I heard a rumor...

I hear there is talk of a revival service at the Ford Center in Evansville.  Count me in.

An Audacious Idea

Here's an idea: churches working together! And I even have a plan!


I attend a church Lighthouse Christian Fellowship in Somerville, Indiana. We are partnering with Crossroads Baptist Church this summer to host a back-to-school backpack giveaway.



My question: why stop there?



Here's the concept: Gibson County is divided into 3 school districts: East, South, and North. The county is even divided more into 10 townships. Within each one of those townships, one church would align with a church from each of the other townships. This would create a co-op of 10 churches within Gibson County working together to transform Gibson County! The 10 churches would meet on a semi-regular basis to coordinate and chart community events and joint worship services for the county. Sounds too easy, doesn't it? Well, this is what God has shown me.



Once the co-op is firmly underway, we would begin looking at neighboring counties to do the same thing. Adjacent to Gibson County are Edwards, White, and Wabash counties in Illinois. In Indiana, Knox, Pike, Warrick, Posey, and Vanderburgh are our neighbors.



Like I said...audacious.



Here we go.

Somerville outreach begins this Saturday, 8/27! We will be at Lighthouse Christian Fellowship at 9:30 am local time for prayer and strategy, then out the doors at 10 am! Cannot wait! Living Word Fellowship will also be ministering with us! Praise God!

Christian Unity: It Will Happen

It has been some time ago when God first spoke to me about Christian unity. I had a vision about 8 years ago of a large number of people worshiping God together. In my dream, this large gathering was in a large stadium and the youth band from the church we were then attending was on stage.

When I awoke from the dream, I became very excited just knowing the Holy Spirit had spoken to me in a dream. I dug into my Bible and found the words of Jesus leaping off the pages at me and into my heart from John 17, “That all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You sent Me. I have given them the glory You gave Me, that they may be one as We are one: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.”

The Lord says that our being one shows the world that God sent Jesus and that He loves us. It is proof of the love of God for the world!

Years have passed and opportunities have come and gone but I know that one day, the Body of Christ will unite and we will take the Gospel to the four corners of this world as never before! Then a great harvest will come about and “a multitude that could not be counted” will turn to God!

It will happen.

Wednesday Night College-Age Ministry Not Traditional Class

One of the goals of the College-Age Ministry class is to educate ourselves on certain topics. There are many topics that directly affect the Church. We will focus on a few with the understanding we will try to affect change locally on that topic.
These topics have been mislabeled as “political issues” by the mainstream media. The reason the media has done this is so that the issues become a matter of opinion (I think I’m right) rather than morals (God says it’s right.)
When the debate becomes political, how you believe in one area is grouped into other topics that you may or may not agree with (conservative vs. liberal.) For instance, a hot topic issue that directly involves the Church is abortion. The Word of God confirms that life begins at conception because we know God created each one of us. The media has labeled the Church’s stance on abortion “pro-life.” The opposing side is called “pro-choice.” The politically conservative position on abortion is the pro-life position. Hence, because the Church’s position and the conservative position on abortion are the same, the liberal media has tried to group the Church and conservative politics together on everything!
The situation becomes more difficult concerning the separation of Church and State, one of the topics we will discuss. Many in the United States believe the Church is not allowed to be involved in “political” debates. Sadly, a good number of those are in Church! I, however, believe the opposite, that we are to be involved in every aspect of the world around us, to influence it by the Word of God. (The World will not change if the Church stays locked in the building on Sunday!)
I do not want to discuss politics. I want to talk about getting involved in our communities, the world around us, and let God’s voice be heard.
The topics we will address…

1. The LGBT culture and its impact on the Church
2. How the modern interpretation of the separation of Church and State is a lie from Satan
3. Why Satan wants marriages destroyed.
4. Why the Bible, Prayer, and the Ten Commandments are banned
5. The media as the enemy’s weapon.
6. How abortion was changed from murder to a woman’s right to “choose.”
7. Why the world needs the Church to be the Church of God

I am ready to get started on this. The first email lesson will be sent next week (Tuesday night) and a new one will be every week after that. The Wednesday night class will be for discussing “Attitudes of Great Leaders” and praying for one another.

God bless you all!

In Christ,
Brian

At Board of Education, church-state fight grows12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, May 15, 2010
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
tstutz@dallasnews.com

AUSTIN – A leading social conservative on the State Board of Education will push for further doubt to be cast on separation of church and state when the board goes back to work on proposed curriculum standards for social studies next week.

Board member Don McLeroy, R-College Station, has distributed several changes he will propose before board members take a final vote on the standards. The curriculum will dictate what is taught in classrooms and must be included in textbooks for U.S. history, government and other social studies courses in Texas schools.

The GOP-dominated board shot down an earlier attempt by Democrats to have high school students study the reasons the Founding Fathers barred the government from promoting any religion.

McLeroy now wants to include a requirement that eighth-grade history students study the issue from a different perspective.

Under his proposal, students would "contrast the Founders' intent relative to the wording of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause, with the popular term 'Separation of church and state.' "

The language reflects the opposition of social and religious conservatives to the legal doctrine of separation of church and state, which has been upheld multiple times by the U.S. Supreme Court, including one far-reaching decision that outlawed school-sponsored prayer.

McLeroy and other board members contend that separation of church and state was established in the law only by activist judges and not by the Constitution or Bill of Rights.

The Texas Freedom Network, which has battled with social conservative groups, accused McLeroy of "trying to rewrite history and promote political agendas in our kids' classrooms."

Another change sought by the Republican would require students to discuss alternatives to "long-term entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare" because of the decreasing ratio of workers to retirees.

"This is relevant to assessing the policies of the various ideologies that have shaped where we are as Americans," said McLeroy, who has joined with other members of his board bloc to put a more conservative slant on the social studies standards.

For example, high school students will have to learn specifically about leading conservative groups from the 1980s and 1990s in U.S. history, but not about identified liberal or minority rights groups.

The Eventual Miracle by Brian Splittorff

I am seeing a trend in the Church in the United States today: we are moving rapidly towards cooperation between the denominations. Many writings lately have addressed the issue (one of which was written by a Baptist!) The first writing was a devotional by Pastor Andre Butler for Streamingfaith.com. He writes “…the faith (meaning the Christian faith in Jesus) is defined by unity. Christianity is supposed to bring about unity. (The Church is) a family that is supposed to be unified.”

Read this: “It is not the will of God that there be so many denominations in the body of Christ that you can't remember all the names. It is not the will of God that this denomination fights against that denomination. It is not the will of God that people within the local church fight one another. No, God's plan is that the body be one. And since that is true, it is important that we do what is necessary to keep ourselves unified, to operate as one.” Why are there so many denominations? Can it be that the Church is outside the will of God? If it is God’s will we be of one accord and we are not, what other answer can there be?

In science, there is a term, symbiotic relationship, that simply means what happens to one organism affects another organism because the two are connected. This is how the Body of Christ operates. We are all one body, whether we like it or not. If one of us succeeds, we all prosper. Likewise, if one of us fails, we all feel it.

There is another scientific term, synergy, that means that two energies combined can produce exponentially more together than they could separately. The Bible speaks of it like this, “And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword (Leviticus 26:8).” We are better together.

Pastor Butler ends his devotion by writing real unity is “something people can see. When this is the case, it will cause them (the world) to not only believe in God, but in His Son, Jesus Christ. Our unity is a sign to the world.”

Alan Riley wrote the devotional, “Blest be the Tie,” also for streamingfaith.com. Of the entire devotional, his closing remark screams for attention: “So church – and I mean ALL of the church, not just us Baptists – let’s stand up, hold hands across the aisle, and sing together: ‘Blest be the tie that binds out hearts in Christian love…’” How my heart burns for that to be a reality!