Wanted: Missionaries

Wanted: Missionaries December 28, 2008

Missionaries are Called Acts 26:15-19; Gal. 2:6-10

Last week we read about Paul being entrusted with monetary relief for the Jewish Christians sent from the Gentile Christians. These passages are about Paul defending himself to King Agrippa on his return to Jerusalem. Paul knew before he went to Jerusalem that it was a dangerous trip for him. His focus was on the welfare of the Jewish Christians instead of his own.

• What mission situations cause you to fear?

Paul also speaks of God calling him to take the gospel to the Gentiles just as Peter was called for the Jews. Paul was called to leave his fields while Peter worked within his. Another example of how some are called to leave their homes and travel to other fields to witness and some are called to witness at home. Regardless of where you are called, you are called to be a witness for Christ.

• How would you respond if you felt God calling you to leave your field to serve Him? http://going.imb.org provides information about International missions.

Missionaries are Commissioned Acts 13: 1-3

These verses speak of a local church, like View Acres, who the Holy Spirit spoke to. Barnabas and Saul (Paul) were to be set apart for the work they had been called for. In an act of obedience the church prayed and laid hands on Barnabas and Paul and sent them off.

• Is this a familiar scene to you? Why do we lay hands on and pray for those in our church who are called and go out?

Missionaries are Connected Acts 14:26-27

After everything they had been through, Paul & Barnabas came back home. Notice that they didn’t tell of the things they had done, they reported everything God had done with them and the door of faith God had opened to the Gentiles.

• We need to always remember to report what God has done through us, not what we have done.

• Why is it important to both the missionary and the church for the church to hear about how God is using the missionary?

One way to connect is through the Acts 1:8 Challenge at www.ActsOne8.com

• Pray and watch for the doors of opportunity God provides through you this week.

Your Mission Involvement

Romans 15:23-28

Paul offers a beautiful example of how God uses each of us to complete His plan for each of us.

Paul is ministering to the needs of the Jewish Christians by delivering relief offered by the Gentile Christians who have been touched by the Jewish Christians for Christ. While doing this he writes to the Christians in Rome for their support. He desires to travel to Spain to reach the people there for Christ. He wishes to see the Romans on his way and asks for their prayer but also for workers to travel with him to Spain.

Paul, one person, is serving four different people groups who may or may not ever meet each other. As we go through our day we witness, one way or another, to people we may never meet.

How many of you have heard of “The Six Degrees of Separation?” It is the idea that if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six “steps” away from each person on earth. As we witness to one person it creates a chain effect to reach people in infinate proportions. We do not know when our witness to one person is designed to reach a person six steps away from us that we may never meet. Our job is to simply be a witness for Christ.

Matthew 9:35-38

Examples of Jesus -
Jesus told his disciples to pray for workers
Jesus met both spiritual and physical needs
Jesus felt compassion for the crowds of people

Do we pray for workers?
Do we strive to meet spiritual and physical needs? Which is easier?
Do we feel compassion for the crowds of people?
How does God work through praying Christians? Can anyone tell me a prayer request that has been answered?

Matthew 28:18-20 The Great Commission

The Great Commission gives us assurance because Jesus has all authority. He is in control of all things – we don’t have to be.

Our mission is to make disciples. To go means to be deliberate, to have purpose. We are to go, make disciples in our daily walk with those whom we come in contact while we pray and provide support for those called to serve elsewhere. We should never neglect either mission field, home or abroad. We should be available always to offer ourselves where God needs us most.

Jesus promised “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Considering who is in control (Jesus) and our responsibility (to be available and respond to God’s calling), how do you feel about fulfilling The Great Commission now?

THANKSGIVING

I am thankful for SS this morning. I missed some of you and hope you had a fabulous holiday. Our theme this morning was - surprise! Thanksgiving.

I Chronicles 16:8-12
Psalm 100:4-5
Psalm 136

The common theme of these verses is the reasons we give thanks to God. One of my reasons was repeated over and over in Psalm 136 - His love endures forever. Anyone who has ever loved anyone has lived with the fear that their love would come to an end. We fear that our parents will not love us if we do something bad enough, we fear that our boyfriend/girlfriend will decide they don't love us anymore, we fear that our children will not love us.

With God we do not have these fears. God was, is, and will always be. His love endures forever. How thankful I am that God isn't going away nor will He ever take His love away from me.

In class we wrote things we are thankful to God for. We then talked about ways we can show our thankfulness to God. Some of the responses were: showing unconditional love to others, patience with others, faithfulness to God, knowledge of God's desire for us, communication with God. We discussed that with continual, open communication with God all other means of expressing our thankfulness fall into place.

My challenge to you now is to write out the personal ways you desire to show God your thankfulness. Be prepared! When you communicate your desire to God, He will go to work to help you make it happen. If your desire is to forgive a person a past wrong and you truly desire this as a gift of thanks to God, God will work in you to help you forgive.

Write out the ways you want to express your thanks to God and then watch as God blesses you in your thankfulness.

Have a blessed week! RC

God's Guidance

Class this morning was great! It's always good to share God's blessings and praise what He has been doing in our lives. As you go through the week remember to focus on God's guidance. As you reflect daily on the events of the day, remember to share with God those moments you wish you had done better or differently. Ask for God's guidance, open your heart to Him. God desires an intimate relationship with you. As you develop the habit of sharing, listening, focusing on God, your relationship grows closer.

Praying God's guidance as you go through your week.

RC

SUCCESS

I watched a great Life Principles video on success this morning. It's very short but very powerful and well worth the time. Enjoy!

http://www.intouch.org/site/c.dhKHIXPKIuE/b.2287431/

Baby Elliott!

Be sure to check out The Elliott's Blog. Baby Abby Nicole came home Friday. Sherylyn has created a dinner list for providing dinner for them this week. If you missed out and would like to take them dinner, call Sherylyn and let her know.

Congratulations Elliott's!

A Sense of Mission

Colossians 3:17 - And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Choose three (3) things you will do in the next 24 hours and describe how you can do them in a way that honors God.

Comment here or bring them to SS next week.

When our mission to glorify the Lord is clear, we cultivate the kind of stamina and perseverance needed for a God-honoring life. There are dangers and difficulties ahead, but the Christian with a focused mission will conitnue pressingonward and upward.

Have a Blessed Week!

SPIRITUAL GIFTS

Sunday School was great this morning as we discussed Spiritual Gifts. If you did not get to participate you can find a link to the Spiritual Gifts Survey and Discovering Your Spiritual Gifts at the left. The study today went through the verses I emailed everyone a week ago. There was a lot of good input from everyone. My favorite was the Mentos in Coke analogy.

If you haven't seen what Mentos does when dropped into Coke check out YouTube and type in Mentos in Coke, it's really cool. Anyway, we decided that we are Coke (or Diet Coke) and God's grace is the Mentos. God gives us the Mentos, I mean gifts, free. We don't do anything to earn it and we don't work for it. Until we take in the grace and the gifts God has given to us we are just Coke. When we allow the Mentos, gifts of grace, to come in and affect us we project that gift onto everyone around us. John warned us not to play grenade with our Coke and Mentos. Ask him about that story.

As you go through the week I pray you talk to God about what gift He has graced you with and how He wants to bless you through your gift.

Have a blessed week!

Spiritual Gifts

For those who made it to SS this morning I hope you learned something about the spiritual gifts you appear to be strongest in. If you didn't make it you can access the Spiritual Gifts Survey and the Discovering Spiritual Gifts by following the link on the left side of the page. I also emailed the .pdf formats of both forms to everyone last week.

Next week we will read and discuss the Spiritual Gifts Study verses. As we continue in this study please take in that God gave each of us gifts that we may fulfill His plans for us. As you discover your Spiritual Gifts ask God how He wants to bless you through your use of the gifts He has given you.

Have a Blessed Week!

BAPTISMS!

For those of you who didn't make it Sunday our class was blessed by observing two of our own be baptized! Melissa and Stephanie were baptized yesterday and what a joy it was to witness. All of heaven sang praises and celebrated with us.

ASK OF GOD

The Our Daily Bread devotional this morning tied into discussions we have been having so here is a link to go check it out. http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/our-daily-bread/2008/09/29/devotion.aspx

As you go through each day remember, God is just a prayer away.

Have a blessed week. RC

Weekly Challenge

So how's it going with your weekly challenge?

Prayer is life's greatest time saver!

I so enjoyed the lesson this morning, I hope everyone else did too. This lesson really challenged me to be more committed to my prayer and listening time with God each morning. I know from past experience that my day is much more peaceful, even when it's a bizarre day, when I begin the day with God.

This week commit to prayer and listening time (a.k.a. communication) with God at the start of each day and see how your day is different.

Be sure to pray for those on our SS prayer list and praise God for the praises shared. Email any prayers or praise you have during the week to me and I will pass them on.

Have a blessed week!

Just Thinkin'

I was thinkin' (for those of you concerned, no it didn't hurt) about something that came up in a discussion last night and wanted to share it with you. I was talking to a dear friend last night who has been worrying about things. He made the comment that his wife was so loving as to point out to him that he tells others that they shouldn't worry, they should give it over to God, worrying doesn't do anything for you, etc, etc. (sounded way familiar). Anyhow, she says to him (in much love) you're always saying that and here you are worrying, what's with that?

It's hard to always walk the talk. Sometimes we need a loving person to remind us that we aren't exactly doing what we say, especially when it comes to worry. When I catch myself in worry I realize that I need to ask God to forgive me. If I'm worrying, I'm not trusting. There are still times when worry is never completely gone from me, especially reagrding my kids. I have been able to get rid of worry many times by simply realizing that it is not what God wants for me.

Next time you are tempted to worry, ask yourself if you think God wants you to worry or give it to Him? Then, do things His way - it'll turn out so much better.

Have a blessed day as you bless those around you.

Challenge for the Week:

The challenge for this week is to ask God to reveal your spiritual gifts to you and show you the areas of abundance that He wants you to share with others in need.

This morning's study

For those who couldn't be with us this morning our format has changed. We are still in the 30 Life Principles study but we are doing our own thing with it. Here is what we discussed.

Life Principle 24: To live the Christian Life is to allow Jesus to live His life in and through us.

Galatians 2:20

Actvitiy: Take a piece of paper and a pen. Write down the things that are worrying you, that you are afraid of , that is troubling you.

Hold on to that paper as you think over the following questions.

When do we first start trying to be in control of ourselves and our world?

What are the results when we try to be in control?

Have you ever just turned things over to God? What were the results?

What does it usually take for us to turn "it" over to God?

What does it mean to be crucified with Christ?

Matthew 16: 24-27

What does it mean to take up your cross?

God's #1 desire for us it to have an intimate relationship with Him.

Challenge for the week: Ask God to give you what you need to turn everything over to Him. Challenge yourself to give all things over to God, not just the things you've messed up and can't fix:)

Have a Blessed Week!

Vision and Goals

Share your vision and goals for our Sunday School class.

What would you like to see happen in the next year?

What changes would you make?

Be honest and don't worry about hurting my feelings, I've had three boys and a husband, my feelings will be fine. I really want to know what you feel will make for an even better spiritual growth experience in our classroom.

Leadership Conference

Hey everybody! I attended Leadership Conference today and it was great! I got so many ideas I couldn't wait to share them with you.

I want feedback on the following ideas. Let me know what you think and how you want to implement these ideas.

1) Service Sunday. One Sunday a month we meet at the classroom and pray and then head to the home of a person in our community who needs our services. My first thought is Harold H but I know there are others and we can decide who to help ahead of time and have a list of things they need us to do for them. We all go and visit, take a book and some goody, clean up around the house (inside/out) and just love them for the time we would spend in SS. Then we can head back to church and back into our Sunday routine.

I will be posting more ideas and would love to see you post ideas as well. Let me know how you feel about Service Sunday