John 3:30

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

pride

Church Attendance ’16

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In 2016 I decided to keep track of my church attendance. I have been impressed by sermons and posts online about the importance of local church membership and attendance. I hope that this does not become some type of legalistic standard for any to follow. My intention was to measure my church attendance in 2016. I don’t actually know quite how to interpret the results, but here they are if you are interested.

My church meets Sunday morning for Sunday School, then again for a service, then again Sunday evening. We also have a Wednesday night prayer meeting.

All that being said, with the various cancellations in 2016, my church offered 205 opportunities to hear God’s Word and pray with the brethren.

I attended 84% of those services or 172 times.

I attended another church 10 times when it was at the same time as my church, bumping my total attendance to 182 meetings or 89% of possible time. Or seen another way, I attended my church 88% of the time after “excused absences.”

If I subtract out family matters which kept me from church, my overall attendance rises to 94%.

I don’t know if that is good or bad or whatever. It is just what it is. I do know that if a person just attended my church on Sunday morning for one service, they’d have a 25% attendance rate so it is better than that. If I only went to 3 of those services each week, I’d have a 75% rate.

I also taught or preached 25 times. That is about 5 months of teaching once a week. This was spread all throughout the year. But out of 205 “services” I ministered 25 of them, meaning I teach about 12% of the time, or every other week on average.

So how are you doing? It is early enough in 2017 for you to start keeping track and seeing how you do. What would your commitment be if you bought season tickets to a sports team? Better than 94%? I think this is a thoughtful way to try to measure yourself without condemning yourself or finding your hope in your church attendance. If anything, I hope it would help you in some way.

A Beleaguered Believer is Beached

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Jonah cried out to God from the belly of the great fish. Then, God grants Jonah a change of heart whereby he agrees to obey. Another brilliant OT text full of application for today. Here is the sermon I preached Sunday, May 15 at the evening service at Bethel Baptist Church of Pataskala. Make sure to check back this week for chapters 3 & 4.

How to Do Presup Wrong

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The good folks at the Veritas Domain have once again allowed me to post.

Good presup is about believing what the Bible says about God and man and then acting accordingly. But I do not see any reason why that means we must get a professing atheist to admit they really know God. In fact, I think it is counter-Scriptural and, as the result, counter-productive. (All Scripture is inherently pragmatic, just not in the way sinful men want it to be, but that’s a different post).

Click here to read the entire post.

My First Sunday Morning Sermon

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On March the 6th, 2016, I was honored to preach my first ever Sunday morning sermon at First Baptist Church of New Albany in Ohio.

To skip my comments and just listen to the sermon see below.

A few notable moments. Upon arrival I found out they were happy to allow me to lead the entire service. They had a bulletin already created which they could not get printed. As I was writing it out, I was so glad to see Heaven Came Down, How Great Thou Art and Victory in Jesus listed for singing. Then I noticed a song titled “Let Jesus Come into Your Heart” as the ‘invitation hymn.’

Not opposed to judging a song by its title, I asked if we could change it to “How Firm a Foundation” and they had no problem with that. The service flowed nicely with a skilled pianist and my friend Christopher offering prayer.

They had Scripture reading on their bulletin. I had not prepared for that. Since my sermon was about God’s Word, I thought it would be appropriate and helpful to read Proverbs 30:5-6. I then tested myself and tried to quote Psalm 1 from memory. I did it!! I thought Psalm 1 went nicely with my sermon, and it was the first time I had quoted an entire chapter of Scripture in public from memory (inside a church).

Then my daughter Bailey played perfect renditions of Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art on her flute for special music. You will notice if you listen to the sermon that I open by talking about the hymns. I then do what I am apt to do (and learned from my own pastor), and I spoke for 20 minutes off the cuff while ignoring my notes. So many things flood to my mind that I want to share.

I really enjoyed myself and was very grateful to my friends Mike Stockwell and Christopher Ledezma who attended along with my 3 oldest children. It was a time of service to God and to one of His local churches. I appreciate everyone who prayed for me and the service. As a hipster Christian might say “God showed up big time.” 😉

Feel free to listen here:

Miracles to Convert the World

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My wife just showed me a FB post where someone quoted Kris Vallotton saying that the church must demonstrate the miraculous works of Christ. It is at least implied that this is what allows nonbelievers to experience repentance.
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Here is my response:

The only miracle the world needs to see is people repenting of their superstitions and repenting of their desires for God to perform for them and, instead, trusting in His Word alone.