A Church Changing Campaign!

All I know about Kevin Hester is that he is the pastor of The Sanctuary Baptist Church in Coloma, Michigan and he launched this campaign in 2008 in which he challenged his church to not gossip for 8 days! Since they are Baptist, some of them may have had to take an oath of silence! (Smile, it’s ok…) Anyway, it has gone from 8 days to an entire campaign! May God give us more campaigns like this!

Gossipfree.org Website - check it out!

A Very Merry Christmas Wish for Our Trinity Family...

I know tonight you have much more important things to do than read this blog… But I wanted you to know that the Everson Family wishes you a very Merry Christmas! We love you and count it a joy and honor to serve you. We have seen God work in incredible ways this year and you have truly made this an easy to place to call home. Thank you for your kindness throughout the year, thank you for all the cards/gifts, support and thoughtfulness you have showed not only during this Christmas season, but throughout the entire year. WE LOVE YOU and count it a blessing to serve alongside you!!!!

A look ahead

As Christmas is drawing near and everyone is officially in "holiday mode" this week with work and school schedules - I have a confession to make....about now is the time that I begin longing to get back to a "normal" schedule and kick things into gear! The whole months of November and December are so different and scattered seemingly, that I can't wait for things to settle down and be "normal" again! I can’t think of anything that moves me towards that like focusing on the things that are in store for our Trinity Family. So go ahead and open your planner, your outlook, your calendar and mark these dates down:

January 4: G.R.O.W begins with the G-Team!

January 6: AWANA starts back

January 10: New classes and Children’s Choir begins at 4:30

February 21-24: Bill Stafford will be in Revival with us. Our first 4 day revival!

March 28: Victory Sunday! This will be when we as a church will make our commitments towards our debt retirement. This will be an amazing service!

May 16: Sunday evening “Calling Levi” will be in concert. You will be blessed in an amazing way by this wonderful group.

June 13-18: Vacation Bible School

October 17: One Day Revival with David Miller

There are many other ministry opportunities among individual ministries, but these events will impact the entire church. Please make every effort to be at these life changing events. Expect God to move in amazing ways in 2010!

The Most Controversial Blog

I remember as a child on Christmas listening for Santa on the roof of my house. I remember the joy of waking up excited to see what presents were waiting for me under the tree - and I remember not understanding why my parents were so tired on Christmas morning! Then, I became a parent…and then I couldn’t believe how difficult Fisher Price made it for “Santa” to put together a child’s toy! I couldn’t believe how tired I would be on Christmas Day after only getting a few hours of sleep - because it took my boys so long to go to sleep and I couldn’t begin “Santa Duties” until the boys were fast asleep. Growing up, both Michele’s family and my family enjoyed Santa Claus, and we did the same with our children. One of my dearest friends in all the world - who happens to be our Children’s Minister - never did Santa with his children. I believe that “Santa” is an individual family’s decision, and Bro. Jeff’s children never told my children any different. Now for the shocker…If I had it to do all over again, I would not do Santa with my children. Now, in family this would probably call for a collective gasp at this point, and let me state I don’t think a parent is wrong regardless of their view of Santa…but I do look back and see some difficulties in the way we handled things with our boys.

Michele and I always agreed if our boys ever point blank asked “Is there a Santa?” we would not say yes. However, we did present Santa to them as Omniscient (all knowing), one who rewards us based on our actions, one who can do the impossible, and so on. We take them to see Santa, we talk about Santa, we read stories about Santa - but then on Christmas Eve we talk about Jesus to them while they are anxiously awaiting Santa. Now, I do not feel my parents, nor most parents are “lying” to the children - they are just allowing the innocence of a childhood imagination to run wild. This is fun, it is fairy tale land, however, there is really no other fairy tale that we ask our children to live out or act upon and have faith in like Santa. Then, on top of this, there are many churches across our land that will have Santa come to Children’s Church, putting those parents who do not want to play Santa in a very difficult position. Now, while it is up to each family to make their decision if they will “do the Santa thing”, I don’t believe it should be answered with an easy “of course” as Michele and I did. If I had thought through the questions my children would ask, and thought through the confusion it could have caused, in all honesty I probably would have let my kids be kids and enjoy their toys, and their pretending and all the joy of the cartoons during holidays… but I would have passed on Santa.

I write this knowing some will get more angry about me “Rethinking Santa” than if someone were to actually speak negatively about their brother and sister in Christ (oops, sorry most don’t get very upset about that). But, it would do all believers well to understand that there really is someone who sees them when they are sleeping… and knows when they are awake….knows every action (bad or good, right?)…but even more, knows our hearts – and loves us with an unfailing love….

Here is another wonderful article by Noel Piper that ponders this issue: http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/2141_thinking_about_santa/

Have a very Merry Christmas!!

"Growing" in January

While 2009 is winding down....GROW is gearing up for 2010!!

We have been announcing, praying, discussing, and signing up for G.R.O.W! I am sure you have heard about it in your BFG this past week as the teachers all received letters outlining the teams and week assignments last week. I pray this outreach program will involve more people in personal evangelism that we have ever had previously! There will be times of training for everyone, and then there is a need for some to keep nursery, write letters, and some to visit those who have visited Trinity and, most importantly share the Gospel. So if you have not signed up - yes, you can do so in your Bible Fellowship Group. Your class will be assigned approximately one night a month; you will be giving about 12 hours a year! If you miss your night, you can certainly come on another night - it is our desire to keep your classes together if at all possible so that you have visitation partners and time for fellowship as well. Please don’t just sign up...please make every effort to be involved in this great strategy. We will still be providing a meal and it will still be on Monday nights, but we believe more will be involved by doing it this way, because of the busy schedule that we all have. We have a staff member over each team and they will help you find a partner to go out with and a recommend someone to go visit. If you have never been involved with our outreach at Trinity before please make every effort to be here. If you have been involve previously but had to quit because of work schedule or some other conflict, this is your opportunity to get back involved in carrying out the Great Commission. Let’s see what God does through this in 2010!

Big Event for 2010

In no way do I want to rush 2009 out of here - I love the Holidays, being with family, and playing with my boys! But I want to use this space to give some understanding about a monumental event in 2010 for Trinity Baptist Church! We will begin a debt retirement campaign that will aggressively chip away at what we owe on our auditorium. God has blessed us with wonderful facilities, but we would be poor stewards of what He has given us if we spend over 200,000 a year making minimum payments until my grandchildren celebrate the payoff! The missions and ministries that money could be used for to glorify God, is being sent to a bank each and every month. This has been hanging over the head of Trinity for a while now, and we now have the opportunity to cut most of it down in about 3 years. The day I came, many of you expressed a desire to pay off this debt and that is a wise and realistic goal - so begin praying and planning how God will use YOU, and each member of Trinity as we sacrifice to pay off this building. As we enter into 2010 we will begin to explain in greater detail the process that we will be going through, but the chief motivation for this should be (as in all things) to glorify God. There are some who are already praying and are involved in the preliminary planning...and they will begin sharing with you, and explaining more in detail as we get into the New Year. As for right now, our prayer is that each member will make a commitment to be used of God and to give in a sacrificial way. This will be a spiritual journey to a glorious end! Please be in prayer regarding this great task for the New Year!

Don't Forget.....

Please don’t forget this coming Sunday evening - the choir will be doing a special Christmas service and we will be celebrating Happy Birthday Jesus. This service will be very similar to the way we did our "Operation Christmas Child": at the end of our invitation we will take up our offering, and at this point if you have children in the nursery and want them to come down to the altar with you to give your Happy Birthday Jesus offering, this would be the time to go get them. I want to encourage you to involve them in this celebration. Allow them to make a card, participate in giving their own offering - but by all means involve them! As believers we are usually the ones who lament the fact that the Christmas season really is about everything else except Christ, but we are as guilty as the world in the overindulgence of our children and ourselves during this time of year. Look at your budget and notice how much you will give your children and how little we give to Christ - and then make this celebration a priority for your family this year. Much of the reason we are doing this is to really celebrate in a fun way, but also to get our children’s attention focused on what matters most and that is giving not getting. We will then go to our Family Life Center and "sugar everyone up" on birthday cake! Much of this can serve as great discussion and teaching for our children on celebrating the fact that our Savior was born on this earth to die for our sin. Use this as a fun time to worship the one true God.

December 6th...A Very Special Night!

On Sunday evening December 6th Bro. Jon Rushing will be doing something he has never done in a Trinity Worship Service…PREACH! That is right! And no, don’t be afraid - I promise I won’t be singing that night...

Some time ago I asked Bro. Jon to do a sermon on "Worship". I remember speaking with Bro. Jon the first time and hearing his heart and passion for worship! What amazed me most is that he understood worship not from an emotional standpoint (although worship and singing can be and should be emotional at times)... but he was so different because he understood worship from a theological standpoint. To be quite blunt, I have never been on staff with a Worship Pastor who understood theology! Many want to smile, wave their hand and sing songs. Bro. Jon longs to Worship and is wonderfully gifted in teaching the Word of God - and for this I praise the Lord. I have shared with you before, as the Lord allowed me the honor of building a staff here at Trinity, I had the chance to re-evaluate how I have selected staff members in the past. In truth, like most Pastors I looked at resumes, I asked friends, and wanted to know what kind of skills they had. If they passed all these tests then we would discuss theology, methodology and, if I thought he could mesh with the church and the existing staff, I would hire him. Through this and by God’s grace, I had some wonderful staff members that I am close to and who are wonderful godly men - one of which still serves alongside me here at Trinity! But to be honest, many times I would swing and miss - this was because of my wrong thinking and hiring men the way I have watched other Pastors hire men.

When I began to search for staff/elders here, I began with their doctrine, what type of men would recommend these staff members, what they believed about the church, what authors they read, who they loved to hear preach, and could they teach the Word of God? If they passed this level, then we would work through the other areas. I learned that everything must begin biblically, and that means more than “do you believe the Bible is the Word of God” - they need to be able to articulate their doctrine. It is through this focus that God brought together men that I love, respect, and enjoy serving alongside as their Pastor. It is because of this, that I have a man on my staff who can sing, can lead worship, can lead a choir - but I have the utmost confidence in giving him my pulpit and entrusting him not only to sing doctrine, but to teach it! I love you Bro. Jon and believe God will use you greatly Sunday night!

Our Holiday Schedule:

I wanted to take a moment and give you the schedule at Trinity during the Christmas and New Year times. I know this will be in our Worship Guide but I wanted you to be able to have in front of you in another place. So look below and please take time to mark these dates on your calendars.

December 13th: In the evening service our choir will be leading as they worship with us in the Christmas musical. Following that, we will have our "Happy Birthday Jesus" offering and then celebrate with cake in the Family Life Center.

December 20: In the evening service we will partake of the Lord’s Supper as a church family.

December 23: An abbreviated Christmas worship service at 6pm.

December 27: No Bible Fellowship Groups/Sunday School nor evening service. Only 10:30 Worship Service.

December 30: No Wednesday activities.

December 24 and 31: Church office will be closed.

January 3: All services will be back to normal.

January 10: Sunday evening 4:30 classes and Children’s choir will start back.

As you make note of these changes, let’s remember not to worship the season but to worship the Savior!

Thanksgiving...a little different viewpoint

1 Thessalonians 5:17-18: "Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

There are many people who spend a great deal of time wondering about the Will of God, but I can tell you with certainty that, without a doubt it is the will of God for us to pray and the will of God to give thanks in everything! The Word of God makes this very clear. I confess the first post on Thanksgiving was easy, the most difficult part was how to keep it concise! I could go on and on being thankful for the incredible blessings in my life. This one is more difficult though…I mean the difficulty of the verse above is that one word - “everything.” So I wanted to do an exercise of a few things I can be thankful for that, at first, I wasn’t.

• I am thankful for the times people disappointed or sinned against me: I mean what better way for us to be reminded that we are fallen men around fallen men? What better way can we glorify God than by overlooking an offense that can be overlooked, or by living out Matthew 18 in our relationships? What better way to practice being a Peace Maker?
• I am thankful that I have to apologize to my wife and boys often: Is there a better way to take them by the hand and lead them to the cross than acknowledging when I sin against them, and what that did to our Savior? It also teaches our boys the need to deal with sin in their lives before God, and in our fellowship with other believers.
• I am thankful Trinity is not a church for everyone: God has given us, as a body, some fantastic additions by letter and by salvation - He has also given us some needed subtractions. As we increase our devotion to the Word and our accountability to one another, that will draw some in and some out. Through all of this, we give thanks.
• I am thankful for anonymous letters: On November the 8th we saw that what Satan meant for evil, God meant for good! As you can read from previous posts in November, God fell on Trinity corporately as we repented for past and present sin. It lead to amazing restoration of relationships and caused our men to rise up to lead their church and families!
• I am thankful for some in the world who slander, hate and persecute: The Word of God says in Luke 6:26-- “Woe to you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” When we are a people all men speak well of, we cease to be a church that Christ will speak well of.
• I am thankful for times when God moved in and turned my focus on Him: Times when looking for staff, when trying to sell a house, trying to buy a house, getting family settled in - times when I just feel stressed! I thank God for those times because those are the times I am reminded of how weak, frail, and self reliant I can be.
• I am thankful for Michele’s recent sickness: My sweet wife was as sick as she had been since we were in Seminary. The love Trinity showed to her and our family was nothing short of amazing. It is an understatement as to how the Lord used this negative situation to bless our family immensely. Thank you Trinity!

As I wrote this list I thought of several more, but I can tell you with confidence our God is faithful regardless of the situation - be it good, or bad. He IS good and DOES good ALL the time!

Thanksgiving...looking back

I would not have the space to list all the things I am thankful for in my life, and I am not going to bore you to death by listing everything from my health, to the thankfulness that I get to see my family on Thanksgiving! I know that there are all kinds of lists that each of us could make with regard to things we are thankful for, but I want to put two unique lists together this week (one in each blog). I know that many of the readers of this blog are families with children and understand how the “addition” of children to your life changes things…so, I want to take the time to write a short list of things I am thankful for – from the perspective of my life now, as an adult.

• I am thankful that, as a child, my parents made me go to church.
• I am thankful that I don’t recall a time that my Dad ever gave me a “talk” about commitment, and then allowed me to skip church to go to my team’s ball game.
• I am thankful that when I turned 18 there was no conversation about me now being “an adult” and that I could choose to be faithful to the things of God. (At 18 years of age I didn’t buy my own toothpaste and I still had accountability to my parents). Isn’t that a crazy thought????
• I am thankful that I was in a church that taught the Word of God and actually expected me to strive for holiness.
• I am thankful that I was saved at an early age and thereby was saved from many of the terrible effects of sin.
• I am thankful that Michele said “yes” when I asked her to be my wife.
• I am thankful that if I had a “redo” of the night she said “yes,” I would do it again in a minute.
• I am more thankful that if she had a “redo,” she “says” she would say yes again.
• I am thankful that the Lord saved my boys at an early age.
• I am thankful that I am not their best friend, but I get the honor of being their Dad.
• I am thankful for a wife who knows me and still loves me, boys who hear me preach on Sunday and will still listen to me with smiles (most times) as I teach in our family worship.
• I am thankful for Trinity - that I have the honor of being called their Pastor - and a church family who I love more each and every day.
• I am most thankful for a Savior who called me and keeps me even though He knows all about me. What wonderful grace!

Certainly I could go on, but as an adult looking back, these are some the greatest gifts in my life.

Say Hello To My Little Friend...

Many of you have shared with me how much The Peace Maker has meant to you. I believe it goes without saying how God has used it to impact our church, but I also wanted to take a moment and share with you a major impact it has made in my life. The Peace Maker has taken an enemy, something that no one could possibly like, and has allowed me to make it my friend. This friend is one I have rarely spoken about - a friend that at one time was a despised enemy by me, and to be honest, an enemy to most of the readers of this blog. He is often ugly, he doesn’t smell pleasant by any stretch of the imagination and he is older than anyone I know. I must confess I hear from him less and less by decisions I have made through the years, but many times when I see him I cringe! He pops up at the most inappropriate times and in fact, words things in a way that many times, they are far fetched at best, and often outright lies. When he speaks the truth, seldom does it drip with grace and love - most of the time it is with a desire to belittle or even hurt. This troll looking individual hung out with Moses, Jeremiah, Jesus, Paul, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon and I suppose, most any believer attempting to walk with God. Each handled him differently, but most of them handled him as a dear friend (but always keeping him in his rightful place). Christ spoke about this “little friend” that would be with His followers by saying in Luke 6:26 “Woe to you when all men speak well of you….” Or Charles Spurgeon said that every Pastor must have “One blind eye and one deaf ear.” Martin Luther would agree with the enemy as he hurled accusations against him. Paul had this friend follow him in most of the places he preached - in fact he would go before him to prepare the way! What made these men so strong in their faith and bold in their words was, in part, because of the friend called CRITICISM. Now, I must confess I limit his access; I do not read anonymous letters (they never make it to me), I block message boards and other sites because I can not stop the heathen from raging. But when something comes to me, I must recognize God’s sovereignty and see this little “troll” as a friend, or as an enemy. If I see him as an enemy, I will recoil, attack, become bitter and lose sleep. But if I see him as a friend, I will see him as someone who enables me to depend on the grace of God, who drives me to the cross of Christ. To one who embraces this visitor, whether he comes bearing truth or lies, it will cause him to learn more about God’s sovereignty. As a matter of fact, he can even use it to determine if he is going the right direction - for if the enemy hurls accusations, one must be doing something right. The truth is, we need this friend - I need this friend! For how many of us ever get a glimpse of suffering in America? How many of us are ever persecuted for truth? We will not be imprisoned at the present time - we will not be tortured, so how can I identify with Him and hold to the promise that we will suffer? How can I know if I love Him if the world is always cheering me on? Oh, as we are nearing an end to this incredible study of The Peacemaker, may God allow all of us to see this ugly little thing called criticism as a welcomed friend. If all men speak well of you, that my friend is when you should lose sleep!
Luke 6:22-23 Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets .

Famous Repentance

Charles Spurgeon once said something like this…A man’s repentance should be more famous that his sin. It is my prayer that this will be true for Trinity Baptist Church. Per request of our deacons you will find the two letters written. While I know there were three written, the one we sent to Bro. Jim Butler is the same in its text as we sent to Bro. David Jett, simply because the same sin was committed against each man. We pray that this will encourage all of us to lead a life of repentance.


Letter #1 November 8, 2009
Dear Bro. David/Jim:

We hope this letter finds you doing well and the Lord blessing your ministry. We are rejoicing in what the Lord is doing in the midst of our fellowship here at Trinity. Some of the blessings we are experiencing today are no doubt due to the way the Lord worked through you and your ministry here as you labored among His flock. As of this time, we are in the midst of a study entitled The Peace Maker. As believers we understand that God has called each of us to glorify Him by being at peace with one another. It is for that reason we are writing this letter.

Throughout your ministry at Trinity, there were many who loved you and still have great love and admiration for you and the work that God did through you. However, we understand that, as we live in a fallen world with fallen people, there were those at Trinity that did not support and pray for you as God desires us to do for those He chose to lead us in His work. We know there were those who were divisive and chose to engage in the practice of sinful gossip. While we believe the majority appreciated and was thankful for your ministry, we also recognize that many did not follow Christ’s example by stepping up and squelching the sinful gossip and undercutting of our spiritual authority.

We are sorrowed and deeply regretful that we did not fulfill our responsibility as believers in doing what Christ wanted us to do. As a church body, we have appealed to our Father asking forgiveness, and we now appeal to you asking the same.

In short, we, as a body, stand guilty and, like the prophets of the nation of Israel would call out to God for restitution for their past sins, we stand today doing the same thing. It is our prayer that, as time passes, our heavenly Father will bring to mind the eternal difference you made in our fellowship and may God’s grace and favor turn again to us as we repent of our past sins against you and His Kingdom. May the Lord bless you and your family in the days ahead.

In Christ,

Trinity Baptist Church represented by:









Letter #2
November 8, 2009

Dear Trinity Baptist Church Members:

In Romans 12, Paul moves from theological to practical, giving guidelines for living as a redeemed people in a fallen world. We are to give ourselves to Christ as living sacrifices.

Romans 12:1-3: And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to GOD because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living sacrifice – the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let GOD transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know GOD’S will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Because of privilege and authority GOD has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith GOD has given us.

Your deacon body comes before you today with a heart of repentance and a request for forgiveness for present, as well as past sins, against our church and against the pastors GOD has placed here at Trinity. Our LORD has confirmed to us, time and time again, that He has chosen the man He wants to lead His church. In the past, we as a church and as deacons, have not always followed the heart or Word of GOD. We are selfish and self-serving causing discontent and division within our church body and against our pastors. For the health of our church and the continued blessing and anointing of our LORD, it is imperative that we stand united. We must realize we have fallen short in supporting our previous pastors and repent for these sins directly to them and to the LORD. We must also repent to Bro. Chad and beg his forgiveness for our shortcoming of limited support, spreading of sinful gossip, and undercutting of his spiritual authority.

A pastor is not perfect and will not always make decisions that are popular but GOD has confirmed to us that Bro. Chad is the pastor He placed here at Trinity. May our words and actions be as a “living sacrifice” as we move forward in the life of Trinity Baptist Church; that GOD will forgive us and continue to walk with us for many years to come.

In Christ,

The Deacon Body
Trinity Baptist Church

Still Amazed...

Several days after Sunday night, we are still getting e-mails and phone calls regarding what God began and is continuing to do within our fellowship at Trinity. The foundation that is being laid by conducting our life biblically is utterly amazing! If you recall, in the book of Joshua after God’s people crossed over the Jordan, they stacked stones up as a memorial of what God had done. We have been approached with several ideas of ways to do this with our church. Some of you have even discussed some things you have done as a family or as individuals to make this a “spiritual marker” in your life. The Jews did this quite often - they had many celebrations to teach their children great spiritual truths and, in truth it is something we do not do often enough as His people. In hopes of remedying that somewhat, we are going to have two specific “monuments” to recognize our repentance as His people.

First, we are going to take the three letters that were written by our deacons on behalf of our congregation, and make copies of them and the signatures, and frame them. We will probably put them up on the wall with the pictures of our previous pastors. I wish I could say I thought of this creative idea, but I didn’t. However, it serves as an opportunity for us to be reminded of our repentance as a body, and our commitment to being peacemakers for the glory of God. We have made a commitment and have drawn a line that we will Endeavor/Battle/War, as Paul said, to have peace. There will always be some who will not want that - but as for the majority at Trinity, we will serve and honor our Lord. Secondly, we will be providing personal mementos of this event by making copies of every passage of Scripture read, and the lyrics to the songs that took place in our service. We are doing this to allow us to keep them in our Bibles or notebooks, so we have reminders in front of us of what God has called us to do. In the next post I will have the letters our Deacons wrote to Bro. Jim, Bro. David and to the Church, posted as requested by our Deacons. To God be the glory - great deeds He has done! But also, to God be the glory great things He will do! I look forward to seeing you on Sunday!

An Amazing Service...

I had a phone call yesterday from a dear brother in our church that is retired from the ministry: he shared with me that at only one other time in his life, many years ago, had he seen God move in a service the way He moved in our service Sunday night! We had a wonderful attendance, but unfortunately we had some that could not make it. As I am sure you have all heard, our deacons wrote some very special letters that we will make available to you to sign, if you wish. And, as with every service, we will have it on DVD. The truth is however, that it was one of those services that you “just had to be there”. I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you some comments made about the service Sunday night that have been sent via facebook or e-mail:

I know for me that Sunday night a relationship was mended and the healing began! I have wanted this for so long but was not sure how or if this was possible. I will be forever changed by this service!

It was Amazing!!

Heart breaking, heart wrenching, heart changing.

God is really moving at Trinity! Tonight was an awesome beginning to the healing and seeking of forgiveness that we (especially me) need so much.

I was more humbled by your reading of the Word. Thank you for always going there first. =)

Amazed I get to be a part of this incredible body....overwhelmed by the Grace of God...

Definitely a mountaintop experience!

Jeremiah 15:16 "Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart." I am praising the Lord this morning for His sweet, healing words to us last night.

Last night was truly AMAZING!! God's hand was all over Trinity last night, what a life changing and church changing experience!!

I pray that this is the beginning to an end....the end of division within our church body....the end to petty differences....the end to an era of "This is MY church" or "I have been going here for ?? years and I am not going to change"....the end to the level of gossip that takes place within and outside of the walls of Gods beautiful house....

Awsome- kinda like when the children of Israel saw the cloud of the glory of God in the temple...God was there tonight.

Closure:)

WOW, what a time of healing Sunday night, that was the most amazing church service that I’ve ever participated in!

Since Sunday night was so moving and it is obvious that everyone wants it to "live" with us for as long as possible, what do you think of creating a handout with all the scriptures printed out (the actual scriptures-not just references) with the lyrics to the songs in between. Seems like it would be a great reminder and a tool to just keep in our bibles and remind us of our commitment.

This was just a SMALL sample, and more general statements, I took quotes from. From the phone calls, to the meetings, God moved mightily! The truth is that I have had the honor of being in some wonderful churches with some wonderful Preachers…but I have never been in a service like what we experienced Sunday night. I shared with my boys as we spoke about it Sunday night, that they never need to take this for granted - they need to journal or do something in order to remember how God moved on this special night. Thank you Trinity, for receiving the Word of God! Make a commitment to not come down from the work of this wall even when the modern day Sanballat, Tobiah and Geshem show up…(or Moe, Larry and Curly… however you want to refer to them). Regardless, we are committed to do His work, to do it His way and we get to watch Heaven move down on our services.

To be continued….

Reminder Trinity!!

REMINDER: Be in prayer for our Sunday PM service! See you all there!

A Very Important Service...

I primarily use this blog to share with our Trinity Fellowship but also in hopes to communicate with other believers. I will usually post twice a week, however this week will be my only post because I want it up the entire week. Thursday I will only put up a reminder to be in prayer for this service:


November 8th could be service that will forever change our church! On a cold Sunday night in early December, almost a year ago now, we had around a thousand people show up on a Sunday EVENING and vote that they believed God wanted me to the Pastor of Trinity Baptist Church. I accepted that position believing God had a great work to do here in our fellowship. I believe one of the primary reasons God has allowed me to be your Pastor will be revealed during this service. For years to come, November 8th service will be viewed one of two ways: First, it could be viewed as a life altering moment for our fellowship where hearts were stirred and God fell mightily! Secondly, it could be viewed as an opportunity for God’s grace and power to fall upon Trinity – but we rejected what God wanted to do in our church. To be frank (as I suppose I always am), this will not be a service that we will leave without stirring or conviction - In fact, it will be an opportunity for us to turn to God or for Him to turn from us. In the year that I have been your Pastor, you know that I have never been one to build to a single moment…I am not a promoter - but I have been called to be a Preacher. I am not using hyperbole to gain a crowd that night and in fact, I really only want those who truly love Trinity and desire to be long term members of this family to come that night! I want you to know this is not going to be a surprise celebration; it is not going to be a giant party. This is going to be a time to do business with a HOLY God, a time to hold a mirror up to ourselves, and a time to make or break the future of Trinity. I find myself extremely hesitant to put so much emphasis on one service - but what will take place this night will not be a simple service, it will be the beginning of change! This is not the power of our work, but the power of His Word. I look forward to seeing you this Sunday evening!

Outreach - Time Well Spent!

There are many prospects that come through the doors of Trinity Baptist Church. They range from families who visit our church, to children who are involved with All Star Basketball, even ladies who attend some of our ladies events. The problem, sadly enough, is that all too often we don’t have enough people consistently involved in outreach to see all of them! Some of this has to do with a lack of concern for the lost, but much of it has to do with the lack of time. I came across these statistics and to be honest was shocked with how much time we waste! According to research done by Priority Management, did you know that in the life time of the average American he/she will:

• Six months sitting at stoplights
• Two years unsuccessfully returning phone calls
• Seven years waiting in line (ever been to Disney World)
• Nine years in front of the TV

Wow, what a waste! In January, we will be beginning a brand new way to do outreach. We are asking that you give about 8 hours - per YEAR! When you add in holidays and add in June-August (where all teams will go together one time a month) you come up with 8 hours a year. Our desire is that every member of our church can participate in this program. We will divide each Sunday School class into either a G-Team, R-Team, O-Team, or W-Team and we will ask that they try their best to be at outreach on their assigned week. Now certainly, if you can’t make it you can come on another team’s night. In fact, if you like you can come every team’s night if you want. We will have several opportunities for you during this time: (1) We will have new in town packets that you can simply drop by and welcome new families into the area (2) We will have letter writers (3) We will have prospects: those who have visited our church and need a visit (4) We will have those who have not been in some time and we need to check on them. (5) We will need some to volunteers to keep the nursery. I can assure you that you can be involved in one of these 5 areas! When you receive your list to sign up for this new ministry, please be willing to give 8 hours a YEAR for an organized plan to share the Gospel!

Success...Part 4

As I conclude this reminder (in my life and for our church) about what success really looks like, I thank God for men like Kent Hughes. I may never meet him personally, but in this book (and many of his others), God has used him to stamp my life for all eternity. The final two areas he calls success are probably the most attacked areas in our churches today: misinformation has caused many men, women and churches to be spiritual failures while succeeding in the eyes of the world. So rather than reviewing (you can certainly go back and read the previous blogs) I want us to delve right in.

Success is Holiness: God calls us to be holy; this is foundational to all other success. Hughes says: “…there are untold numbers of successful pastors and Christian workers who are abysmal failures. For those of us who would serve God, the truth is inescapable. The pursuit of holiness is essential if we are ever to know anything of real success.” He goes on through the life of Samson and David and tracks their moral failures, and they serve as a great warning to all believers. There is no doubt that holiness is not easy, it involves dying to self not just daily but many times, moment by moment. However, the great truth is that God will help us accomplish this because He demands it. This is where the Word of God and the Spirit of God function in our lives - we can not afford to grow dependant upon our self discipline or high morals because we can all sing along with the great hymn “Come Thou Fount” when the writer says: “prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” Everyone of us are but one decision away from total chaos…this is why we must live by the cross, this is why we so desperately need a church to hold us accountable and get involved in our lives!

Success is Attitude: How often I have failed in this area. He tells us the importance of keeping our attitude in check when difficulty arises - how important it is to not get caught up in our situation but to encourage others through theirs. He speaks of jealousy among God’s people and a desire to compare ourselves with others! When Bro. David Miller was here, he and I were speaking of a church where the Pastor has been there for over 20 years, he has taught his people the Word of God, they understand the biblical purpose of the church, they are unified, they are passionate in their evangelism, and while evangelizing they get the Gospel right! I was sharing with Bro. David how I have read some of this Pastor’s writings and how I would love to meet him. This church’s congregation probably has less people than our student ministry… because of this it is safe to say they can’t give the amount we give to missions and they don’t have the resources. But as I have gotten to know about this Pastor and his church, I can say with certainty that this particular church is much more healthy than Trinity at this time. This is not a knock on us, but a clarification of success. This Pastor has had over 20 years to teach the same people from Word of God and has had a generation of people raise their children under his preaching. They are a healthy church, and regardless of what the convention says about them or what the community says about them, they are a successful church because they are persevering in truth.

Success....Part 3

I stated as I began this series of blogs, that I can’t describe what an incredible blessing the book “Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome” has been to me. When I look back over the years in the ministry the Lord has blessed me with, I am reminded what the world or even our denomination calls success may not be accurate. In my first church, we were going through a time of incredible growth, we saw many people come to Christ - this little church in Byron, Ga. was among the top 50 in the Southern Baptist Convention in Baptisms. Then, not long ago in our previous church, we had to deal with an individual caught in immorality and, when we dealt with this man there was an overwhelming desire to ignore the sin, to let it go. Nevertheless, the church stood for truth in the midst of great difficulty - many were angered, others accused us of being uncaring or arrogant, and many left the church. Which church was more successful? It depends on your definition of success. Seeing people come to Christ is always exciting, and it is evidence of a work of God; however, when the Church expects one another to live holy and holds one another accountable, is it any less successful? We have already looked at the fact that success is faithfulness, serving, and loving. But in his book, Kent Hughes goes a few more steps.

Success is Believing: The Bible says “Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Most of my difficulty arises from the failure of this area. I will tell you and preach to you so often that we serve a sovereign God, but when something happens, when difficulty comes - too often I respond in a way that doesn’t display what I say I believe. Often I get anxious over things, frustrated over issues, and aggravated with people. Too often I act as if some accident has taken place in my life rather than believing that God is at work for His glory and my good. If my belief is deepening, it will change my behavior in the present, and it will change my response in adversity. He closes this chapter out by asking three questions that serve as a heart check: (1) Am I believing that God can take care of me? Truthfully? (2) Am I believing He loves me? (3) Am I believing that He rewards - that he is morally active on the part of those who seek him? I must confess there have been times while my head has known the correct answer, my heart doubted these things.

Success is Prayer: If I am not praying I am not a success in the eyes of God. He points out that prayer is fundamental to be a success in the ministry. We need to look no further than Christ; when pressures grew, He did no more than to withdraw and pray. Hughes gives a few reasons why prayer is so important: (1) We pray because of what prayer does to us. Prayer is not to change God’s mind - He is unchanging. God knows that what we need more than anything else is to fix our focus upon Him and He will conform our heart. Prayer is not when I get God to do something for me, but when He moves in my life in such a way that I am aligned with His will. (2) We pray because of what prayer does in the church. Prayer sets the spiritual atmosphere of the church. How blessed I am that so many in our church have sent e-mails, cards and spoken to me and shared that they pray for me daily. I covet those prayers and can’t imagine where I would be without so many saints of God interceding for me. (3) We pray because Jesus prayed: Several years ago there was a popular fad among believers and others to wear a W.W.J.D bracelet, shirt or some other type of article. We know the answer to “What Would Jesus Do?” - He would pray - He demonstrated this for us.

In short, if we were to define our lives by this…if we were considered a success in our lives, our families, our ministries by how much we prayed and how much we really believed what we say we believe, the question is: Would we be successful? If our churches and leadership were as consumed with this as we are with buildings and numbers I wonder how much more successful we would really be?

Success....part 2

In my last post, I began a series of entries that I commented on from a book called, “Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome.” I received this book early on in my ministry and it has profoundly impacted my view of what real success is in the life of a ministry, and in fact, the life of every church and believer. Without rehashing all of that I want to jump right into the next couple of subjects that define real success for us as believers.

Success Is Serving: The point that is made by Hughes is that real service doesn’t require that someone recognize you. He illustrates this point by stating: “The conductor of a great symphony orchestra was once asked which was the most difficult instrument to play. ‘The second violin’ he answered. ‘I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play second violin with enthusiasm----that is a problem. And if we have no second violin, we have no harmony’” Too many times in church no one wants to play second violin. There is no picture of service like Christ displayed at the Last Supper except that which He displayed at the cross. He died for us and it added nothing to Him, it didn’t complete Him, He was already perfect. So often we come to church looking for our needs to get met, upset if someone hasn’t ministered effectively to us, or has not appreciated us properly. If I were to combine the first two points from this book I would find that biblical success is when I am faithful in everything - including my service! Not only is success serving, we must understand that…

Success Is Loving: This is something that should be ever growing. The tragedy about our love for God is that is can be so veiled. It IS possible to preach, to sing, to be a pastor, teacher, writer – and yet, still NOT love God. But Hughes points out if we really love, we are successful. He mentions four things love does in us, I will highlight only three because of space: (a) It places our ministries beyond the judgments of man. We don’t operate according to man’s standards, nor for man’s approvals…one can not put a statistic on our love for God. If I love Christ, I will love His bride! (b) It liberates us from the destructive tendency to compare ourselves with others. As I realize that I am called to live for Christ, and He has equipped me to accomplish the purpose of bringing glory to Him. I will not try to be someone I am not, I will not compare myself and find someone I believe I am “better than” to build my ego up - nor will I find someone better than me to strive to become. My desire will be to love Christ above all else and serve Him using the gifts He has given me, for His glory. (c) It frees the whole church up, because loving God is something all of us can do. This success is not just for a select group, every believer has equal opportunity to do this. The reason I don’t love Jesus more than I do is because I don’t want to. That hurts, huh? You have heard me say this in sermons before – but what do I mean by it? Just what it says! I choose how I spend my time, what I read, what I study, who I talk about and what activities I partake in….if I truly want to love God more, I will spend more time deepening that relationship. If we really took this relationship seriously, wouldn’t we make more of an effort to grow in it continuously rather than becoming complacent and comfortable? My love can grow deeper, or it can grow cold, it depends on His grace but it depends on my desire! I can enhance this by a devotion to His Word and His people.

May we at Trinity grow in our Faithfulness, Service and Love! Then we will be a successful church! More to come….

Success - part 1

Over the next several posts I want to discuss “success” with you. Now, the subject matter of these posts are not original from me - but God did use them to help form me. I mentioned in my last post what a joy it is watching our students learn great biblical truths early on in their life and how that bodes well for the future of Trinity. Early on in my ministry one of my dearest friends in the world, Dr. Herb Reavis gave me a book written by Kent Hughes entitled “Liberating Ministry From The Success Syndrome.” If I could point to a single book - authored by man that is - that forever changed my view of ministry and life, it would be this book. I go back to it often - it has helped my outlook and perspective more times than you can imagine! I encourage every young man I know going into the ministry to read this book. But as I have flipped through it through the years, I realized that while this book is written primarily to those who are pastors, it is a book that should help define success for every believer. I believe if we, as God’s people will look at these subjects and define our church’s success, family’s success, and life in general’s success by these standards, we would truly impact the world for the cause of Christ! I will only deal with the first one in this post:

Success Is Faithfulness: Now, this is obviously true for the Pastor - to be successful in the eyes of The One who matters, I must be faithful to Him. I must faithfully preach the Word of God, stand by it, live by it! But, does God require anything less than faithfulness from every believer? Over and over Scripture links success to obedience. Now, let’s be clear - just because the WORLD calls you successful, doesn’t mean you’re obedient to God’s Word. In fact, if you recall Moses struck the rock in the wilderness when God told him to speak to it! Water still came out… it seemed successful from the results, but it failed miserably in eyes of God because Moses was not faithful to keep God’s Word. If we are going to be faithful to the Word of God, we must KNOW the Word of God and continually be growing in our knowledge of it. Are we doing this? Hughes ends up saying: “Success then, comes when we faithfully study God’s Word and faithfully obey it, applying what we understand to all areas of our lives under the direction of the Holy Spirit.” Wow! What if all of us would judge ourselves and our church by this standard? There is a tendency to measure ourselves against another believer, but God will not compare us in that way. He doesn’t look at Trinity and compare us to other churches in our city. One of the chief ways He judges our success is faithfulness to His Word. By nature we don’t like to be judged this way - we like something concrete… we like the numbers, we like the measurable statistics, that way we can keep the score. However, that is not how our God works. I want to encourage you this week to pray that Trinity Baptist Church is successful in regard to our faithfulness! Pray that your Pastor and leadership will be faithful, and pray that you will be found faithful in your calling as a believer!

Growing Men and Ladies in Godliness

As I have outlined the biblical vision for Trinity in previous posts, I wanted to share a point of rejoicing this past week during our staff meeting…but, let me first explain…

When God chose to allow me the joy of being Pastor of Trinity, I knew there were some things that we needed to immediately establish: first, I wanted to make it crystal clear, from a biblical perspective, what God required out of our men and women with regard to their biblical roles specifically in marriage (this began during our marriage series). Secondly, I wanted to make sure we, as a church, understood not only the authority and inerrancy of the Word of God, but the sufficiency of the Word of God in every area of our lives (I pray this is being done as we walk through Psalm 119). Third, I knew we had to understand the biblical concept of what being a Peace Maker looked like. In our churches around America we have “Peace Fakers”, we have gossips, we have strife, but we fail to understand what Peace Making is all about (obviously this is what I pray is being accomplished during our Sunday morning services). I pray we will continue to grow in our knowledge about these subjects, as well as others that we will be dealing with in the coming months and years. I say all of this because as we have studied these different series, so many of you have shared with me how you wish you would have known these things years ago…to which I echoed those sentiments. How much further in my walk would I be, and how many mistakes and sinful strongholds I would have avoided, if I had known and applied these truths!

Now, back to our staff meeting….I explained all of this because Bro. Brad Walker has headed up a great event for our students! To be honest, I forget the catchy name he has for the event for the young ladies (something about pampering), but for the young men he is hosting a “Man VS Wild” weekend. While this will be a fun and exciting weekend, it is weekend that will be teaching our young men and young ladies what it means to be a godly man and a godly woman! I can’t think of a more appropriate topic in our society – a society that is so confused about what real biblical manhood and womanhood looks like! As I think about events like this and what Bro. Jeff Summers is teaching our children, I feel very confident that the next generation of Trinity Baptist Church will be well grounded. They are being taught things that were not a priority when many of us were growing up in church. My boys know more doctrine at their age (9, 11) than I did when I went into High School. As we teach our students these life changing truths, we must also remind them “to whom much is given, much is required.” As they learn these truths, make sure you help teach them and apply them to their lives on a daily basis. Then rejoice as you watch the Spirit of God and the Word of God take root in their life!

Hard Preaching

You hear very little today, even in our good churches, about real preaching. Even among regular church goers, the connotation of “preaching” is negative. How many times have you heard someone say: “Don’t Preach To Me!” Well, the truth is, if there is anything we need today, it is to be preached to! Paul warned in his letter to Timothy: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from truth and be turned aside to fables.” 1st Tim. 4:2-3. The most unpopular thing to do today in our culture is to warn people of danger and outright lies concerning the Gospel - it is considered unloving, condescending, arrogant, and so on. When our boys were little and they would walk over to the fire place to touch the fire, or try to open a cabinet with cleaning supplies, I would discipline them - and I wanted to do it in such a way that they would not want to go near the danger again. This was not unloving, condescending, or arrogant; in fact, it was the most loving thing I could ever do to them. I was called to keep them away from danger.

This blog topic results from my thinking of a new book that is out….one of my favorite authors (John MacArthur) has a new book called: The Jesus You Can’t Ignore. Read the quote below for one of the reviews about this book:

"[In his] first public act, he took a whip, went into the heart of Judiastic religion -- the Temple itself -- and started throwing people out of there, overturning tables of moneychangers, overturning the tables in the operations of the buyers and sellers of animals," the noted author shares. "He condemned the whole place because it was to be a house of prayer, and they had turned it into a cave of robbers."

MacArthur says there are many false teachers today who are not preaching the full gospel.

"We have the idea today that we need to preach this sort of soft, amiable kind of message, [that] we need to tell people what they want to hear," he laments. "But the truth of the matter is, soft preaching produces hard people. Because soft preaching affirms them, tells them they're fine, [that] you need to grab your dreams...."

And while MacArthur acknowledges that the gospel makes people uncomfortable, he says it prepares hearts for the only cure for sin -- which is Jesus Christ.

This is the reason I am so adamant when preaching that salvation is not a magic prayer - It is for this reason I come down so strong on men like Joel Osteen and Robert Schuller. For this I am not sorry, and for this I am grateful to so many of you who do not just casually or passively receive the Word and hard preaching - but you gladly do so. Thank you for making this calling a true joy!

Calling Intense PeaceMakers!

As I am writing this, I am thinking that we have seen people come to Christ every week since we began the Peacemakers study - the reason is that being a “Peace Maker” is impossible without the cross of Christ being a reality in our lives. It is such an interesting study because most people, upon looking at the subject matter will initially say: “I know Bro. So-and-So could really use this study.” But the Word of God works like a mirror, and those that truly desire holiness, as they are confronted with the Word, realize they are the ones who are in desperate need of becoming a Peace Maker. Understanding this, it was our desire as we entered into this study, that this would not be something that we just look at, study and walk away from. Our desire is that this will forever change Trinity!

In the coming weeks our staff and church leadership will be asking for some names of people who would like to be on our Peace Makers team. This will not be a team that a person will rotate off of after a designated time, this will be a team that is completely committed to moving outside of their comfort zone to keep Biblical peace in this local body of Christ. I want to briefly share with you some of what this ministry will entail for those who choose to be committed:
(1) A continual growth in your life spiritually, to the point where there is a deepening passion for biblical peace.
(2) A willingness to get involved in any conflicts within the body and help our brothers and sisters effectively serve Christ, and keep our testimony of love for one another.
(3) A willingness to live out Matthew 18 in your life, in your church, and help others understand how we are to be involved with one another and do all we can to help each other walk with Christ.
(4) To force us out of the contemporary “Lone Ranger” mentality, that what I do is my business and what you do is your business. This is an American concept but certainly not a biblical concept. The biblical understanding of church is that we are accountable to one another, we need each other to assure each of us display the glory of God to the best of our ability. The bottom line is I need you and you need me - we were never meant to go through his Christian walk alone. The explanation of this team will be given in our New Members Class, and each member will be presented to our church.

So in short, as you have gone through this study, if it has struck a cord with you – if you have a desire to be part of bringing peace to the lives the families at Trinity as we serve together, pray about being part of this team. This means you will get your hands dirty! You will have to be more committed to Scripture than comfort. But regardless of your age, if this is a ministry you would like to find out more about, please respond to me through this blog, send an e-mail, call our church office, or see a staff member…we will write your name down and plan an initial meeting that will explain this in greater detail. I will be sharing more about this as we continue to go through this great study and watch God work in amazing ways. See you on Sunday!

Tireless Service

Wednesday night I was preaching to a wonderful group of people in our auditorium…while it was a great crowd in that room, I mentioned that we have A LOT more children in AWANA! (In fact, a lot more than we expected we would have for our first year of AWANA) I let them know that we needed some more people to help in that ministry right away. To my surprise, before I made my way out of the auditorium there were already six names of members willing to serve! While our AWANA volunteers are from a variety of ages, one of the groups that blessed me the most was that of our young couples. Many of the men and ladies that I saw serving, and even those who signed up that night, were already actively involved in nursery and in several other ministries… and I am sure after a long day on a Wednesday, it probably would be very helpful to come in and just sit down and hear the Word of God. The blessing is they “esteemed others more highly than themselves.” I thank the Lord for our families with children at Trinity… many times they are doing the most and are still the first to serve! There are dads and moms with children who have homework and sports activities, and yet who still make it to outreach, who still teach a class, and still faithfully serve or sing or minister! They are the group we have seen the most numerical growth in on Sunday night and they are actively growing through Sunday School and Bible Study. I would love to tell you how much each of these families encourage me… the way many of our young men have stepped up to begin leading their families in worship and being willing to be held accountable to other men! This has been one of the greatest blessings for me personally as a Pastor! All this to say, thank you Men and Ladies for your hard work and service for the saints at Trinity. I know you may grow weary at times, I know you come to church tired many days. I know you have run your children around for the entire week… thank you for making Christ your priority! I truly am honored that I get to be your Pastor, I love you dearly and appreciate your dedication to your Lord and your Church family!

An Important Date....

Over the last several weeks we have been studying the wonderful chapter of Psalms119. This study will take us quite some time to complete but, if there is one thing this chapter has taught us - it is that it is imperative that, as God’s people, we need to be under the Word as much as possible! It is impossible for me to overdose on the Word of God! All day on Sunday, October 18th and Monday evening of the 19th, we will have Bro. David Miller preaching the Word of God to us. Bro. David is from Heber Springs, AR and is the founder of Line Upon Line Ministries. While he suffers from a degenerative muscular disease called peroneal muscular atrophy and must preach from a wheelchair, Bro. David stands head and shoulders above most preachers in our day. He is an incredible man of God in and out of the pulpit! If I knew the exact day I was going home to be with our Lord, and I had only one last sermon to hear, without a doubt I would choose to hear a sermon from Bro. David Miller. I have known him since I was in grade school and every single time I have ever heard him preach, he has done nothing but clearly exegete the Word of God.

When I came to Trinity I was asked by several individuals if we would have evangelist come in for revivals. My answer was “yes”, after all the Word of God tells us in Ephesians that evangelists are gifts to the church. So, if we are going to be a Biblical church, we should be using those gifts God has given us. I must confess however, when I answered yes I gave two things we must do: (1) Support them: This may come as a surprise to some of you who have spent most of your life at Trinity or in churches like her. But, most Baptist churches are small… Bro. David has been with me at both of my previous pastorates. The first time he was with me, I believe was my first year as a Pastor and we were averaging about 60 people in Sunday School. I can tell you that size church is more of the “norm” than a church Trinity’s size. In saying that, we are not only giving to Bro. David’s ministry, we are also enabling him to go to other churches much smaller than ours when we invest in his ministry. We have done this with every man who has filled Trinity’s pulpit since I have been here. (2) Attend the meetings: The service we have on Monday will take the place of our normal Wednesday services… so come and invite others to come with you! It is impossible to have church if the church doesn’t come.

I tell you all this because I want you to PLAN and PRAY. I want you to plan to be here and pray that God does a great work through Bro. David Miller!

Deacon Nominations

We are currently taking nominations for men to serve as deacons at Trinity: in many churches, this becomes a popularity contest or a question of who has been here the longest. Obviously, these are some of the reasons so many churches are in such a mess - because we place men in positions who are not biblically qualified. So, let me encourage you, before you speak to anyone and ask them to fill out our nomination form, and before we meet with them, please take the Word of God and turn to 1st Timothy 3:8-13 - read and think it through this passage. Here is what you will find:

The name “deacon” means servants. Deacons at Trinity have never tried to be the “guard” or the “head” of all other ministry teams. They are expected to do what the Word of God calls them to do and that is to serve. So, the first question you need to ask is this: Is the man that I want to nominate already serving in some capacity? It is not the title that should cause them to serve, it is the heart and love for our Savior that should cause them to already be serving. After you answer that, let me encourage you to ask the following questions before you make your determination:

• Verse 8—Are they serious about the things of God? Meaning, are they faithful to church? Do they seem to be serious about the truths of God?
• Verse 8—Are they double tongued? Do they gossip or, are they inconsistent with their speech at church and their speech at home, or at work? Do they say one thing in front of you and another thing when you leave? Are they Peace Makers?
• Verse 8---Is he given to wine? This is more than a prohibition against drunkenness. It means he doesn’t have a reputation as a drinker. Our expectation at Trinity, in order to keep our testimony, is no alcohol at all.
• Verse 8—Is he greedy? Our financial secretary will simply give a “yes or no” as to whether a potential deacon gives in a systematic way. If we have no record of this because you give in cash, then you need to let that be known on your form. Will he use his position for gain in finances, in power, prestige? Does he desire to serve or does he desire a title?
• Verse 9---Does he have a firm grasp on the Gospel? Does he understand the necessity of the cross, repentance and faith? Does he understand this is by grace alone? Does he understand it well enough to live it and share it consistently?
• Verse 10—Are they blameless? Is there overt, flagrant sin that mars their life? Are they an example worthy to be followed?
• Verse 11-12---Is their wife a gossip? Are they faithful to the things of God? Do they do their best to live out Titus 2? Do these men lead their home according to the Word of God? Does their wife live under his submission? Does he submit to God? All we should look at and attempt to discover is what the Word says. Outside of verse 11, it gives no other standard for the wife. Outside of that, the focal point is on the character of the man.

The bottom line is if we are going to be a biblical church we must have a biblical standard for our leadership. Please use this text as your deciding factor. I know fine men, men who love the church who may not yet be qualified - it doesn’t mean you do not like them if you do not nominate them. It simply means that we are chained to the Word, and I can’t think of anything better to be chained to!

A Precious Ministry

One of the joys of being able to be at the church during the day is that I get the opportunity to see ministry done that most other people have no idea is going on. I just walked into Mrs. Jerebeth’s office, and I saw bags containing 36 receiving blankets and burp cloths for precious new born babies. For about four hours today, we had 24 senior adults that took their time and hand made these beautiful blankets for new babies. They did this because there was a need in our local crisis pregnancy center - a center that literally saves the lives of preborn babies throughout the mid-south area. When I saw these blankets and thought of these sweet men and ladies who not only gave their time, but gave their money to make these for babies they will probably never see, must less hold, I thought of Christ taking time to pick up little children and in fact, gave them as an example to teach truth concerning the Kingdom of God. It is a wonderful thrill for me as your Pastor, to have just written a couple of weeks ago about how so many of our young couples are serving in so many areas, and now I have the opportunity to write about the number of our senior adults now serving in this ministry! I love the fact that so many of you, of so many ages, are finding ministry needs and reaching out to meet them. I also find it amazing that both ministries mentioned are dealing with children - it is not by coincidence that we are seeing so many boys and girls come in the doors of Trinity Baptist Church! When across all age groups we see people being servants and understanding that as believers we must “esteem others greater than ourselves”, then and only then will we begin the process of being a healthy church. I believe we are headed that direction - we have so many of you who are so faithful in your service for our Lord and in this body. From making blankets (that this side of heaven you will never know how God used them), to changing diapers, holding a crying baby, helping a child learn Scripture, to singing in the choir or playing in our orchestra…and all of them are real ministry actions if the goal is to glorify God and encourage other believers! I praise the Lord for the variety of gifts and talents He has given the body of Trinity Baptist Church.

An Amazing Opportunity!

In the coming months we will have more prospective members walk in the doors of Trinity than any other time of the year! That ought to perk our ears, huh? The amazing thing about these prospects is that many of them do not know Christ, and they will be here for several weekends in row! Here is the question of the hour for Trinity Baptist Church…
Will we give them the Gospel?
Will we care enough to be here for them?
Or will we just go about our church life never really noticing?

The opportunity that is set before us is our All Star Basketball League. Boys, girls and their parents (many of whom do not know Christ), will walk through the doors of Trinity and we are faced with the question, “What will we do with this opportunity?” We need coaches (you will receive training and plenty of materials for not only basketball, but for Bible Study and Evangelism!), we need members to be there to represent Trinity, we need parental involvement, and we need a passion for the lost.

I want to ask you to go ahead and begin praying that God sends us boys and girls who need the wonderful grace that only our God can deliver! Pray that coaches will not only teach basketball, but more importantly proclaim the Gospel. Please invite boys and girls to be involved with this wonderful ministry…talk to neighbors, families at the grocery store, friends at school and work, families on your sports teams in the community…tell them all! Bro. Bubba has directed us toward the All Star Basketball League this year in an effort to minimize your costs for involvement (it is almost half the cost, per child, of Upward) while at the same time, he and his team have worked very hard to be sure that this league will have the same great quality that we have had in the past. Please pray for him and his team as they carry out plans for this great evangelistic opportunity. Make it a high priority, as we head into the winter months, to make this whole league and the families that will be impacted, a matter of prayer….. See Bro. Bubba to find out how you can get involved so we will not let this harvest opportunity pass us by!

Sing Unto the Lord.....

Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a visitor tell me that they had experienced what they believed, was the most God honoring worship and music service they had ever been involved in. There has not been a week since Bro. Jon Rushing’s arrival that I have not stepped into the pulpit believing His Church was ready for His Word. I have served with Worship Pastors in the past that were good men, with good families - but what separates Bro. Jon from all of them is his desire to sing doctrine, to hold to truth, and, more importantly, he knows and lives the doctrine he sings about! We live in a culture that doctrine is minimized everywhere and, sadly this is never more pronounced than in many of our present day “Christian” songs. I am saying all this not simply to express my overwhelming joy that the Lord has sent Bro. Jon to Trinity, but also to express to you the opportunity you have to participate in it!! On September 18-19th we will be having the Trinity Baptist Church Choir Retreat. During this time you will be introduced to the upcoming Christmas music, as well as have a time to simply worship our great God with others that love Him as well! There are many of you whom the Lord has blessed with a great voice and, others of you simply make a joyful noise (smile) - regardless this is an area of ministry that truly enhances our worship. If you have been thinking about becoming part of the choir - this is the perfect time to do it. There have already been many new members joining the choir over the last several weeks, but this will be a time where everyone can start “on the same page” so to speak. This retreat will be about worshipping our Lord, becoming a “family” in this ministry and then, hearing and learning the Christmas music together for the first time - so come and get involved. This is one of the first ministries a visitor will see when they walk into Trinity. Come celebrate and help lead out in our worship of our wonderful Savior!

Wow! What a Wednesday!!!

What an amazing night last Wednesday was! As we began discussing AWANA, we decided that we were not going to really do a big push to advertise it - simply because we thought that if we could have 100 children that would be a really good start! And it would have been a good starting point seeing that as a church, Trinity has never done this before. So in a low key way, we kicked off AWANA last week - to our surprise, we did so with 176 children registered the first night! Not only were we surprised by AWANA, we had waaay more than expected for our first Wednesday night fellowship meal, had a wonderful worship service and a great choir practice with more new choir members! The Lord allowed us to have a resounding success on our first Wednesday of our new schedule and we should thank Him as a Church Family! I also want to thank you - our membership at Trinity has stepped up in an incredible way: we have so many volunteers in AWANA (we are now in need of about 9 more because of the number participating), we had a wonderful meal and had so many assisting in the cooking, cleaning up and setting up so AWANA could begin on time! I am just overwhelmed at your sweet spirit and at the joy we are having as we serve the Lord together!! We are a blessed Church to have this many children, to have so many workers, and to have such an amazing Savior! Thank you Church Family for your work and dedication to this great task – can’t wait to see you Wednesday!!

Nothing Short of Amazing!

This week I got a call from a man who is not a member of our Church, but lives in Desoto County. During his call he shared with me what he was hearing about Trinity Baptist Church. He explained to me about the number of people sharing with him how God is working and how individuals are being saved. To that I say, “TO GOD BE THE GLORY!” We have truly had some incredible worship services over the last 8 to 10 weeks. We have watched as God has brought in Bro. Jon Rushing and his family, we have watched how God has brought in Bro. Brad Walker and his family - and one of the greatest blessings to me is not just that the Lord sent us such wonderful men of God, but that He has allowed such a sweet spirit and such unity to prevail in all things! I want to remind you that what we are seeing here, is not something that man can receive any accolades for, nor can we find joy in some plan set up by Trinity. The only thing we can attribute this work to is the amazing grace of our amazing God. I implore you, that as we begin this study of The Peace Maker - to keep your focus on the “log in your own eye” and to understand that the only person that can keep you (and me) from walking with God is you (ME)! The greatest obstacle in my walk with God is me and your greatest obstacle is you. May we continue to live out Phil. 2:14 “Do all things without complaining and disputing.” To be quite honest, this has been the most joyful time I have ever experienced in the ministry - in the last 8 months I can say that Hebrews 13:17 has been a reality in my life. It has been a true joy to “watch out for your souls” and I do so as it says, “with joy!” I love you and am blessed to be your Pastor!

WOW!

As I got the news of our commitments for our Love Offering for Jesus, “WOW” was my response! In a short 18 weeks we have committed to give almost $57,558.49 for missions! This is above and beyond our tithes and offerings. This amount, along with our Cooperative Program giving and other budgeted missions that we give towards, we will have given over $260,000 just to missions this year (based on this committed amount). Our Church will be very active in missions this year: we are helping Bro. Jeff Phillips plant a church in Vancouver, Canada, we are looking at partnering with a church in Mexico, and we are in the preliminary talks of working with a church in South Africa. This doesn’t include the ways we currently are, and will be reaching out to the Desoto County area! Right now our Missions Team is focused on not being “all over the board” with little purpose in our missions - but rather we are wanting to make sure that the work we participate in will be in partnership with local Churches who have a firm grasp on the Gospel and are committed teaching Biblical doctrine. As we refocus our efforts to make sure we are good stewards of every dollar given, and as we spend time helping our Missions Team develop their vision and guidelines, we will better be able to communicate this direction and goals to the Church as a whole. We will be able to accurately account to where we are investing and look more closely at the impact that our giving is having in local areas. I believe in the days ahead we will see Trinity becoming more and more passionate about the advancing of the Gospel into all the World. This missions giving commitment will end on December 27th, but our passion for reaching a lost and dying world… I pray it would burn red hot!

When you look at the above figure and at the amount of our budget that goes to missions, I want you to think of how wide spread this investment is: this covers not only foreign missions, home missions, but it also includes Mid-America Seminary, the Gideon Ministry, and our Memphis Union Ministry! Many lives are touched for the Kingdom of God because of our offerings, but also because there are many of you who serve in these (and many other) areas! May God raise up men and women from Trinity Baptist Church that will make an eternal impact on this world! When we see this, and this passion continues to grow, it should leave us all simply saying… “WOW!”

Borrowing a Post from a Friend....Definitely Worth Reading!!

I would love to say that this was my post, but it is not. A wonderful pastor and friend wrote this article that is so appropriate for our day. He put it much more eloquently than I ever could so below you will find a post from his blog. Thank you Bro. Mike for this post!




Pragmatism in its Finest Hour
Pragmatism is absolutely invading the churches of our Southern Baptist Convention. For those unfamiliar with the term, pragmatism is simply the belief that if it works it must be right and if it doesn’t work it must be wrong. Let me share a few brief thoughts on the rising tide of this dangerous philosophical ideology.

The fundamental danger in pragatism is that it determines "truth" on the basis of experience, emotion, and effects. If it works it is true, or worse yet, if it works it is TRUTH. If it does not produce results it should be discarded as flawed, failed, and foolish.
Of course what "works" in one location may not "work" in another. Truth itself, therefore becomes relative and ends up looking more like situational ethics and moral relativism than an adherence to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.

There is nothing wrong with pragmatism as long as you have the right definition of success. For example, if you have a bad experience with Brand A of dish detergent, pragmatism says, “Stop buying that brand. It’s not working for you.” If your car battery will not crank your car, pragmatism says, “Get a new battery. Your current one isn’t working so discard it.”

But when it comes to the issue of the Great Commission and Scriptural fidelity, there is much more at stake than dish-pan hands and dead batteries. What is at stake is nothing short of the eternal plan of God redemption, the salvation of the lost, and the glory of our God. To that end it appears to me that many of our SBC pastors and leaders have seemingly lost a Biblical definition of success.

Success for the believer is measured by one standard and one standard alone; Obedience to Christ and His Word.

When obedience to Christ becomes our standard of success then we will realize we have been "successful" even if our message sends more people away than it draws so long as the message has been consistent with the character and Word of God. Of course in our flesh we would rather people be drawn than be deterred. But we must realize that our ultimate goal is the pleasure of Christ not the growth of the church.
Christ knew how to divide and disperse a crowd. Considering His hard words in Luke 14it seems the Savior would not be invited to many of our evangelism training events. He obviously was not a very successful evangelist.
In our prideful and egocentric world, we have essentially equated success with numerical growth. We applaud and award high baptism numbers. The pastors of these burgeoning churches are paraded across our state and national conferences. Our churches are challenged to emulate and duplicate these fast-growing congregations, often without ever stopping to ask, “Is their growth Biblically-based or is it being generated by the power of the flesh?”

Here are a few examples:

1. A website touts an opportunity to win a car if you will watch a 3-minute video presentation of the gospel. Over 10,000 watched and over 3,000 click the “right” box. When hundreds are “saved” through this method, it makes the religious press as some well-intentioned writer popishly declares over 3,000 people have made “professions of faith.” After all, it got numerical results so it must be right.

2. A motorcyclist event gives bikers a chance to register to win a new Harley. Out of 4,200 who registered to win the Harley (of course they are obligated to watch another 3-minute video presentation of the gospel) over 800 are “saved.” Once again, it makes the headlines of the denominational press. It must have been a Biblically-successful event because it got numerical results.

NOTE: Do we really believe that about 20%-30% of people who are not being drawn by the Spirit of God but by a chance to win a car or a motorcycle genuinely received Christ as Lord? I have no doubt they may have “prayed a prayer” or “checked a box.”

3. The new church plant utilizes secular music, crude humor, and sensual ads touting the new teaching series on sex. It draws a crowd so it must be OK. Not only is it OK, it is the new standard…and nobody should say anything about it or we will lose this next generation of “young leaders.” Besides, they baptized more people last Sunday than your church did all year.

So what their “worship service” used the latest country song that touts beer-drinking, casual sex, and prostitutes. So what that the video clips were from filthy R-rated movies. How can you criticize that? They are reaching people! They are growing! They are getting results!
OK, so the pastor “mooned” the congregation Sunday and on Monday blogged about drinking beer and smoking cigars in order to reach people. They are about to open a 2nd campus. How dare you question their methodology?!?!

(For the record: This scenario is a composite of multiple and actual events in Georgia).

4. The bodybuilders’ ministry packs a bunch of teenagers into the local high school gym. Grown men in spandex and ponytails rip phone books, break concrete blocks, and burst hot water bottles. The music is deafening, the lights entrancing, and the gospel is LITE. But after a 4-minute testimony, every head is bowed and every eye is closed. No one is looking around because we would not dare want to embarrass anyone as hundreds of “decisions for Christ” are made.

By the way, 12 months later the youth pastor is fired because he can’t “close the back door” of the youth ministry. The Jujitsu for Jesus team handed him 185 card-checking hand-raising converts from the let’s-break-a-cinderblock-for-Jesus rally. But the poor guy couldn’t hang onto them. We need a youth pastor who can get results!

5. Evangelist Jones is brought in to do the big evangelistic event. He is a “gifted harvester.” Why every pastor around knows this brother has the ability to “draw the net.” Never mind the fact that neither “evangelism” nor “drawing the net” is listed as a spiritual gift in the Holy Scripture. What we really mean is…and let’s be honest enough to admit it…this guy can get people to make public decisions. I mean he can get people down the aisle and through the baptistery.

That old boy you’ve been preaching to for months won’t respond to your invitation. But if you’ll invite Brother Jones to preach he can get him down the aisle. Brother Jones’ preaching and techniques must be pleasing to God because they get results. And that gets you in the state paper.

I mentioned this 5th scenario in a recent evangelism training session I was leading. An attendee said, “Now Pastor Mike, I know 'drawing the net' isn’t in the Bible but you know what we mean when we use that phrase.” And the truth is, I do know what we mean. And therein is the problem.

Simply put, if Brother Smith preaches the gospel and no one is saved…then Brother Jones preaches the same gospel and half the crowd responds, something is desperately wrong. In our church culture we would say “Brother Jones is an evangelist and Brother Smith needs to learn how to give an invitation.” And that assessment may be as far from the truth as it could possibly be.

By that standard some of the great evangelistic failures in history include Noah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos.

I recently preached a strong evangelistic sermon in the pulpit at the church God lets me pastor. Discerning believers understood there was a strong move of the Holy Spirit in that service. At the public invitation, no one responded for salvation. I closed the invitation with this prayer, “Lord, I have done Your work. But I cannot get anyone to respond that You cannot get to respond. So I close this invitation with a broken heart…”

Later it hit me. The intent of my prayer was correct but the content of my prayer was as wrong as wrong could be. What I meant to say was this:

“Lord, I have done Your work. And I’ve been at this long enough that I can get people down the aisle. But if simple gospel preaching and a passionate call to salvation will not get the job done then it will go undone. I can get people to respond that You, Lord cannot get to respond. I just do not want to.”

No doubt, some wondered if that sermon and that service were “successful.” How could it be successful? There were no results! Numerical results = God is honored. No numerical results = God is displeased.

That mindset is pragmatism at its finest hour. And that, my friends, is running rampant in our convention.

Welcome to Bro. Brad and Elicia Walker!

When Bro. Jeff Phillips came to me (I believe within my first week here) and shared with me that his heart and passion was for Vancouver, Canada, I knew there would be a day very soon I would have to look for a Student Pastor. This staff position is really no different than any other staff position today - it is very difficult to find the right men to fill any staff positions. However, when I came to Trinity and spoke with our staff members I knew some of them were already making plans to serve in other areas. So I began to pray and ask God for wisdom as I searched to fill these different vacancies. I touched on this when Bro. Jon Rushing came, but I have discovered (after much trial and error, and then more error) that the best way to call a staff member is not to really look for a specific “specialized” staff person at all… Now of course it was important the Bro. Jon could sing better than me or we would all be in trouble but as I stated on a scale of 1 to 10, the importance of musical talent for our Music Minister was about a “5”. That is very high considering for every other Pastor it would be a zero or less! Now, it just so happened that Bro. Jon is the most talented Worship Pastor I have ever seen at any church, but that was just as they say in the south - “gravy.” Too often Pastors first look for someone who has increased numbers in their last couple of student ministries, or men who have a lot of talent, or men who are great organizers. Now certainly all of these things can be looked at, but I submit to you they are not and should not be determining factors in hiring any type of Pastor. So where do we start? Well, I know this is a revolutionary idea, certainly not the norm, and in many circles “waaay out there” but why don’t we begin in 1st Timothy 3:1-7? So I began to look for men who were blameless (this doesn’t mean that no one could say anything bad about them, in fact I am very leery of any minister who has not had to take a biblical stand that someone didn’t get upset or angry)… but an individual who had even more than integrity, but also had a boldness in their testimony. I just walked through each area in this passage. I won’t go through all of them here, but I certainly only wanted men who were consistent in their life, their loyalty, their love and their doctrine. They have to be able to teach, this means they know doctrine and can articulate the truth of the Word of God to other believers.

All of this to say that Trinity needs men who understand the Gospel (I know this seems like a no-brainer but it certainly can’t be assumed in churches today), who understands what it means to be part of a church, who will serve her, give to her, minister to her, and who believes that arrogance is not proclaiming truth clearly, but arrogance is bending to my way of doing things rather than God’s way. I guess in short I knew we needed MEN of God who would hold to the Word of God in their life, in their ministry, in their stand, and could teach this by their words and actions. The result is a Children’s Minister who gives our children and parents Biblical truths, a Worship Pastor who comes in and explains the theology the choir is singing and both handle the Word of God accurately and completely. This seems so simple but so often the names we are given are men who may be fine men, who may have integrity but too often they are not dedicated to the Word. All that to say, the same thing that knitted my heart with our new Student Pastor wasn’t how nice he was, the numbers in his last youth group… but rather, his dedication and love for the Word of God! I am flabbergasted at the idea that we, as a Church, actually believe we can have staff that loves doctrine and desires to teach it (sarcasm)! Funny, but excitedly this is exactly what we have and this is what we are getting in Bro. Brad Walker!!! I am thrilled and anxiously anticipating YEARS of wonderful service alongside these men of God!

As We Meet our Prospective Youth Pastor

Over the last several months I have had the sobering task of bringing in potential staff members. God blessed us beyond measure when He sent us Bro. Jeff Summers and Bro. Jon Rushing - but I knew even when Bro. Jon came that the work was not over. As I have said before, we are shuffling some staff members and bringing in some new ones. This is always an exciting time and a nervous time. You pray for unity, you pray that everyone is who they appear to be, you pray for God’s wisdom and rely on God’s providence and sovereignty. We are now in the process of bringing on a Youth Pastor. Overall, our modern day church culture has greatly strayed in their view of youth ministry. What should youth ministry be? What should we expect our youth ministry to produce? Is this nothing more than a teen social club? A while ago on my blog I mentioned Paul Tripp - he did a question and answer time at John Piper’s Church and they posted some of this interaction on Piper’s blog. I want to give you a view of where I believe our youth ministry must be biblically… but, leading into a blog or two about our students, I found this article interesting:

The (Non)Difference Between Youth and Adult Ministry
May 7, 2009 | By: Abraham Piper
Category: Commentary
Recently, Tyler Kenney and I were able to get a quick interview with Paul Tripp. We'll be blogging it over the next few days.
Our first question was, "What differences do you see between ministering to youth and ministering to adults?"
For his full answer, you can listen to the audio. (Please forgive how rough it is.)
Here is my summary of his thoughts:
There are ways in which there's no difference. There's only one gospel, not a different one for children, young people, and adults.
And there's a way the struggles of the heart are the same. These struggles play out differently depending on our stage in life, but when it comes down to it, we all want to be sovereign over our own lives.
If you understand that about your heart, and you're humble about it, you'll get what a kid or teenager is going through. You'll understand that it isn't first a problem of misbehavior; it's first a problem in the heart.

This is our desire in everything we do at Trinity - we want to get the gospel right, allow the Word of God to work in our lives, and allow it to examine the heart! We ask the Spirit of God to control us and illuminate us, and in all we do our primary goal, whether children, teens or adults, is to glorify God!