If we continue to operate church like a business we may be in trouble.  I am not sure where the idea came from or when it started but for whatever reason all across america churches are being ran like businesses.  The major problem with this is we are creating consumers out of those people who attend our churches instead of followers of Jesus and I really do not think this is the road we want to head down.  Think about what you do as a consumer.  You shop for what you want and if you are not satisfied you go elsewhere.  Somewhere along the line we have developed this philosophy in our churches that we are a business and we must please our consumers.  Will we really ever please the consumers.  I mean wont they eventually leave for something better, something bigger, something different.  We have no one to blame but ourselves.  The church must wake up and follow God’s word and be a church.  Be a place where people can experience freedom, healing, instruction, truth etc.  The church I dont believe ever was to be a place where we entertained those that wish to consume our entertainment to eventually become gluttonous on it.  If we do not wake up and change from running church as a business I fear for the next generation.

I love to fish.  In fact if it were possible I used to spend to much time fishing, I would tell me wife that God made the world 3/4 water so we should spend 3/4 of our time fishing.  It really does not matter what kind of fishing it is either.  I like to bass fish, fish for catfish, trout, bluegill, you name it I love to go.  For me there is nothing better then hooking into a big fish.  Even when I was little I loved to go out and fish and try to catch the “big one”.  There were times when I would go and stay out all night simply fishing.  Well Jesus knew how to fish as well, Luke 5:4-11

And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” 5And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” 6And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. 7They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.  And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. 8But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” 9For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, 10and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” 11And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

This scripture has always intrigued me.  I mean Jesus tells the disciples to fish out in the deep in the middle of the day.  He is telling them to fish where everyone would say not to and during a time when everyone would say is bad time.  The disciples knew that you fished at night near the shore.  But Jesus knows where the fish are at.  So the disciples obey and they catch so many fish that their nets are going to break and they end up filling 2 boats and the boats almost sink.  Wow that is a good day of fishing.  I cant help to believe that these verses have some application to the church.

I believe it is time for the church to wake up.  For whatever reason we think the fish are just going to come and jump into our nets and we are going to have this great catch.  Fish are never just going to come and jump into our nets it is time for the church to “launch into the deep and let down there nets”  we have to stop thinking the fish will show up and start obeying where Jesus may be telling us to fish.  Jesus knows where the fish are but are we willing to listen.  We must not be content to sit back and to wait for them to come but to GO and find them.When I go fishing if I am in one spot for awhile and I do not get a bite I move to another spot looking for fish.  I am not saying the church has to pack up and move but I am saying that we have stop thinking the people will come to us and start realising we must go to the people.

We have become so good at building aquariums that we think our aquarium is good enough to make fish come and be happy just sitting in our aquarium.  I dont know about you but I have never seen an aquarium gill itself.  I mean we have grown so accustom to worrying about how our service looks, or how our church looks, or how are music sond, or what Bible we use, or whether we have a Starbucks in our church and honestly it is meaningless.  Sure it may attract a few fish here and there but ultimately our aquariums seem to be for the fish e already have. Dont get me wrong I like good music, I love Starbucks coffee but I am already in the church.  Fish are not just going to swim right into our aquarium but we must go and get them.  When will we learn that the great commission requires us to go and not to stay.  We must go somewhere and find the fish and then go fishing.

We are all to be fisher of men will you go fishing?

It has been a long time since I have posted.  The primary reason for this has been related to my lack of funds.  You see my hosting renewal came up and I did not have the money to renew my hosting.  I pulled the trigger a few hours ago and purchased my hosting.

Not much new here in northwest Missouri.  The job hunt still continues. I have updated my resume I can’t tell you how many times but I know the best way for your resume to be noticed is for someone else to deliver it.  However I still keep plugging away.  Some people have asked if I want to be a youth pastor or a senior pastor and right now I am kind of in the either one camp.  I have 15 years of experience as a youth pastor and that is something I enjoy doing.  So in the right circumstance I would take a youth pastor postion.  However most of the churches I have submitted to have been senior pastor postions.  All of this to say the search continues.  It has been 2 years since I have ministered in a full time capacity and trust me I am ready.  But it is God’s timing so i will continue to wait upon the Lord.

It has been along time since I have posted primarily because I have been so busy.  I know that is hard to believe that I have been busy without a job but I sure I have been.  Rather than update about Mike Erre’s book (I will do that later) I thought I would just give some things that have been going on in my life.

I’ll start with the crusade we recently had.  I meet with one of our Pastors pretty regularly and I really enjoy the time I get to spend with him.  Leading up to the crusade he asked me if I would like to help with train the counselors I of course jumped at the opportunity because this is the very thing I love to do.  So I spent a few nights getting things ready and going over the training and then we trained the counselors for two evenings, to be ready for the response we were expecting during the crusade.  The Impact Macon Crusade was February 22-25 and I was there every night.  We saw God move in a remarkable way during that week we saw over 100 decisions for Christ and over 90 0n one night.  I must say I was not ready for over 90 people to respond to the gospel that night but it was wonderful.  Hey they were all counseled to.

Secondly I was asked if I could teach a book of the Bible to the youth what book would it be.  I replied I would go through the book of James and the response was “why don’t you teach it” of course I jumped at that any time I get a chance to teach some teens I am going to do it.  So on Sunday nights I am taking our Student Overflow through James.  I pray and hope they are enjoying it.  I have already taught through James so I already have the messages done, but if you know me you know I spend a great deal of time with message prep even if I have already done it before and making sure I am saying what the Lord wants me to say.

Thirdly the first week in March I started taking over the Wednesday evening teaching to the Youth.  This has been going great once again I love teaching the teens.  On Wednesdays I typically play a game with them and then we go over prayer requests and then I teach.  I desire to see both these ministries grow tremendously and I have seen God definitely working on the hearts of some of the teens that come.

Fourthly I received a call from the principal here at Atlanta school and was asked if I could come in and teach Science while the current teacher is away on maternity leave.  I accepted the position.  Which if you are a teacher you know the work that gos into lessons and so forth.  So for the next few weeks I am now a Science teacher.  I must say that teaching in the public school is a lot different then teaching in Christian School, or teaching at church, however the kids seem to like me as a teacher and some even thanked me for teaching.

Finally all of this has been happening while still sending out resumes (required for state aid) and while going through an interview process with a church that is interested me.  So yeah I have been busy but hey I like being busy.  Please pray I will be directed to the church God wants me at and that I will know it and so will the church.

It has been along time since I have posted primarily