We are having those final detail discussions of how to move (which is all a challenge still sitting under the mortgage on the house) and the steps and timeline. We'll post things as they become definite.
The only definite on the timeline is pushing a few possible buyers on the house to find out if they are going to buy the house or not by July 1st (one couple has been checking into financing and we are praying they decide to buy it). If not, we get a realtor and make plans to leave it to the realtor to sell.
But we need living arrangement ideas - house/apartments to rent.
We need an income of course, but feels like that may not come till we get there.
We're still discussing things, and maybe a trip to get there, but if you have any ideas let us know.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Being a pastor
For the majority of us, we don't understand how hard it is to be a pastor.
It's like not knowing the unique internal struggles of having children. I remember for years people always saying, "You can't really know the challenges to have children till you have them." I was always so frustrated because I knew I could listen and bear the burden with others who had children. And that is still true - we listen and immerse ourselves in stories of parenthood and we understand better.
But there is something about not being able to know some of the unique challenges until you are immersed in the experience of having children.
It's very similar with being a pastor. We can bear the burden, share the vision, play our part, but being a pastor is unique and challenging in unique ways.
Take the time to read these things listed from the post "Death by Ministry" from Mark Driscoll. They are interesting and very poignant.
Then take the time to pray for your leaders and leadership team. Those that pastor you, and pray for you, and do things for you when you don't even know about.
If we want leaders, each other, and our church to live effectively in the Kingdom of God, we must love God, love others, and pray for one another.
It's like not knowing the unique internal struggles of having children. I remember for years people always saying, "You can't really know the challenges to have children till you have them." I was always so frustrated because I knew I could listen and bear the burden with others who had children. And that is still true - we listen and immerse ourselves in stories of parenthood and we understand better.
But there is something about not being able to know some of the unique challenges until you are immersed in the experience of having children.
It's very similar with being a pastor. We can bear the burden, share the vision, play our part, but being a pastor is unique and challenging in unique ways.
Take the time to read these things listed from the post "Death by Ministry" from Mark Driscoll. They are interesting and very poignant.
Then take the time to pray for your leaders and leadership team. Those that pastor you, and pray for you, and do things for you when you don't even know about.
If we want leaders, each other, and our church to live effectively in the Kingdom of God, we must love God, love others, and pray for one another.
Pastors
- Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.
- Fifty percent of pastors' marriages will end in divorce.
- Eighty percent of pastors and eighty-four percent of their spouses feel unqualified and discouraged in their role as pastors.
- Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
- Eighty percent of seminary and Bible school graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry within the first five years.
- Seventy percent of pastors constantly fight depression.
- Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.
- Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons.
Pastors' Wives
- Eighty percent of pastors' spouses feel their spouse is overworked.
- Eighty percent of pastors' spouses wish their spouse would choose another profession.
- The majority of pastors’ wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.
Father's Day Note
Good story, taken from Expedition Family:
Last Friday, I had the privelege of hearing Coach Tony Dungy at a luncheon in the Colts Training Center. He gave us an inside look at the championship week leading up to the Super Bowl. He realized their moment wasn't just the game, but the whole Super Bowl experience. So, he gave his players an extended curfew, let them sleep in and enjoy the moment (not to excess of course) with their family and friends. Even the coach of a team playing for the Super Bowl took time with his kids to play at the NFL Experience, an football carnival-like atmosphere with games and rides. When people saw Dungy with his kids there, he said they thought they were seeing a ghost! They couldn't believe he was there. Didn't he have a game to prepare for? But for his six-year-old boy, playing with his Dad in the NFL Experience probably meant more to him than watching his Dad go to work on Super Bowl Sunday. Tony Dungy didn't wish time away that week
One of the things that I struggle with the most in waiting for something is wishing time away. I remember when Sharon and I were first married and saving for a house. How I wished time away to move from our apartment (furnished with 1970s, extra-long, olive-drab shag carpet) to the day we moved into our home. I regret wishing time away.
Our Website is being re-constructed
Some dear (and honest) friends are heading up the rebuild.
And now our blog has taken the place of some of our communication so the rebuilding is a good thing.
Do you have ideas for the website?
If you have any requests for information that might be helpful to you or someone who might consider joining the Journey, send us a note.
In His wonder, Bill
And now our blog has taken the place of some of our communication so the rebuilding is a good thing.
Do you have ideas for the website?
If you have any requests for information that might be helpful to you or someone who might consider joining the Journey, send us a note.
In His wonder, Bill
For Fathers...a challenge on Father's Day
You are on the front lines of the battle whether you know it or not. But then if you know me and trust me and believe me you now know it? Right?
One of my greatest passions; the one that drove me out of my car dealership to graduate school was my desire to see marriages survive (including my own). Now I, of all people, know that marriage can be miserable....or maybe you should ask my wife Cathy how miserable it can be. In any case, if you are in a miserable marriage the answer is not to get out! The answer is to get help. Jesus can change us! That is why He came; to set us free from the sin that messes up relationships. Your marriage can be better but it will take courage and the hardest work that any man has done in his entire life.
And then on top of all of that, it will take faith. It will take faith to believe that God does not want your marriage to be terrible either. He wants your marriage to bring glory to Him; to the God of the universe. And because He wants that, He will help you! He will mold you and change you.
But you have to want help; you have to be committed beyond what you might think you can endure. You have to want your marriage to be a miracle. You have to be a hero! You have to decide to accept what most people, even Christians refuse to accept in their marriage relationships. The fact is that your marriage was never intended to glorify you; to make you happy; or to make your life easier. Your marriage was made to glorify God and when it cracks and breaks, it will not glorify God.
So if you sense some cracks, tell somebody, be honest with good friends, and get some real help. What will not glorify God is doing nothing and letting the relationship die a slow, painful death.
Your marriage can be wonderful but not in the way you think is wonderful. Join the mysterious journey. Get out of the "slough of despond"! Go Dancing!
C'mon Dads...get in the Battle. Lead your wife to get help rather than follow.
This would be the most magnificent gift you could give; one I believe will load you up with more crowns in heaven than anything you will ever accomplish.
Get Radical! Go For It! Be a Blessing.
One of my greatest passions; the one that drove me out of my car dealership to graduate school was my desire to see marriages survive (including my own). Now I, of all people, know that marriage can be miserable....or maybe you should ask my wife Cathy how miserable it can be. In any case, if you are in a miserable marriage the answer is not to get out! The answer is to get help. Jesus can change us! That is why He came; to set us free from the sin that messes up relationships. Your marriage can be better but it will take courage and the hardest work that any man has done in his entire life.
And then on top of all of that, it will take faith. It will take faith to believe that God does not want your marriage to be terrible either. He wants your marriage to bring glory to Him; to the God of the universe. And because He wants that, He will help you! He will mold you and change you.
But you have to want help; you have to be committed beyond what you might think you can endure. You have to want your marriage to be a miracle. You have to be a hero! You have to decide to accept what most people, even Christians refuse to accept in their marriage relationships. The fact is that your marriage was never intended to glorify you; to make you happy; or to make your life easier. Your marriage was made to glorify God and when it cracks and breaks, it will not glorify God.
So if you sense some cracks, tell somebody, be honest with good friends, and get some real help. What will not glorify God is doing nothing and letting the relationship die a slow, painful death.
Your marriage can be wonderful but not in the way you think is wonderful. Join the mysterious journey. Get out of the "slough of despond"! Go Dancing!
C'mon Dads...get in the Battle. Lead your wife to get help rather than follow.
This would be the most magnificent gift you could give; one I believe will load you up with more crowns in heaven than anything you will ever accomplish.
Get Radical! Go For It! Be a Blessing.
Newsletter:
Dear Fellow Sojourners,
We want to begin by saying that if we are your spam and you would like to removed from our emailing list please let us know. It has become a reality that we now have so much spam in our lives, the clutter of our busyness, that email has become as annoying as solicitation phone calls. We hope we are adding and not detracting from your walk with Jesus.
At Journey, We Have Some Simple Goals...
Don't forget...Our Vision is Jesus
We want to encourage you to keep your eyes on Him minute by minute. You life will be changed. Maybe that is what scripture calls us to do when it says "Pray without ceasing".
How do We Do this Vision?
How do we live this vision? How do we do it in everyday life? We suggest a simple plan.
Strategy # 1; we study the Bible. Read it because you want to; not because you have to. If you are seeking God by some kind of internal law that says you are "bad" if you do not read today, then maybe you should pray instead of read today. Guilt is just plain silly when you are looking at Jesus.
If you come to the Bible with a demand in your heart that "God must supply an answer to my anguish; an answer to my dilemma", then you are reading the Bible no differently that reading any of the "fix it" books in the many Christian "marketing for profit" stores.
Read the Bible for delight. Read it for fun. Read it our of curiosity. Read it because you want to find a nugget of gold. Read it because it is great way to get closer to your real daddy; your Abba.
The second strategy, study the Bible with friends; in community, in koinonea, in intimate community, not shallow community. Do not read it like a text book. Talk about the Bible with people. Talk about what you have read that confuses you, frustrates you, makes you feel inadequate, makes you cry, and dare I say, makes you laugh. You are not bringing your whole heart to the reading of scripture unless it makes you laugh at times.
The third strategy; pray without ceasing. Our third strategy for sticking to our vision of Jesus; of seeing Him in our mind's eye minute, second by second as if we have to look around Him to see anything else, is to teach and/or encourage you to pray without ceasing. TEST YOUR HEART
As I think of who we are in our church and in our city and our country of rich Americans, which of these does the local church do well and which do we not do well? Maybe we should take a poll? Or maybe we should be honest before God. I have my opinion; what is yours for you and your church; for our church?
We want to begin by saying that if we are your spam and you would like to removed from our emailing list please let us know. It has become a reality that we now have so much spam in our lives, the clutter of our busyness, that email has become as annoying as solicitation phone calls. We hope we are adding and not detracting from your walk with Jesus.
At Journey, We Have Some Simple Goals...
Don't forget...Our Vision is Jesus
We want to encourage you to keep your eyes on Him minute by minute. You life will be changed. Maybe that is what scripture calls us to do when it says "Pray without ceasing".
How do We Do this Vision?
How do we live this vision? How do we do it in everyday life? We suggest a simple plan.
Strategy # 1; we study the Bible. Read it because you want to; not because you have to. If you are seeking God by some kind of internal law that says you are "bad" if you do not read today, then maybe you should pray instead of read today. Guilt is just plain silly when you are looking at Jesus.
If you come to the Bible with a demand in your heart that "God must supply an answer to my anguish; an answer to my dilemma", then you are reading the Bible no differently that reading any of the "fix it" books in the many Christian "marketing for profit" stores.
Read the Bible for delight. Read it for fun. Read it our of curiosity. Read it because you want to find a nugget of gold. Read it because it is great way to get closer to your real daddy; your Abba.
The second strategy, study the Bible with friends; in community, in koinonea, in intimate community, not shallow community. Do not read it like a text book. Talk about the Bible with people. Talk about what you have read that confuses you, frustrates you, makes you feel inadequate, makes you cry, and dare I say, makes you laugh. You are not bringing your whole heart to the reading of scripture unless it makes you laugh at times.
The third strategy; pray without ceasing. Our third strategy for sticking to our vision of Jesus; of seeing Him in our mind's eye minute, second by second as if we have to look around Him to see anything else, is to teach and/or encourage you to pray without ceasing. TEST YOUR HEART
As I think of who we are in our church and in our city and our country of rich Americans, which of these does the local church do well and which do we not do well? Maybe we should take a poll? Or maybe we should be honest before God. I have my opinion; what is yours for you and your church; for our church?
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The command is plain: you go into the whole world and announce the good news. It cannot be dispensationalized, typicalized, rationalized....
I have not the foggiest idea how or where God will lead you. Of this I am sure. He will lead you and not let you miss your signs. Rest in this-it is His business to lead, command, impel, send, call, or whatever you want to call it. It is your business to obey, follow, move, respond, or what have you...
The sound of 'gentle stillness' after all the thunder and wind have passed will be the ultimate Word from God. Tarry long for it.
- Jim Elliot, Missionary to the Auca Indians 1952, "Shadow of the Almighty"
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