(This is long)

I woke up last Sunday with the realization that I had become that which I thought, or tried to never become.   A statistic.  Many who follow my twitter feed saw my remark about that before church.  I had spent many days in chapel service while attending Clear Creek Baptist Bible College where the speaker would share the depression information that a high percentage of men going into the pastorate would burn out, be forced out, or just plain lose interest in the first 2 to 4 years.  After a long hard battle against the powers of “tradition” I had become one of those numbers.  About ready to give up completely.  Not sure which end was up, and frankly, in a nice self induced pity party about it all. more…

Authority. Who, or what is our authority?Believers have but one authority, and that is the Word of God, the Bible.We must understand just how important God’s Word is in our lives.

WHERE DID GOD’S WORD COME FROM?

“All Scripture is God–breathed . . .” 2 Timothy 3:16 (NIV)

“. . . no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, moved by the Holy Spirit, men spoke from God.” (2 Peter 1:21)

WHAT USE IS GOD’S WORD TO ME?

God’s word is profitable for

• Teaching (Doctrine)
• Rebuking (Reproof)
• Correction
• Training in righteousness

(1 Timothy 3:16 & Romans 15:4)

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF GOD’S WORD?

“so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:17 (HCSB)

” For whatever was written before was written for our instruction, so that through our endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we may have hope.” Romans 15:4 (HCSB)

The purpose of God’s Word is to help you become equipped to live a productive life and serve him.

So, it’s 7:30 A.M. Saturday morning and the family is still asleep. All of a sudden out of no where our dogs start going nuts! Someone is pounding on the door to our porch. Pounding because its locked, a little run in with a bike thief one summer night a couple a years ago got us into that habit.

Me What is going on? What are they barking at?

Tanya I don’t know. Oh, someone is at the door.

Being jerked out of a deep sleep is never good for ones nerves. Your mind races with all sorts of scenarios. Who could it be? Is it good, bad, or trouble? She gets to the front door and finds one of our church members pounding on the door.

Suddenly someone showed up to help pull all the weeds from behind the education building. She brought 2 others. Now, ordinarily this would be great news, but at this point of the story I would like to introduce you to what we call in my line of work as a “Well Intentioned Dragon.”

A well intentioned dragon is a person who means well but goes about doing it in all the wrong ways. Instead of being helpful they are usually negative. In this case a remark was made about us being in bed still at 7:30 on a Saturday that still has Tanya reeling over it. The funniest thing about this is that we had a church wide clean up day only a week ago and this WID had not shown up.

So, what is a pastor/minister/insert something here, to do? Nothing. Pray, calm down, try to put a positive spin on it, and remember that people do not always have the tools to communicate properly in our day and age.

We work with people. People need the Lord, and we need to reach them, even when it is hard to do.