Learning From Each Other

I wrote last week about Central’s Winter Teaching Series starting up.  You can read about it here.  But I wanted to note briefly here how much I am enjoying each session!

Each session is designed where I teach some on the night’s topic, stopping throughout the session for people to ask questions and make comments.  I basically serve as a guide through our time together.

The most vital part of the sessions lies in this truth: the Holy Spirit reveals Himself to all believers and each one has valuable insights and questions to bring up for the benefit of the entire group.

This past week’s study was on the topic of forgiveness. It’s a hard topic in light of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:14-15.  But what I loved about our time together was the participation of so many people who brought up things I hadn’t thought of (and probably others had not thought of) and asked questions that more than just they would benefit from.  It’s such a blessing to learn from each other.

One of the misconceptions about pastors is that we know it all when it comes to the Bible and God and theology.  That’s simply not true, and it’s the reason I sometimes don’t like playing the game Bible Trivia (everybody expects you to get every question right)!  But with people from all kinds of backgrounds gather together with the common bond of the Holy Spirit working in their lives, it’s exciting to see how He could be revealing Scripture to them.

Each believer has something valuable to add to the discussion, and I hope those who come on Tuesday nights know that and participate.

Dr. Kwok & Dwayne Lee at Central this Sunday

It will be a blessing to have Dr. Kwok (executive director, SCBO) preaching and Rev. Dwayne Lee (Bible teaching/leadership team, SCBO) leading our worship musically this Sunday at Central!

Our 11:00 worship service will allow our people to catch a glimpse of how our state convention is working and how we play a part in that by cooperating with the SCBO.  Dr. Kwok will briefly talk about this before he preaches.  Dwayne will be using a new resource to lead us in worshiping with music, which should make this Sunday a time to enjoy worshiping God, realizing that there are so many ways to worship God!

These two men are servants for the Lord and His churches, and I appreciate their leadership in our state.  If you’re in Marion this Sunday, don’t miss the opportunity to worship at 11:00 at Central.

No Monday Morning Rewind

I won’t be posting my typical Monday Morning Rewind because I didn’t preach yesterday.  Bob Clark preached at Central yesterday and you can listen to it at our church’s sermons page.

Next week is the start of the 2010 focus at Central, which is full of great Sunday worship events and hopefully the catalyst for great opportunities for our church to share the love of Christ with our community.  I’ll be preaching next Sunday, and you can read more about the 2010 focus: Live Intentionally by clicking here.

Sorry for the delay!

I must apologize because I haven’t been able to post much lately (and was very late on my Monday Morning Rewind this week) this week.  Here are my excuses:

• My Macbook is being fixed, therefore I don’t have it.  This causes great trouble when trying to do online work!  I took it in Monday to Best Buy (where I got it) after having a weekend of horrible times trying to use it.  There’s something wrong either with the battery and/or power adapter.  I’m glad there won’t be any cost to get it fixed, but not so happy that it takes them 2-4 weeks to figure it out and fix it!

Operation Christmas Child report

Our church participated in Operation Christmas Child this year, as did many churches across our country.  The impact we can have on children across the world is phenomenal with this effort led by Samaritan’s Purse.

In worship yesterday, we had a “commissioning” time for our boxes, where we had people bring their boxes to the front and then prayed over them, asking God to bless these children who receive them and to bring salvation into many homes as a result.  After worship, the boxes were put into my truck and I took them to the drop-off site, which was at the Womens Home on East Center Street, 2 houses west of mine.

As I took the boxes in, I learned something I didn’t know in all the years I’ve done Operation Christmas Child- a salvation message tract of some sort is put into every box in the language of the area it is going to!  Before they are finally shipped from Samaritan Purse’s headquarters, they put an age appropriate tract in each box so that the child is sure to read about Jesus as the giver of all gifts, not just someone somewhere in the world sending them Christmas gifts.  I thought this was great!

So Central- in all, we packed 33 boxes plus had $60 given to Samaritan’s Purse as a donation for helping send the boxes to these children!! Good job!  It’s great to think outside of ourselves to bless and be a witness to others.  Let’s keep it up!