Lead Well

from gettyimages.com A few Sundays ago, we gave the Gospel message along with an opportunity to become a Christian.  We had 9 children raise their hands to signify they were ready to accept Christ.  I am so excited that God moved, and we had so many come to Christ.  Let me caution you, however.  All of these salvations were in second service.  I didn’t have a single one in first.  In fact, I didn’t even offer because I knew they weren’t paying attention.  I justified this misstep by saying that they were all saved anyway.  They already know the story of Jesus crucifixion.  They were bored.  All of these may be true, but may I offer another reason?  I wasn’t ready.  I spent my pre-service time socializing. I didn’t double check my tech.  I didn’t show my sound person what she needed to do.  I didn’t even go over what I was talking about that morning.  The last time I even looked at it was the Thursday before.  As a result, I had to break up the flow of the service to loa

What’s a “gentile”?  That’s the question that I was asked over and over the other day.  I was trying to explain that the Apostle Paul had been called to minister to all gentiles, and I thought I had explained it well enough by saying “if you are not a Jew, then you are a gentile.”  Fairly straightforward, right?  I was wrong.  One girl just kept asking what is a gentile?  I was forced to come up with another ethnic label that she was familiar with to explain what a gentile is.  I hope she got it.   This encounter reminded me of five important lessons I have learned throughout the years. Assume they don't know:   Don’t take for granted that your kids know what you are talking about.  Just because you covered it before doesn't mean they know or even remember you said it.  There are a lot of big words in the Bible, and we just assume that everyone knows what we saying.  In reality we have no idea who may be sitting in the audience or what they know.   Break it down: 

  #Trust30 post for the day. Here goes: If you had one week left to live, would you still be doing what you’re doing now? In what areas of your life are you preparing to live? Take them off your To Do list and add them to a To Stop list. Resolve to only do what makes you come alive. If I only had one week to live I would stop working at Sam's club.  As much as I enjoy working there and helping people, I love working in ministry so much more.  I am only doing it to continue to support my family.  I would also leave for the mission field as I said in yesterday's post and go to Russia.  There is so much adventure out there and I feel as though I am stuck here because of obligations I and others have put on me.  I am preparing to make a change.  It takes wisdom to do the right thing at the right time, and that is precisely what I aim to do.  I want to solve problems in the world and discover all the incredible facets of different cultures and interactions between them.