First Sermon

Yesterday I preached my first sermon since answering my call to the ministry.  It was a great experience.  I was so happy to see my family there, along with a few of my friends.  I talked about the Prodigal Son, and I must say it was pretty good.  I can't wait to do my next sermon.

God, is that you???

So I answered my call to the ministry.  I'll deliver my first sermon this Sunday morning.  Since I was told that I would be ministering, I have been trying to figure out what I would be speaking on.  At first I thought I was speaking on bribing God with our fake worship.  Then I was influenced by Psalm 139 that states 'I am fearfully and wonderfully made.'  Now I'm undecided.  Through all of this, I'm wondering if God really wants me to speak on these particular scriptures.  It's hard when you want to do a great job for God.  You basically want to do your best for your parent, ya know.  You don't want to let Daddy down, so you study and study until you fall asleep.  You try to memorize certain scriptures.  You think of what you want to say, yet you want it to sound fresh - not too rehearsed.

I need prayers people.  I'm about to study some more.  Love and peace to you - oh! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!  GOBBLE GOBBLE!!!

Old Tricks, New People

Hey gang.  It has been forever since I posted.  The last post was on my dad's birthday; he would've been 55.  Although he's gone, I thank God for the time I did have with my dad.  He had faults, but he was a wonderful father.  I love and miss him everyday.

This praise & worship experience has its good and bad times, like life.  You have your highs and lows.  Last time I talked about how great the congregation has been responding.  This time is different.

I've been over the P&W team since February, and we haven't gone through a whole lot of changes.  We have become a bit lackadaisical, myself included.  People may or may not show up for one reason or another, and people wouldn't know until later on what happened.  I e-mailed the team to let them know that someone needs to know what's going on since we're very few in numbers; there are eight of us, including the musician.  I asked them to do two things: #1 - make sure that someone knows why they are not there, and #2 - don't sing unless I've heard from them, but come to rehearsal.  Are those problematic tasks?  I didn't think so.

Unfortunately, someone's feelings got hurt.  Instead of coming and talking to me about what's going on, they talked to everyone else after our rehearsal - which they did not attend.  I said loud enough for them to hear, "Come on over and talk to me sweetheart."  They kept walking.  I looked at our musician, and he looked at me.  We both laughed and talked about the situation.  At the end, we realized that satan is trying to pull some old tricks out of his bag.  This time, he's using different people to do his work. 

The devil was already mad when I decided to take on the leadership of the praise & worship team.  Now he's really angry because I have answered my call to preach the word.  I never thought that this person would have acted as immature as they did, but I'm not surprised that satan is trying to mess with my mind by using particular people in my life as distractions.  One thing I have learned is that an idle mind is the devil's workshop.  We have to keep digging into the word of God in order to protect our minds, hearts, and bodies from satan's terror.  It is important to read and memorize scripture so then you can tell the devil that "...No weapon formed against me shall prosper..." (Isaiah 54: 17)  and mean it.  You have to mean it, and show it in your daily walk.  Let satan know that he has no authority in your life.