Greetings from Lake Placid, NY! As I write this, over 2000 Iron Man athletes have already begun their day-long race consisting of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile run. Jackie and I have been working with North Country Ministries this week to serve, pray for, and witness to the athletes through the many venues their mission team has planned. It's been a great week so far with lots going on, including a lot of service evangelism opportunities. I don't have time to cover everything right now, but I wanted to share a few thoughts and encouragements that have struck me this week as we have served here...
This week has been an example to me of the importance of being intentional in our evangelism. North Country Ministries (NCM) operates in this Iron Man venue as a small group of volunteers among thousands of other volunteers. This isn't what some might think of as a typical mission trip where you have planned outings, the sole purpose of which is to go witness to people. Instead, NCM has found their specific place in this annual event and they are very much appreciated by believers and non-believers alike for the services they offer (often times something as basic volunteering at athlete registration or giving out free snowcones at the family venues). It is through this intentional servant-hood attitude that they have created opportunites to share the gospel, encouraging and teaching all of their volunteers to make connections and share Christ whenever possible. It's simple and it's exciting to see it at work. The most encouraging thing, however, is that this type of evangelism is available to all of us; we just have to look and pray for opportunities to serve others and ask God to help us make connections and share the gospel with them.
Well, time flies. I must go for now as I'm leading worship at Lake Placid Baptist Church this morning so that their music minister can go participate on the race course. Before I go however, let me encourage you...be aware of the opportunities that you have individually and that we have as a church body to practice servant-hood evangelism. The Christian life is all about worshiping God and making disciples of Christ. Let's be intentional in both of these areas.
Anthony
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
GCR (part 1) - The Lordship of Christ
We talked this evening about the Lordship of Christ in our lives, our church, and our denomination.
I want to ask a series of questions for you to reflect on...
An exercise...
Leave any thoughts you have about the Lordship of Christ.
May you be blessed as he is Lord...
Mark
I want to ask a series of questions for you to reflect on...
- If you took the commands of Christ literally (to love, forgive, be peacemakers, stop lusting, stop revenge, treasure him, be compassionate, etc.) would your life look different than it does right now?
- What is stopping you from allowing Christ to literally be Lord of your life in all areas? What are you afraid of if he becomes Lord over all your life?
- How can you begin right now to give lordship of your life over to Christ?
An exercise...
- Read the "Sermon on the Mount" in Matthew chapters 5-7. Be intentional on doing what Christ says.
Leave any thoughts you have about the Lordship of Christ.
May you be blessed as he is Lord...
Mark
Friday, July 10, 2009
The Thursday Experience
As I write this, it's our last day in Canada. I can say with all honesty, we are sad to leave. The people of Kingston have been great, and while they are far from Christ, they are kind and welcoming. I have another guest blogger with me today, Jordan. You may ask where the girls are at, and well, they never seem to make it to breakfast since they bought a box of Lucky Charms for their rooms.
Here to tell you about yesterday and whats been going on, is Jordan Atnip:
Hello all. First of all, I want to thank you all for your prayers. I know that you all are praying and it's helping us get through. This entire trip has already been a blessing. I am in the social group. From our church, Mr. Jim, Mrs. Lynda, and Andrew are with me. The past couple days we have been working at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. We've all had different jobs to do there, some giving more opportunities to witness than others. We're all getting to do God's work, and He is blessing our souls for it. We had a large free time yesterday, so we went to a Tex Mex restaurant. We celebrated Bradley's birthday with our whole church group, plus our church group devotional leader, Dennis. Dennis has been more than a blessing and treats us like he's known us his whole life. He's barely older than me and he has already done incredible things for God. Keep us all in prayer. I look forward to seeing my home church soon.
Love,
Jordan
Canadian Tex Mex? That's right! I'm still amused by it all. They were all highly excited to find out we were from Tennessee. We had an extended free time yesterday, and hang out in Downtown Kingston. Luckily there was a Street Performer Festival downtown. The streets were blocked off, and we saw juggling fire, guys on Pogo sticks, etc. It was rather cool. We all wore our camp shirts, which allowed us to have quite a few conversations with people. We explained we were missionaries from the states, and it was just another chance to tell people about Christ. We had another great time of worship in church group, and took up an offering for Missions. The neat thing is, part of the offering we took is going to Canada, right here, to where we are working, in Kingston. The other part is going to work with the Roma, who I had I chance to work with last year in Romania.
Pray for us today. I challenged our group to look for every moment that God presents to them today. Moments to share their faith, moments to encourage, moment to hear the still small voice of God. This is our last day, and my prayer is we give every ounce of energy and passion to let all these great people know about the name that is above every name, and that is our Lord Jesus.
I know God is going to bless us and is going to work through us. We are praying for you church, and we know you are praying for us.
-Brett
Here to tell you about yesterday and whats been going on, is Jordan Atnip:
Hello all. First of all, I want to thank you all for your prayers. I know that you all are praying and it's helping us get through. This entire trip has already been a blessing. I am in the social group. From our church, Mr. Jim, Mrs. Lynda, and Andrew are with me. The past couple days we have been working at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. We've all had different jobs to do there, some giving more opportunities to witness than others. We're all getting to do God's work, and He is blessing our souls for it. We had a large free time yesterday, so we went to a Tex Mex restaurant. We celebrated Bradley's birthday with our whole church group, plus our church group devotional leader, Dennis. Dennis has been more than a blessing and treats us like he's known us his whole life. He's barely older than me and he has already done incredible things for God. Keep us all in prayer. I look forward to seeing my home church soon.
Love,
Jordan
Canadian Tex Mex? That's right! I'm still amused by it all. They were all highly excited to find out we were from Tennessee. We had an extended free time yesterday, and hang out in Downtown Kingston. Luckily there was a Street Performer Festival downtown. The streets were blocked off, and we saw juggling fire, guys on Pogo sticks, etc. It was rather cool. We all wore our camp shirts, which allowed us to have quite a few conversations with people. We explained we were missionaries from the states, and it was just another chance to tell people about Christ. We had another great time of worship in church group, and took up an offering for Missions. The neat thing is, part of the offering we took is going to Canada, right here, to where we are working, in Kingston. The other part is going to work with the Roma, who I had I chance to work with last year in Romania.
Pray for us today. I challenged our group to look for every moment that God presents to them today. Moments to share their faith, moments to encourage, moment to hear the still small voice of God. This is our last day, and my prayer is we give every ounce of energy and passion to let all these great people know about the name that is above every name, and that is our Lord Jesus.
I know God is going to bless us and is going to work through us. We are praying for you church, and we know you are praying for us.
-Brett
Thursday, July 9, 2009
A Mega Type Day
It's Thursday morning and we are moving slightly slower then normal. God is still moving and changing hearts here. I thought for a treat for the folks back home, I would allow someone else to take a turn at blogging. There were no volunteers... but then Bradley spoke up and here we are at breakfast ready to tell you about our day. So without further ado, I give you Bradley:
Hello everyone, i'll tell you a little about our week in Canada so far. Brett, Jessica, and me are in the pcy group. We are working on the Kingston FBC, painting and fixing anything along the way. Our group leader is a guy named Dennis, who has become part of our church family here. It's just amazing the way God has worked through all of us this week so far. I just want to thank evryone that made our trip possible and we will see you soon.
Thank you Bradley! Dennis has become part of our family, he comes to our Church group devotion time, eats supper with us, and will be hanging out with us tonight during our extended free time. We will be celebrating Bradley's birthday (even though it is technically tomorrow). We will be going to downtown Kingston, getting some good food, and enjoying the local sights. Which the lake is simply beautiful.
Mega relay was yesterday, and war paint was applied to all. Jim had so much that it was running down his by the end of Mega. Shay and Vic's group brought home the Fuge Cup. We were quite proud, and extremely jealous.
We are loving our time here. I think I'm speaking for everyone when I say the time we spend together has been such a great bonding exprience. Our times of worship, pray, and playing games has been some of my favorite times.
You might doubt it, but some of the conversations we are having make me so very proud. We talk about spiritual things, we talk about what God is doing in us. We talk about how what God showed us in our quiet times. We talk about the people we want to pray for here and back home. Not during our church group times, but just hanging out at the dinner table, or as we walk to worship, or while driving to Wal-Mart (yes there are Wal-Marts in Canada). The depth of these students devotion and love of God is such a blessing to me.
We prayed for all of you last night, hope that each of you are running after God, and looking for those moments to serve Him throughout your day.
-Brett (with Bradley)
Hello everyone, i'll tell you a little about our week in Canada so far. Brett, Jessica, and me are in the pcy group. We are working on the Kingston FBC, painting and fixing anything along the way. Our group leader is a guy named Dennis, who has become part of our church family here. It's just amazing the way God has worked through all of us this week so far. I just want to thank evryone that made our trip possible and we will see you soon.
Thank you Bradley! Dennis has become part of our family, he comes to our Church group devotion time, eats supper with us, and will be hanging out with us tonight during our extended free time. We will be celebrating Bradley's birthday (even though it is technically tomorrow). We will be going to downtown Kingston, getting some good food, and enjoying the local sights. Which the lake is simply beautiful.
Mega relay was yesterday, and war paint was applied to all. Jim had so much that it was running down his by the end of Mega. Shay and Vic's group brought home the Fuge Cup. We were quite proud, and extremely jealous.
We are loving our time here. I think I'm speaking for everyone when I say the time we spend together has been such a great bonding exprience. Our times of worship, pray, and playing games has been some of my favorite times.
You might doubt it, but some of the conversations we are having make me so very proud. We talk about spiritual things, we talk about what God is doing in us. We talk about how what God showed us in our quiet times. We talk about the people we want to pray for here and back home. Not during our church group times, but just hanging out at the dinner table, or as we walk to worship, or while driving to Wal-Mart (yes there are Wal-Marts in Canada). The depth of these students devotion and love of God is such a blessing to me.
We prayed for all of you last night, hope that each of you are running after God, and looking for those moments to serve Him throughout your day.
-Brett (with Bradley)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Introduction to Great Commission Resurgence
Click here for the Great Commission Resurgence website.
In our introduction tonight we looked at why a Great Commission Resurgence is needed among Southern Baptists. In the mid 2oth century we were reaching people quite quickly, but the first decade of the 21st century has seen Southern Baptists plateau with the 2008 data showing us enter a year of decline.
Here's the graphics we looked at.
This is the word cloud of answers to the question, "What do you think when you hear Southern Baptist?"
This is the history of Southern Baptist growth since 1950. You will notice the fact that we are now on the plateau of our growth curve as Southern Baptists, so something must be done to prevent our denomination from decline and eventual death.
So the question of the hour is, "What must be done for there to be a resurgence of the great commission among Southern Baptists?" The church grows through conversions. The great commission is about seeing people converted and become disciples of Jesus.
The proposed manner of the resurgence is contained in the Great Commission Resurgence document. Go read the full thing. We'll be talking about it for the next 10 Wednesday nights.
Leave any thoughts you have in the comments section.
In our introduction tonight we looked at why a Great Commission Resurgence is needed among Southern Baptists. In the mid 2oth century we were reaching people quite quickly, but the first decade of the 21st century has seen Southern Baptists plateau with the 2008 data showing us enter a year of decline.
Here's the graphics we looked at.
This is the word cloud of answers to the question, "What do you think when you hear Southern Baptist?"
This is the history of Southern Baptist growth since 1950. You will notice the fact that we are now on the plateau of our growth curve as Southern Baptists, so something must be done to prevent our denomination from decline and eventual death.
So the question of the hour is, "What must be done for there to be a resurgence of the great commission among Southern Baptists?" The church grows through conversions. The great commission is about seeing people converted and become disciples of Jesus.
The proposed manner of the resurgence is contained in the Great Commission Resurgence document. Go read the full thing. We'll be talking about it for the next 10 Wednesday nights.
Leave any thoughts you have in the comments section.
A Good Night
It's morning again, and...we are not morning people. Yet we are up and getting ready for Bible Study at 8am. At 9:15am we have our morning celebration, where we get hyped up and ready to go out and serve.
Here is the varying tracks and groups our crew is part of:
Social Track: Lynda, Jim, Andrew, Jordan
Yesterday this group went to a local food bank. With their track group they managed to box up 18,000 pounds of food for the hungry and in need!
Children Track: Kendra and Lauren
This group is going to the same location all week, the first night they planned out a VBS and are now taking children through the program. Our heart breaks as most of these children have no clue who Jesus is.
Games and Rec Track: Shay and Vic
Somehow Shay has managed to get placed in a track where she can help kids with golf!?! This group is putting on a 'sports camp' for area children. They are using a major draw (sports) to let others know about our Lord.
PCY: Jess, Bradley, and Brett
We three have had the joy of working in downtown Kingston at First Baptist Kingston. The church is beautiful and cathedral like. Yet the church has shrunk to 70 members. We are prayer walking, and repainting just about everything: windows, floors, steps, and doors. Pray for the pastor Kevin, as he attempts to reach the people of Kingston.
We had an amazing night during church group devotion as we lifted each other up in prayer. As I'm typing this it seems to be time for bible study, we love you all, and are so grateful for each of you.
-Brett
Here is the varying tracks and groups our crew is part of:
Social Track: Lynda, Jim, Andrew, Jordan
Yesterday this group went to a local food bank. With their track group they managed to box up 18,000 pounds of food for the hungry and in need!
Children Track: Kendra and Lauren
This group is going to the same location all week, the first night they planned out a VBS and are now taking children through the program. Our heart breaks as most of these children have no clue who Jesus is.
Games and Rec Track: Shay and Vic
Somehow Shay has managed to get placed in a track where she can help kids with golf!?! This group is putting on a 'sports camp' for area children. They are using a major draw (sports) to let others know about our Lord.
PCY: Jess, Bradley, and Brett
We three have had the joy of working in downtown Kingston at First Baptist Kingston. The church is beautiful and cathedral like. Yet the church has shrunk to 70 members. We are prayer walking, and repainting just about everything: windows, floors, steps, and doors. Pray for the pastor Kevin, as he attempts to reach the people of Kingston.
We had an amazing night during church group devotion as we lifted each other up in prayer. As I'm typing this it seems to be time for bible study, we love you all, and are so grateful for each of you.
-Brett
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Heart for the North
Hello church friends and family,
we will be updating the church blog with all kinds of information and news about all that is going on while we are in Canada. Here is what has happened so far:
After our slow start, we made good time, and spent the night in Carlisle, PA. The following day we made it to St. Lawrence College by 2:30ish PM. The campus is nice, and within five minutes walk is Lake Ontario. The view simply breathtaking.
While the camp is small, the staff is wonderful and encouraging. It was initially not to have a band leading worship, or a band as we know it. Our worship is led by Larri (who is female by the way) on keyboards and Christina on violin! Sounds strange but the Lord uses it to bless us as we seek to bless him and praise His name.
The youth (and adults) are all having a great time. Our track groups are full of wonderful people, and we all went to site today. I'll be posting more information about the various youth and their escapades.
But I'll leave you with this thought. We are here, far to the north, to see God move in a land that has seemingly forgot Him. In all of Canada the number of evangelical churches has been shrinking. There are around 279 evangelical churches here (Tennessee alone has over 3,300). The youth and college have no clue who God is. The fastest growing religion here is Wicca. Our hearts break for these people. We pray that God will use us in amazing ways to reach these wonderful people, that Christ would be visible in our actions, attitudes, and words. Join with us in praying for Canada, and for the missionaries that God is calling here, for their task is great. But we serve an even greater God, and with God all things are possible.
I'll be attempting to update the blog each morning about the previous day and all the wonderful things God has done.
-Brett
we will be updating the church blog with all kinds of information and news about all that is going on while we are in Canada. Here is what has happened so far:
After our slow start, we made good time, and spent the night in Carlisle, PA. The following day we made it to St. Lawrence College by 2:30ish PM. The campus is nice, and within five minutes walk is Lake Ontario. The view simply breathtaking.
While the camp is small, the staff is wonderful and encouraging. It was initially not to have a band leading worship, or a band as we know it. Our worship is led by Larri (who is female by the way) on keyboards and Christina on violin! Sounds strange but the Lord uses it to bless us as we seek to bless him and praise His name.
The youth (and adults) are all having a great time. Our track groups are full of wonderful people, and we all went to site today. I'll be posting more information about the various youth and their escapades.
But I'll leave you with this thought. We are here, far to the north, to see God move in a land that has seemingly forgot Him. In all of Canada the number of evangelical churches has been shrinking. There are around 279 evangelical churches here (Tennessee alone has over 3,300). The youth and college have no clue who God is. The fastest growing religion here is Wicca. Our hearts break for these people. We pray that God will use us in amazing ways to reach these wonderful people, that Christ would be visible in our actions, attitudes, and words. Join with us in praying for Canada, and for the missionaries that God is calling here, for their task is great. But we serve an even greater God, and with God all things are possible.
I'll be attempting to update the blog each morning about the previous day and all the wonderful things God has done.
-Brett
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