The Journey Goal

We have been announcing our goal for The Journey, our capital stewardship campaign. Our goal is to raise $300,000. Now, let me tell you a secret. We set that goal several months ago. Two things have happened since we set the goal. First, our campaign consultant returned to us the research on our giving records from last year. That research helps our consultant determine what the average church in our situation could raise. He says that it is possible for a church like ours to raise $350,000 in three years. Second, our attendance and giving has increased dramatically in the last three months. So, here is what you will be seeing in the next week or so. 1. Our Campaign Goal - Our bottom line goal that we must reach is $300,000. 2. Our Challenge Goal - If we really take up the challenge of giving sacrificially and by faith we can reach $350,000. 3. Our Miracle Goal - If we take up the challenge and God moves mightily, we can blow all the averages away and reach $400,000 in our campaign. If God moves mightily, we will be able to move faster in the relocation process and do it with less debt! Stephanie and I have been praying for months that God would move us with little or no debt. And you know me, I pay down debt! I have proven it with my life. I am trusting that God will allow us to do the same with his house.

10,000

This last week, Pastor With Coffee hit a mile marker. Since I started keeping track, we have now had 10,000 visitors to Pastor With Coffee. That does not count visitors in the first several months of the blog before we started counting. Nor does it count all the people who view the blog entries through Facebook notes. Thank you Lord, for the opportunity to serve people.

A Great Text

Today a man sent me this text. I have permission to post it. It is in reference to The Journey, our capital campaign. "God is Good. My wife and I decided to raise our 3 year giving goal yesterday (for the campaign) because we felt we could do our goal no problem. So, we bumped up our goal in faith to see God work. Well, this morning I got another raise at work and wasn't due for one until October. That makes three in one year, which is unbelievable." I can't promise that every person who makes a sacrificial committment to The Journey will get a raise at work. We don't give to get. But, if you are giving simply to please God, from a heart of generosity, I believe that you will see God work in your situation too. I don't know which creative way he will work, but you will find out how faithful he is. Just this morning Stephanie and I had the exact same conversation, we too decided to raise our goal beyond our ability. It was a real joy to get this text within about ten minutes of the conversation with Stephanie. It was confirmation to us about our own conversation.

NRG Kid Church

Pastor John Jahnke regularly gives out take-home papers in NRG Kids Church. This week the kids received a very helpful two sided sheet on making good use of our time, and understanding that time is a gift from God. You are a steward of your time.

If you did not get one of these handouts to go over with your kids this week, please ask Pastor John for another one. Please use the resources that Pastor John distributes to help you disciple your children through the week. The handout this week is very valuable and could dramatically change your home life.

Weekend Rewind

Sunday was our first week in our Capital Campaign series, "The Journey." We started by looking at the history of the Assemblies of God in Washington, Missouri. Along the way we discovered stories of great sacrifice and work that brings us to the place of writing the next chapter in our history.

Two ladies responded at the end of service to receive Jesus as their savior.

In Small Groups we are studying "Take God At His Word." In our group the conversation was really honest and at the same time very encouraging. Honestly, there are times when it is hard to tithe and give obediently in the offering because our faith is tested with difficulties. But, we have so many testimonies of God's faithfulness to provide.

This Sunday you will hear some testimonies that will richly bless you and reaffirm to us that God is faithful to his promise to provide. Not only does he provide, I believe that he will bless us to thrive. The purpose of thriving is not selfish indulgence, but to have further opportunity to give, bless and help others.

The Journey

This Sunday is the first in a four week, final push, for our capital campaign. It all leads up to April 17th, Celebration Sunday.

We will be starting several new things this Sunday.
1. Friends Praying With Friends - We are going to encourage each person to pray for and contact two people each week for the next four weeks just so that we are all praying for each other.
2. Take God At His Word - We are starting a Small Group Bible study in all our small groups that describes four words from God to you about stewardship.
3. Jungle Jam and NRG Kids Church - Our kids are going to be studying stewardship and generosity in Sunday services. They are also going to be raising funds for Celebration Sunday's First Fruits Offering. They will have a special presentation in the Celebration Service.
4. The Stand Youth - The Stand is starting a series of lessons based on the book Overflow. Every teen in our church should have a copy of this little book! A youth group of 700 raised 75,000 for missions in three months. It is full of great testimonies from youth. The youth will also be raising funds for Celebration Sunday and will also have a presentation in the Celebration service.

Don't miss the next four weeks of church. I know that it is packed at church. We are setting out more chairs! We will make room for you. Every person is important to God and to me. Don't miss out on any of these amazing things that going to happen through our church this month. God is really moving!

Prayer Request

Keep Stephanie in your prayers. She is going to have a spot of Melanoma removed Friday morning.

Her second appointment to deal with the other spot is scheduled for May 5th. Let's pray that God does the healing before these appointments.

The Harvest

There are 69,000 people living in a ten mile radius of our church in Washington. If half of them are saved, then we have 34,500 people to reach for Jesus. If we win one person to Jesus every day, (the Lord added to the church daily) it would take 94.5 years to reach those 34,500 people.

I could write a lot more for you to read in the next few minutes, but I would rather have you pray about our mission.

The Journey

This Sunday we will start the four week stewardship education emphasis. We are going to be studying the handy little book that we distributed Sunday, "Take God At His Word." If you don't have a copy for your home, please see Pastor John so that you get one. We have enough for every household in our church! It is FREE!

We are also doing several other things.
1. Our kids and youth will be studying stewardship and giving this month too. In kids ministries and The Stand Youth, they will be collecting offerings for the First Fruits offering that will be on Celebration Sunday. This is going to be exciting!
2. Our prayer team will be presenting two ways to be involved in prayer in the next four weeks. Keep your eyes peeled for the "Friends Praying For Friends" opportunities. We need to emphasize taking time to pray for one another. Also, on April 3rd, we will start our fourteen days of prayer, which will end with a huge prayer gathering on Saturday, April 16th.
3. Our Communication team will be sending out the invitations to Celebration Sunday later this week. In those invitations you will find an RSVP for Celebration Sunday. We need a response so that we can plan for food. If you have only attended our church for one week, we still want you to be at Celebration Sunday! Absolutely everyone is welcome and urged to attend. Your life may be forever impacted and changed by attending Celebration Sunday!

Please remember, on Celebration Sunday we will receive a First Fruits offering to kick start The Journey. Then we will be collecting our faith commitments that the Lord will help us to give in the next three years of The Journey.

Weekend Rewind

What a packed weekend!

Friday and Saturday were filled with time with friends this weekend. It was a real joy to fellowship. It was also great because we had two conversations that really ministered to us in the situations that we are facing medically with Stephanie and Gabe.

Sunday morning I took Gabe aside during worship and we prayed together about the oral surgery that is coming up. We are praying that the Lord would work so that he does not need the surgery. I am hoping that the Lord will do a miracle for him that will forever teach him about the reality of God's healing love for us.

Sunday was also special because four young men came forward to be saved in the second service! As the four of us gathered to pray, I may have been the smallest guy in the group! God is also working the lives of several other people! A man who recommitted his life to Christ in my office Tuesday, made a public confession of his faith Wednesday, and witnessed to a fellow worker who is heavily involved in the occult on Thursday. The co-worker responded in tears! I don't have the rest of the story yet, but will find out later today.

Lastly, we had four hours of meetings with the different Capital Stewardship Campaign teams on Sunday afternoon. For lunch I visited my friend Mike's mom who is suffering severely with breathing problems. Please pray for her healing with us, her name is Stella. By the time I got home Sunday at 5:45, I was a bit tired. I woke up this morning about 3:45 with all these things swimming in my head. I was praying for God's help, but also thanking him and enjoying his blessings.

The Journey

We are preparing for our Celebration Sunday, April 17th. To be prepared I am going to try something that I have never done before. (I usually speak on giving or generosity one time per year, not even every year to be honest. I think I missed a couple.)

On Sunday mornings I am preaching about financial matters and what the Bible says about money. This is not just about giving! This is about coveting, working, lending and borrowing, and most of all, our attitude toward God and all the types of blessings that he provides for us. God's blessings are far more than just money. I believe that God wants to give you the desires of your heart, when you delight yourself in him.

On Wednesday nights I feel compelled to provide something to the core people of our church. I will be sharing a video series called, "The Blessed Life." I have watched this series more than one time. Brother David Snodderly says that every person in our church must see this. He actually bought this series and mailed it to me! When Stephanie and I listened to these messages we were deeply challenged! If you are already a tither and a giver, then this set of messages is made for you. If you are a committed believer, this is for you. This is not for the seeker or the half hearted. But if you want to really move deeper in your trust of God, don't miss out on this.

In our Small Groups we will begin a study called, "Take God At His Word." It also is about generosity and stewardship.

This is a lot, but there are two extremely great purposes that I have in this course of action.

1. I want people in the church I pastor to be BLESSED! And I know that people who mis-manage God's blessings, refuse to tithe, and are afraid to give will not be blessed. I want you to have the blessings of healing, peace, accomplishment, and more of God's presence. Can God honestly grant his blessings to ones who will not trust him regarding material blessings?
2. I want Christians who have served the Lord for years to be challenged in their hearts to trust God for everything, like Stephanie and I have been challenged to trust God for everything! Have these challenges been easy? NO WAY! However, as we work through the challenges of doing his will and working our hearts out for him every day all day, we are FILLED WITH JOY!

Slammed

Last week Stephanie and I got slammed with seven different difficulties. Two health issues, one large financial issue, a couple bits of damage at church due to the 89 mph wind storm. The good news is that God provides! He is our peace. He has set us on a rock, our feet will not slip.

Satan is simply trying to take our eye off the goal. God's Spirit is moving and his plans for us are being accomplished. God is working in the lives of people in our church and in our Small Groups. God is using people in our church to propel the Kingdom forward, and I am so proud of them!

Bible Reading

I am keeping my eye on my goal. I want to read the Bible through as many times as I am years alive. I am still behind. I can and will catch up. Have to make up for my first 16 years of no regular Bible reading. My first time through the Bible was as a Sr. in high school.

Why do I want to do this?

1. Reading the Word is a faith builder. The more I read, the more I believe. Even if I have already read it once in the last year.

2. Reading the Bible straight through is good for comprehension and understanding the context. In my last read through I came to realize that the highest moment, the apex of the book of Exodus is not the Red Sea crossing, but the glory of the the Lord at the tabernacle. Context, Context, Context!

3. I take, and write, notes in my Bible. I have one "Scribble Bible" that I have five sets of notes in. Each time I went through that Bible, I used a different color pen. I am now filling up "Scribble Bible" number two. some day I will start number three. These will one day be wedding gifts to my children.

Take twenty minutes a day and read the Word. Four chapters a day and you finish in one year.

A Pastor

The job of the pastor is the most important job in the world. I am not saying that it is most fun, highly paid, easiest or hardest of all jobs on earth. I am saying that it is the most important today. I am not saying that the Church has fully grasped a Biblical understanding of Apostle or Prophet in our day. I am not negating the cultural mandate. If we did practically work out those details, the situation of pastors could be different. For today, and in our current situation, the pastor is the most important job on earth.

Consider these reasons:

1. The entire Church on earth is essentially tens of thousands, even millions of congregations. Each one is led by a pastor. If the pastor fails, that corner of the kingdom of God fails. In this regard, the pastor holds the whole thing together.

2. Even when you look at higher ecclesiastical positions in churches, often the local churches make those positions of leadership possible. No healthy local church, then no healthy position of overseer, presbyter, bishop, cardinal, or even Pope. Why have positions of oversight when there is no one to oversee? Who pays the overseer? The local churches do.

3. In my estimation, all Christian ministries on the earth find their source of income and their base of ministry in the masses of people who are a part of a local church. Christian radio, missionaries, evangelists, traveling singers, Christian authors, Christian television and book stores all derive their existence on the foundation of the Church which is made of congregations led by pastors.

4. The direction of our culture, nation and world depends on the direction that pastors take their local congregation. For instance, when hundreds of pastor decide that abortion is good, then the entire culture is affected. Elections are affected and communities are changed. In our strange media situation today, one wacko pastor can affect the world. One pastor preaching that sin is now acceptable by God gets the microphone on the local news station even if a thousand pastors in the same viewing area disagree, and a 50-50 view point is presented.

5. The health of individual people depends on pastors. Pastors refer to counselors, drug intervention programs, assistance programs of all kinds. Pastors who will stick around, will be the ones who pick up the pieces of a family when these other fee-based programs and options of help do not work out. The pastor is still connected because it is a relationship based connection, not a fee for service connection. When the Dr. fails, the pastor has to deal with the mourners. When the undertaker is paid and done, the pastor walks with the grieving through their first year alone.

6. Pastors lead people to Jesus Christ. The greatest soul winning tool in history is the local church. It is great that world famous evangelists have lead thousands and millions to Christ. However, if any of those stayed in relationship with Christ it is because they were connected to and discipled by a local church led and equipped to do so by a pastor.

I know that we live in a world where many people hate "organized religion." We live in a world where the systems of delivery are changing at an amazing rate. Relationships can be developed in ways globally like never before.

But here is the truth of these thoughts. If you hate organized religion, but say you are religious, you are dishonest, you don't hate organization because you have organized a religion for yourself, you are just very alone. We do live in a world of changing delivery systems, but the most honest delivery is to get to know a person face to face, and be mentored by their life. Though relationships develop globally on the Internet, there is no substitute for face to face interaction. Social networking is deceptive. It is the new way of "keeping up with the Jones'."

We need all kinds of specialized ministries. And, most of all, we still need pastors for churches.