Starting the awakening
Send greetings in the name of Jesus:
This last Sunday, November 27 we began a new movement toward God's purpose in our ministry and life. That purpose is, and always has been to try to awaken the bride of Christ from her slumber. I have tried many things in my life to find a way to begin that goal, but for the most part at each turn I have found it to be a learning session more so than actually being able to make real progress in connecting true Christians with one another.
I have spent many years now teaching the word to those who care to hear the truth of the gospel and yet I have been able to only do so much, and at one place at a time. Somehow there must be a way of connecting those who truly are seeking after God with one another. I do not want to take anyone away from their current church or worship family, but I do want to somehow connect all of us together so that we have a clear view of the ministry that we are involved in, and that we are all a part of a much larger body in Christ than what we may currently realize. The fact is that each one of us as well as each church we attend are a part of something that is much larger than we can comprehend. In fact each church organization within our community has a part to play in the ministry that Christ has given us to do.
What I don't think we realize is how much we tend to be competing with one another with the same goals in mind. We may say that we are striving to do what Christ has commanded in Scripture and yet when it comes down to it in many cases we do more harm to the ministry in general by competing against one another. I do not believe in most cases that the competition is even realized among churches because we have been in a mode of operating through our credence in doctrines for so long that we failed to see the division that is cost through our preaching a brand of Christ instead of the true message of the good news that God the father had given Jesus to deliver to us. I have found the need to change my personal methods somewhat to accommodate the needs of the spiritual growth of my family by getting out into the community and actually experiencing the different types of ministries that are being moved out within the churches in our community. One of the things that God has told me to do is to report back through the blogs what God's spirit sees as I tried to use his discernment and prayer to reveal the spiritual direction that I sense in each place I visit. As I told you at the beginning of this blog I made my first visit in the community this last Sunday, and I was very pleasantly surprised at what I found. Patty and I had started out attending the Hope Church in 2004 when we moved to Manitowoc after our retirement in Milwaukee Wisconsin. It was the church where Patty made her decision to follow Christ, and at first we had gotten very involved with the various ministries offered by the church. God was dealing with the leadership of the Hope Church even at that time, and God had called me very strongly to the task of awakening the bride of Christ from among the various churches in this community. At that time we begin to find a distinct difference in the direction and purpose that the church leadership desired from what we knew was God's will for the ministry. We were very sad at the time to leave the church to seek other opportunities for ministry in the body of Christ, but we knew also that the intent of the heart was not in sync with God's will at the time. God's spirit had me to move on to several churches over the next 10 to 15 years within this community. I have gotten to know many of the Christian people within several different worship groups within this community, and I believe now that those moves were made within these bodies of believers for the purpose of my getting to know the true purpose and calling of these churches since I have left the Hope church. Now it is time for me to begin using what God's spirit has taught me about these churches, and how God's spirit can operate through each of these groups to create unity between them which will strengthen both their individual purposes and desires as a church with the single desire from God's spirit to come together within their hearts to create a bond of love and unity that brings strength to all of us in ministry that we have never seen before.
I have been teaching and preaching God's truths and unity within this community alone for over 12 years now. It is time to begin the final stages of my ministry and my purpose within the body of believers in our community. I will be traveling from church to church within our community as I look for the strengths and the weaknesses within our churches. I am going to bring to you as God's established church the results of what I find. I will be comparing those results with Scripture and with God's desire for what our ministry as witnesses for Christ should be. It is my prayer that we will begin to find ways to support one another and work together as we discover both our similarities and our differences in purpose for the kingdom of heaven. As my daddy would have said "this is getting down to where the rubber meets the road". I will need your continued prayer as I take on this role in the body of Christ, and while I cannot even tell exactly where this will lead; I do know that it is God's will, and my purpose to awaken The Bride of Christ in this community. I know that the Holy Spirit is in charge of what I do, and I know that someone must take a stand that draws the true believers in Jesus Christ together in love and in fellowship with one another so that the cause of Christ can be united and unbreakable by the world around us. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
This last Sunday, November 27 we began a new movement toward God's purpose in our ministry and life. That purpose is, and always has been to try to awaken the bride of Christ from her slumber. I have tried many things in my life to find a way to begin that goal, but for the most part at each turn I have found it to be a learning session more so than actually being able to make real progress in connecting true Christians with one another.
I have spent many years now teaching the word to those who care to hear the truth of the gospel and yet I have been able to only do so much, and at one place at a time. Somehow there must be a way of connecting those who truly are seeking after God with one another. I do not want to take anyone away from their current church or worship family, but I do want to somehow connect all of us together so that we have a clear view of the ministry that we are involved in, and that we are all a part of a much larger body in Christ than what we may currently realize. The fact is that each one of us as well as each church we attend are a part of something that is much larger than we can comprehend. In fact each church organization within our community has a part to play in the ministry that Christ has given us to do.
What I don't think we realize is how much we tend to be competing with one another with the same goals in mind. We may say that we are striving to do what Christ has commanded in Scripture and yet when it comes down to it in many cases we do more harm to the ministry in general by competing against one another. I do not believe in most cases that the competition is even realized among churches because we have been in a mode of operating through our credence in doctrines for so long that we failed to see the division that is cost through our preaching a brand of Christ instead of the true message of the good news that God the father had given Jesus to deliver to us. I have found the need to change my personal methods somewhat to accommodate the needs of the spiritual growth of my family by getting out into the community and actually experiencing the different types of ministries that are being moved out within the churches in our community. One of the things that God has told me to do is to report back through the blogs what God's spirit sees as I tried to use his discernment and prayer to reveal the spiritual direction that I sense in each place I visit. As I told you at the beginning of this blog I made my first visit in the community this last Sunday, and I was very pleasantly surprised at what I found. Patty and I had started out attending the Hope Church in 2004 when we moved to Manitowoc after our retirement in Milwaukee Wisconsin. It was the church where Patty made her decision to follow Christ, and at first we had gotten very involved with the various ministries offered by the church. God was dealing with the leadership of the Hope Church even at that time, and God had called me very strongly to the task of awakening the bride of Christ from among the various churches in this community. At that time we begin to find a distinct difference in the direction and purpose that the church leadership desired from what we knew was God's will for the ministry. We were very sad at the time to leave the church to seek other opportunities for ministry in the body of Christ, but we knew also that the intent of the heart was not in sync with God's will at the time. God's spirit had me to move on to several churches over the next 10 to 15 years within this community. I have gotten to know many of the Christian people within several different worship groups within this community, and I believe now that those moves were made within these bodies of believers for the purpose of my getting to know the true purpose and calling of these churches since I have left the Hope church. Now it is time for me to begin using what God's spirit has taught me about these churches, and how God's spirit can operate through each of these groups to create unity between them which will strengthen both their individual purposes and desires as a church with the single desire from God's spirit to come together within their hearts to create a bond of love and unity that brings strength to all of us in ministry that we have never seen before.
I have been teaching and preaching God's truths and unity within this community alone for over 12 years now. It is time to begin the final stages of my ministry and my purpose within the body of believers in our community. I will be traveling from church to church within our community as I look for the strengths and the weaknesses within our churches. I am going to bring to you as God's established church the results of what I find. I will be comparing those results with Scripture and with God's desire for what our ministry as witnesses for Christ should be. It is my prayer that we will begin to find ways to support one another and work together as we discover both our similarities and our differences in purpose for the kingdom of heaven. As my daddy would have said "this is getting down to where the rubber meets the road". I will need your continued prayer as I take on this role in the body of Christ, and while I cannot even tell exactly where this will lead; I do know that it is God's will, and my purpose to awaken The Bride of Christ in this community. I know that the Holy Spirit is in charge of what I do, and I know that someone must take a stand that draws the true believers in Jesus Christ together in love and in fellowship with one another so that the cause of Christ can be united and unbreakable by the world around us. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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