Tame the Tongue

Started our Dirty Laundry series on Sunday and felt it was a good start to an exciting three weeks of learning about the dirt of our words. Our first week was about taming the tongue. James says that we have no problem taming animals just as birds, fish, or even horses, yet we have a hard time taming a two ounce mucous membrane. Three things from Sunday's message:

1. The tongue is petite yet powerful! ( Very small yet with it, we have the power to build up or destroy!)

2. Valuable yet venomous-The tongue can poison others-Things like gossip, slander and secrets are all venom that we must avoid!

3. With the tongue we praise God yet curse men- We can't praise God and yet curse people at the same time. When we curse people, we are really saying, "God made junk!" We know that this is a false statement.

I hope this message series will be valuable to everyone as we discover the dirty laundry of our words.

I am currently reading Craig Groeschel's book "Confessions of a Pastor." This a great read for anyone involved in ministry. Craig's honesty is so refreshing in this book. One of my favorite chapters so far is the confession of feeling inadequate. Craig tells the story of his first funeral. It was a grave site service and the people involved asked if they could sing Amazing Grace. Craig didn't know that it was going to be a solo. As Craig was trying to get through the song, a fly flew into his mouth while he was singing. At that point, he had a choice to make. Spit the fly out in the middle of the song or swallow. He chose to swallow! He goes on to say as he closed the service he went to quote the scripture, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." The only problem was he forgot the rest. So to close the scripture he said, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, hope this coffin doesn't rust."

I know there have been times that I have felt totally inadequate to be a pastor myself. I never went to Bible school like most pastors and my training of being a lead pastor is zip. I'm glad that in my times of inadequacy, God gives me the power. I look at those in the Bible that were in adequate yet God chose them anyways. God chose David, Gideon and Moses even though they were failures in the world's eyes. Jesus even chose the twelve disciples that were unlearned and untrained fisherman. This is good news because if God can use them, He can use me as well. Maybe there are times that you feel inadequate, know that God can use you as well. All God is looking for is a willing heart.

Dirty Laundry

I am getting ready for our new sermon series called "Dirty Laundry". We are going to be exposing the dirt of our Words the next three weeks. Our words are very powerful. We have the choice of speaking life with our words or death. Here are the three sermon titles for this series.

Week One-Tongue Tamer
Week Two- Contain the Complain
Week Three-Thou shall not Judge

I think everyone has had a problem with their words one time or another. I hope this series help us all to realize what our words can do.

Same Spirit

I was reading from Numbers 11 this morning on how Moses was overburdened by the people of Israel. Moses was leading them through the wilderness and all the people did was complain. God's answer to Moses' prayer was giving him seventy men of Israel that would have the same spirit as him so that they would help him carry the burden. In verse 28 and 29, Joshua had overheard some men prophesying other then Moses. Joshua went to Moses and asked him to forbid them from prophesying. Moses response was, "Are you zealous for my sake? Oh that all the Lord's people were prophets and the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!" This a true sign of a leader. Moses' prayer was not that he would get all the glory but that others would carry the burden with him and have the same Spirit as him. It is so important as a church that we carry the burdens together and be unified with the same Spirit. I have been a part of too many churches that didn't have the same Spirit, instead every person had their own idea of what they thought should happen. God's plan has never been this way. My prayer for CH is that we carry the burden and the vision together. What is that vision?

1. Kingdom Focused
2. Relevant Ministry
3. Missions Minded
4. Finding needs and filling them
5. Finding hurts and healing them
6. Serving every generation

Let us carry the vision and the burden together to reach our community and world!

What fabulous weekend we had for missions. Jeff and Bev Diltz were absolutely incredible. Jeff shared his testimony about how he lost his teen age son in a boating accident. The dream that his son had was to have the best sidewalk Sunday School program in the west. Jeff and Bev have carried on the dream as they minister in the LA area doing Sidewalk Sunday School out of a firetruck. (please see pics below.) I don't believe there was a dry eye in the building yesterday. Our missions giving yesterday was over $700.00. Praise God! Jeff and Bev have inspired me to do more and reach more at any means possible.

Olivia is turning seven

Seems like we just got done with one birthday and now we are on to the next. Olivia is turning seven on Saturday. Today we are having a surprise birthday party with all the family. I think she will be surprised when she comes home from school today. Olivia is truly a blessing and definitely our prayer warrior in the family. I love to hear her pray right before bed as she prays truly from her heart. Just the other night she prayed, "Jesus thank you for mommy and daddy not just because they are a good mommy and daddy but most of all because they love You." Wow! She is truly incredible. (Sorry, I like to brag on my kids!) Jen and I are no where near perfect parents but as long as they love God and put others first, we feel that we are doing a somewhat decent job.

Missions Weekend

I'm really pumped about this coming Sunday and our missions emphasis. Sunday morning we will be having Jeff and Bev Diltz from from the LA Dream Center come share with us. Jeff and Bev are in charge of the Sidewalk Sunday School program in LA. They are very unique as they go out into the streets of LA and teach kids from a firetruck. Every week they literally touch thousands of children. Here are a few pics of their ministry.

Unusual Blessing

Just finished up the unusual sermon series. I feel that the past six weeks have been beneficial as we have covered a lot of unusual topics. This past Sunday I talked about probably the hardest subject for any preacher to talk about, "Giving". The fact of the matter is, Jesus talked more about money then He did heaven or hell. The reason was Jesus knew that money is an issue of the heart. The challenge this week is unusual giving leads to unusual blessing. God has promised to always meet our needs when we put Him first. I have seen it time and time again in my own life. I don't know how God does it, but He always provides when I give and put Him first in my finances. I guess that's what makes our God unusual!

This past Friday Caleb had his adenoids taken out. I think it is always scarier for the parents then it is the kids. He was a true trooper as the doctor came in and took him to the surgery room. The hardest part was seeing him in recovery after it was all over. All and all we pray that this will help him breathe better. Please keep him in prayer as he is still recovering from all this.

Seize the Opportunities

I recently listened to a podcast by Andy Stanley who is the pastor of North Point Community Church in Atlanta. Something that has stuck with me was he said that a lot of leadership has to do with having courage to seize the opportunities that God gives us as a church. He said that if we don't seize the opportunities then God will choose someone else to do it. I cannot agree with him more. Over the last couple months God has given us some great opportunities. Celebrate Recovery is an awesome example of that. Celebrate Recovery is meeting every week and is helping people overcome their habits and addictions. Another recent opportunity is the start of a youth ministry at our church. I've always felt that it was something we needed to do but the timing was never right. God has now opened the door and we are going to have our first Impact Night on November 5th at Fun Valley. God is doing some exciting things but these things would not be possible if we didn't have the courage to step out in faith. Let me encourage everyone today to seize the opportunities that God gives you and don't let fear stop you from allowing God to use you.

25 years of service

Sunday night I had the opportunity to go back to my old church Berean Assembly of God in Des Moines to celebrate Pastor Weet's 25 year anniversary at the church. What a awesome thing to see someone serving 25 years in one church. God has really blessed Berean the last 25 years. Berean was a struggling church before Pastor Weets came and now there are a 1000 worshippers there every Sunday. I learned a lot things under Pastor Weets and I appreciate all that he taught me in just the two years that I was there. Pastor taught me the importance of prayer, Sunday School and rightly divinding the Word of God. May God continue to bless Berean as they win the lost of Des Moines to Him!

Unusual Power

We are still in our unusual series and yesterday I talked about "unuual power". The story is found in Mark 5:24-24. The woman did three unusual things in the story.

1. She had unusual faith (She spoke faith into existence)
2. She made an unusual contact (She touched Jesus' garment)
3. She walked in unusual peace. (Jesus told her to go in peace.)

The Big Idea is that unusual circumstances require unusual action. When we have problems of our own, God wants us to do the unusual. The woman in this story had a huge problem and was willing to do anything she could to get to Jesus. In our own lives, are we willing to do the unusual? Many of us face problems of our own and God wants to give us the power we need. The problem is not with God because He doesn't lack the power to give. If you have a problem, are you willing to do the unusual measures neccesary to see the answers in your own life? God wants to give all of us unsual power.

Divine Appointments

I don't know about you but I believe in divine appointments. I believe that God gives us divine appointments everyday but sometimes we just miss them because possibly we are too busy. Just a few weeks back I prayed that God would use me to be an influence to those outside our church. That simple prayer led me to two opportunities to tell someone about our church and one opportunity to be involved in a business lunch for area businesses. God is so awesome. I dare you to pray a divine appointment prayer. Believe me, if you do, God will give you those divine appointments. God wants to use us in ways that we may not even know.

Ethan turns one

Wow, I can't believe little Ethan turns one year today. It is hard to believe that it was one year ago we were at the hospital and nurse told us that we had another little boy. Ethan has truly been a blessing to our family. It is so neat how God creates us all different. Ethan is definitely different from the rest of the kids. He is a curious little guy and he is into everything. I loose my breath watching him for a just a couple of hours. He is full of energy but full of fun. Jen and I are very blessed to have three wonderful, healthy children. It is important in life that we don't loose focus on what is important. My family is a priority in my life. We can win the whole town of Montezuma to Jesus but if my kids don't follow Him then its not worth it. My challenge for us all this week is take life slow. Time goes fast as did the year with Ethan already turning one. Take time to build memories with those that you love. You will never regret making an investment in those that you love most.