It was a little over a year ago when Rick Warren and Saddleback Church asked us here if we could commit to helping them train Christian pastors in India so that the phenomenal growth of the church there could continue. Saddleback Church had put together a three-year training and coaching process for Indian pastors and offered to provide the materials and translations if we could provide the teachers. The process would require us to "take a whole city" and gather the pastors there, providing them with a three day conference every six months for the next three years. After consulting with Pastor Jeff, we agreed that this was a wonderful opportunity, especially since we could work in a city near where we are already engaged in church planting and other missions.
                Many of you know that I conducted the first of these training events a few weeks ago. We are working in the city of Vishakhapatnam, a coastal city of four million on the Bay of Bengal. We had hoped to be able to assemble 100 pastors for the conference, though we were told that might be overly ambitious. However, working with Dr. Peter Pereira, one of our fine India partners, we ended up with 130 pastors showing up! That, in itself, was an amazing success. The pastors were eager to learn, and hung in there for nine hours a day of my teaching (can you imagine?) and were anxious for more: That, despite temperatures outside of over 113 degrees, and a faltering and at times completely nonfunctional, air conditioning system. 
 

 

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 "It is God's desire to make old things new and bring new things before us with the express purpose of revealing His love to us and His desires for our lives." 
 

    by Renee Stephens

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAITH is the Core Virtue for June:
For we live by believing and not by seeing. (2 Corinthians 5:7, NLT).

Is it that we long for an extraordinary life, one fueled by trust that would astonish even Jesus?

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to the crowd that was following
him, he said, "I tell you, I haven't seen faith like this in all Israel!" (Luke 7:9, NLT)

Whatever the broad appeal of these stories, faith is, by nature, individual. Each of us chooses to put our faith in something, whether it's financial security, people  around us, or our own abilities. But there's only one place where our faith is safely "deposited": in  our Heavenly  Father. Jesus showed us this again and  again. He did it when He  taught us to look for  everyday evidence of God's faithfulness  in  the world around us. He  did it when  He revealed His identity and  power through  His miracles. He did it  when He encouraged His followers  to be His  witnesses, to tell what they'd seen and heard Him do. He did it when He gave Himself for our salvation.

So, in June, we'll be taking a look at what Jesus taught about faith: trusting in what you can't see because of what you can see. Everything around us is evidence not just that God exists, but that He's at work in our lives and we don't  have to live a life of worry and fear.  We just have to know where to look, how to spot the clues, and how to collect the evidence.

 

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Scripture - II  Samuel 9:3, 11 - "So the king asked, "Is there anyone left of Saul's family I can show the kindness of God to?" "So Mephibosheth ate at David's table just like one of the king's sons."
 
Observation - The hand of the Lord was obviously with David in all his exploits. His battlefield victories brought David glory and honor and power. All the people, including David, knew that the Lord was behind all of David's success, but it was ultimately David and his name that was glorified.
     However, David, whose heart still remained passionately turned to God, desires to glorify God. Note the question he asks - "To whom can I show the kindness of God?" He doesn't ask how he can demonstrate his own kindness, but God's loving kindness. The answer will be in an act of grace, an act of restoring healthy relationship, an act of serving and sharing and humility and forgiveness. None of these things came naturally to King David, but they were all deeply rooted qualities of God. By acting in this way, David doesn't glorify himself, but he brings more glory to God. That is one of many reasons why this particular story has such power. 

 

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Young Adults. . .