Tommy Mitchell / The Rurban Church Blog

Two are Better Than One!

There is a great scripture, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, that speaks very directly to the value of friendship!  It begins, "Two are better than one!"  "Two" people really change the dynamic! Today, a friend of mind, Johnny Goff, went with me for the 3 hour and 45 minutes drive to Columbus to my Mom and Dad's house!  We left early and got there a little after 8:30 am.  We were there to rearrange their bedroom to accomodate a hospital bed!

That was a big step today - for Mom and Dad - and for us kids!  Boy, I am sure glad that Johnny went!  He was able to help me move furniture around much easier and faster! We did some rearranging in other rooms to make room for stuff we had to move!  We took down the baby bed that has served every kid in our family - meaning it was older than my 51 years!  We moved pictures and doo-dads and vases and ....  well, you get the idea!

It is a good friend who will go and help you do something like this! It is not a particularly pleasant day for Mom and Dad, and so, it was not the most uplifting time for me and my sister! Johnny helped with the heavy lifting, and at times, just talked with Mom and Dad while we did other stuff we had to get done! 

Hope you value your friends! I certainly do - and Johnny Goff is one of those!  Hats off to you, Johnny!

The Range of Emotions!

Everyone goes through emotional challenges! Everyone! They may be related to personal difficulty, family troubles, work stresses, and even great success!  Everyone has them! I think you've got the idea - everyone has them!

The emotional challenges of ministry are compounded!

1. The Diversity of Events!  In any given day, I may be at the home or hospital bed of a church member fighting to live! To hang on! To just get a little better! And along with them - their entire family!   An hour later I may be with a family whose loved one has just died!  Then later in the day deal with the emotional upheaval of someone who has just received bad news - health, accident, etc.. Then later deal with a suicide!  Believe it or not, at least three times in my ministry I have been present for the birth of a baby in the morning and called out for a suicide in the evening!  The range of those emotions are incredible! Swings from great joy to great sorrow - and in the middle - strained marriages, folks stressed out over jobs, finances, etc.. Plus the everyday operation of the church!   It becomes a challenge to keep up with all the emotions!

2. The Number of Events!  The first item speaks to this second one!  Not only are the the emotional challenges diverse, but the sheer numbers of them on some days and weeks becomes a factor!

3. Mixing in the Personal! It is hard not to be personally involved with your membership! It is part of the "love one another" of the scriptures.  But I am talking about really "personal" being injected into the mix!  My Dad is having such a struggle right now! I was there last weekend because of a surgery he went through! Now, a week later, he is still struggling and I have no choice but to make a day trip tomorrow to help get a hospital bed in the house!  I am glad to do it! But the emotional challenge of it, capped off with the range of other counseling and meeting needs is fast approaching the "full mark!"  

Now, back to the first paragraph - everyone goes through emotional challenges! My personal challenges are no worse and no more important than those of anyone else! However, those of us in ministry have chosen to walk down a path where we are on the "front line" of your challenges and our own! 

So, hats off to all in ministry for being willing to be "loaded" at times with bearing one another's burdens. Secondly, I covet your prayers!  Thirdly, if you come by my office and catch me staring off into space, I may just be giving my brain and heart a rest!

Revolution!

The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke identifies 4 stages of revolutionary ideas:

(1) It's nonsense - don't waste my time!

(2) It's interesting - but not important!

(3) I always said it was a good idea!

(4) I thought of it first!

The challenge is in not giving up from the nonsense stage to the full acceptance stage!

One Word Fits All!

This morning I was just thinking about the challenges that face our church! These are not challenges that are unique or focused only on us! Every church has challenges!  What I was thinking about, is that no matter what the challenge may be - a personal challenge or a church challenge - they are all solved with one simple word - OBEDIENCE!

Not obedience to you or to me - but to the Lord!  Every person and every church is one word away from a victorious life and church!

If your church is having financial struggles (and ours is a little stressed), obey the Lord - give the tithe!

If you or your church is having relationship problems - obey the Lord - forgive, and you shall be forgiven!

If you or your church feels a lack of growth - obey the Lord - share the good news! It will bring your spirit to life and add people to the Kingdom of God!

If you or your church is not experiencing the leadership and movement of God - obey the Lord - pray without ceasing!

If you or your church is having "control" issues - obey the Lord - submit yourself unto God!

Every possible problem - from the spiritual to the material - can be met with one word - OBEDIENCE!

As the great hymn says, "Trust and obey, for there's no other way, to be happy in Jesus - but to trust and obey!

I Reckon Jesus Knew What He Was Doing! Do We?

Generally speaking, I think we all agree that Jesus knew what He was doing while walking on this earth! I'm pretty sure we don't have too much if any "arm-chair quarterbacking" on His methods and strategy!  Which leads to the question - do we know what we are doing?

I'm am really pumped about Sunday's upcoming message! Jesus is sending out 72 folks to engage the population!  One might note that His method of discipleship was basically two-fold - watch what I do - and - go do it!  Jesus' concept of discipleship was not weeks, months, years of study followed by ....nothing!  This tends to be our method!  Take a class on how to share your faith in Christ with another person - and then - follow through by never sharing our faith!  Then make constant statements about how we are "not ready" or "not trained enough" to do so!

Jesus had a different method! He threw His disciples into the deep end of the unsaved pool and said - "go for it!"  When we study Luke 10:1-20 this Sunday, we are going to see an ALIVE and ALERT bunch of folks!  Nothing quickens the senses and causes us to depend on Jesus more carefully than walking into unfamiliar territory!  I'm leaving out a lot (because I am preaching on this topic Sunday) but when the 72 returned, they were pumped! They were excited! And what is really neat is that Jesus was pumped right with them!  They were all men of God on that day - and they all shared in the victory and the power of God!

Jesus knew what He was doing! He was engaging men who believed in Him to immediately act on His word -to obey Him sooner than later and leave the results to Him!   We tend to take a different approach - acting only if we are almost certain that we can control the circumstances and the response!  That approach may rarely produce results, but it will do so without any power and leadership of the Spirit!  

Come to worship Sunday! We will discover the power of "Doing Kingdom Work" as we go "Forward in Faith!"

Exciting Times!

Things are getting real exciting around ABC! 

1. Minister of Worship!  Our search team is being blessed in their relationship with a man and his family! Everything is looking good - God seems to be leading in this relationship - and we could literally be looking at a potential weekend of presentation in just a few weeks!  Our staff has also met with him! He and his family are great servants of God!   Our search team is praying - the person being considered is praying - and right now there is peace among all!  PRAISE THE LORD!  I can hardly wait to see how God brings all this together! It is exciting!

2. Building Project!  The rain has certainly slowed things down a bit, but they are hard at work on laying out plumbing and electrical.  Can you imagine what it will be like to have modern, ample, and multi-usable preschool and children's space for our community?   I think of all the young families with children and just praise the Lord that they are going to benefit so wonderfully from the ministry that the building will facilitate!

3. Building Church!  I don't know how much time I have left here, but I intend to spend every day of it helping our church transition from being a good church to being a GREAT church!  We will try to move to a fully functioning church on mission - each member serving God in a Kingdom focused reality!  My prayer is that we be fully "Christ-focused" instead of "me-focused!" My prayer is that we will be certain of our own salvation - and then be fully devoted to allowing the Holy Spirit to equip, empower, and embolden each one of us!

Christ-followers!  That is truly what we desire to be!!!

4. Completion of Revelation! Praise God! This one may not be exciting to anyone but me - but after 51 weeks that saw 38 teaching sessions, and after writing 160 pages of commentary (72658 words, 5160 sentences,) and after reading over 1600 pages of background and spending the equivalent of 6 forty hour work weeks in preparation, I complete teaching the book of Revelation tonight!   It has been one of the most challenging, rewarding studies I have ever done. Praise God - because of His promise - all of us have received a blessing from God for studying and reading this great book!  And it is time to do something else.

I look forward to doing some different kinds of things on Wednesday nights for a while!  Musical praise, seasons of prayer, special presentations - Wednesday night is going to come out of the cage of routine for a while!   

See you all tonight!

I Was Thinking About Trying Preaching for a While!

Believe it or not, more than once in my years of ministry I have had someone approach me to talk about what it is like to be a preacher! That is not so surprising. The next part is!  I have had people tell me that they weren't real happy with their work - and they got to thinking about it - and decided that they might give preaching a try!

Well, go for it brother!  There are a lot of days I think about giving brain surgery a try!  Maybe I will give being a general surgeon a try! No, I think I will be a pipe-fitter for a while! No, I think I will be nuclear scientist! Oh, wait, I could try being a store manager! No, I think I will be the CEO of Chevron for a while!  Did you pick up on the sarcasm?

Why does anyone suppose that if they are not happy with their work, they can "try preaching" for a while?? It amazes me!  If anyone can do it - then jump in!  Honestly, most of them would not make it one week!  Too many decisions to make! Too much preparation to do! But the biggest reason a person will crash and burn for "trying out preaching" is that it is a CALL of GOD on your LIFE!  

I'm OLD FASHIONED!  And I truly believe I AM RIGHT about this one! God calls people into ministry! It is not that other jobs are not as hard! They are! It is not that other jobs are not important - they are!  And, I believe God calls people to ministry in their secular vocation.  But vocational ministry is a CALLING for sure!  Those who are not called but "try it out"  give everyone else in ministry a bad name.  One of the wise ladies in our church told me that she calls these misguided, would be preachers, jump-up preachers.

Whatever they are - here is some advice!  If God has called you to preach or to some other ministry - OBEY Him! Quit your job, get into some higher education to further prepare yourself, and get busy!  If you don't, you will be miserable the rest of your life and you will be a thorn in the flesh to those who have followed His call!   If God has not called you to preach or some other church vocational ministry, then locate your ministry within your vocation!  

We are all fellow-servants of God! Let us all do our part!

The Difference Between a Sermon and a Talk!

What is the difference between a sermon and a talk?

Well, every true sermon must be rooted in and must utilize the word of God!  Otherwise, it is a talk! It may be a good talk - it may be a wise talk - it may be an engaging and even a convincing talk!  But when the Word of God serves as the anchor, it will be a sermon - a message from the heart of God - through the heart of man - to other folks!

I like to preach through books or on particular parts of scripture! I am also often moved to preach on a topic for several weeks!  However, I preach on most topics as they present themselves to me in the God's Word!  I let the scripture drive the topic instead of the topic driving the scripture. 

The opportunity to have 400 people sit in one building and give undivided attention to one person talking week after week is an amazing act of generosity on the part of the people!  For me, it is humbling! If they are going to take the time to listen, then I am going to make a bee-line for the Word of God! Better they should hear about the Word than just hear me!

A genuine sermon takes on divine qualities - conviction of the Holy Spirit - the wisdom of God - transformational - saving!  A good talk - not so much!

There is too much "talking" in our pulpits and not enough "preaching!"   And I am not talking about style - I am talking about content!

Randomness!

Today is going to be a day of RANDOMNESS!  I suppose every day is - we just don't always realize it! Since we studied coming out of the cage of routine during Wild Goose Chase a couple of weeks ago, I decided a few minutes ago that today will be a day of RANDOMNESS!  This is helped in part by:

1. Hospital visit in New Orleans!  The person having surgery has been moved in the schedule to an "unknown" time this morning!  No one knows when it will be!

2. My Transportation! I am still tweaking my 96 Crown Vic HIGH MILEAGE car back into action!  It has no satellite radio capability, so I am taking my IPOD! I am going to put it on SHUFFLE!  The only downside is that it might land on a sermon since I have several in their by various people! That could take up nearly an hour if it lands on one of them!

    Just a test sample right now! The top 10 on ipod shuffle:

                        1. It's Lucky We Met  - - - Janet Paschal
                        2. You're in Love - - - - - - -Wilson Phillips
                        3. Perseverance of the Saints - Ken Weathersby (a sermon)
                        4. We Long for You -- - - - - -Travis Cottrell
                        5. Thunder - - - - - - - - - -  -Sound effect
                        6. 50 Cal - - - - - - - - - - - - -Sound effect (50 caliber machine gun)
                        7. I will Celebrate - - - -- - - Paul and Rita Baloche
                        8. Revive us Again - - - - - - Gaither Homecoming Friends
                        9. I Want to Take You Higher - Ike & Tina Turner
                        10. Awesome God - - - - - - Keith Lancaster

Okay - since it is randomness - I feel OK to skip sermons today if I want to!!!!!

3. New Orleans!  New Orleans is a pretty unpredictable place - so RANDOM IT IS!

Reading for Maximum Impact!

Reading the Bible is an amazing opportunity that we have! I highly recommend it!  There are many other good books out there that really illuminate key truths of scriptures.  There are some books that have had "maximum impact" on my life!  Here are just a few:

The Bondage Breaker by Neil T. Anderson  The best book I have ever read on the power to live free in Christ.

The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God  by Dallas Willard   One of the most thought provoking books I have ever read! The book provides a deep study of the Sermon on the Mount!  This book will challenge you to being Kingdom minded!

Every book on prayer by E. M. Bounds   His books are simple, powerful, inspirational!  There are some collections of his books that are available for a good price!

Evangelism in the Early Church by Michael Green      A fabulous book on evangelism.

If God Were Real: A Journey into a Faith that Matters  by John Avant  An excellent book on having an authentic faith and acting upon what we say we believe - that God is alive and that He matters!

When God Builds a Church  by Bob Russell     One of the most practical books I have ever read on the church! I actually prepared a 10 Sermon Series based on the titles of each chapter! God has blessed every time I have had opportunity to preach them! 

Two books by Mark Batterson:

Wild Goose Chase   and    In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day!

Since I am not in my study, I'm sure I will update this post with a half dozen more when I can visually reflect on a few more! 

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it,
except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book.
~ Thomas ã Kempis ~