ministry
Do Not Forget! – Kirk Franklin and Friends
Jan 28th
Let us not forget and keep praying for those who need help.
Redeemed Point
Apr 28th
Redeemed Point started as a concept many years ago. I was one of those people that fell in love with computer’s from the very beginning. As a young boy I would spend hours using our family Tandy TRS 80 III Computer. I would buy BYTE Magazine and slowly input the code in the back to test out programming. I loved to see how things worked and always believed that computers would be the future.
No one can argue the place of computers in our world today, more specifically the use of the Internet as the greatest communication tool available to us. How else can you get a message out to people around the world, all at the same time, for such a minimal cost?
Henry Blackaby’s study, Experiencing God, as well as Rick Warrens Purpose Driven Church/Life, both speak about finding where God is working and joining him there. I love the illustration that Rick uses in the opening chapters of Purpose Driven Church. He says that trying to “start” things yourself is like riding a surfboard out into a flat ocean only to beat the water with your own arms trying to create a wave. When what we should do is paddle out and look for a wave that God has already set in motion, position ourselves into that wave and ride baby ride!
We see the wave that God has created, its called the internet and social media. We need to do what we can as God’s people to join him where he is working. One of the more popular places on the net is Facebook. Facebook provides tools for people to get in touch with others from around the world. It is amazing how many people are turning to sites like this to reconnect with friends from the past that may have moved on to some other location or country.
So some people ask, “Why start a church that uses the Internet as a means to reach out?” Here is why, and mind you these are just statistics from one site:
- More than 200 million active users
- More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
- More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
- The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
We have an opportunity to touch millions of lives on any given day by simply logging into a website and checking up on friends and family. We need to live out our lives online for Christ as we do away from the keyboard. We can not ignore a mission field this large any longer. Matthew 28:18-20.
Redeemed Point will use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Streaming Video and more, along with a local group of believers working behind the scenes to perform its mission. We are excited about joining God where He is working and can’t wait to see the harvest. Email onpoint@redeemedpoint.com if you would like more information or have suggestions or questions.
Who are we seeking?
Feb 11th
Mike and I had the neatest experience on Monday. We attended a live worship service online. It was through Lifechurch, a church that has this awesome ministry on the internet. In addition to watching the streaming service with people from at least 26 different countries, we were in a live chat room. For someone like me who is very visually stimulated, the chat room was almost too much. Having two things happening simultaneously on my screen was a little overwhelming. Since I find myself compelled to read every post entered into the chat, I was getting pretty distracted from the worship and sermon. There was also an option to open a tab of sermon notes in which you can see the sermon notes and add your own comments. You can then email these to yourself to review later. Next time, I think I will try to just have that tab open rather than the live chat. Anyway, it was the most unique “church” experience I have had in a long time. The sermon was great, and the extent of the spread of His Word was breathtaking. I would encourage you to check it out at lifechurch.tv sometime.
While I was having a lot of trouble following all of the sermon, being in the chat room was an eye-opening experience for me. God used it to expose some of my own prejudice. While we were in the chat room, two people entered who were what is often called griefing. They kept making comments like “There is no God” just to get a reaction. Most people were ignoring them, but the room administrators were gently counseling them. My first gut reaction to these two individuals was to wonder why the admins did not just ban them from the room. After all, they were disturbing my ability to listen to the message. After a few minutes, one of them left on his own, but the other stayed in the room. He was quiet for a little while. Near the end of the sermon, he began to make comments again. The admins once again responded kindly, trying to point out to him the existence of God. He began to ask questions like, “Where was God in 9/11?, Where was God during Katrina?, etc.” Then Mike chimed in, reminding us all that those things were a result of sin in the world, not a lack of God’s presence. While the “griefer” (for lack of a better word at this point) was still very caustic in his statements, he was beginning to be more open to the answers being given him by the others in the room. It was becoming clear to me that in his own way, he was seeking God, just unaware how to find Him.
Now for the part about my own prejudice. At first, this guy was really bugging me. I was getting irritated by his comments and the admin’s apparent lack of getting rid of him. After all, he was disturbing my worship experience. Then God gently reminded me that he came to seek and to save those who were lost. As I thought about what had happened, I realized that, like many in our churches today, I am not always as accepting of the unsaved as I should be. We want our churches to be filled with God-filled, righteous, Christians. Yes, we need those in our churches. But our job is not to sit around parsing the Scripture with others just like us. We need this to keep growing in our own faith, but our job is to take the message of God’s love to those who have never heard. Jesus’ ministry was not to the “church people”. His ministry was to the sick, the dying, the untouchables. He spent his time with thieves, prostitutes, the unwanted and untouched. When those around him had accepted his message, he did not tell them to stay with him to learn more. He sent them out to the surrounding countryside to preach the gospel. I was very convicted of my own want to just be around those like me. I don’t always want “those people” in my life. They make me uncomfortable. But isn’t it our job to go to them to share the love of God with them? If the admins had kicked the griefer out of the room, his perception that Christians are haughty and rude would have been solidified. Instead, he felt the love of God through the actions of those he was criticizing.
Perhaps this is the problem in many of our churches today. We have a prejudice towards those who don’t know God. We say that we want our churches to grow, but do we want to invite the untouchables in, those who so desperately need to hear about salvation? Perhaps, we need to remember that the Great Physician came for the sick, not the healthy. We need to remember where we once were, dying in our own sin. I think this is harder for those like me who were raised in church. Jesus came to seek out and to save those who are lost. Maybe we (I) need to so some seeking out of the lost ourselves.
So What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?
Feb 9th
Yesterday we said farewell to some of our best friends in real life. Bob and Michelle Veach, and boys, are leaving Cooper Ave Baptist Church after 9 and a half years of serving as Associate Pastor of Students, or whatever Bob’s title ended up during the time there. It was a wonderful time filled with stories that made us laugh and cry. I was standing near our families usual seat in the sanctuary when Dr. Tom Stringfellow, our associations Director of Missions came up to me and asked a simple question.
“So what do you want to be when you grow up Mike?”
At face value one could get a little insulted at such a question. Especially when you are forty years old. I mean, shouldn’t you know what you want to do and be doing it? But Tom was not asking in order to insult, he was asking to find out what he could do, as an equip-er, to help. He knows, exspeicaly with the emotional air around Bob leaving and heading out into the unknown, that the wounds from my leaving First Baptist where fresh. And honestly for the past few months I have been floundering back and forth wrestling with God on what it is he desires of me and my family.
I have come to the point that I know that the only thing I can do, the only thing that I am truly good, or gifted at, is serving God. So I told Tom just that. I want to do what he can use me in. Now . . most would say, what a cop out. Not sure eh? Some might expect someone to say, “I want to be the senior pastor of (fill in the name of a huge successful church here).” But honestly I have always wanted what he wants. I have no aspiration to be top dog, I just want to serve. Mind you I am aware of the gifts he has given me, in leadership, teaching, connecting with people. But Tom pushed the subject, and it led to a little bit of discussion between us, as much as standing in the middle of a rapidly filling auditorium could allow.
To be honest with myself and with you, part of my hard time answering the question is that God has shown me some wonderful things in how to truly connect with people. The frustrating part is that when I begin to talk to someone around me in the real world about how cool it was to hang out with 9 other people online, working together to take down a enemy together in order to pass out some loot that it drops that most likely goes to someone in our group that needs it. . well.. imagine a deer in the headlights look. Facebook, Twitter, Email, Computer games, Coffee at Starbucks, texting back and forth on your cell phone, just a few examples of how people are connecting, and where people are today. So part of the reluctance might be not wanting to be looked at like some loon.
Not limiting the possibilities is another reason to possibly not directly answer such a question. If I say, yes, I want to be a Worship Pastor, then what if he wants to show me a senior pastor position, or even a custodial job that allows me to shine in his kingdom? I have always been a sort of jack of all trades master of few, or even none. I love to learn, I love to teach others about what I learn, I love technology, innovation, relevance. I don’t want to pin him down and lose out on something.
So my answer was, “Whatever he wants of me.”
Then as the service went on, Tom brought the message, my mind was going over what I was going to say about Bob since I had been asked to join the group of people getting up to speak about him and say something nice. My mind raced as I saught our families life verse when it hit me.
Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you” —[this is] the LORD’s declaration—”plans for [your] welfare, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. ” (HCSB)
God has gifted me with some unique talents. He has given me a desire and hunger to reach people that, for the most part are not sought. He has shown me that it is possible. I turned to Tanya and said, “Hun, I think I just need to put down that He has called me to be a tech pastor.” Instead of the look of frustration with me for having my head in the clouds she said, “then that’s what you put on your resume.”
So, what do I want to be when I grow up? I still want to be someone that God can use for what he wants. What that entails is working with technology, computers, media, sound, video, facebook, twitter, computer games, phones, computer software, whatever it takes to reach people and be a friend.
For those who have a mindset that the church is to look like, or feel like it was in the 50’s, well, thank you for all you have taught me, thank you for all you have done for us, and thank you for how radical you where then. But please, remember that society is changing and the best way to reach people is to be where they are.
So, Brother Tom, what do I want to be when I grow up? A Tech Pastor.
Tough Love
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