relieved that it’s over, we are totally exhausted, but extremely grateful for all that God is doing. For the first-ever, best-ever Liberty Pastor’s Conference, it was all the work of GOD! The official count was 207 pastors, leaders, elders, deacons and evangelists not including all sorts of wonderful help from kitchen crew and ushers, etc. There were 75…
More from Liberia
Day 7, Blog 5 Well we just made it through hump day in our week long training. The response from the pastors has been amazing. We are building relationships and have handed out our addresses, phone numbers and emails to many of our new friends. They are an amazing people. They sit through 5 hours of intensive training and teaching in 90 degree heat with 100 % humidity, some coming from hours away, and yet you never hear a single…
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!
Day 5, Blog 4 Woke up again to no running water, so took my usual cold water bucket and dumped over my head and then splashed where I could. We are laughing much in the joy of our Lord. At the conference today I wore my Irish green bow tie, green boxers and green socks for St Patrick’s, but they were clueless who he was, lots of confused stares, but they loved my outfit and all laughed at my green…
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