Fluid Small Groups

I can not tell you how important our Small Groups are at First A/G. I know that for some it seems like a schedule that is too busy, but I have three goals for every person that calls First their home church.

One, that they attend one of the Sunday services. That they worship get involved in the service through worshiping, and responding to the Spirit of God as he speaks to them through the songs, prayer, and the message for the day.

Two, that every person attend Wednesday night. It is great for your kids and teens. If you have a teenager and never let them go to youth you are making them miss out on one of the greatest growth opportunities for their lives. If you have children, they will be blessed learning the Word of God in our kids ministries on Wednesday. Finally, there is so much to learn about God, that one message on Sunday each week will never satisfy all that you want to, or need to know about God. Get in on Wednesday night.

Finally, every person needs a Small Group. In the Sunday service and to some degree the Wednesday night lessons, we meet in a large group. Christians need an opportunity every week to meet in a small, informal group that will pray, worship, and study God's word. Small Groups are intended to meet more personal needs among a group of friends.

Small Groups are fluid and changing groups. The needs of people often change and the group that you attend may need to change with the changes in your life. That is absolutely fine. We want our Small Groups to always be growing and changing to meet the needs of our people. In the last few months many people have developed a far too rigid view of the Small Group. If our groups are growing, or they are changing, then the group will not remain static, but will be fluid. Let's follow the voice of the Holy Spirit and get involved. When we do, God will do great things for us!

Weekend Rewind

This weekend was great. The men who went to Men's Retreat had a great time. We were really refreshed spiritually. However, I was really worn out physically. We had a great time praying after the messages at retreat this year. We also won the volley ball tournament. I learned how to throw a tomahawk and a knife.

Sunday I started a series of messages on talents. Fred Wyatt spun some pottery on the wheel while I spoke about being clay that is molded in the Lord's hands. It was amazing to see people responding to the message. Many people had tears in their eyes through the sermon, just thinking about how much God loves them and how much potential they have for doing good things in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Kaler Carpenter caught the message on video and I will check with him about making a DVD for anyone who might want one.

Amazing Day

Today was an amazing day.

My family woke up early for some reason. Steph took the boys to school and I took Elizabeth apple picking at a friend's house. We picked a wheelbarrow (I just learned something new) full of apples before 8:45 a.m. Then Elizabeth and I made it back into town for staff meeting at 10:00 a.m. Since I will be gone to Men's Retreat Friday through Saturday I thought a little extra Elizabeth time was necessary. Lib went to staff meeting with me and all went well.

Today we are finishing the newsletter and it will go out on Wednesday. Also today Louie and Buddy worked on the new trailer that was donated to us. We made an auto parts store run and then I made an OfficeMax run to get ready to duplicate CDs for the Powerful Parenting series. I hope to have sets of the message prepared for Sunday morning!

Tonight Steph and John are in town and we are going to have home made pizza at our house for dinner together. Yesterday Sarah took three bottles of milk on her own! We are thanking God for his help. Keep praying for her so that she will get to come home with her mom and dad.

Weekend Rewind

We had a great missions weekend! Here are some highlights.
1. The Small Group meetings were excellent! If you missed these you really missed out. The people in these groups learned more about missions than you could learn in four missions sermons.
2. I was extremely pleased with the services on Sunday. There was a great attitude of worship.
3. I was extremely pleased with the media presentations that went with each missionary presentation on Sunday. HUGE THANKS to RICH LANGENBERG! You are a genius.
4. We had a great missions offering over $780.00.

I am pleased with the offering. We add to it and then divide it between the three missionaries who are with us. However, I don't want my pleasure with the offering to limit us or our dreams in the future. Next year I hope to have over $1,000.00 in each of our Missions Weekend offerings.

Finally, our Leadership Council met last week and reviewed the summer missions giving and it is increasing! So this morning I picked up three new missionaries. Their information will be available for the missions board in a few weeks. We now support 31 missionaries. We also have increased our giving to our missionaries by moving our minimum support amount from $50 up to $55 per month. I thank God that in a bad economic year our missions giving is going UP!!

Friday at School

Friday morning went great. I worked as hard as I could for about four hours and did not complete everything I was given, and really wanted to finish for the teachers. The folks at my kids school are very nice. I am glad to see my boys learning quickly these days.

One of the most interesting things was the reaction of the children to my voice. They have a month of school under their belts, but I assume that I may have been the first adult male in the classroom this year. I was pretty quiet at first, and then a boy said hi to me, I said, "hello." Then the whole room came to a halt! Everyone was staring at me. Later a child spoke to me again and I responded, as soon as I spoke all the conversation in the room immediately stopped. Then I started talking to several of the kids, they realized that I was friendly, and things went on as usual. I have no frame of reference for these things, but I wonder if ladies who are new to the class have the same experience simply because they are a new adult introduced into the situation, or if it was the unusual presence of a male voice in the room.

I can't wait to help out this week.

Volunteer at School

Friday I will volunteer at my boy's school for three hours in the morning. I am really excited, and have no idea what to expect. Pray for me. I will help one of the boy's teachers, and then another teacher who has some of the Ben and Gabe's friends from church in her class. The teachers are really nice at Washington West. I will post a report later.

Talents

I am working on a short sermon series about using your talents. We will kick it off on September 27th with a great illustrated sermon. You will not want to miss this! Let's leave the rest as a surprise.

Men's Retreat

I am looking forward to men's retreat. If you are not registered please do so ASAP it will be a blast and a great experience with God. Here are some pics from last year.

Missions Weekend

This Sunday is our second missions weekend. We will be hosting Barry and Tracy Brown (missionaries to Africa), Phil and Kim Rojak (missionaries to Papua New Guinea), and Jamie and Tasha Kemp (missionaries to teens in Indonesia).

Don't miss out on the opportunity to attend the Small Group sessions with Barry and Tracy Brown on Friday night at 6:30 p.m and Sunday at 4:00 p.m. Everyone is welcome at either of these Small Group times, as usual, no Small Group is a closed group! Visitors are always welcome.

On Sunday we will take up a missions offering. We need to do our very best in this offering, so please come prepared to give. The offering will be divided and given to all three missionaries.

Your Offspring

This last Sunday we finished the powerful parenting series. Here is a little closing note.

Isaiah 44:3 says, "...I will pour out my spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants." I claim that promise for my three kids, Gabe, Ben and Elizabeth.

Isaiah 44 goes on to say three things:
1. "One will say, "I belong to the Lord" -- Gabriel means, "man of God"
2. "...another will call himself by the name of Jacob" -- Benjamin was the son of Jacob and means "my strength," or "son of my right hand."
3. "another will write on his hand, 'The Lord's'" -- Elizabeth means "God is my oath," or "my faithful covenant maker."

I thought that it was neat that in Isaiah 44 there were three examples of descendants who claim the Lord and I have three kids that I am giving to God.

Find Scriptures that you can stand on for your kids, and trust God to fulfill his promises to your family.

The Wall

Today Deloris let me know that one of the friends she put on the wall was saved Sunday. It has a really great story that goes with it. Don't forget to pray for your friends!

There Goes the Neighborhood Part 2

Last week I posted a note titled, "There Goes the Neighborhood."

If you have read this weeks paper, then you know that the church was broken into on Friday night. Fortunately nothing was taken. It appears that the suspect(s) only wanted cash and we never keep cash in the building.

Again, this is a bit of a wake up call. First, we have a great congregation that has all the love, commitment and zeal to grow and build the kingdom. Second, to a degree, our building and location is a liability rather than an asset. One of the assets is being close to the high school, but that will change in the future when the High School moves. Thankfully, the building is completely debt free, as is the rest of our church. Third, we are obviously here to have an effect on the central part of Washington.

Let's pray with enthusiasm and optimistic faith that God will use our church and our lives right were we live. You have to bloom where you are planted and here we are. FYI the disturbance last week was a group of men brawling in the street down from the church, in broad daylight!

Weekend Rewind

Worship was great today. I love it when the volume level is up from the worship team, but the congregation still out-sings us with their passion!

I spoke about raising teens. I am young enough that I have no experience in the field, except my years as a youth pastor and what I have observed. I hope that something I said would be helpful to someone.

Following church we had the baby shower and lunch for Sarah Nicole Jahnke. It was a lot of fun. Special thanks to the young ladies who initiated, planned, and worked this shower: LeAnn, Stephanie S., Melody, Kelly, and Ginger. Also, thanks to all who brought food for the lunch. The food was great and there was plenty.

Powerful Parenting

Here is the introduction to the message for Sunday about parenting teens titled, "Raise the Roof."

"Psalm 90:12 says, "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." I want everyone to get out their mental calanders. Lick the tip of your pen or pencil and jot down a few notes that need to be on that mental calander.

First, all the men need to note that around age 44 or 45 and up through age 54 they may find themselves dealing with what is known as mid-life crisis.

Second, all the ladies need to note that around 44 to 54 years of age most ladies experience menopause.

Third, research shows that between 44 and 54 most married couples experience the leaast amount of amrital bliss, but that bliss will strengthen again toward retirement.

Fourth, between the ages of 44 and 54 you will likely have multiple teenagers in the home and be working to transition them into adulthood.

If you are not yet scared enough to prepare for these days that are coming on your life calander, then you need to listen carefully to the rest of this message!"

Non-Labor Labor Day

Took it easy on Labor day.

After the nursing home service on Sunday our family drove out (2 hours) to my parents farm. We grilled out on Sunday and then stayed up late playing Wii with Kaler.

Monday we did some target practice to get ready for hunting season (black powder and archery). We also did some tractor driving and exploring. Ben went metal detecting with Kaler and found a bucket of "treasure" which is now on my deck.

Monday night we drove home and I went over to a Kaler's for a Risk game. I will get a pic of his risk table on the blog some time soon.