Winter 2009 Newsletter

Hello. Man it’s the end already? And I had only begun! Alas my lament. Now I can sit down and write about my sufferings. Just kidding, no sufferings, I have but good to tell.

So much has happened. I started this tour off on vacation at my house and then I got to travel on a team for a couple of weeks and then I was privileged to hang out with a Jewish rabbi that had started attending our home church in TN. I have learned a lot and had some rather unique experiences.

For instance I was in a mind set this tour of setting things right where ever I went. But the problem was, I was going into it already with the desire and mind set of "You are horribly wrong " and "Listen to my words to get right." See, it’s not that I was wrong in what was to be said but in the heart behind it. Over the last two tours I was developing this distaste for religion that was dead and it was turning my view of the church as well. I wanted to preach it all over to everyone but I never got a chance to preach the way I wanted and I asked God why I couldn’t say what I just knew these people needed to hear and James 1:19 (“My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry,”) came to my mind as well as 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”) These were both slaps in the face to me. I had been so adamant about what I thought people needed to hear that I didn’t stop long enough to realize that I didn’t want to deliver this message out of love, but out of condemnation. Love is key in helping people change. I speak because God has asked me to, not to accomplish my own personal agenda. They are part of my family and part of Gods family. You don’t hate someone who has sinned but rather love them and show them how to get right so this should be no different right? My job is to encourage the church and that can’t happen if all I do is point out what is wrong and never notice Gods heart for people.   

You know, God doesn’t just have a heart for us, not just for Americans but for the whole world and there are people out there in that world that don’t know there even is a God let alone how much He loves them.  Help me go into all the world and preach that gospel by clicking on the Pay-Pal link below and supporting my dream financially to go on a missions trip.