Daring to Dream Again: Break Out… – Part 6

February 23, 2012 by admin

Break Out of Our Comfort Zones—Part 6

In chapter 1, I introduced this prayer:

Lord,
Daring to dream again sounds so good,
But sometimes memories of broken dreams haunt me.
Help me let go of the pain
That keeps me from responding to Your gentle nudgings.
Your presence encourages me to set aside fear
And to become a spiritual risk-taker.
I want Your dreams for me to be my dreams as well.
AMEN

Don’t overlook the value of this prayer. When prayed repeatedly, it will keep before you the desire to risk all to see God’s dreams for your life come true.

I’d also suggest once again that you figure out what represents your comfort zone. Get an actual picture of it that you can put in your Bible. The bank account, the new home, the family, the position. For me it’s my calendar, my daily planner. That may not make much sense to you, but with all my deadlines I find that my life is almost slave to a schedule. If the Holy Spirit has a message for me, it’s almost as if my response is, “I can talk Thursday at 2:00, Lord. How’s that?”

So my comfort zone picture is a sheet from my calendar. This is the entrapment from which I have to break free. I put the calendar sheet in my Bible so that the Scriptures can stretch me. Have you noticed they do this if we let them, if our comfort zones don’t crowd out what the Lord wants to say to us through His Word?

———————————————

Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

David Mains and Mainstay Ministries can help. We offer a wide variety of Sermon Starters and Full Sermons that will give you Sermon Ideas to help you prepare for regular Saturday or Sunday sermons, Mid-week Bible Sermons, and Sermons for special occasions.

We also offer assistance as you create Topical Sermons, Sermons Series, and sermons for special times of the year. We have resources available to help you with Advent Celebrations, Advent Sermons, Christmas Sermons, Easter Sunday Sermons, Patriotic Sermons, and more.

For more information on how to create better Bible Sermons and how to turn Sermon Ideas into Sermon Outlines, and then into effective, meaningful Sunday Sermons, please click here to visit David Mains’ website.

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

Share and Enjoy

A Sad Conversation

February 22, 2012 by admin

“Our church is really losing people,” a friend said to me recently. “Three years ago we were nearing 600. Now with one new pastor we’ve dropped to under 300. We’re going from two services back to one, but even then we won’t come close to filling the sanctuary. How we’ll combine the traditional and contemporary approaches, we’re not sure. But whatever happens music-wise, the preaching is still the major problem. Our pastor puts in a lot of time preparing, but his messages just don’t seem to connect with people’s lives.”

“Can your pastor solve his preaching problem on his own, or will he need someone to help him?” I asked.

“I’m not sure he would be open to help,” was the response.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I responded. So I asked it again. “Without help from someone else, do you think your minister on his own can make his sermons more relevant?”

“Probably not,” was his answer.

“Is there anyone in the church who’s qualified to help him work through this and communicate more effectively?”

“Not anyone I can think of.”

“What about one of those on the leadership team—an elder, or deacon, maybe a retired minister, someone in the field of communication?”

“Not really.”

“Then you need to get outside help. Otherwise it’s just a matter of time until you’re under 200 and dropping.”

“But where do we get help like that?”

“You’re talking to him!”

(LONG PAUSE)

“Ask him to breakfast and I’ll meet him.”

“I don’t think our minister would be open to that.”

“Then I can’t help you … but you have a serious problem, don’t you. Because you’re talking about key people going to church elsewhere, young people leaving the faith, your pastor over time being crushed by what’s happening, and many more I’ll not mention.”

(LONG PAUSE)

“The wife and I,” he confessed, “have been thinking about attending somewhere else too.”

“I guess that’s always an option. Don’t like it as much, though!”

———————————————

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

Share and Enjoy

Daring to Dream Again: Break Out… – Part 5

February 21, 2012 by admin

Break Out of Our Comfort Zones—Part 5

You see, the real King might soon be saying, “I have a dream I want you to share in. Does that sound good to you? Do you think that if necessary, you could break out of your comfort zone? Could you put all you have at My disposal?” Twenty million dollars—that’s a lot of money. Well, it wasn’t really $20 million as such, it was 10,000 talents of silver. But 10,000 talents of silver in the citadel of Susa would have been worth about 20 million dollars today. That isn’t what the Lord was asking of Esther. He wanted her to put her very life on the line.

An evil man, Haman, had offered out of his fortune to place 10,000 talents into the royal treasury. The sum was enormous because the request that accompanied it was also. What Haman wanted was the privilege of killing all the Jews in the 127 provinces ruled over by King Xerxes. This monarch took the signet ring from his finger—his symbol—and gave it to Haman with the fateful words, “Do with the people as you please” (Es. 3:11).

It was then that cousin Mordecai made contact with the grown orphan girl he had raised. Esther had become queen of the land without revealing that she was Jewish. Mordecai encouraged her to beg her husband, the king, for mercy for her people. Mordecai wanted her to risk all she had been given-the comforts of the court, the title, the crown. This is the message he sent Esther.

Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place [God will do His “thing” no matter what], but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this? (Es. 4:13-14)

Esther had no problem seeing God’s hand in all that was happening. This is why I’ve been given what I have, she reasoned, my beauty, my marriage, my throne. She replied to Mordecai, “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (Es. 4:16).

So often we learn from Scripture that to be a part of God’s dreams for us we must become spiritual risk-takers. We have to break out of our comfort zones. We need to dare to dream.

———————————————

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

Share and Enjoy

Daring to Dream Again: Break Out… – Part 3

February 17, 2012 by admin

Break Out of Our Comfort Zones—Part 3

I believe everyone dreams that dream. If only there really were a king, a good and righteous king.

Certainly the destitute of the world hold to such a dream. But then, I believe, so do the most beautiful of entertainers, the most influential of leaders, even the most moneyed and educated and acclaimed.

We are the ones who know there really is a King, aren’t we?

Once His dream for this world had first place in our hearts. Now maybe the dream seems a bit fuzzy. It’s not as clear as it was before. Possibly other dreams have crowded it out. We’re not as willing to take the risks we once took to see that dream fulfilled. We’re older now, more guarded.

“Three minutes! Three minutes!”

As a lonely understudy, Thespia had determined to be the finest player in all Enchanted City. Unlike the other actresses, who became arrogant and haughtily cut all ties with their pasts, Thespia perfected her art in the streets. She refused to become enamored with the sterile practice rooms, the posh living suites, and the luxuries of the Palace of Players. She bound up her flaxen hair with common cloth and walked the marketplace, listening to how real people spoke words.

Often she went back to her own people, to Moire Oxan where they lived, to the stacked hovels where she had been raised. There she carried old grannys’ burdens that weighed their bent backs double and she brought tidbits of food for the always-hungry waifs. She wept when orphans were taken away to the Orphan Keeper and she felt the cold whistling through these always night lives, and remembered what it was to never have enough fire or power.

Their pain became her own, and their small and meager joys as well. Because she did not despise them, she was loved: and it was they, the street people sitting on the gallery floor, who called her name.

One night, one terrible night, her cousin’s wee babe wriggled in agony in Thespia’s arms while searchers hunted its mother who was foraging in a city-edge workshift. It squinched up its tiny face, took a last, long breath, and died. Shuddering with sobs, Thespia hid in a tower of the Players’ Palace. How could she act the next night, play the comic, with this terrible knowledge—that babies died who shouldn’t die in Enchanted City. She grieved with new understanding—there was little she, or anyone, could do.

———————————————

Or, if you’re someone who plans well ahead, have you asked yourself what you will preach for your Easter Sermon, your Advent Sermon, your Christmas Sermon?

You will also find a variety of resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries website. Just click here.

Share and Enjoy

«Previous Page