Tommy Mitchell / The Rurban Church Blog

Praying Out Loud!

Have you ever prayed out loud? Alone?   There are some great men of God in history who would walk into the woods, sit on the ground or on a stump, and start talking to God! Maybe this is easier for people, like myself, who often talk out loud to themselves!  Often when I walk, I talk out loud through a sermon. Hearing the words come from my mouth help me clarify my thoughts, discard phrases or illustrations, and include things I had not previously given much thought.  

I have found that praying out loud when I am alone also gives me a  different perspective in prayer.  For me:

1. The audible prayer makes the conversation more natural!

2. The audible prayer prevents my arch enemy of silent prayer - sleepiness!

3. The audible prayer is particularly helpful for giving God praise and thanks!

4. The audible prayer sometimes stops me in my tracks as I hear my words! I realize how "off" I am or "petty" I am in some of my praying!

5. The audible prayer also helps me to arrive at more serious praying - more intercession - more praying along the desires of the Father's heart!

6. The audible prayer makes me less aware of time - and more aware of praying and communion with God!

7. The audible prayer, for me, then makes it easier to talk and then listen - talk and then listen.

The primary challenge to audible praying is not shyness - but location.  I do it when I walk - or when I am at home alone for lunch.  Sometimes I pray out loud when I drive -but find myself interrupted in thougth by the required alertness for driving.  I'm not suggesting this is THE way to pray - but it is another way - and I think you might find it refreshing from time to time!

Losing My Voice!

When a preacher loses his voice, it can be frustrating! Actually, it can be completely dangerous.  As a matter of fact, when any Christ follower loses their voice, it is not good.  Unlike a sore throat, however, the loss of voice to which I am referring is more spiritual than vocal! 

Psalms 66:18 states, If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me!

Losing one's spiritual voice is similar to losing one's physical voice in that immediate attention is required and a remedy must be sought out.  Fortunately, we know how to cure a spiritual loss of voice.

Confession with a genuinely repentant spirit is required.  "Regarding iniquity in our heart" is the practice of giving sin a "place" in our heart.  It is to prioritize sin, to nurture it, to hold on to it, to give it fertile soil and water.   This can never have a good outcome for the believer.  It means sin will likely turn into sins and my heart will grow distant from God.

There is good reason for this distance, and the scripture is clear - in such a condition of the heart, the Lord will not hear me!  I will have lost my voice before God because He simply will not listen any longer.  This is tragic, and unnecessary.   In Romans 5:1-2 we read, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we^[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith^[b] into this grace in which we stand, and we^[c] rejoice^[d] in hope of the glory of God.

Peace with God and access to His grace through faith are promised us. But we can surely damage, blow up, and create an impasse to talking to Him and hearing from Him when we "regard" sin in our heart. 

The cure for a spiritual sore throat is confession and repentance!  We need not become stubborn in sin because we will lose!  If I have learned anything over the years as a christian, it is this: God will not be mocked!  Not only will He not hear me if I cultivate sin in my heart, He has the capacity to punish as well.  Confession is taking ownership of our sins - repentance is turning from the sin in order to turn to Christ. 

Be careful to take care of your spiritual voice so that communion and fellowship with our Lord is never interrupted.

Torn Apart by Violence!

The mass shooting in Colorado at a movie theater is simply horrible! It is grotesque! It is the ultimate act of both violence and cowardice! It is sheer thuggery!  It is blatant, overt hatred!  It is despicable!

You see, no words exist to properly describe the horror and carnage poured out on the patrons of that theater!  No words can describe the lifetime scars that survivors will feel. No words can describe the senseless loss of life to parents, children, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and friends of those who died!

Today, there will be ESSENTIAL and NEEDED critical incident debriefing available for scores of people impacted.  First responders, fire, and police will be reeling from the carnage they have had to wade through! 

And then, the whole second round of victimization and exploitation will begin! The news media, in this political season, will try and hope to find that this person who did the shooting was a conservative so they can smear republicans with the shooting. Many conservative writers and some in the media will try to pin it on a liberal wacko!  The gun lobbies, both pro and anti gun control, will try to use the tragedy to advance their cause.  Some politicians will start fund-raising off the tragedy!  It will turn into a dark exploitation that rivals the shooting itself in ugliness!

Everyone will be asking "why?"  If the shooter (s) were to give a precise reason for their act of violence, would it really make any difference?  The fact is, we live in an increasingly violent society that does not revere and value life!  Life has become cheap to killers, no matter the stated reason for their actions. We live in a society where the breakdown of morality is coming home to roost.  The lack of parental love and discipline, the lack of strong respect for life, the lack of a strong moral center, the derision expressed towards God - all these have unraveled the fabric of mutual respect and love! 

As our moral and social pillars have been falling, we are now in danger of a total collapse in society. You can only remove so many supporting pillars from a structure before it falls!   I'm not trying to be doom and gloom - but we must be truthful about our circumstances.  We have more killings on a daily basis in Chicago than we do Afghanistan!

Pray for these many families! The horror of this will be a life-altering event for the rest of the lives of those who survived and for those who lost their loved ones.   God help America!

I'm Not Insane!

Really! I'm not insane! But I suppose a person who doesn't know me might think so! You see - I am trying to be more deliberate every day with what I call "conversational Christianity!"  Christ has redeemed us - and in doing so has imparted right into our very being the Spirit of God!  WOW!  That is a pretty good deal for us!!!!!

In light of MUCH scripture, we know that we are to follow Christ, to obey Christ, to listen to Christ through our daily communion with the Spirit of God!  This is not mystical, though the full mechanics of it are somewhat a mystery to us!  We are not perfect in our understanding of things, but the more we are in God's word, the more we are people of devoted prayer, the more conversational we will be with Christ! 

We sometimes make the mistake of putting all our "time with God" in a box for a certain time of day! Morning devotion 0r evening devotion times end up being the "God time" in our lives.  Hey, nothing wrong at all with having elongated times spent specifically studying the Word and praying!

But we live in a rough and tumble world! Though morning time spent with the Lord is wonderful, it alone is not sufficient out in the trenches of ministry!  So, the longer I live the more "conversational" I am trying to be with the Lord.  The Lord and I just talk about everything - all day long!  Like Paul, I have not arrived or attained perfection in this!  But I press on! 

Every day I have something of a broad outline of what I believe I have to accomplish!  But life happens during those times and I find the Lord conversing with me through the Spirit! If we will converse with God throughout the day, we will find MANY opportunities of ministry! We will find ourselves engaging with people we do not know! We will find ourselves seeing things we would never see!  But one has to be willing to have an ongoing conversation with God! One has to be willing to respond instantly to that conversation.

Some people get nervous when we declare "the Lord spoke to me!"  Well, to be clear, He often speaks to me through His Word!  That is often where our conversation begins!  Then the Spirit prompts my heart - turns my head, opens my eyes, helps me hear what is going on all around me!  I absolutely believe that the more closely I walk in the Word and prayer, the more my spirit will agree with His Spirit! And, to know His Spirit, we talk!  Some folks would say, "He claims to talk with God - He is insane!"  Well, I suppose it depends on what you say God told you to do!

God will never tell you to do something that contradicts His Word! God will never tell you to do something contrary to His character and nature!  That does not mean that God will not tell you to do things that people will not cause people to raise an eyebrow! 

Throughout your day today, as you go through it, try making a conscious effort to just be open to hearing from God!  Like this:  "Lord, I am about to be in this place of business - help me be alert to opportunities to serve You in this place!"    or - you are about to leave a location - an area - to go somewhere else - and you ask, "Lord, is there anything else I need to do while I am here?" 

You know - with us being the busy, busy people we are, we can easily go through all our daily travels and never even think of Jesus!  Now for the believer - that is insane!

Why Doesn't Church Matter Anymore?

Well, I suppose it does matter a great deal to some!  However, one might need also to define church a bit!   The true church consists of the "called out ones!"  The church is comprised of truly born from above followers of Christ! And those followers are the church!

Then there is church "gathered!"  That is the "church" the majority of folks think about when they think of "the church!"   That church has an institutional organization component! Sometimes, that institutional part overwhelms the "living church of God" part! But, I like to think of it simply as "the church gathered" on Sundays and other appointed times - and scattered out in the world to be salt and light the remainder of the time! 

Back to the question - why doesn't church matter that much anymore?  To me, it is a foregone conclusion that the phrasing of the question is valid!  I just read an article by Jim Elliff with which I largely agree. YOU CAN READ IT HERE   I believe he is "dead on" in his assessment that in our Southern Baptist Churches, we have become a largely unregenerate people!  Just to be sure everyone knows what that means - it means we have a lot of unsaved people who are members of our churches!

I would encourage you to read his article (link above) and I will not rehash it all here! However, one of the many excellent points that he makes is that among the saved, loving the brothers and sisters in Christ is one of the marks of a child of God! 1 John makes this ABUNDANTLY plain!  Yet, among our churches, our people can hardly be bothered to attend a service of worship with their brothers and sisters in Christ! 

Our roll call of people at ABC is just like the vast majority of other churches - we have around 800 on our roster - but on any given Sunday, no more than half attend!  Of those that attend, many of them are "platooners," meaning that they are there on random Sundays - maybe once or twice a month!  And then if you start looking to see how many of the half are involved in any meaningful, measurable, or accountable way in the ministry of the Kingdom, the number drops below 20% of the half that attend - not 20% of the 800!

These numbers sicken me - as they do most pastors I know and a good number of the 20%!  They sicken me for several reasons!  First, instead of being convicted and demonstrating repentance among the membership of our churches, we have just accepted that this is how it is - and we have even trumpeted it as a growth method! That's right, we have at times pushed the concept of enrolling as many people as we can to get a higher attendance - knowing that we will still have half or less attend!  God does not accept it-  so neither should we! 

Second, I believe strongly that it means many people are lost who believe they are saved! It is a non-Biblical type of salvation - a "salvation" that is devoid of a life transformation - that allows the holder to continue to live a life that is largely like every person in society - unregenerate!  The shock of this reality will be seen too late by 99.9% of this group! 

Thirdly, I am sickened over our (my) lack of action related to this crisis!  The topic is surely not a popular one in our churches.  People get pretty worked up when you start talking about removing our non-attending roster to a prospect list to hear the Gospel! 

The unsaved population of our churches accounts for the lack of power in the church - the lack of new birth - many of the financial struggles - and most certainly the lack of holy living!  Instead of being a force of the Gospel in the world - we have simply adopted the world culture into our churches. 

I have great friends and leaders in the SBC whom I respect who still seem optimistic that churches can change and transition into spirit-filled churches of largely regenerate members!  I want to believe them!   Yet, I also have great friends who, having struggled against this mostly unyielding problem, scrapped it all and started over with a new church! Certainly those new churches have their own struggles - but they are started with high accountability and clear and careful membership requirements. The attempt is made to insure as much as possible that people make informed decisions for Jesus Christ and experience ongoing life transformation!   People simply are not allowed to be members if they are not involved in both church and personal ministry!

A frustrated pastor said on one occasion that a lot of ministerial burnout happens because ministers spend most of their time trying to get unsaved people to act like children of God!  I suppose that depending on the church and the people, that statement will be more or less true! I can certainly attest to the fact that dealing with this problem can make one cynical!  Yet, the problem is very real and very eternally deadly!

Elliff had some great suggestions regarding solutions for the existing church! One thing I would emphasize is that we must begin to pray for God to restore His church! We must all be revived in Spirit - and become unwilling to accept a cheap grace and easy believism as substitutes for true salvation that brings brothers and sisters together for the cause of knowing Christ and making Him known.

Pray - Study - Fellowship!

We are about to head over to the church for mid-week services! 

While there - we will pray for some folks and some needs!  Our prayers will be heard by the Lord of Glory - who INVITES us to pray - and promises to answer and show us great and mighty things we were unaware of!

We will sing praises to His glorious name!

Then we will study His precious word for a while!

Some will stay longer to prepare to lead us in worship this Sunday!

Hopefully, we will all leave refreshed!

Are you taking advantage of the mid-week services your church offers????

Staying True to the Mission of God!

Last night I was teaching on "Staying True to the Mission of God!"  My text was Mark 1:35 - 39 which says, "³⁵ Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. ³⁶ Simon and his companions went to look for him, ³⁷ and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” ³⁸ Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” ³⁹ So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

There are many worthy points to ponder in this passage related to how Jesus stayed focused on His mission. He persevered in prayer! He resisted becoming enamored by the adoring crowds! He stayed focused on the larger mission and did not narrow His focus to a smaller community!

One of the things that refocused my attention was the Lord's practice of prayer! In another passage of the Gospels, the disciples were so moved by His praying that they said, "teach us to pray!"  Jesus was a mighty man of prayer! 

Through the years I have picked up on the truth that much work (spiritual work) requires much prayer!  I have read much about the places in the world where God's work is greatly evident and it is always accompanied by a devotion to and the hard work of prayer!  I reminded our people about the ongoing movement of God in Korea!  There you will find stadiums filled with people praying during the week very early in the morning!  Stadiums filled with thousands of people! 

I wonder how seriously we take something like a Sunday morning worship service!  We often wonder why the altar seems so dry - the eyes that do not shed tears over sin, over apathy, over the ruin of many families!  Perhaps it is that God takes the Lord's day worship far more seriously than we do!

What would a morning worship service be like if we had gathered at 5:30 am with dozens, maybe even hundreds of people on Saturday and Sunday morning to pray for nothing more and nothing less than for God to heal our sins and for His Spirit to have full reign over us?  You know, the first thing that pops in our minds may tell the story - we think - well, nobody is going to get up to go to a prayer meeting at 5:30 am!  And there you have it!  Jesus, the Son of God Himself, found it necessary to pray often and early to stay on mission!  Abundant evidence surrounds us that God is doing great work where people devote much time to Him- depending on Him through prayer!

When will we become desperate enough to see Him freely working among us to gather for prayer - privately and as a church?  It is on my mind!

This Could Be the Day!

This could be it!  How absolutely beyond description it would be!  The experience itself would be unlike anything we have ever encountered! The transformation it would bring would be, in many instances, complete and far reaching!  The impact to the community would be evidenced within hours - maybe less!

This could be the day!  The day that we gathered together in worship and adoration of a Holy God! The day that somehow we collectively decided to no longer be in control!  The day that as worship unfolded we allowed the Holy Spirit full use of His roles - to convict of sin, righteousness, and judgement to come! This could be the day of yielding control of His church back to Him!  This could be the day of something far more than just a "revival!"  This could be the day that an awakening of God's spirit takes us to a place of service, sacrifice, and salvation like no other day!

This could be the day!  Sadly, many will read this, and longingly sigh, thinking it would be great - but doubtful it will happen.   We must live in expectation of this very thing - and we must live surrendered lives to the Lord ourselves!  This could be the day!

The Bible says that "He is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask OR IMAGINE!" Ephesians 3:20.    I choose to ask Him who is able to unleash a flood of conviction, a flood of transformation, a flood of power upon His church today!  I choose to IMAGINE it happening at ABC!  What a fabulous day it will be!

This could be the day!

Pray for Peace!

Today a Pearl Police Officer lost his life, another officer was shot, and a third injured.  They were serving a warrant.  Serving warrants is an everyday task for Police Departments nationwide.  The reality - though done everyday - they are still dangerous. 

When something like this happens, especially to departments where I have served and ministered, it breaks my heart!  The general public may think they know something of how these officers feel, but really, you don't!  

Pray for these officers in this wonderful department!  So many of those officers who serve there are now truly brokenhearted and filled with grief for losing a brother officer.  In the days ahead, they will have a hard time even finding a safe outlet to express themselves. 

They will have many sincere expressions given to them by the public.  A simple "thanks for what you do" and "I will keep you in my prayers" will be sufficient.   Please do those things for these officers.

Unfortunately, they will also have to deal with people who know absolutely no facts - but are somehow experts on what "should have been done!"  Those people, unfortunately, are in great abundance as well. 

Remember these officers and their families in prayer!  Express a word of sympathy and support.  Understand that the officers and their families are "all family!" No one does what they do - and no one really knows how they feel - except other officers. 

Pray that God will heal, restore a sense of safety and security, and will bless all the families involved.

Pray that God will grip the hearts of people so that senseless acts of violence will cease! 

Pray for peace!

Breaking Free!

Are you being held captive by something? A bad habit? A frustrating attitude? A troublesome, devastating sin? 

Do you you try to do better? Promise yourself, "that was the last time I am ever doing that?"

Then - there it is again! In spite of your best efforts!  Friend, you have a stronghold working in your life.  Personally, I don't believe these frustrating habits, sins, and attitudes are that hard to change! The reason I don't think they are that hard is that I have read the Bible!

Here is what it says: 3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 

Somehow, we Christians seem to have accepted the concept that every habitual sin must have weeks, months, even years of therapy and self-help to overcome - and then you are not really well - you are just maintaining freedom by the slightest of margins.   Come on - read the scripture!

1. We live in the world - but we do not wage war as the world does!  I hope that is true for you! I live here! I see the same mess - listen to the same junk - and am exposed to all the darkness that Satan can muster.  I live in the same world as everyone else - but PRAISE GOD - I do not have to deal with it in the same manner as people without Christ!

2. The Weapon we fight with are not weapons of the world!  Well, they aren't if indeed we are walking in the Spirit of God!  I don't have to try "self-help!" I don't have to submit to "secular methods" to be free from bondage and strongholds in my life.  If I just "try harder" I will just "fail larger!"

3. On the contrary, they have DIVINE POWER to demolish strongholds. Friends, those are very strong terms.  Demolish! I like that!  Just say you are having trouble with being a closet "potty mouth!"  You cuss a lot!  Well, you have a heart problem. What comes out of that mouth came from your heart! You will not correct that with putting money in a jar when you cuss, or pinching yourself real hard, or denying yourself dessert every time you cuss.  You will only resolve it when you use weapons of divine power to demolish it!  Prayer, confession, genuine repentance, followed by FILLING UP on the Word of God and Spirit of God in your heart!

4. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God!  Wow! Sounds like Christ set loose in the believer's life can DEMOLISH all the arguments, traps, and snares of the pretense Satan uses against us! And against our knowledge of God. Doesn't sound to me like we are helpless in dealing with Satan!

5. And we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ! Ah! A key point at the end. In order to take captive our thoughts, where temptations germinate, we have to desire to be obedient to Christ!  Jesus asked, "Do you want to get well?"  Seems like anyone who is sick or sin-sick would want to be well - but that is not always true.  Do you like your porn more than you love Jesus?  Do you love living fast and loose more than living fully for Christ? Do you like your wagging tongue and the thrill of gossiping against others more than exalting Christ with your speech?  The only way to take captive these behaviors is fully give yourself to Christ! Then, the power of the Spirit to enable you to truly take these thoughts captive and turn them to obedience is present.

Do you want to get well? Do you really desire to overcome?  Then one must FILL UP on Christ! And use His weapons of warfare - the buckle of truth (the word of God) the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helment of salvation, the foot protection of the gospel of peace.

Get free - and stay FREE!