Going on a God Hunt – Part 13

February 18, 2013 by admin

I’m continuing my blog posts about going on a God Hunt—learning to look for God in your everyday worlds.

Inexperienced “God Hunters” haven’t started keeping records of their sightings. They don’t make use of a God Hunt Diary or notebook. This is not yet serious business with them. Before long, probably soon after this four week sermon series is over, they won’t think all that much about being on a daily God Hunt. And for the most part they will miss out on the excitement that comes from knowing just how good God is to them on a day-by-day basis. That’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it will be. It doesn’t matter if they’re 89, 69, 49, 29 or 9. Without the discipline of writing down each day their:

Obvious answers to prayer, their

Unexpected evidences of God’s care, their

Help to do God’s work in the word, and their

Unusual items of linkage and timing,

the practice will eventually just stop.

On the other hand, those who keep a God Hunt Diary and who regularly write their sightings in it, they’re the ones who will literally become very skilled at seeing the marvelous hand of God on their lives. And how exciting is that!

What I have been telling you today is that inexperienced “God Hunters” should make special note of unexpected evidences of God’s care. Write them down. Compile the evidence. Sure most of you feel new at this business. That will change in time. What I’m telling you is true. You should be able to see real progress in the next couple of weeks. But again for now, inexperienced God Hunters should make special note of unexpected evidences of your Heavenly Father’s care. And of course, don’t forget about the obvious answers to prayer.

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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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Going on a God Hunt – Part 12

February 15, 2013 by admin

I’m continuing my blog posts about going on a God Hunt—learning to look for God in your everyday worlds. In yesterday’s blog post, I concluded by quoting from my wife, Karen Mains, from her book The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. Karen continues:

Most of us, some highly trained in theological truths, have lost the childlike ability to find God in the commonplace; we can only find him as we have crated him to be in the rationalized terrain of our own minds. We experience the incarnation as historical fact, not as ongoing experiential revelation. We no longer “jump in the air, whirl around, dive into the sofa, or bury our heads under the cushion”—a most proper response to evident divine intervention.

Going on a daily God Hunt admittedly forces all of us to be more child-like than what we’re normally accustomed to. But then didn’t Jesus say in Mark 10:15 that “anyone who will not receive the Kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it”?

It was the child-like quality of the God Hunt that prompted me to make sure our children were included in this series of blog posts. That’s why I chose a text for these blog posts from Acts 23, where the hero, humanly speaking, was someone younger. In just a bit, I will begin quoting from a kid’s book entitled I Spy God—a God Hunt Book for Kids. The protagonist in this delightful story is “Loser.” No, that’s not the name his mom and dad gave him. They called him “Luther.” But the name “Loser” came from his little sister’s inability to correctly pronounce “Luther” and also because he seems to constantly lose things.

Let me share a few paragraphs with you.

Loser had two close friends, Joey Schmidt and Jimmy Schwartz. The three boys had formed their own detective agency. They called it SCHMIDT, SCHWARTZ & SCHWEIBERT Detective Agency. Schmidt was the brains of the organization. Schwartz put up the money. Loser was supposed to provide the business.

Strangely enough, Loser never lost things when he was part of the agency. Joey Schmidt said this was because they had a strategy. “You gotta have a strategy if you’re gonna find things.” This was one of Joey’s favorite sayings. The SS&S Detective Agency strategy was as follows: Be on the lookout for clues. Keep a record of your evidence. Think about the facts.

Loser liked to remind his parents that he never lost things when he was part of the SS&S Detective Agency; instead he found things. “Hm-m-m,” said his father one evening at dinner. “I guess there’s just a gap between your private and professional life. Why don’t you use Joey’s strategy to find my calculator?”

The SCHMIDT, SCHWARTZ & SCHWEIBERT Detective Agency had an office in an abandoned old shack near the river that flowed behind the boys’ homes and divided their hometown, Centerville, in half.

The office had one rusting metal cot (without a mattress). A wooden plank laid over two barrels served as a desk, and several orange crates held SCHMIDT, SCHWARTZ & SCHWEIBERT Detective Agency files.

“Files are important,” explained Joey Schmidt. “If you’re gonna be a first-class agency and really find things, you gotta keep records.” This was part of Joey’s strategy.

Well that’s enough of the story for right now, except to say “Look out for that river that divides Centerville!” I couldn’t help it. I’ve been reading ahead.

But I like the fact that these boys kept records. “If you’re gonna be a first class agency and really find things, you gotta” according to Joey Schmidt.

Keeping records is also important if you’re a serious “God Hunter.” In fact, I’d say that’s what separates the experienced and the inexperienced Hunters.

Well, that wraps up the blog posts for this week. But, don’t worry. I have quite a few more blog posts to share with you from this series about looking for God in our everyday worlds. I intend to post the next blog post on Monday. I hope you’ll come back to read it.

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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.

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Going on a God Hunt – Part 11

February 14, 2013 by admin

I’m continuing my blog posts about going on a God Hunt—learning to look for God in your everyday worlds. Today’s blog post focuses on an Unexpected Evidence of God’s Care:

The accident on the expressway happens three cars behind you instead of three cars in front of you. That’s unexpected evidence of God’s care.
You have missionaries stay in your home and, oh no, the upstairs toilet suddenly quits functioning. But, oh, yes, your guest just happens to know all about plumbing and fixes it for you in no time and at no cost. That’s unexpected evidence of God’s care.
You’re opening a new office and have been pressed for time, but you go to church anyway. And you speak to a friend about this new venture and how you’re trying to put an office together. And he tells you about a place that’s downsizing where you can get nice desks and file cabinets and even computers for FREE. The next day you go there and they have practically everything you need and it’s all yours, if you just do the moving. Thank You Jesus—for unexpected evidence of Your care!
“How will I get everything done?” You fret as you start your day. The kids really deserve more of your time, but you just have too much on your plate. Then the phone rings and your sister says, “I’m taking my two to Great America and they want their cousins to join them. Can they come along? I’ll have them back by 8:00 p.m. tonight.” You realize, if you use your time wisely, you can finish off any number of tasks, and you really should, because quite possibly God himself has shown you unexpected evidence of His care.
Do sightings have to be huge things? No! Even one antagonist being put in his or her place still qualifies to make the God Hunt list in my book. At the office your attempt to practice the Scripture found in Proverbs 15:1, which read, “A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.” So you speak kindly to that person who always seems to perfect his or her put-downs at your expense. But someone thinks that enough is enough, and the smart mouth is suddenly transferred to the midnight shift. And just maybe that unnamed somebody was God. Now there’s a thought for you to consider! How wonderful! That’s unexpected evidence of God’s care.

In her book The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found, Karen Mains writes:

Wonder and an ability to believe often go hand in hand. We stand in awe of something that captures our attention; curiosity begins to rise as to why or how this phenomenon comes to be; curiosity leads to research, then we stand humbled by the magnitude of what we are discovering. “Isn’t it wonderful?” we say in the learning. “Isn’t this fascinating? How beautiful!”

Sir Francis Bacon, almost four hundred years ago, wrote that wonder—which he felt was the seed of knowledge—was the reflection of the purest form of pleasure. It is that kind of pleasure we must recapture if we are to take joy in the world as an expression of the personality of God. This kind of delight opens us to learning, to discovery, to the ability to believe in what is spiritually true. We will begin to stand amazed at the incarnation that is still redeeming us in every way, as the little girl does in John Shea’s poem “Sharon’s Christmas Prayer”:

She was five
Sure of the facts,
And recited them
With slow solemnity
Convinced every word
Was revelation.

She said
They were so poor
They had only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
To eat.
And they went a long way from home
Without getting lost. The lady rode
A donkey, the man walked, and the baby
Was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
With an ox and an ass (tee-hee)
But the Three Rich Men found them
Because a star lited the roof.

Shepherds came and you could
Pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was born.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated
To silver dollars.
The baby was God.

And she jumped in the air
Whirled around, dove into the sofa
And buried her head under the cushion
Which is the only proper response
To the Good News of the Incarnation.

More on the God Hunt in tomorrow’s blog post. I hope you’ll return to read it.

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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.

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Boosting Prayer with Technology

February 13, 2013 by admin

If you’re like me, you may feel that constant updates to technology has left you way behind the curve. I see my grandchildren access the internet on their iPhones and iPads and watch in wonder as they smoothly use the gift of technology.

All throughout the history of the church, technology of one kind or another has shaped the culture and poked at the church. Many times, the church has risen to take advantage of technology to increase the effectiveness of proclaiming the truth of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. This time and place should not be an exception.

Pastors must recognize that among the many duties they must attend to, developing mature followers of Jesus requires leadership that will help build a solid foundation of spiritual formation among the members of their congregations. Since prayer is such an important component of that spiritual formation, perhaps technology can help in some way.

Let me suggest that you make provision for your people to send you their prayer requests at any time of the day or night. Here are some strategies that will help you do this:

Publish a special e-mail address in the weekly church bulletin and monthly church newsletter reserved just for prayer requests. If your internet service provider (ISP) permits you to do so, have each e-mail prayer request received at that special address automatically forwarded to yourself, as pastor, and also to key prayer warriors. These prayer warriors must be people who will maintain the confidentiality of the requests, but who can pray fervently and earnestly for the expressed needs.
Have your church webmaster add a special “Prayer Request” button on your website to allow people to send a prayer request directly to the church office from your website. You can use a special website form that the person wishing to send a prayer request can fill out. Or, you can have the button launch the person’s e-mail client with the “Subject” line partially filled in with the words: “Prayer Request.”
When praying in your worship service for the needs of your people, mention the fact that a number of the requests came to your attention through e-mail or through the church website. This will help encourage people to take advantage of this new tool.

These simple steps will likely enhance the prayer ministry of your church. And, it will encourage your people to realize that you care for them and want to pray for their needs.

In the future, whenever a new technology bursts on the scene, ask yourself, “How can this new technology enhance our service to Christ and His Kingdom.”

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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

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