Preaching Class

I am going to be in a preaching class all this week with Dr. Gary Denbow and Ron Woods. Here are some of the books I have read for this class: (I would love to get a sermon writing team together at LCC. Let me know if you are interested and reading any of these books)

     

In a Pit with a Lion

Here is the book Craig Groeschel mentioned in yesterday's sermon. This is a great book about facing fears and living the life of bold faith.

Prayer for the Nation

Got to pray at an event in our community on the 4th. I had several people ask me for the prayer. Here is what I prayed:

Dear God, we come before you tonight as Americans. Those you have blessed to live in this great nation of freedom, opportunity, and hope. We are thankful to call this land of the free and home of the brave our home. We are thankful that you can still be found in this land where all men and women are created equal. We look back through more than 200 years of history on this continent, and we see your hand of blessing in each era. We see your power behind this nation’s history as we see your blessings in our land, industry, and life in this great nation.

200 years ago, the Great Experiment began. Could man, with your help, govern himself? Would man seek common good instead of personal gain? Would man seek to honor You who are above all of us or seek his own honor? It was an experiment nearly opposite of Job’s experience. It was an experiment designed to answer the question, “What would this nation do if You blessed them?” We have answered that question in recent years as we have chosen to remove your name from our schools, government halls, and from our very lifestyle. We have chosen individual gain over common good, selfishness over sharing, debt and instant fixes over the coming generation, sight-walking instead of faith-walking, and personal gain over the common good of America the Beautiful, the land and people with which You have blessed us.

Worst than this, we have removed your name from our very souls. We look to self or to celebrity as if they held the answer while ignoring Your presence. We have been blessed more than any nation in history, but we have chosen to consume this blessing on ourselves. We have chosen the slippery slope of moral decay, and we have chosen whatever way seemed right to us over Your ways. We were blessed with a fruitful land and have chosen to reap from it crime, debt, divorce, filth, entitlements, and corporate greed. We have worked at nothing and lost everything that matters. We have attempted to gain it all and have lost our souls.

We stand before You tonight in repentance for the sins of our nation. We stand for those who are ignorant of Your ways, and for those who have willfully chosen their own way over Your way. We, however, ask You to start restoring our nation right here and right now. Put Your Name at the center of our lives first. Put Your name in the center of educating our children, in the center of our local governance, and in the center of our daily lives. Restoration begins in the house of God—Let restoration begin in this house tonight.

Restoration never begins without repentance. We must turn from our ways to see our land once again blessed. We repent tonight both for our own sins against you and for the sins of all this great nation. We ask for a restoration of this nation that begins here tonight and extends to this entire nation. We ask you to overflow this great land with blessing that once again proclaims Your Name to the nations. May revival start here that revives the dry and thirsty lands of our world. May Your Name flow like water from this place to the nations. May Your Name be lifted up as all men and women are drawn to You. May the poor child standing on the border hear you r name again and be blessed. May the gang leader in LA drop his gun and find blessing in You again. May the homosexual in our land find true blessing in your name.  May the drug runner in Miami find Your Name better than their chosen trade. May the leaders in the White House and the halls of Congress find in Your Name the wisdom to lead this nation toward blessing before it is too late. From the greatest to the least of those called American—may we see in Your name the blessing of our shared future.

The American Experiment needs grace—unmerited favor, the power to change our future. We are a pivotal generation. May the mantle of this experiment called America fall fresh on us tonight. We can read the warnings in Your Word. We see the alternative. Fall fresh on us tonight so we may instead of cursing find Your blessing again. We are Americans, but we are Christians first.

May we rely on You instead of foreign money, oil, power and promises. May we rely on You instead of our own wisdom. May we cry out for personal revival tonight that leads this nation to corporate revival. We are in this together. Bless we Your people again.

In the name of Jesus Christ, the only hope of this or any nation—Amen.

Motivation from the Founding Fathers

Found a great series of motivational posters featuring America's founding fathers. Check them out here.

There was a lot of wisdom that went into this nation!

Spiritual Gifts

I'm spending the week with Dr. David Lim from Grace Assembly of God in Singapore. Dr. Lim is a great leader and thinker in the world of spiritual gifting. His way of looking at spiritual gifts make all of them seem like something every Christian should be using daily. Makes me wonder what the church would look like is we de-mystified spiritual gifts and they became part of every day life.

In America we are too caught up in thinking and valuing cognitive reasoning to simply accept what God wants to do through us. Our pride and individualism prevents us from seeing that gifts are used to build up the entire church. I can't wait to teach some of this material and see God working in lives at LCC.

Here are a couple of Dr. Lim's books if anyone is interested in taking ministry to the next level at LCC:

Mac Worship

Most Mac people nearly worship the Mac brand. Here is a better idea... use your iPhone to worship. This is a surprisingly good performance considering it is all done with iPhones. Makes you wonder where electronic interaction will take worship. We used to carry tambourines to church. We might be using our phones soon.

Rural PAC Networks

My passion has become transforming rural America through healthy churches. LCC has managed to reach nearly 10% of our zip code, and it has made a huge difference in Bealeton. My prayers lately have been about how this could be done across America.

I watched a session with Steve Pike today at http://agtv.ag.org/ministry-direct that discussed Parent Affiliated Churches (PAC) in the Assemblies of God. Wondering what it would look like if rural pastors could focus on their communities and pool resources for administration, ministries, and teaching. PAC could be used to create a movement in rural regions where smaller churches work together to bring big church quality to rural churches.

I am really excited about the possibilities of this. Anyone interested in trying it?