Practical Strategy of our Vision

In my seminary days most students knew a phrase used by a certain teacher, a really famous phrase: “2 am business” – meaning it was so important that if awaken at 2 am you should be able to answer that!

Last Sabbath I shared with you these 5 practical steps of accomplishing the Mission and Vision of our church. And I expect you to know these as “2 am business”

1. Pray for the entire World.
2. Read through the entire Bible
3. Sacrifice luxury for a Godly project
4. GO and enter a new culture, understand a new worldview.
5. Mentor a disciple for Christ’s family

On October 1^st we are starting the Experiment. A whole year, 12 month experiment of recommitting our lives for what really matters. Elder Clara Baptiste will introduce next Sabbath details on prayer and Bible reading. Some of you already reported on doing it. I am encouraging especially the youth, teens to read the Bible entirely.

I pray that you are analyzing your life to see what needless luxury things you may sacrifice for the good of others. The life of simplicity is a life of blessing. The reason for simplicity is not guilt, duty or obligation, but the necessity of having more time for personal spiritual growth, more time to spend with God, instead of pursuing gadgets, money and entertainment. Give up a thing or two that takes your time but has no eternal value, and invest that time with God and in service of fellow men and you will discover blessing and happiness beyond anything you experienced before.

Finally, the last two challenges are geared toward growing the Kingdom of God as a family. Thanksgiving weekend is coming – invite someone, chose someone you would like to mentor through the year, to help them grow. Invite a family from a different cultural background, maybe a neighbour whose belief system is different. Befriend a person who may not know Christ yet and try to understand their interests. As you mingle with people, you will discover their needs. As you genuinely care for them and serve their needs you will win their confidence. Only then lovingly you could bid them to follow Jesus.

Family, lets make the Revival and reformation real in our lives!

Resources for you

Last Sabbath during the Sabbath School time I mentioned some resources and you were asking for more details. So, here are great websites for to download and listen Adventist sermons:

Dwight K. Nelson http://www.pmchurch.tv/

Ron Halvorsen Jr. http://www.collegeviewchurch.org/article.php?id=121

Charles A. Tapp http://www.sligochurch.org/2011-sermon-library

Another good resource is www.churchpond.com

And, of course, do not ignore our own site www.adventistlondon.ca where sermons are also archived, and links are provided for seminars and resources.

Shifting gears here ... Today you will hear a challenge for a Radical Experiment with Your Life, starting October 1. I challenge you to apply extraordinary commitment to practice five ordinary steps:

1. Pray for the entire World.
2. Read through the entire Bible
3. Sacrifice luxury for a Godly project
4. GO and learn a new culture, discover a new worldview.
5. Mentor a disciple for Christ’s family

I will explain more in the sermon. We will also prepare handouts, through newsletters, blogs, website, to assist you with your Bible Reading Plan, and with the list of countries we will be praying for.

For now check out following sites:

For prayer http://www.operationworld.org/

For Bible Reading http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/all

We also would appreciate more volunteers to facilitate and coordinate this long-term commitment effort for our church. If you feel the Lord calling you to get involved more than what you had done before – do not hesitate – speak to church leadership and make a difference!

School of Discipleship – year around

This coming week students will return to school after the long summer break. Some will move on to the next level – College, University or High School. The most dreaded experience is to be left behind for another year, to repeat a grade because of lack of progress! The principle is the same – to achieve a higher learning.

Here at the church we also shift gears in our schedule for more work and teaching after summer breeze. And how is your personal experience of growth? Are you moving to the “next level”? Are you learning continually?

Much has been said about personal spiritual growth of believers. Here I want to outline a few basic steps that make it obvious how a person progresses on a journey with God:

1) An initial contact with Bible, or with a credible Christian

2) A verbal witness that shared God in a meaningful way, to explain God’s plan of saving people

3) Visiting the church to “check it out,” to see the Body Assembled together, to see if there is evidence of Spirit

4) A decision to return to the church, because of the encounter with God’s spirit at work, because of acceptance experienced

5) A commitment to Christ through baptism, a desire to grow

6) Joining a small group to dig deeper, to learn more

7) Discovering and developing personal spiritual gifts

8) Getting involved in a ministry based on giftedness

9) Maturing as a devoted follower of Christ in all areas of life, including stewardship and evangelism

10) Mentoring others, becoming a spiritual parent to new seekers.

Where are you on this journey? Do we have seniors on “Step 10”? Have you passed “Step 7 “ and learned your spiritual giftedness? Or have you got stuck on “Step 5” and not sure how to advance?

As we move into this fiscal year, the Small Groups is our top priority, top need. We need mature leaders to facilitate house churches, where an experience of growing and maturing would exist. If you need any help – we got “guidance counsellors” – elders.

Make a decision to belong, to grow, to develop, to mature, and to bless others.

Our church is a School of Discipleship!

Suddenly, inescapably, like a thief in the night

How’s your week? This week was full of surprises, ups and downs for me.

For all of us this week began with a tragic news of the F3 Tornado destroying picturesque Goderich in 2 minutes. Hearts of many moved people into action. I got a lot of calls and responses pleading to organize volunteering action. After a few phone-calls and emails I learned that during the first days only trained professionals are “welcomed” in the area. The volunteer force has to wait for the “green light.” Some of you may have heard about a Londoneer volunteer who got injured on the first day after, ending up in a hospital with broken pelvic bone, tail bone, and more, being propelled from a tree, while chainsawing it.

Monday many were upset with the news of Jack Layton passing, quoting his epistle to Canadians just a few days before – I saw it on your Facebook, twitter, and other social media “my friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world." Wonderful words, relevant words. Are we putting it in practice?

Then the earthquake in Washington. Then another tornado near Ailsa Craig & Nairn levelling the trailer park on Thursday. Those three days I was battling my kitchen ceiling, that suddenly peeled off and fell to the floor, after we tried to apply a popcorn stucco texture to it. In the process we discovered that an old leak, before we reshingled the roof, did sufficient damage to the ceiling. My whole schedule was set back by three days, and that’s while expecting the church family for potluck this Sabbath!

Friday morning we (Stepan & myself) did the final Bible study with Stajfer family, who are preparing their teens for baptism in October. The study was on the Biblical view of the last day events. A trend that is often repeated by evangelists in evident – “suddenly and inescapably,” the “thief in the night” reference not to a quiet and unnoticeable, but rather surprising, unexpected turn of events. How ready are you to deal with surprises?

As I talked with our ADRA director pastor Sargeant, we pondered how we must respond with readiness as we understand that end times will only escalate the frequency of disasters and challenges. Even as we live our day-to-day routine, knowing that troubles will increase in frequency just like birth-pangs, how must we live?

I invite you, church family to examine your personal life – are you ready for unexpected? Are you ready to meet adversities, without being alarmed, and being prepared to help others? Will you be an asset or liability for the Disaster Relief Agencies? Would you need others to salvage your stuff? Or would you be able to go and help others?

Be ready. Get ready. Live prepared.

What is a Church for you?

During vacation time I get to interact with the same people in a different way. It’s like their perception changes. I am still a pastor but during these three weeks my visits are considered not “on a job” but “personal.” I also find that during my vacation time funny things happen, like troubles that were dormant for months in some family suddenly come to heads and require immediate attention, or “sheep stealers” from some off-shoot movement show up at prayer meetings to see who is disgruntled to influence on the way out. I hear of families that all of a sudden are not happy with church programming provided and are considering alternatives elsewhere, in Sunday-keeping churches, either for bible classes, or scouts, or cadets, or family enrichment, instead of attending what is offered here, and partnering up to improve and grow our church family.

My first reaction is to “cut vacation short” and get back to visiting, counselling, encouraging, rebuking if need be. Yet, it is not my, but God’s church. I am simply doing my duty as the undershepherd, together with ten elders who are also overseers and undershepherds of God’s flock. I invite you to consider our purpose, as a church. Last Wednesday at the prayer meeting we focused on the designated theme for prayer for this month – spiritual gifts. Adventists all around the world are praying for revival of Spiritual gifts within each baptized believer. We all have received a deposit from the Holy Spirit into our lives as a downpayment (Eph.1:13-14) as a assurance of our salvation (Hebrews 2:3-4). Paul’s letters teach that Spiritual gifts are like body parts – given to different individuals as assignments for edification and benefit of all community (Romans 12 & 1^st Corinthians 12). God gifts at baptism every believer with a unique and specific gift. Some to function as an eye, other as an ear, another as a hand, one as a tongue, and when certain individual refuses to use and develop their gift, they make the whole body dysfunctional.

I invite you to consider yet another metaphor for the Church – the Shopping Window of God – a place where the Body of Christ is on display for the world in a walking distance to see. There must be a church, a “shopping window of God” within a walking distance in every community, where God’s Glory is revealed in everyday living, in practical terms. I believe that we are such a church, a display of the Body of Christ in Glen Cairn Community of London, Ontario. Look at this “shopping window” through the eyes of the neighbours – watching us drive in on time for the Sabbath School Bible study at 9:30 am. Staying for worship at 11, eating together at 1 pm. I remember when after VBS neighbourhood kids would run in for the free potluck. Coming to Pray together Wednesdays at 7 pm, and much more – music practices, choir rehearsals, kids Adventurers programs, youth Pathfinders training, training seminars.

My church is such a “shopping window” and those who are involved and engaged by participating, by “standing in a display,” by contributing to each function, are truly “members of the Body of Christ.” More churches need to be planted, so that every community would see and know. For now this one, at 805 Shelborne Street, the place we all call “church” - is a model.