District Council

I spent the last two days in Des Moines at our Assembly of God District Council. Here are some of the highlights:

1. It is always good to hang out with other pastors. It is fun to share stories and hear what God is doing all over the state.

2. I got to see my old youth pastor John Masachio. John is a missionary to Guatemala and I had no idea he was going to be there. John has started a youth skateboard outreach in which they bring portable ramps into towns to attract teenagers and then share the Gospel with the kids. They have also been able to get into the schools as well with this outreach. What a great way to be culturally relevant! John brought a young man with him who has been changed by this ministry. This young man is leading a Bible study of over sixty students each week as a result of the skateboard outreach. God is doing some great things in Guatemala and through my old friend John.

3. Doug Clay was the speaker over the last two days. I really enjoy Doug as he is really down to earth. Doug was the pastor of a great church in Toledo, Ohio while I was in Cleveland. He later became the District Superintendent before moving to Springfield at the National Office. I'll never forget the time I was in a workshop with Doug at a Ohio function when we heard the news that the twin towers were hit by two planes. At that point, we really didn't know what was going on. They ended up canceling the event so we could go home and be with our families. That was definitely a scary time in our nation's history and a drive home I will never forget.

4. I am really excited about the leadership we have as a Network in the Assemblies of God. These are trying times and many denominations are straying from the truth. I thank God for our leaders who want to be led by the Word of God and be led by the Holy Spirit. I believe that if we do these two things, God will continue to lead us as a denomination.

Weekend Reflections

1. Great weekend of NBA basketball. The Spurs are up 3-1 against Dallas. I have doubted my Spurs all year but they are beginning to look like the old Spurs that won the four championships. There is still a long way to go but if they keep it up, they could go a long way.

2. Pat Cashman gave his testimony on Sunday of the events that happened to him regarding his near death experience. Pat is such a great guy and he is a testimony to the power of prayer.

2. Sunday we continued our Fearless series and talked about worry. For some reason we tend to accept worry as a part of our everyday life. When you look at Matthew 6 Jesus taught something entirely different. Our big idea for the day as 'our point of worry often points us to our greatest devotion.' We only worry about the things we are devoted too. For example, we worry about the things we have invested in like our jobs, our marriage, our children, our money, etc. We worry about these things because we have devoted our self to them. Jesus' answer to this; don't be devoted to stuff. Life is not all about stuff. We don't add any value to our life by worrying about the stuff. Instead Jesus' answer was to "Seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness." Don't seek the kingdom of this world, seek the Kingdom of God. When we pursue after God's Kingdom, we know that God will take care of the stuff. That is the promise Jesus gives, 'seek the Kingdom and all these things will be added to you.' It is not that Jesus isn't concerned with our needs. But what Jesus really wants is our devotion totally to Him and not the cares of this world.

3. Ken and Trudy Moeckel was with us last night for our Family Potluck. Ken and Trudy have a great ministry of taking the Word of God to countries that do not have the Word or are not trained in the Word of God in their particular language. Ken in particular distributes Fire Bibles which are Full Gospel Bibles with commentary along side of it. Ken and Trudy have distributed Bibles all throughout Africa, China, and Europe. It was a great time of fellowship and learning what God is doing throughout the world.

Thursday Download

It is going to be another great Sunday at Hope. We will be in part four of our series called "Fearless." We will be talking about the little brother of fear, 'worry'. For some reason we accept worry as a part of our every day life. I would beg to differ that worry should not be a regular part of our life. We will be looking at some things Jesus had to say about worry. I am also excited because Pat Cashman will be sharing his testimony this Sunday from some of the events that has happened to him last month. Pat is a living, breathing miracle and I know as Pat shares, God will use him greatly. Invite a friend and see you Sunday.

Weekend Reflections

1. Friday and Saturday our youth were in Des Moines for Spring Youth Convention. We ended up taking eleven students this weekend. Many were last minute which meant they all had to cram in two hotel rooms. We are so blessed to have such great leadership with our youth. Derek does such a great job with the kids. I pray that things they learned will truly impact their lives to make a difference in their families and in their school.

2. Friday was Spring Cleaning day for the Jones family. We threw away a lot of stuff and bagged more to give away. It feels good to get rid of so much clutter.

3. Jennifer's cousins stayed with us this weekend from Des Moines. Went to Williamsburg to do some shopping and got some good deals.

4. Another great day of worship at Community Hope. We had 181 in attendance on Sunday. Thirty nine were children in children's church. God is doing some great things. We were short-handed on the worship team but our team still did a tremendous job. They did a remix of the Doxology and closed the service with the Jeremy Camp song "Walk by Faith'. Way to go team!

5. Sunday night was our monthly Missions Team meeting. Our team decided to support Rural Compassion on a monthly basis, and give $1000.00 to the Iowa Camp project. What a great group of people to work with. We also discussed ways to reach out this summer. Loved some the ideas that came from the meeting. Talked about a single mom, widows free oil change for the community. Also talked about a date night for parents and also the 4th of July weekend. As a church we constantly need to be outwardly focused and be visible in the community. It is great to know that our missions team has this heart.

6. Finished the day watching the Spurs lose by six points in their first playoff game to Dallas. I think it will be a tough series but I'm not for sure if the Spurs can pull it off. Sure hope so!

Pray for our Youth

Just a quick post to please pray for our youth this weekend as they will be going to the Spring Youth Convention in Des Moines. We have nine teenagers going and many of them are unchurched. Pray for Derek and Samone as they will be leading this trip. Pray that God would truly touch these teens and we would hear many testimonies of what happened this weekend. We desperately need a Jesus Revolution in our school and it has to start with a few teenagers that get on fire for God. Please Lord, let it happen this weekend!

Don't be that couch!

OK, so growing up my mom and dad had the ugliest couch you could ever dream of. I believe they got it in the seventies when orange was the thing. It had orange and brown flowers all over it. I would bring up to my mom every once in a while that it was probably time to get a new couch. After all, she had new carpet, new blinds and a new chair. Right before she passed away she even had a new LCD television. But for some reason, she wouldn't give up the couch. It didn't match anything in the house and stood out like a sore thumb. Now I realize why my mom wouldn't give up the couch. There were lots of memories on that couch. My dad sat on that couch, all of us children sat on that couch. We celebrated Christmases, birthday's and other special occasions and the couch was there for them all. Good memories that go along with the couch.

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to Chicago for One Day Catalyst and Andy Stanley was speaking on that old couch. I had to laugh because as he was illustrating the old couch to old ways of doing ministries, I could relate as I thought about my moms couch. What Stanley said makes perfect sense. Here are some thoughts on a few of his points:

1. Church programming always began with an answer to a question, over time though the answer becomes a part of the churches culture. Here's the problem, as the culture changes, many of the questions remain the same but the answers don't. For example, we still need couches to sit on but probably not orange and brown ones from the seventies. Many churches are still doing church like it was the seventies. We no longer live in the seventies and that means church may look a little different. The message is still the same but our methods have to change with the culture.

2. We must be more committed to our mission than our programming. Programs are never the mission of the church. Winning the lost is the mission of the church. Sadly, some churches are more concerned about their way of doing church than reaching the lost.

It is easy to get comfortable on the old couch. Over time we get used to the old couch that we don't even notice that it sticks out. The funny thing is, when new people enter your home, they notice it right away. They think, how strange. I wonder why they kept that old couch over all these years. I wonder how many people who enter the church wonder the same thing. Here is the question I think we need to be asking ourselves as a church body and a good question for many churches today; 'Are we falling in love with the methods of doing church that may not be effective in reaching people anymore?' Remember, mission not methods wins people. The mission is to reach the lost. The message of the Gospel never changes but methods must change with the culture. Let's not be that old couch!

BGMC Hair

If you were not here on Sunday, you missed the unveiling of the colored hair for the kids BGMC fundraiser. Since the kids raised over $900.00 the great surprise was Austin Young coloring his hair rainbow colors. What a great group of leaders we have for our kids. They are absolutely awesome!




Jennifer's green hair for $300.00

Lisa's pink hair for $400.00

Kyra's purple hair for $500.00
















Austin's Rainbow hair for exceeding their goal!

The Unveiling!

Last month we gave everyone Buddy Boxes to put their change in as our kids set a BGMC goal to raise a certain amount of money. If $300 was raised, my wife Jennifer would color her hair green. If $400.00 was raised, Kyra Smith would color her hair purple and if $500.00 was raised then Lisa Huff would color her hair pink. Everyone participated and I am excited to say that we raised over $900.00 for the month of March for BGMC! That is truly incredible. This Sunday we will unveil the new hair dews with another special surprise. Don't miss out!

Fearless

This Sunday we continue our series on 'Fearless". We will be talking about how we can overcome fear. This will be an exciting Sunday as we will have another testimony from someone very special on how they were able to overcome fear in their life. Let's keep the momentum going from Easter so make sure you are here and bring someone you know.

Easter Reflections

What a great Easter weekend we had. I have been out of town since Sunday afternoon so I haven't had the time to blog about some of the great things that took place. Here are the highlights.

1. Maundy Thursday was a good time to get together with the other churches in the community. I spoke on the symbol of the cross and how God views the cross opposed to how we view the cross. When we look at the cross we see love, grace and forgiveness but when God looks at the cross, He sees sin, wickedness and judgment. It was a great time of reflection and worship to our God for all He has done.

2. The Easter Egg Hunt was a blast on Saturday. We had almost 300 children attend the event this year. Thanks to John Bushong for doing a a great job once again for organizing this event. I was so thankful that we had a beautiful day and no rain. God is so good! It was awesome to see all the kids have their baskets filled with candy.

3. Easter Sunday was a wonderful day of worship. We had 219 in worship combined for both services. The worship team did a great job, special music and a special skit by Gary Smith and Derek Bates. I was very proud of Austin Young who gave his testimony Sunday of how the Lord changed his life. When we hear stories like this, it makes ministry worth it all.

I want to encourage you that if you invited someone and they didn't come for Easter, don't give up. Keep planting seeds and you never know when the door will opened. For the guests that were there, let's pray that the seed of God's Word was planted on good soil and that seed would grow a harvest thirty, sixty, hundredfold!

Ten Questions the Unchurched aren't asking.

1. Who is speaking on Sunday?
2. Do you sing hymns or choruses?
3. What denomination are you affiliated with?
4. What version of the Bible do you use?
5. Do you have Sunday School or Small Groups?
6. How do I go deep?
7. Are there a lot of crosses and pictures of Jesus in your church?
8. Is your pastor's teaching exegetical, topical or some other method?
9. How do I become a member or transfer my membership?
10. Does your church have the latest technology?

It's Easter so it's not time to think inward but outward. Many first time guests who do not know Christ will be showing up at church. People need Christ and Jesus is the answer! They aren't asking the questions that many church people are asking. They don't understand all the insider language of the church world. This weekend we need to give them Jesus. They need to hear the simplicity of the Gospel. God and His Word is the only thing that can change lives!

Thanks to http://www.perrynoble.com/ for the inspiration.