Shout It From the Rooftops!



When Teresa and I first found out that we were expecting our baby, I wanted to tell everyone; I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, “I’m having a baby and I’m excited?” I didn’t for the first few weeks until it was confirmed by a doctor and then we told our families first and then we waited until we found out the sex (the baby is a girl). During all this time I was shouting the news in my mind. I was biting at the bit to tell people the great news.

I’m reading through Mark and saw this; “And He gave them orders not to tell anyone; but the more He ordered them, the more widely they continued to proclaim it. (Mark 7:36)” Jesus had just restored a man’s hearing and the ability to speak. Saying that he was excited would not come close to what he was feeling. I can imagine this man grabbing people and saying, “This man (pointing at Jesus) restored my hearing and I can speak now! Everybody, Jesus gave me back my hearing and my tongue!” The man was so grateful that he had to tell people.

Oh how we (Christians) have lost this excitement about our Savior. You see, the Holy Spirit gave use the ability to hear Jesus calling us to Himself and the Holy Spirit gave us the eyes to see our need for a Savior. Why is it we have lost our excitement of the gospel or the good news? Why have we stopped pointing people to Jesus and telling them what He did for use? Could it be we have forgotten who and what we were before Jesus saved us? Oh that we never forget what we owe God for paying our sin debt on the cross and making us His children.

We (including me) need to be more like Andrew and Phillip as they are shown in John 1:40-45 (One of the two who heard John speak and followed Him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He found first his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which translated means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter). The next day He purposed to go into Galilee, and He found Philip and Jesus said to him, "Follow Me." Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."). We should be so excited about what Jesus has done for us that we tell people and show them Jesus. We are simply called to share with people what our Savior did for us and how He changed us.

Just as Teresa and I started by telling our families about our good news of our coming child, we should tell our families what God has done for us and then go from there. Telling your friends, co-workers, and neighbors the good news you have; Jesus Christ. Shout if from the rooftops like the man Jesus restored his sight and speech because after all that is what God did for us. He gave eyes to see our need for Him and ears to hear His voice as He calls us to Himself. Shout out the good news!

Good Question



This morning Teresa asked me a very good question. The question was, “What do babies think about while in the womb?” I was stunned and couldn’t think of an answer. Logic would dictate that babies do think; especially in week 22. But what would a baby think about?
I do know that God knows who we are in the womb. David talks about this in one of his Psalms. St Paul even states in Ephesians that God knew us even before He created the Earth. I may not know what babies think about in the womb but I do know they are known by God. That is awesome when I stop to think about it.
St Paul in Ephesians even says that God foreknew that I would come to know Him as Savior and Lord. He chose me before time was started and I trust that He has knows Ripley as He knows me. I pray that He draws Ripley to Himself at an early age. I also pray that He brings Ripley through the pregnancy healthy and whole. But if in His wisdom, He chooses to do otherwise I will trust in Him. She will be perfect regardless.
Going back to the original question Teresa asked about what Ripley is thinking about. Since she is my child, I’m thinking she is thinking about either food or working on her backstroke; she is in liquid after all and I love to swim. ; - )

Getting Deep



I love small groups. The small groups’ ministry gives a church of any size the opportunity for the members a place for in-depth learning. The group Teresa and I have been in for the last 10 months has been great. This group has given me the opportunity to just seat back and learn instead of lead/teach. In the past 8 years, I’ve started small groups and lead small groups but this is the first time in awhile I’ve been a member. It has been great. Last week, we completed the Focus on the Family “The Truth Project” where we studied world view; not a shallow topic. We all enjoyed the in-depth of this topic and all agreed to continue to meet studying new topics.
The subject we start studying this week is Hermeneutics (the science and art of biblical interpretation). It’s a neat story how we decided on this topic that most church attendees have never heard of. While before we started one of the “The Truth Project” sessions 6 weeks ago, we were talking about Hermeneutics and word studies. As we discussed this, one of the members expressed a desire to learn more about the subject. I volunteered lead a short how to course. This Monday is the beginning of a 4 to 5 week course of Hermeneutics and word studies. This week is just the definition of Hermeneutics and the reason why Christians should know how to interpret the Bible. I really have enjoyed rereading some of my Bible college text books and buying new ones on the subject; may God use this to glorify Himself. After all, that is my main purpose in life; to bring glory to my Heavenly Father.

Perspective



Perspective is defined as one's "point of view", the choice of a context for opinions, beliefs and experiences (Wikipedia.com)

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I read the Gospel of Mark at least once a year. I thought it was time again, to read through this handbook for Leadership. God showed something to me that I haven’t thought about. In the first chapter of Mark, John the Baptist is talking about the coming One (Jesus Christ). He mentions in verse 7, “And he was preaching, and saying, “’After me One is coming who is mightier than I, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals.”’

The phrase that made me stop was “. . . and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of His sandals.” Wow; this is the great John the Baptist. John was spoken about in the Old Testament; hundreds of years before his birth. He had followers who hung on every word he said. He had Roman soldiers turning away from their pagan ways to embrace God as the only God. He knew where he stood compared to Jesus Christ. You see John the Baptist had perspective.

You see the job of a servant was to remove their master’s sandals; however, John was saying that he was lower than the sandal removing servant because he wasn’t even high enough in the servant’s hierarchy. You see there was a hierarchy when it came to the servants of a master. The lowest of the servants had the job of washing the feet of visitors and the highest level was the head servant; what we call today the butler. It seems to me that since John was foretold to be the forbearer of the Christ, he would be closest to the butler but in his own eyes he saw himself as the lowest level of servants.

I need to remember this as God opens the door for me to pastor a church. Later on in Mark, we are shown what it means to be a leader as we read how Jesus acted. I had forgotten that the first lesson on true leadership was shown by John the Baptist. We need the proper perspective on where we stand in relation to Jesus Christ. I need perspective on how I should lead God’s people. I’m so thankful God revealed this nugget of truth to me today.

We're Having A Baby!!!!

The biggest blessing a husband and wife can ever receive from our Heavenly Father
(2nd to salvation) is to be entrusted with a person to raise either through adoption or giving birth. Well, God has blessed us with a little person growing in Teresa.We just found out that this little one will be a GIRL. Teresa is in the middle of her 21st week.We've waited this long to share this praise because we wanted it all to ourselves.You parents should understand.We both are very excited and am praying for good health. The top of the list of names is Ripley Ann, but it could change but I like it too much.

As a good daddy, I must have photos so see below for some.

Our baby at 21 weeks.

Scan showing the baby's head.

Scan showing our baby's head and body.

Scan showing that our little one is a girl. Simply beautiful!

Remembering



I’ve been meaning to write my thoughts down on remembering. This morning I looked at my left hand and between my pointing figure and my thumb is a fine faint line; I really won’t call it a scar. It made me remember the last night of final exams of my first year in Bible College. We freshmen were being dumb and running around and I slipped and ran my hand into a doorframe. The memory makes me smile; weird as it is. We have many things that we have that can cause us to have total recall of a memory. There is a flat stone on the bottom of our bookshelf in the living room that makes me remember Teresa and my vacation to Ireland back in 2004. I picked up 4 stones from the Cliffs of Moher and brought them back. This is one I kept for myself. I smile every time I notice it.
God told the Children of Israel to pick up stones as they walked on the dried ground of the Jordan River and pile them together and make an altar so the generations to come will know what He did for their forefathers. Every time an Israelite walked by the pile of stones, they would remember the blessings God has done for them.
One day, we will see Jesus in heaven and see the scars of the nails in His hands and His feet. These scars will be a reminder of what He did for us on the cross. We will be reminded for all eternity of what a great and awesome God we have. He took our place on the cross and paid the sin duty He knew we could never pay. Instead of this memory bringing a smile to my face, I’m thinking it will bring tears of joy and thanksgiving.
Thank you Jesus for taking my place and making me an adopted son!

Food is Energy (or Learning to Feed Yourself)



Have you ever had your body just stop because you had nothing in your stomach it could use as fuel? I have, and it’s a weird feeling. Most of the time, I push through this feeling but man it can be tough. During my workout today, I swam 30 minutes at the YMCA and in the middle of it I heard my stomach yell, “feed me!” The food I had eaten before was all gone. I had enough energy stored to finish with no problem but last week was a different story. I had decided to forgo a small snack before heading out for a short 3 mile run. Right in the middle, my body told me that I was dumb and I could feel my energy slowly dissolving. It was as if I could see the needle on the gear of my body slowing moving to zero.

I’m slowly learning that the more I exercise, the more I need to eat. That’s hard for me because I do not want to regain the weight I’ve lost; it’s always in the back of my mind. Teresa has told me I need to treat food more like an athlete instead of a dieter. My body needs the fuel to burn as I weigh train, run, bike, and swim. Having a balanced diet with exercise will keep me healthy and moving.

If I know I can’t rely on the food I ate yesterday to fuel my activities today, why is it we think differently when thinking about Spiritual nourishment? We think that Sunday’s sermon is all we need to be a healthy Christian. We think that being spoon fed a spoon full of Bible will get us through our week. WRONG!

We need to view Bible studying the same way an athlete views eating enough protein and carbs. It’s about fueling the machine. The church as a whole has done the members a disservice in recent years by not teaching them to study the Bible on their own along with weekly insights shared by the pastor. We have way too many malnourished saints who live defeated lives because they have not a clue what the Bible says about how they should live their lives.

We have Christians who have been saved for decades who don’t know how to lead anyone to Christ because they don’t know the scriptures. They only know that they are heading to heaven and that’s good enough. Wrong! The church has traded being a place of learning to being a social club where all you’re “felt needs” are met. Instead of having 6 steps of how to be debt free, we need a series on what the Bible says about homosexuality, sex before marriage, unmarried couples living together, and so on. It’s a sad state when a church has to do a 6 week series on why the book and/or movie “The Da Vinci Code” is only a story and is not based on facts because your average Christian is clueless.

It’s time that the church trains its members to be the warriors of Christ instead of being “dumb and dumber.” It’s my passion as a man called to pastor to do what Ephesians 4:11-12 (“And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ”) has told me to do. Like the athlete in me that loves sharing the value of exercise and eating right, the pastor in me wants to walk up beside my fellow Christian and make sure they know how to feed themselves the wisdom of God’s word.

Leadership



I often think about the idea of leadership. Working in the business world for the last 12 years while working in churches, I’ve seen a lot of different styles of leadership. I have a strong desire to make sure there is good clear leadership in the life of any church I’m working with because it’s one of my Spiritual gifts.

I read the gospel of Mark at least once year because this is the book that shows us how we should lead. In the first chapter of the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, the prophet Ezekiel sees four faces. He sees the face of a loin, an ox, a man, and an eagle. Each face is a picture of Jesus Christ; He is King (the lion), Jesus is a servant (the ox), Jesus is a man (the man), and Jesus is God (the eagle). Have you ever wondered why we have fours gospels instead just one? The reason is each gospel portrays Jesus differently; four different angles or traits of the same God Man. The book of Matthew was written to show Jesus as the promised King of the Jews, Mark was written to show Jesus as the servant, Luke shows Jesus as a man, and John shows Jesus to be God in flesh.

Jesus is the ultimate example on how we (His children) should live our lives. Mark is the handbook on how His people should lead. I feel it’s a most read for any man who wishes to pastor a church or lead a ministry.

A few weeks ago, I rented the movie “Outlander.” It was a pretty good fantasy film about an alien [that looks human; played by James Caviezel (actor who played Jesus Christ in “The Passion of the Christ”)] that crash lands on Earth in the 1400’s Norway. He comes across Vikings and battles an alien monster he had on his ship. The reason I bring this movie up while discussing leadership is there’s a scene in the deleted section of the DVD where the king of the Viking tribe the alien is helping is talking with his nephew about how to be king. He tells the young man that serving and protecting his people is a king’s true duty; not being a tyrant.

In the book of Mark, the true definition of being a leader is shown in Christ Jesus. He came serving others, and at the end He protected us from an eternity separated from Him by paying the sin debt we all owe. Any man who leaders a church as pastor should never “rule” the members like he is king over them. In the eyes of God, we are a family and all equal so the pastor of a church should lead like a loving brother leads younger siblings.

The church is a Christocracy where Christ is King of all and is the leader. A pastor is a steward or servant who God puts in place to help His children grow in their walks. Seeing the Biblical idea of leadership has helped me in my secular workplace and continues to help keep me in the right frame of mind while leading God’s people.

God Was Glorified



The service at Pine Chapel Baptist Church went very well. The main idea of the sermon was that we (the church) need to stay focused on the goal Paul talks about in Philippians 3:12-16. I talked about if the church or we Christians are distracted from fulfilling our goal or purpose we fail. The main goal or purpose of the church and as Christians is to bring glory to God period. I spoke on one thing that can and will distract us from fulfill this goal; it is self-centeredness.
The people were receptive to the sermon. There were a lot of positive comments as people left. My only goal today was to make sure the church body was encouraged, and to make sure they left fed; of course, this we secondary to the main goal which was to make sure to glorify God the Father.
I guess the topic could have been ill received if the approached was different. I approach of the sermon was as a talk among family. I look forward to seeing how God uses this to spark talks of the families during Sunday dinner and with the church body talking among themselves. All in all, I feel God was glorified.

Me, Myself, and I



It has always amazed me how self-centered we (humanity) truly are. I’m thinking about the topic of this week’s sermon (titled “Staying Focus”) and the idea is to not be self-centered but Christ-centered. The main idea is that Christians and the church can start to just think about themselves and get off focused on the true purpose of our lives and the church. It’s about bringing glory to God. To take ourselves out of the equation so God can be glorified.

Self-centeredness is nothing new in this world or even to the church. Jesus told his disciples several times in the gospels to put others before themselves, to consider others higher than themselves, and that the first will be last and the last first.

On our way home in May 2008 from a conference in Washington, DC, Teresa and I were going slow on I95 south on a Saturday (go figure). I kept seeing people just change lanes with no signal (my pet peeve) and generally acting like they were the only people on the road. That day, I coined a phrase, “It’s your world, and we just live in it.” The people of this world have an excuse (not a good one, but they do have it) because they are in darkness where what feels good do it is the general principle.

The church and Christians have no excuse. Jesus’ teachings should be our foundation of living. Yes we are human and by nature putting oneself first is easier than “dying to oneself.” Jesus told us that we need to pick up our cross daily as we walk with Him. This means that we should die to our own interests and follow the interests He has put in us. He said “daily” or for me multiple times daily. It is difficult but not impossible because after all we have the Holy Spirit in us which will help us.

God makes things that are impossible possible for His children because after all He is the One who does and we are called to follow His lead. Where are you in this issue? I wrestle with it myself but I trust God is working on me. The more we read the Bible, pray, and do God’s work, the stronger the spirit is and the weaker the flesh is. The stronger the spirit is, the easier it is to follow God’s direction; in this case, putting others before you.

Preaching Opportunities



It seems that I'm needed to preach the Bible at other churches this summer. I'm excited to do so because I love to proclaim God's word and I enjoy meeting new people. I'm gearing up to start sermon prep for this Sunday's sermon. Pray that God uses me to encourage the below churches.

July 12: Pine Chapel Baptist Church in Hampton, VA
August 9: Bayview Baptist Church in Norfolk, VA
August 16 and 23: Salem Baptist Church