A Journey Along the Yellow Brick Road

On Sunday I will finish my current series "Evangelism is not a Dirty Word-Making the Gospel Good News Again." I have been dealing with Servant Evangelism. This final installment will be "A Journey Along the Yellow Brick Road." (Taken from Steve Sjogren's book -Changing The World Through Kindness and changed from spiritual warfare to servant evangelism.)

Each of the characters in the Wizard of Oz show us something that each of us go through in our journey toward learning to serve others. It is really going to be fun preaching this sermon. I even have a copy of the music of the yellow brick road to play at the beginning of the sermon.

New ways of doing things to get the people to remember and understand. Beginning to think outside of the box.

Funny

Look at the hard times again

So many times as we go through hard times we forget the big picture. I have been reminded of this today.

In April of this year my church had to move out of its rented location after 7 years. This was really hard. We began to meet in a local Catholic Church but after a few months were asked to leave because the Spirit of God was moving and people were responsing with acts of worship. You know being free in their expressions. So, we moved back into a hotel meeting room.

About 4-5 weeks ago an employee of the hotel asked us to pray for her because she had cancer. We prayed that God would heal her and today she came and found me to tell me the physicians have said the cancer is gone with no treatment.

If we as a church and I as a pastor had not gone through the hard times we would not have been at this hotel for church services. It just reminds me to think about the hard stuff in a new light.

Top 10 ways to know you are in a really bad church

10. The Church bus has gun racks
9. Staff consists of "Senior Pastor, associate Pastor, and Socio-Pastor"
8. The Bible they use is the "Dr. Seuss Version"
7. ATM in the lobby
6. Services are B.Y.O.S.-"Bring Your Own Snake"
5. Choir wearing leather robes
4. No cover charge, but communion is a 2 drink minimum
3. Karaoke worship time
2. Ushers ask "Smoking or Non-Smoking?"
1. The only song the church organist knows is "Innagaddadavita"

New Book: Never Eat Alone

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi is a great read. Keith writes about how to build a lifelong community of colleagues, contacts, friends, and mentors. This is a must read for anyone who truly wants to make difference in people's lives.

I Want My Name Back Part 3

2. We misrepresent the Name of Jesus when we move away from sinners.

The average 'Christian' after one year of being a Christian has no friends outside of the Christian environment. What a sad commentary. How do we reach people with the love of Christ if this is how we act? If we look at Jesus, he was a friend of sinners. It seems that he was more comfortable around sinners than around the "religious" people.

Today we have 'Christian' health clubs, stores, clothing, bowling alleys, and the list goes on and on. In fact, we could go our whole life without being around non-Christians if we really wanted to.

The problem with this is this is not who Jesus is or what he is like. If we are to be like Jesus we must get out among those who do not know him and be with them. It is not a time to judge them, but to share their life and get to know them. Instead of trying to get them to say 'the Prayer', why not ask them how their day was? Why not be their friend? If we would begin to do this and treat people with respect I believe that they would come to faith much quicker.

Lay down your Amway salesman evangelism and begin to be real with people. Get out among those that Jesus misses most. Let us truly become Christ-followers.

I Want My Name Back Part 2

Last week I began to share about God wanting to reclaim His name. I was sick part of last week so I am behind in postings. So, let's get started.

1. We misrepresent the name of Jesus when we use Jesus' name apart from His nature and character.

Let me explain. Several years ago a young man was murdered by other young men because he was gay. During the trial, a pastor and his church members were at the courthouse with huge signs saying "God hates fags." As I saw this my blood boiled. God does not hate anyone. That is not His nature or character. But that is all that everyone saw on the evening news.

As you examine Exodus 34 we find God revealing Himself to Moses. In so doing, God reveals Himself first as loving, merciful, full of grace and then as a God of justice. So many times we as "Christians" get it backwards. We want to give out justice first and save the love, grace, and mercy for ourselves. St. Paul says that it is the goodness and mercy of God that leads us to repentance.

So, before we open our mouths and say this is what God is like we better check out His nature and character before we say anything. Let us truly become "Christ followers."

Book: a.k.a. "LOST"

Do you hate the "E" word-evangelism? Then this is a book for you. We have made evangelism so hard but it is really simple. It's doable. You just have to learn to be yourself and forget all the pre-programmed ways of doing things and let God do it. This book will help you in your quest to share the real Jesus.

I Want My Name Back Part 1

Sometime ago I was driving down one of the beautiful streets in downtown St. Augustine. As I was driving, I looked to my right and saw a bumper sticker that said, "Jesus save me from your followers." As I looked at this sticker, a wave of emotions flooded over me. I though to myself how can someone put something like that on their car. I got really upset with the gall of this person. As I drove on there was another wave of emotions that flooded over me and questions began to arise in my mind. What has happened to this person that they would put a bumper sticker like that on their car? How did some "Christian" hurt them? Then I began to remember the times that other "Christians" treated me as I me as if I was not a Christian and did not even know that God existed.

I became very sad as I drove to the Post Office, because many times we so-called Christians misrepresent the name of Jesus. Several years ago a friend, Tom Pelton, preached a sermon and said that Christians have so misrepresented the name of Jesus and not acted like Jesus that he believed that Jesus was crying out to reclaim His name. He wants it back!

Have you ever misrepresented Jesus? Have you ever been on the receiving end of someone misrepresenting Jesus? If we were truly honest with ourselves we can all say that at some point in time we have misrepresented the name of Jesus.

Over the neve few days I will explore how we misrepresent His name.

What Would Happen?

What would happen in St. Augustine if we really took the Gospel seriously? What would happen if we truly became outward focused and not inward focused?

As a pastor, so much of our work is inward focused on how to pastor the people that God has given to us. But if we raised up people to take the Gospel outside of our four walls, what a change that would make. If we began to see that Jesus said the "field is the world" and not the church we would begin to reach out. It's time to reach out beyond the walls of our church and get into the marketplace.

Jesus was always around sinners. We who are pastors so often are never around sinners or where they are. We sit inside our offices and wait for them to come to us. Let us get out of our offices and get among the people.

New Book

I have just begun to read "The Day I Died" by Steve Sjogren. Steve was the Lead Pastor at the Vineyard Church in Cincinnati. He when in to have his gall bladder removed and the doctors cut his aorta and he died on the table. By the grace of God he was brought back from death and began a long recovery process. Because of the accident his lifestyle had to change. He states that he was a hare but now he is a turtle. Super book. Quick read but will bring conviction to those of us who are achievers.