The college from which I graduated well over 50 years ago has a new president. Though I have never met this man, people speak highly of him.

Recently I received a letter from his office, which included this short paragraph:

“Since taking the helm at Wheaton, I have been doing a lot of listening—to students, to faculty, staff and alumni. I believe it is time to extend this listening exercise to alumni in a more intentional and creative way.”

Essentially the letter states that a present Wheaton student will be contacting us to ask for a 45-minute face-to-face interview and he/she will not be asking for financial support. Sure enough, the next week I got an e-mail requesting just such a time.

I find this approach attractive and recommend it for churches as well. It doesn’t matter if you are a new minister or one who’s been around for over a decade. Pastors tend to lose contact with where many of their parishioners are. Giving them an opportunity to express their thoughts, even through a third party, helps them feel like their opinions still have value. And don’t forget to include that line about not asking for money!

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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.

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Introduction – Part 1

Changing times are often the backdrop for good stories.

For example, Tevye, the poor Jewish dairyman in Fiddler on the Roof, is caught between the tradition of his people and the will of his more modern daughters. Times are changing. These five young women no longer want marriages arranged by the matchmaker in their small Russian village. In one scene, Tevye is told by his daughter Chava that she has fallen in love with a young Russian man who is not Jewish. Tevye anguishes over the thought of her marrying outside the faith. “If I try to bend that far,” he says, “I will break!”

Even his town is changing. In Anatevka—“Anatevka, dear little village, little town of mine”—the Russian officials make it known that Jews are no longer welcome there. Changing times—how do people survive them?

Les Miserables is fast becoming the most popular musical of all time. Based on Victor Hugo’s novel, its backdrop is France in the early 1800s, where political leaders have become insensitive to the needs of the masses. Anticipating an insurrection, idealistic French university students sing:

There’s a river on the run
Like the flowing of the tide
Paris coming to our side!
The time is near!

But they’re wrong. The citizens of the city don’t rise up. And most of the students die fighting at the barricades they have erected.

This play, like Fiddler on the Roof, is marked by a number of prayers. The hero of Les Miserables is involved in a most tender scene just before the battle in the streets. Jean Valjean, by this time well into his middle years, asks God to please spare the young student Marins. That’s because Cosette, the girl Valjean has raised, is in love with Marins.

God on high,
Hear my prayer [sings Valjean].
In my need
You have always been there.
He is young. He’s afraid
Let him rest, Heaven blessed.
Bring him home … let me die [Valjean prays]
Let him live.

Like Tevye in Fiddler, Jean Valjean and young Marins in Les Miserables want to be survivors.

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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.

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READINGS – Part 5

When Michael Korda wrote Power! How to Get It, How to Use It, his book quickly became a bestseller. Writing in a provocative, no-nonsense style, the author argued that life is a game of power: getting it, controlling it, and using it to obtain security, fame, sex, and money. After quoting Lord Acton’s famous statement that “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Korda argued that it is worse to not push for power. We live in a world that is run by power, he wrote, and we need to grab it, hang on to it, enjoy it, and use it to get what we want.

Everybody knows about power struggles between husbands and wives, parents and children, rival street gangs, political foes, and opposing factions in universities, corporations, professional organizations, religious denominations, or churches. Most of these struggles involve self-centered actions, hard-feelings, anger, and the manipulation of other people. The players in the power games feel anxiety and insecurity, even when they win the largest share of the power.

It is not easy to be a difference maker in a world, a community, or a family where people are struggling for power. Sometimes, we have to work with individuals (often incompetent and unreasonable individuals) who are jealous of their power and threatened when they learn about our difference maker plans and passions. At times we must work within the power conscious system of local government. We may have to get approval for our buildings and plans from committees, church boards, or people in positions of power. Sometimes it seems difficult to maintain integrity when we have to live and work in a power-crazed culture.

According to futurist Alvin Toffler, we are entering a period of history when “the entire structure of power that held the world together is now disintegrating.” There is a major power shift taking place, says Toffler. “It stretches from the highest levels of government to the daily interactions we have with our neighbors, family members, and colleagues at work. As this century ends, it seems that everybody will experience sometimes radical changes in who holds power, how it is used, and how it is controlled.”

Despite these changes, however, we are not helpless pawns in the hands of others who hold power or struggle to get it. For centuries, committed and determined difference makers have been able to make significant changes, despite the power of others who get in the way. When God is leading us to make a difference, we can move forward with confidence, especially when we remember two important truths: power can be destructive, but ultimate power belongs to God.
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You Can Make a Difference, Gary R. Collins, Zondervan,,pages 236-37.

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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.

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READINGS – Part 4

“Ron, the news isn’t good. You have leukemia … a slow-moving form of cancer.”

He needn’t have explained. A pastor friend of mine in Minneapolis had just died of the disease. I knew about leukemia; I just couldn’t believe that I had it. It was like someone had grabbed my life’s book out of my hands, flipped through the pages, then handed it back to me. And I found myself staring at The Last Chapter—long before I’d ever wanted or expected to. If this was a surprise ending, I didn’t want to read it.

Receiving that kind of news is like a punch in the stomach. It knocks the wind out of you. So many things flash through your mind. Where do I turn? Who do I tell? What should I say? What shouldn’t I say? So many questions. So much confusion. People gather around you to support you in prayer and speak words of faith and hope. Some come with the right remedy at the wrong time. Still others are just plain wrong.

I’ve heard of every cure under the sun. I have a file full of them. Everything from jumping into a pool with dolphins to bizarre diets to coffee enemas. Some well-meaning people seem to have the clear word from the Lord for me:

“It’s just a test of your faith. A pathway to growth.”

“Your problem is a lack of faith.”

“There is sin in your life.”

“You shouldn’t be a Pastor.”

“You’re out of the will of God.”

“How can you minister to someone who’s sick when you need
healing yourself?”

During that first barrage of formulas, cures, counsel, and remedies, I remember a very quiet moment when my wife Joyce and I sat together on the couch in our home. I remember her arms around me.

I said, “How are you doing and what do you think?” She said, “The servant of the Lord is indestructible until God is through with him.”

Her words were a strength to me—a comfort when so many things seemed so wrong. We turned to the Lord and His Word, finding particular encouragement and help in the psalms and the Gospels. We were reminded that peace and rest don’t come from understanding everything, but from trusting the Lord with all our hearts even when we don’t understand anything.

In this the biggest Bad Thing of my life, I was beginning to see some Good Things. The Lord’s Mercurochrome was still burning in my wound like fire, but it was working.
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Surprise Endings, Ron Mehl, Multnomah, pages 15-17.

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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