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In honor of my Aussie friends, in lieu of Labour Day, I will take the
day off from blogging :)
Absolutely, positively, humanly unfathomable. Our church has not
experienced 90 minutes like that since, since we shipped 50 guys
out to a Promise Keepers Convention in '96.
The sermon interspersed between 17 - 2 minute testimonies, was
titled "when cultures collide, spirits connect." We had slides and
movie clips running in the background behind each person. By
"coincidence" we even had Laura Percy home from Thailand participate
in the service, as well. Phil, who preached and moderated, did
impromptu interviews following some of the testimonies. After
watching video clips of the jungle service we sang the same songs
with the GLCC congregation. We had a cool "Creative Memories"
display table in the lobby with stuff we got from the village and
the cities, pictures. The edited DVD played in a loop on the
display table, as well.
We, I sat all the kids down, along with the lighting guy, the
sound guy, the PowerPoint guy, the musicians and told them absolutely
nothing we did with all the technical production, no matter how
cool, mattered one bit, zero, nodda, if the kids were going to read
hand written scripts for their testimonies. There would be NO
travel log this morning. If the testimonies were not delivered
from the heart we might as well go home. The content of the
testimonies had to be paramount and central. I explained that
my dozens of hours of work on the multimedia is only there to
enhance the Spirit's message being delivered through them. They
were given full authority to let it fly, say things that preachers
cannot. AND THEY DID. Hair got blown back all the way to the
sound booth. The kids even ditched the offering in lue of plates
at the exits. When we let the kids decide that, they knew we were
serious that the order of service was up to them. They set up
the stage with living room furniture and end tables. They had
a fireside, big screen chat.
I sat behind my son on a stool. He caught me snorting my tears
of exhuberence a couple of times during the service. Ben snapped
me out of it with a subtle yet firm, "Hey, Carl, Carl, what's up,
how ya doin'?"
I am converting the service video tapes into a single DVD. It is
amazing how it is impossible for a nonchristian video camera to
capture the presence of the Holy Spirit. The video tape just
does not cut it. It provides a taste at best. I will mail a
full trip movie DVD, (already complete), and a DVD of the service.
Hopefully you will see how your investiment paid off in eternal
dividends.
One of the kids who surrounded himself with the wall of Jericho
spoke Sunday. Somewhere in Thailand is left a crumbled wall.
He did not mention it, but he has been out of communication with
his unforgiving grandfather since he was 8 or 10 years old.
The service was not even done and he was off the stage, in the
car and on his way to Grandpa's house. (Grandpa visited our
church for this service but left during closing comments).
Jeremy spent quite some time with Grandpa and applogized for
not following lawn mowing instructions 8 years ago. One thing
Jeremy learned in Thailand is that in missions there is no
instant response. "Christianity is a relationship, not a
lifestyle." Relationships take time. Jeremy was satisfied
with simply opening this lines of communication with Grandpa.
After church 60 members of the Vision team and their families
came to the cottage on the lake for the afternoon. What a
gala fest. (Last of the folks left at 9 - 10 pm) Folks did
not want the day to end. We basked in the the spirit and in the
Spirit.
SOOOOO, in answer to your question, "How Did It Go," I guess
it went OK.
Bottom line, it's safest for all of us to remember when kicking balls down the ministry that it's just not about us in the least, and that humility and love are the skills we need to hone most of all. Because it is sad to watch teammates injured by the arrows of the righteous.
Leadership is only our responsibilities.Servanthood is truly our position.Child of God is definitely our status.
This picture is a collage of the Sunday Morning Christian celebration service and a couple other winners.Look at it this way: Whether or not you live only for money, you'll ultimately leave it or it will leave you. But if you focus your life on God and doing His will, all these other things will be provided.Does your concern for making money and keeping it overshadow your concern for doing God's will? If so, stop and look at the birds.
Over the course of 100 days, almost one million people were killed in Rwanda. The streets of the capital city of Kigali ran red with rivers of blood, but no one came to help. There was no international intervention in Rwanda, no expeditionary forces, no coalition of the willing. There was no international aid for Rwanda. Rwanda's Hutu extremists slaughtered their Tutsi neighbors and any moderate Hutus who stood in their way, and the world left them to it. "Ten years on, politicians from around the world have made the pilgrimage to Rwanda to ask for forgiveness from the survivors, and once more the same politicians promise `never again,'" says director Terry George. "But it's happening yet again in Sudan, or the Congo, or some Godforsaken place where life is worth less than dirt. Places where men and women like Paul and Tatiana shame us all by their decency and bravery."
Coauthors Myers (who serves on the board of the National Marriage Project) and Scanzoni (of the Evangelical and Ecumenical Women's Caucus) "take marriage... [and] our Christian faith seriously." Bringing together those two commitments to build a Christian case for gay marriage, they begin by arguing that marriage is good for society: marriage correlates to longevity; boys raised by married parents are less likely to commit crimes; married moms are less prone to depression than single moms and so forth. Why, the authors ask, should these good things be reserved for heterosexuals? They then consider what Scripture has to say about sexual orientation, rehearsing the by now familiar arguments that Jesus has nothing to say about homosexuality, and though the Bible does talk occasionally about homosexual sex, it does not deal with "loving committed homosexual relationships." Myers and Scanzoni's tone is calm, respectful and balanced. For example, though they present some of the latest scientific evidence about the causes of sexual orientation (including a chart of "mental rotation scores by sexual orientation"!), they also freely admit that scientific studies on this issue are still in the early stages, and that even conclusive scientific information "cannot... resolve values questions." With its traditional defense of marriage and its progressive embrace of same-sex relationships, this book cannot be pigeonholed, and that in itself is refreshing.
I Peter 5:8 says, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (NIV)
Romans 6:13 says, “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.” (NIV)
