Both are essential

Luke 18:2

New King James Version (NKJV)

² [Jesus was] saying: “There was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.

In this passage Jesus is setting up the parable of the persistent widow by giving us a snap shot of the judge.  You probably remember the story.  This widow comes before a judge asking for justice; the judge refuses to grant it to her; the widow persists; the judge gives in not because of any of his goodness but because of her relentlessness.

Years ago as I read this parable it was this verse that jumped off the page at me.  Jesus is trying to describe a judge that lacks righteousness.  He is painting a picture of the widow's nemeses.  Jesus wants us to understand what this woman was up against.  And so, he attributes two negative characteristics to this unrighteous judge.  Number one, he didn't fear God.  Number two, he didn't regard man.

This quickly became a prayer of mine.  I have often prayed that I would fear God and regard man.  Both of these are essential.  God is the only one that we should fear and when you truly fear Him it will free you up to regard and care for others.  If you fear man you can never truly regard others.  You will only fear what each person thinks.  This will be a snare to you.

Proverbs 29:25

English Standard Version (ESV)

^25(A) The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.

The Timeline of An Outreach

This summer we have some outreach events planned for reaching out to a particular area in West Bend. The area we are targeting is the Arbor Trace Apartments off of Decorah Rd. in between Main St and the high school. I wanted to fill everyone in as to how we came to choose this location and how we came to decide what we will be doing there.

As we came into 2011, we wanted to push forward as a church in 2 particular areas. The first area was "to equip the saints for work of ministry" (Eph 4:12) which is essentially training already committed members of the church to minister more effectively to build up the body of Christ. This goal is obviously focused toward training within the community of the church.

The second area was to reach out to West Bend with the love of Christ that we have received and now are commanded to give to others. The point of this blog post is to explain how we started as the non specific goal of reaching out to the city and came to the specific direction of outreach at Arbor Trace. (A second blog post will follow as to the equipping of saints)

In January, Scott and I and other leaders from Bend City prayed and fasted asking for direction as to how we could practically be "the light of the world" to our home city. Then in February, we asked the church to pray and fast every Wednesday throughout the month asking God this same question. How could we be used by God to reach out to West Bend as a church community?

From this prayer and fasting a number of individuals within the church had ideas as to how we could reach out and where. As we waited, talk through ideas, kicked around possibilities, it became apparent that God was leading us together as a church body to reach out to the area of Arbor Trace. The leading consisted of relationships in the area, a sense of caring for the individuals there, and a growing desire to minister the love of Christ to that specific apartment complex. We believe God answered the where.

From there, 3 separate people from the church came with 3 separate ideas of how we could reach out to Arbor Trace and begin to develop relationships there. From these ideas, more prayer and discussion, a plan has been laid for the months of July and August for the outreach.

The first outreach is taking place Monday, July 18th through Wednesday, July 20th and will consist of a Backyard Bible Club (BYBC) from 9:00am to 11:30am each day. We have rented a 20'x40' tent, hung up a large banner at the apartments, and are going to be handing out flyers 2 times before the 18th. As the day is growing closer, excitement is building as we are looking forward to what God is going to do in the kid's lives there.

Before the tent is taken down, on Saturday, July 23rd we will be having a free pancake breakfast that will include pancakes, sausage, and other good stuff. Our hope and goal is that these two outreaches will help us to develop relationships with new people that we may not meet in our day to day lives.

Finally, we are following up these 2 events by doing a backpack program for the kids at Arbor Trace. Any school age child that would like to get a backpack and back-to-school supplies for the fall school season will be able to sign up at the BYBC or pancake breakfast. On Saturday, August 27th, we will come back to Arbor Trace to deliver the backpacks.

Needless to say, these outreaches are going to take A LOT of work by A LOT of people to happen. We are excited as we feel God has lead us to do this and that by his strength we will get it done. Please pray for God's favor in this work and ask God if and how you could be involved in it. More updates to come-

Shane

Prayer

Starting Wednesday, May 18th, we are asking the men of Bend City to come together for 6 Wednesday mornings in a row to pray at 6am. We will meet at my house (Shane) for prayer for the different things going on in the church community. A few things, among others, we will be praying for:

1 God to use the preaching through the book of Colossians to bring people to know Him

2 Specific wisdom on reaching out to the city this summer

3 That God would use the leadership training starting in June to raise up people to care for His people

4 Individuals that God has placed in our lives

Please come if you are able. God answers prayer and we need Him for everything we do as a church. - Shane

Patience

Proverbs 16:32

Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city.

Brad Hayes in Town

Brad Hayes will be joining us this Sunday. Brad and his family are missionaries to Romania. You can learn about his ministry, Outstretched Hands of Romania, here:

http://www.handsofromania.org

Pursue God and He Will Hear Your Prayers

There are a few preachers I like to listen to regularly, one being Matt Chandler. I was listening to a sermon of his this week and he was discussing prayer and whether we are heard by God. There are various verses in the bible discussing why God may or may not hear prayers of people. I thought Chandler's take on John 9:31 was worth posting:

Matt Chandler from "God Hears and Responds" (January 16, 2011):

I’m not saying that you have to be perfect for God to hear your prayers. Even Jesus, when He’s teaching the disciples to pray, says, “And forgive us our trespasses (or sins) as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Jesus is acknowledging, “You’re going to fall short.” So you don’t have to be perfect;you just have to be pursuing. John 9:31 does a great job at this. “We know that God does not listen to sinners. . .” Is anyone in here a sinner? All of us. So the Bible just gave us really bad news. “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” So we know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God, a pursuer of God, He hears him. So we’re not perfect; we’re just pursuing. And the Bible says, “In that place, God hears.” So I’m not saying you have to be perfect for God to hear your prayers. If that were the case, no one would be heard. But because of the cross and because of the grace of God,we are actually told in the Scriptures to boldly approach the throne of grace with confidence. We are to pray with confidence, pursue with confidence and chase with confidence.

Religion and Politics

I've been told "you just don't talk about religion and politics". Sorry, today I'll talk briefly about both. No, I'm not going to take a stance one way or the other in Walker's budget reform bill, so if you're looking for that, you'll have to go elsewhere. I do have an opinion, as does everyone, but because my main purpose is to help as many as possible grow closer to Christ, we'll pass on that.

The purpose of this post is to speak to an issue that rears its head on every major political debate. The issue is the incredible amount of misleading or incorrect "facts" and "truth" being spouted on the issues. I say there are misleading "facts" because it does not take long to read 2 articles written addressing the same "fact" that differ hugely in the numbers and future numbers. In this case, either we are running a surplus for this fiscal year or a deficit depending on who you are reading. And we are talking to the tune of 100 million dollars either way, no small difference. Whether you believe it is one way or the other, I hope we all can honestly say that there is one actual truth. And on the other side of truth is error. Both cannot be true.

So what happens with many people is if you think health/pension benefits should not be cut, they agree with all figures that show a surplus. And for others that want benefits cut, they agree with all figures that show a deficit. I am, of course, making a generalization here that does not fit all people, but you get the point. Really, how can the truth be so obscure?

This situation can give us some insight into the human nature. How common is it for us to love the truth when it fits our personal agenda. Or to love what we think is the truth when it fits our personal agenda. Sometimes the "truth" can become conveniently ignored on the altar of passion for an issue. Or we just stop caring about the "truth" because the "other guys" are either greedy or lazy or vice versa. The fact is, as obvious as this is going to sound, that the truth is the truth........and the truth is important.

At this point, I have to turn the conversation to biblical truth as this is the main point of the post. How many things do we believe or do that we have never considering from a biblical perspective? How many times have we sacrificed truth for passion? Have you ever found yourself arguing passionately about something that you later realized you had little biblical grounds to argue?

I hope it is our desire to have a greater and greater biblical world view as we grow with Christ. I know that I have been guilty of "going with the flow" at times in my walk with Christ and not searching the Scriptures to know the truth on all things. The apostle Paul ran into this as he preached in Thessalonica in the first century. This is not a new issue.

As a contrast the Thessalonians, there was one church that caught Paul's attention as receiving the word eagerly and searching the Scripture to see if what he was teaching was true. This is found in Acts, chapter 17.

Acts 17:11

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things we so.

We often think of nobility in terms of doing the right things, standing up for the weak, or having high integrity. Paul, here, simply says knowing the Scriptures and testing what we hear against the bible is noble. I aim to be a noble Christian. I hope you do to.

And remember, as you listen to the rhetoric from the "wrong side", love your enemy as yourself.

Later- Shane