God’s Will

Posted on March 17, 2013 by Passionburnswithin

Here is a recap of the the series on God’s will that we have been doing

Week 1- Finding God’s Will- Ex 3

God’s Will is found in the ordinary

God’s Will calls to us

God’s Will is on His schedule

God will wait for us to respond to Him to reveal His will

God’s will is about Him not us


Week 2- Finding God’s- Will Ex 3

We must Know who God is to find His will

God’s is Compassionate

God Know’s our struggles

God is  self reliant. He does not depend on us nor anything else to exist

God Honors His promises

Week 3- God’s Will for Everyone

6 things God wants for everyone

1. To have a relationship with God

2. To fellowship with other believers (church)

3. To communicate with God (prayer)

4.To grow, not just closer to or in knowledge of God, but to grow to be more like God Himself

5.To study about God and His plan for this world (The Bible)

6. To make an Impact

 

Week 4- Big Dirty Mess- Mark 14:66-72

Following God’s Will is hard

Sometimes we will mess up

God’s Will is not cancelled by our mess ups

God’s Will is based  in forgiveness

God’s Will does great things with  broken people

 

Week 5- God’s Will Doesn’t Make sense

God’s Will Never Makes Sense- Judges 7-8

God’s will doesn’t call you to something you can do. He wants the glory for Himself not you

God’s Will is meant to make you uncomfortable

God’s Will will scare you

God’s Will will be accomplished.

We must be careful to point back to God when we succeed

Categories: Everyday Thoughts | Leave a comment

Love , Grace, Mercy, Hunter Hayes and One Direction.

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Passionburnswithin

My twins, Kelsey and Isaac,  just turned ten a couple of weeks ago. For about a year now Kelsey has slowly been falling more and more in love with the hit Brit pop group, One Direction. This means , of course, that daddy is also listening to a lot of One Direction. I personally believe that any parent should have the decency to be listening to what their kids are listening to so that they know the messages that their kids are being indoctrinated with.  This morning as we pulled into the school One Direction’s latest hit “Little Things” came on the radio and as usual Kelsey got that blushed look she usually gets when they come on the radio. I have heard the song before but I have never been one to really understand the lyrics of a song for the first few times I listen to it. Today though was the day that I caught on to what the song was really about.

If you haven’t heard the song youtube it. The essentials of the song are that all the girl’s insecurities and imperfections or “little things” add up to who that girl is and those insecurities and imperfections are accepted because the boy is in love with the girl. It is a beautiful concept and if I was a teenage girl I would probably swoon at the words of the song. But as I listened I was saddened, not because of the song but because of who the song was delivered by and who it was directed to and no I am not demonizing One Direction.

My point is that a group of boys is telling girls that they are loved just the way they are and girls are falling over themselves for that love.

Another song came on during my drive back home, “Wanted” by Hunter Hayes. Same point different artist.

You know who SHOULD be sending out this message?

1. The Church

2. Dads

You know who is NOT doing a good job sending out this message?

1. The Church

2. Dads

We are so good at saying we are concerned about the next generation but we are horrible at actually doing anything about it. Dads ignore their children and churches practice legalism. While church members are fighting about when committees should meet and color the new curtains should be the world is getting better at preaching love, grace and mercy than the church itself!

Maybe it is time that we realize little things really are important we just have to realize which ones.

Categories: Ministry, music, parenting, Philosophy, Religion | Leave a comment

Translate Properly

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Passionburnswithin

For many years I have heard and read about reasons people give regarding why they leave a church. At the same time I have heard pastors and leaders respond in various ways. Sometimes they respond positively and seek to find ways to improve their church other times they play the blame game. So I want to look at some examples

Reason 1: I am not getting fed

This is a common reason. Too many times though leaders deflect and blame the person for not being mature enough to feed themselves or copping out or wanting to be spoon fed and have their egos stroked and their ears tickled. The outcome is a church that doesn’t change or seek to push their people. A proper translation would be more along the lines of  “I do not feel challenged or grown or renewed spiritually by the teaching and preaching of the church” If we translate it this way we can begin to examine what we are teaching is it deep enough

Reason 2: The services are boring

Another common reason. A failed translation will say that this person is not dedicated to truly worshiping God because  they are too focused on themselves.  Perhaps instead what is being said is that “There is no excitement created for the things of God in our services and I see no transformation by God in our people as a result in our services”

Reason 3: I don’t like a certain staff member

This one is tricky because there could be a real issue there but too many times we are quick to point the finger at the staff member.  What happens in truth more times than we are willing to admit is that the person did not get their way and is not recognizing the God ordained leader for the  ministry. What is really being said is “I don’t want to go where the leader is taking me” or “I don’t want to submit to their spiritual authority” In either case it may be best they move on but the leader should pay attention and adjust his leadership style should this be brought up on a more consistent basis.

Translating properly with understanding gives us the opportunity for self reflection and adjustment. It is easy to play the blame game but if we don’t use the opportunities to grow that we are given the end result is death.


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CONNECT

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Passionburnswithin

CONNECT- Verb- 1. Bring together or into contact so that a real or notional link is established

The very first step in building our ministry is stepping out and CONNECTing. That contact and real link between our ministry and the world outside the four walled buildings we call the “church” is vital to the strength, viability and longevity of our ministry. As a ministry we seek to Connect on three specific levels.

Our first goal in CONNECTing is to CONNECT to COMMUNITY. The church in years past was a gathering place for community and much of what happened in the community filtered through the local church. Today in our modern society that is not the case today. Today the church, many times,  is an after thought in the midst of the ever increasing busyness of life that we have created for ourselves. Many times the church tries to force itself onto people as a center of community activity by trying to host events and activities that they think will draw people in but the reality is they are only fooling themselves. With so many churches, schools and other organizations in communities such as ours there is always someone doing something bigger, better and more interesting and it is near impossible to schedule something that is not conflicting with something else. So as a ministry our first step is to find where we can connect to the community and support it, work with it instead of competing with it.

Our Second CONNECT goal is to CONNECT with INFLUENCE. We identify people with influence, church leaders, school leaders, organization leaders or students and parents who are active and plugged into the specific social groups, in order that we can gain access to open doors where there once was none. Many times ministries have no opportunities because they have no trust. CONNECTing with INFLUENCE builds trust and helps us identify the next step of connection.

Finally we CONNECT with NEED. This step is important to identify. It may not mean a financial need and we are not just talking about poor but real need. We seek to identify areas within our community and our church where there is a void. For example in a church I served in many of the students had absentee fathers and what they needed more than anything was male role models and mentoring.  The men’s ministry of the church stepped up and started a mentoring group. It was revolutionary in the lives of kids.

Once we have a CONNECTion we are ready to move on to the next step PARTNER

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Strategic Because They Are Worth It

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Passionburnswithin

Recently I have come under the realization and conviction that while, in my mind, I approach the ministry at our church in a very strategic and thought out way I don’t communicate that strategy outwardly. Strategy is a keep component of accomplishing any goal.  Method and application will vary and there is no blanket answer to “How do you build a ministry” but strategy tells everyone how you will approach the discovery of that answer. Bottom line the people you minister to are worth the time it takes to think through your strategy and they deserve a minister and leaders who will take the time to do so. Over the next few posts I will be outlining  The six strategic steps that I use in our ministry.

CONNECT. PARTNER. INVEST. CULTIVATE. PROVIDE. OBSERVE

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Trying to Apply the Wrong Solution

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Passionburnswithin

It occurred to me recently that we Christians in America have the same problem in addressing issues in our country/ government as we do in our churches. I have been in the church since before I could walk and have been a part of a church staff family for most of my life and I have seen any and every problem that you can imagine. I have seen churches thriving and churches dying.

In my thirty years on this earth I have also seen the country rise and fall. Recession, inflation, war, peace, economic boom and economic bust, racial tension and progress toward racial harmony, moral decay and surges of religious awareness and reform. My father was always very politically attentive and made sure we had a good grasp of what was going on in the world, good and bad.

But no matter what was happening in the church or in the country there was always a desire for change of some sort. The solution to this problem no matter the situation was simple: Get a New Leader!

In the case of the government and Christians as we see conservative, moral values and religious freedom slipping away we clamor for the need for a new President and new representatives to bring around the change back to the values we hold dear and the country back to what it once was.

When it comes to the church whenever a faction within a church decides that change needs to happen they set off to hire a new pastor or other staff person to come in and bring about the change and energy to turn the church in the direction that they want it to go.

And there is the problem.

Change doesn’t start with a new leader. Change starts small. When it starts no one really notices and then after time has passed you look back and realize that something incredible is happening. You see a church and the government and country have a lot in common, the values of both are not defined by those that hold leadership, rather, they are simply a reflection of the people that the leader represents. With that in mind, a leader cannot be expected to change the whole on his own. Change will only come as individuals within society itself  begin to change and as the change spreads then the problems will begin to be fixed.

I know some will think this is preposterous thinking but the reality is that this was how the church was built.

Jesus came not as a great leader or official and did not set out to overthrow the governments of His day but instead took a small group of nobodies and did amazing things with and through them. As the love of God and Jesus Christ spread so did the church and so did the world until eventually the world as we know it came to be. Change from the top down doesn’t work most of the time that is why Jesus worked to change the world from the bottom up.

Interestingly enough, Christians can solve the problems both in their churches and their countries by only doing one thing: Live out the Great Commission.

Change in the heart is only, and I mean ONLY, brought through the working of the Holy Spirit. If we desire to see our churches grow our country return to the values we hold so dear then we need work to change the people, and we can only do that by spreading the word of God and what He has done for us.

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Hey I may be crazy

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Passionburnswithin

So many people have  a problem with my having an “imaginary friend” . If you are one of them please understand that I have this group of people I hang out with that have the same “imaginary friend” and we have been inspired by that “imaginary friend” to do some pretty awesome things. We have made sure that 100 children in our community have food to take home for the weekend when they leave school every Friday. We support a food bank that reaches 40 families a week. We fed 80 high school marching band members lunch for 10 days straight. We cleared a 90 yr old woman’s grossly overgrown yard, replaced a floor in a house that was rotten so a 3 yr old would have a bedroom and wouldn’t have to sleep on a couch, we raised hundreds of dollars for a young man who had no money for clothes,  are providing 50 teachers with funds to buy supplies for their classrooms donate almost 1000 dollars worth of candy and cash to the local elementary school so they could have a successful fundraising event. Raised school supplies for over 100 underprivileged children.  Sent over 100 gift boxes overseas for Operation Christmas Child. Sent bags full of toiletries to countless soldiers and prisoners and have served hundreds upon hundreds of meals to homeless people. And so much more I can’t even remember all in LESS THAN A YEAR. But I am sure that this “imaginary friend” isn’t worth keeping and I am sure that I must be an awful person for believing in this “imaginary friend”.    Oh, and yes I call Him God and I don’t think he is imaginary at all in fact he is very real to me.

Categories: Everyday Thoughts, Humor, Life, Ministry, Philosophy | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

I was Profiled as a Shoplifter- The Sufferings of an ADHD Shopper

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Passionburnswithin

I wanted to share an experience I had tonight at the Simpsonville SC Walmart and can only laugh about in retrospect.

Our children are getting ready to head off to a week of camp and they are getting to the age now where they want their own luggage. So today we had gone out and had bought our oldest daughter a cute, girlie rolling suitcase but had struck out when trying to find something for our son. I also had to get those items that every camper needs as well as some household stuff and so I struck out to Walmart, where you can find anything and everything.

I must admit that I love Walmart and never just go in and get what I need and with my ADHD my trip through the store looks like a blind mouse caught in a inescapable maze.  I looked around at some stuff and priced out some things I wanted to buy later and looked at supplies for the camping trip I want to take. My headlight on my car has gone out so I grabbed a pair of those. Then, as I walked through bedding I grabbed a comforter that was the match to one I bought for one of our girls a while back and hadn’t been able to find since. That is when I grabbed the 5 piece luggage set, bright almost but not quite Carolina Panthers blue, I knew my son would love it. After that I went over and got all the kids travel needs toothpaste, shampoo, sunblock etc. And while I was over there I grabbed some hairbows and headbands and some brushes for the kids to take to camp that they could lose and not get skinned by their mother for.

With all that done I was ready to head over the grocery section but I wasn’t ready to leave yet, I knew I would be bored and had nothing to do at home, so I headed over to the bike section. One of our students wants me to go mountain biking with him but I need a new seat and a helmet so i was entertaining the idea of going ahead and getting them so I could be ready to just go when I had a day free.

That is when I heard him. There was a man at the other end of the aisle and I could barely understand him. but what I could make out was. “This isn’t shopping” “he’s throwing handfuls of merchandise into the buggy” “I am going to need help” “he is in the toy section”. Two things went through my mind at that moment. 1. Oh crap somethings about to go down I better get outta here before someone goes crazy on someone! 2. Is that guy somebody I know trying to prank me.

I walked around and tried to get a look at the guy but I didn’t know him so i shrugged it off and went back around the store to finish my shopping. From the toy section I went through the home decor section and looked at clocks, I don’t know why so don’t ask. Then as I walked through the sunglasses section I looked to see if they had anything my kids would like. They did not. So it was time to end the trip and head to the dairy section and out to check out. On the way I passed the kid’s clothing section and saw that they had value packs of underwear for sale. It took a while for me to find the right size and cut for my girls. Sidenote 1: I am not comfortable with the idea of size 4 toddler panties being available in low rise bikini and definitely will not buy them for my daughters Sidenote 2: there is not much as awkward as a 30 yr old man shopping for girls underwear in Walmart alone on a Saturday night but hey ya gotta do what ya gotta do right?

Anyway I found what I needed and went over to get my son some underwear in the boy’s section. At this point I am approached by a young man who makes eye contact , head nods and walks away. He then reappears and whispers “hey”. He was so quiet I could barely hear him. He walked closer and I judged him to be your average Hollister wearing teenage boy nothing particularly shady or off about him. Leaning in towards me over my buggy he whispers again “Hey if you are stealing anything you better be careful some old guy in a gray shirt is following you and watching you.” My eyes must have gotten huge and my jaw must have dropped in disbelief because he repeated himself again and added “seriously” I laughed and said that was hilarious and asked him if he wanted to know why that was so ironic. Then i explained I was a youth pastor and stealing was the last thing I would ever do. He laughed said “For real? That’s messed up” and walked away.

The whole conversation made me laugh and I tried to peak around the corners to spot the guy but I never saw him. Obviously it was really time for me to go and finish my trip. I walked back to the dairy case got some coffee creamer and texted my wife about the convo I just had. I could not get over it and so I tried to hover and spot the guy but I couldn’t.

I wandered up to the front stopping along the way to look at the As Seen On TV display. Recently I have gone crazy for the Magic Tap Drink Dispenser and was hoping they had gotten it to store already, no luck. While I was looking, I spotted the boy who had tipped me off at the checkout, I was a little suspicious of him at this point, and so I walked the other direction. After a quick stop at the Pepsi single cold case,I got in line and started unloading the buggy. As I unloaded the majority of the small items I saw the older man duck behind a clothing rack trying to appear as if he wasn’t watching me when obviously he was. My first instinct was to try to make eye contact to acknowledge him but he turned and walked away. After a few moments he walked back and took position again. There were a thousand different scenarios racing through my mind and I was about to ask the cashier if the guy was a Walmart employee or not. I then decided on a more direct course of action. I squared my shoulders, stood up straight and walked with a confident stride and a friendly smile on my face. The gentleman turned away from me acting as if I was intruding but I was not going to be denied. I looked him in the eye, even though he would not maitain eye contact, and point blank asked him. “So are you the guy that I was told is following me and thinks I am stealing from the store?” He stammered a bit and denied watching me and explained he was simply talking on the phone but he added, almost  under his breath, “I am with Walmart Security”.  My reply was quick, emphatic and confident.  As I grabbed his hand and firmly shook it I drew my body to full height, which put my eye level just above his, my eyes widened and I smirked as I said “Allow me to introduce myself. Rev Jason Roth Youth Minister Reedy Fork Baptist Church I just bought a load of stuff tonight to send our kids off to camp next week.” The gentleman broke eye contact, still holding a phone to his ear this whole time, looked at the floor and snickered as he shook his head slowly side to side and said simply “Have a good night sir” and walked away. I went to the checkout helped the cashier go through the rest of my items and even helped her open the luggage to make sure there were no “extras” inside, paid for my order and started to leave. As I turned to walk away I caught a glimpse of the teenage boy that had been so gracious to tip me off walking back with his friends into the area of  the clothing section that I had just had my confrontation. If I had to bet, I would bet that those boys were Walmart employees posing as shoppers and that the tip off was just a ploy to try to get me to say something incriminating.

As I walked out I shook my head and knew that I would have a great story to add to my shoplifter thwarting tales except this time instead of being the store employee tackling the shoplifter I was the one the store was trying to thwart!!

Categories: Everyday Thoughts, Humor, Life | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Pass It On

Posted on April 16, 2012 by Passionburnswithin

Examining the relationship of Elijah and Elisha

Categories: Everyday Thoughts | Tags: | Leave a comment

HELP!! I WANT MY KIDS IN CHURCH!!

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Passionburnswithin

I get asked this a lot and was telling someone just today what my standard answer to that question would be. So I thought it would make a good blog post. So here it is

How does a parent get their child involved in church?

First and foremost the parent has to model the behavior that they want their child to adopt. If you want her in church consistently then you have to be in church consistently. This will show them that it is serious to the parent and that it is more than an extra activity but a part of the way of life.

 

Secondly, you must be find a church that is supportive of the values and goals that you want for your child to absorb and commit yourself to that church and that church alone for a substantial duration of time, in your specific case I would say the remainder of her High School career. Children of all ages need consistency and in this world it seems that everything in their life changes so fast they can’t count on anything. When the church becomes a constant they are more likely to latch to it.

 

Thirdly a teen is going to be drawn where their friends are. If the youth group does not have anyone in it that the teen can or will connect with then they will feel isolated and alone and not want to go.

 

Fourth, it is important for any parent to realize that the principle influence in a child’s life will always be the parent. In turn that means that the one who must be discipling the child in Christ is the parent as well and that the youth minister and youth group are only there to support and enhance what the parent is already doing, which is why number one is so important.

 

Finally there as to be some lines drawn. If the previous four statements are applied first then this is an easier task. Not to say that it is at all easy but if placed first in the list it is almost impossible. The parent is the parent and makes the decisions if the parent decides that the family is going to start attending and participating in church then that is the rule and is enforced. Many times parents will tell me they don’t want to force their kids to come to church because they are afraid it will turn them off to religion. But the fact is that we force our children to do many other things and yet never consider to apply that principle. They go to school, eat their supper, go to the doctor, go to bed, have a curfew, etc etc etc. Again when the previous four are applied this becomes easier.

 

Categories: Everyday Thoughts, family, Life, Ministry, parenting, Philosophy, Religion | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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