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April 22, 2009

 

 

 



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To the Point

The effort to earn salvation by one's own works inevitably leads men to pile up human exactions as a barrier against sin or, seeing that they fail to keep the law, they will devise rules and regulations of their own to force themselves to obey. All this turns the mind away from God to self. His love dies out of the heart, and with it perishes love or his fellow men. A system of human invention, with its multitudinous exactions, will lead its advocates to judge all who come short of the prescribed human standard. The atmosphere of selfish and narrow criticism stifles the noble and generous emotions, and causes them to become self-centered judges and petty spies.

 - Ellen White, TMB, p.123

I have been instructed that committee meetings are not always pleasing to God. Some have come to these meetings with a cold, hard, critical, loveless spirit. Such may do great harm; for with them is the presence of the evil one, that keeps them on the wrong side. Not infrequently their unfeeling attitude toward measures under consideration brings in perplexity, delaying decisions that should be made. God's servants, in need of rest of mind, and sleep, have been greatly distressed and burdened over these matters. In the hope of reaching a decision, they continue their meetings far into the night. But life is too precious to be imperiled in this way. Let the Lord carry the burden. Wait for Him to adjust the difficulties. Give the weary brain a rest. Unreasonable hours are destructive to the physical, the mental, and the moral powers. If the brain were given proper periods of rest, the thoughts would be clear and sharp, and business would be expedited.

 - Ellen White, 7T 256-7
"The Harvest is Truly Great"
by Rick and Cindy Mercer, Woodward, OK
2009 is the NAD's Year of Evangelism. Here's a story from a pastoral couple who got excited about doing public evangelism - and how their faith was honored.

Do we really believe in God? Because if we really believed in His miracle working power, we would see Him manifesting His power in ways we have never seen before. We've seen it happen here in Woodward, OK.

It was at the 2009 Ministries Conference in Myrtle Beach, SC, as we listened to speakers pray for 100,000 souls in 2009, that we felt the Lord impressing us to go back home and prepare to do public evangelistic meetings.

But there were other impressions, too - voices of doubt: "The members might not support us." "Where will we get funds?" "Our church is too small." "You don't have much experience."  Maybe, we thought, we'd just wait until some later time when we're more prepared.

We were waiting to board our plane in Charleston when our phone rang. It was Oklahoma Academy's student colporteur team. They'd had a last minute cancellation, and could canvass Woodward the second week in February. Could they come on such short notice? And did we have handbills for an evangelistic meeting that we would like for them to pass out while they were here?

We aren't strangers to God providental leading and we recognized that God was trying to work here, and if we would go for it, He'd work out the details. We will have fliers ready, we told them, for evangelistic meeting to begin on February 28th!  

At home we asked the church's approval - no problem! But what about sermons?  A quick call to conference ministerial director Bill McClendon solved that. We were on our way to doing public evangelism in Woodward!  We believed that if we would "cast our nets" that God would send us someone.

We printed 2000 color flyers for the canvassers to hand out - there was no time for a mass mailing. Nor did we rent a hotel banquet room. But we did pray! We began a "House of Prayer" on Wednesday nights before our regular bible study, to pray about the souls that God was going to send us on opening night of the meetings.

The Academy students had record sales from the first day. The canvass leaders couldn't believe what was happening! God was showing us that the harvest truly is great and ripe for the picking.

On February 28th we opened the doors of the Woodward SDA church for the much prayed about "Unlocking Revelation" Bible prophecy seminar-and were thrilled to see 45 people on opening night. Night after night we had 18-25 non-Adventists coming to hear the undiluted, total gospel truth. After 15 nights, we had 14 decisions for baptism!  We immediately followed up with "Prophecies of Hope" bible studies, and everyone who made decisions at the meeting, and those who didn't, are coming faithfully. Our church is very excited to see what God is doing in Woodward!

What are you doing for the year of evangelism? Are you having successes with traditional evangelism? Or are you trying something different? Join me in the Night Owl Café blog, and share your thoughts.
Reading for Pastors
by Best Practices Editor, Loren Seibold

From Monte Sahlin's "Faith in Context" blog: On dangerous Protestantism. Monte has also has some interesting comments on the Newsweek cover predicting the end of Christian America. Quote: "The sensationalism is unfortunate. It will be waved off by conservatives as a sign of liberal bias on the part of mainstream journalism when they should be paying attention."

In case you haven't yet seen it, Newsweek's rather touching article about two Colorado pastors who "absorbed everyone else's pain" after the Columbine shooting.

We Americans idealize marriage, yet we are so bad at it: Quote: "There are two powerful forces at war in America, a historic belief in marriage grounded in our religious heritage on the one hand and a foundational principle of individual freedom and a post-modern sense of the right to self-fulfillment on the other. When these values clash, breakup and divorce follow."

Martin Weber added this bit of his own experience in response to my editorial last month about "Broken Pastors".
Book Review
Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World
mere discipleshipby Lee C. Camp, Brazos Press (2008)

Using the metaphor of the Constantinian cataract (partial blindness created by superficial, cultural Christianity), Camp says that "'Christianity' has become a vaccination protecting us from discipleship." American Christians are aligning themselves too much with the nation-state and are at odds with the suffering Servant. The first section of the book reframes the discussion of what it means to be Christian; the second section focuses on what disciples believe; the third on what disciples do. "The crisis of submitting one's will to God is seldom, if ever, a once-and-for-all decision. It is instead the daily outworking of personal discipleship." 

 - Reviewed by Jane Thayer
Resources, Ideas and Events
Compiled by Best Practices Editor, Loren Seibold
  • Rick Mercer, our featured pastor this month, wanted me to mention to you that he recommends the book and DVD series The Radical Prayer, by Derek Morris, as a key component in their preparation and ultimate success with the evangelistic meetings in Woodward, OK.
  • From Allan Martin: Dr. Mark Laaser, prominent author and speaker, will be presenting on the topics of pornography and sexual addictions, July 17-18, 2009 at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary.  His presentations will be a part of the 2009 Family Celebration Sabbath and will take place on the campus of Andrews University, Berrien Springs, MI 49104. Laaser's presentations, which begin Friday evening at 8:00 PM, are free and open to the community. A special invitation is extended to family ministry leaders, family life educators, helping professionals and students. For more information call 269-471-6186 or visit www.growingdisciples.info.
  • If you don't know Dr. Julius Nam, whose sermon is above, you owe it to yourself to listen to him. He is a very interesting and challenging thinker. (By the way, the recording includes music at the beginning, which you can skip if you want to just listen to the sermon.)
Got a tool, resource, site, article, idea or seminar that you like a lot? Share it with us at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
NAD Events
Do you have an SDA-sponsored event that you'd like to invite NAD pastors to? Tell us about it at BestPractices@ameritech.net.
NAD Church RESOURCE Center
Best Practices is an e-publication of Vervent
NAD CHURCH RESOURCE CENTER
Editor: Loren Seibold
Senior Pastor, Worthington Ohio Seventh-day Adventist Church
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