Stay Focused:
As I have said many times I contribute to the 66books in a year blog. This is my post for today. A great lesson from Jesus in staying focused. Staying on mission.
Scripture:
Mark 1:35-39
35And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. 36And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, 37and they found him and said to him, ”Everyone is looking for you.” 38And he said to them, ”Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” 39 And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons. (English Standard Version)
Observation:
Everyone needs to make decisions, even Jesus. He made strategic decisions based on his mission. The disciples came looking for Jesus because there were still people in that town that needed healing and salvation. Yet Jesus went on to other towns and villages healing, preaching and casting out demons. And he verbalized that it was for that reason that he came. Part of his confidence in moving on most likely came from his time spent with the Father.
Application:
What has God called me to do? What has He called you to do? Many times we are side-tracked by very good things. Jesus could have gone back into the town he had been in the day before and continued ministry, but His strategy meant He had to move on. Many times we get caught up in doing good things, but not what God has called us to do. Some churches want to be all things to all people not realizing by diluting themselves they end up not being effective at all. That can happen to us as well. That’s why these times we spend with God are so important. They help us focus on what God has called us to do and with confidence we can go out serving Him more effectively. So, where do you need to serve today? Be about what He has called you to do.
Prayer:
Thank You for Your guidance in our lives. Thank You for calling us to a specific task. Help each of us to fulfill that task for Your glory. We pray these things in Jesus Name, Amen.
dmbaldwin
Sunday Evening Reflections:
A lot going on this past weekend. Our dear friend Lisa Meharry from Indianapolis has visited us. Go Colts!
Reflections:
- Friday evening our Community Group watched Amazing Grace, the film about William Wilberforce and the end of the British slave trade. It is a great reminder of what one person can do to change the course of history. Worth the watch if you haven’t done so.
- Keep getting images from Haiti. Wish LifePoint could send a team. I understand NGO’s are not ready yet for that. There has been the image of one child that’s burned into my mind that I’ve prayed for. I’ve included his picture here. I wish we could track him down and make sure he’s okay. Yet there are thousands like him. He represents these thousands in my mind. I call him Pierre. When I pray I have his face on my mind.
Pierre
- Great conclusion to a three-week sermon series at LifePoint on the sanctity of life and issues of prejudice, the poor and our response to it. Joe preached a great sermon on the sanctity of life this weekend. What a great way to close the series.
- I enjoy sitting in our Video Cafe. It was really full this Sunday. A lot of people attending LifePoint and the Holy Spirit’s presence is palpable in our worship. It is a great place to be on the weekends.
- Still people who are hurting and need God’s hope. Spoke to several during some of the services.
Well I hope you had a great weekend. Let’s keep praying for Pierre. What are doing for the people of Haiti. Let’s see what good God is going to bring out of this tragedy.
Blessings,
Dave
Our Missionary God:
Our church is beginning a course next Monday evening that will help people develop a world view and learn what God is doing among the nations. This is the post I published on our Vantage Point blog. If you are in the Baltimore area I would encourage you to attend this informative course. It’s our second time through it.
This Monday evening — January 25th — we begin our second session of Vantage Point. The unique seminar helps the participant get a world view of God’s plan for the nations. I will be kicking off the first session with an introduction of the course. I begin with the concept that our God is a missionary God. By being a part of reaching people for Jesus we are doing what is closest to the heart of God. Whey is God a missionary?
- Throughout the Bible we see His heart for the people of the world.
- God has a missionary Son. God the Father has a Son who cares for the nations.
- Throughout the Bible you see God sending His people to reach the nations.
- In fact not only is God a missionary, but His book the Bible is a missionary text.
- Our missionary God has given a missionary mandate to His Church.
We’ll then watch a brief film that shows these concepts in a very moving way!
Think about coming this first week and seeing what Vantage Point is all about. Experience the unpacking of these principles live as we talk and share together. You can go to www.lifepointchurch.us and register for Vantage Point! Looking forward to seeing you there.
Blessings,
Dave Baldwin
Sunday Evening Reflections:
What an interesting weekend. Lots of things happening. See below:
Reflections:
- Spent a part of Saturday working on relief details for LifePoint Church in Haiti. We have decided to send our funds through World Relief. They have a great work already on the ground there. Their website has had a huge amount of information and prayer resources as well. You can access their site at http://wr.org. It will be exciting to see how much LifePoint Church gave over the weekend to the relief efforts in Haiti.
- Part of our weekend services included a prayer time for Haiti. We broke-up into small groups throughout the worship center and prayed. It was very moving.
- We have a couple at LifePoint who have a not-for-profit in Haiti working with an orphanage. You can find their work at http://hope-for-haiti.org.
- Over the weekend I also posted a site where you can see a video update from Matt Chandler. Matt is the Sr. Pastor of the Village Church in Flower Mound, TX. The church has a weekend attendance of around 6,000. Matt is 34 years old and has a brain tumor. It is an inspiring update and Matt will be doing a video blog every Friday. It is a challenging experience personally to watch the video blog. Matt is the age of my son Eric. You can view that video at http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?p=466
- Joe taught on the Pride of Prejudice this weekend. What a great talk and mixed reaction. It was a talk on a biblical view of race and prejudice. What a great message for this weekend as we celebrate the life of Dr. King. You can catch the talk at www.lifepointchurch.us. Click on the sermon tab.
- Lots of great conversations this weekend. I love connecting people. We have a number of college students coming from McDaniel. I was able to connect five of them who didn’t know each other. What fun!
Hope your weekend was meaningful and good. Looking forward to an exciting week.
Many Blessings,
Dave
Matt Chandler Update
I know a number of you are praying for Matt Chandler. You can view his latest video blog at the link below. There he shares that he will be posting something each Friday.
Let’s continue to pray for our brother!
http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/blog/pastors/?p=466
Blessings,
Dave
Phases of Disaster Response and Development: Haiti
I came across a great post by Lorelei Mah about phases of disaster response and development. Lorelei’s husband, Sammy, is the Director of World Relief. I received her permission to repost this article. You can read it at http://www.causeup.org/group/haiti/forum/topics/phases-of-disaster-response-1?xg_source=activity Although it references World Relief a lot it is a great thumbnail of how we engage a country after a disaster has occurred. We are partnering with World Relief by sending funds to support what they are doing in Haiti. They had staff on the ground before the earthquake.
Blessings,
Dave
Search and rescue phase, first 72 hours
Priority one is search and rescue for those who are trapped and may yet be sparred. In Haiti, this will include airlifting heavy machinery to remove debris.
Crisis response phase, First days to 1 month
Medical treatment for the injured.
Food and shelter, basic needs for homeless or vulnerable survivors. World Relief often engages here with survival kits, where local church networks in country are invaluable resources here
Rehabilitation phase, 1 month – 6 months, in major disasters up to one year or more
3 million have been affected by this quake, that’s 1/3 of the nation. During this phase, basic services like water and sanitation, shelter and food security are the priorities. World Relief is often very strong in this phase as churches have great connection to needy beneficiaries and organized distribution channels.
Development phase, 1 year to 5 – 7 years
Chances are, recovery will go on for years. Given the devastated state of Haiti pre-quake, development will be seriously challenged and we will be looking for churches willing to make the cause of Haiti their cause for the next 3 – 5 years. By God’s grace, the attention and money that comes to Haiti will help them overcome their persistent poverty and underdevelopment. Managed and coordinated well, US churches can play a critical role in helping Haitian churches rebuild a shattered nation.
Most of WR’s best work has come from successful development flowing from major disasters.
Transition phase, 5 – 7 years on…
World Relief excels at leaving behind indigenous institutions after 10 years or so of working with locals churches and leaders. CSS in Bangladesh, EFICOR in India, LEAP in Liberia, WR Honduras, BZMF in Kosovo, CREDO in Burkina Faso… all are thriving local NGO’s, lead by Christians, often by networks of local churches, that WR has left behind.
In terms of WR assets in Haiti:
WR has a long standing commitment to Haiti and staff in place on the ground. Our country director, Dr Morquette and his wife Junie Hyacinthe (spelling?) are both Sorbonne trained doctors, well connected with the churches, medical and development communities. In addition to his work with WR, Dr Morquette also runs a hospital that, at last word, remained functional. A great staff connected to a thriving network of churches gives WR a great platform of service in this crisis.
Prayer Observations:
Today’s post comes from my contribution to 66books in a year blog. I wrote this post on prayer from Acts 12 for that blog today as well. If you are interested in keeping up with a group of people reading the Bible together in 2010 I highly recommend that resource to you. Go to http://66books.wordpress.com to find it.
Scripture:
Acts 12:11-19
11Then Peter came to himself and said, “Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating.”
12When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”
15″You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”
16But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.17Peter motioned with his hand for them to be quiet and described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. “Tell James and the brothers about this,” he said, and then he left for another place.
18In the morning, there was no small commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter. 19After Herod had a thorough search made for him and did not find him, he cross-examined the guards and ordered that they be executed (International Version)
Observation:
The enemy 2 the Christians 0. Things looked pretty bleak to the fledgling church. Stephen had been stoned and James had been executed and now Peter. Didn’t seem like the prayer that was so powerful in the first days of the church was being answered with such directness in this season of the church’s life. However, a group of people gather in a home to pray for Peter’s safe release. And guess what? He is miraculously led out of prison by an angel. A direct answer of prayer to those faithful intercessors. Yet when Peter shows up at their door, they are in dis-belief, even to the point that it gets a bit awkward with Peter standing at the door knocking while an argument pursues whether it is really Peter or his ghost. But awkwardness turns to great joy and excitement when the group greets Peter and hears his miraculous story.
Application:
I don’t have the prayer thing all figured out. And there are some things here that go against what I think of many times as the way prayer should work. Here are some of my observations:
- We don’t know when God will choose to act on our behalf like this. We are expected to pray faithfully, however.
- From this passage it seems as if we don’t really need to pray with all that much faith. There are passages of Scripture where we are told we must pray in faith. This is not one of those passages. These people were praying, but were not expecting their prayers to be answered. But those prayers were answered.
- I’m always curious when I see these emails that go out asking us to pray for some poor soul that needs healing. The more praying the better the chance of healing seems to be the rationale in these situations. Here’s a group of people that would probably be about the size of a small group Bible study in our churches. So, it’s not the number of people praying, but that small group had a HUGE impact. Our small groups have the opportunity to have that kind of impact as well.
Prayer:
Father God thank you for the process of prayer. We don’t understand completely how it all works, but we know it is part of your plan to include us in your work. Help us to take prayer seriously and be faithful in our expressions of it to you. Thank you for all the prayers you have answered Yes, and Wait, and No. We pray these things in Jesus Name, Amen.
Sunday Evening Reflections:
What a cold weekend we have had here in the Baltimore, MD area. To be cold a bit more this week. It was a GREAT weekend anyway!
Reflections:
- Besides the bitter cold we had a great crowd at church this weekend. Many good conversations. I believe the Holy Spirit is moving in a strong way throughout our church. Some of those conversations follow…
- I met with Heather who wants to do an internship with Samaritan’s Purse. She is a Missionary Kid from Africa so it fits her well.
- Andy is taking a short-term medical trip to North Africa. Looking forward to what God is going to do in his life.
- Jenn is part of the Not For Sale movement. She talked to me about what LifePoint could do in participating in the February 21st emphasis. You can check them out at http://www.notforsalecampaign.org.
- Dialogged with a small group about the role of women in the church. They are mainly new believers and just had questions.
- This all on a weekend when Joe starts a series on compassion and social justice! It has to be Holy Spirit timing!
- On a personal note I lost four pounds this week and doing well in my second round with P90X. I have a post in mind about P90X and leadership. Still sifting through it in my mind.
Hope you all had good warm weekends.
Blessings,
Dave
Sunday Evening Reflections:
Seems like ages since I last posted anything. Hope your weekends were all extra special!
Reflections:
- Watched the beginning twenty minutes of the Derek Loux memorial Saturday afternoon. Then the site crashed. I figured so many people tried to access the site to watch the memorial service that it crashed. Derek’s Dad started the service. What a man of God he is!
- Had a great time over the weekend working with Courtney Lilly in starting off http://66books.wordpress.com for the new year. I commend this great blog to you if you are considering reading through the Bible this year. This is the second year for the blog. Check it out!
- Saturday evening worship gatherings at LifePoint were fun to be a part of. Dr. Mark Marten spoke and did a great job of sharing some great insights about how we delude ourselves in thinking we are better than we really are. You can access his talk at http://www.lifepointchurch.us look under sermons.
- Sunday morning in our 10:45 am service I was giving announcements when I realized my daughter — Erin — was standing in front of the stage holding up her dollar for offering. We had encouraged her to take a dollar which was 10% of a gift she’d been given for Christmas. Now Erin is 35 years old and has Down Syndrome. So once she realized her HUGS class was leaving before the offering was taken well she just had to make sure I put it in the offering basket for her.
- This morning I responded to a post Craig Groeschel published on his blog, http://swerve.lifechurch.tv/ . It’s a thought provoking question. You may want to grapple with it today!
- My NY Giants embarrassed themselves again yesterday. Oh well there’s always next year.
Blessings,
Dave
Derek Loux Memorial Service Time:
My last post did not include the time for the memorial service for Derek. You can watch it live at the IHOP site. Their address is http://www.ihop.org. The date & time for the service are January 2nd from 2 to 4:30 pm.
I’m planning on watching the service. It should be a great testimony to a guy who followed strong after Jesus and now is like Him because Derek has seen him face-to-face. Many members of the family will be ministering in the service.
Blessings,
Dave
