Category: Ministry

Christian Living, Ministry

Searching for One’s Self – 2

Chris

We began a discussion on how difficult it is to learn who we are, who we are meant to be. Part of what we are called to do in »Christ is to complete good works, things that God has already taken the time to put into place and line up so that we can walk into a situation that is ripe for fulfilling what God has asked us to do (see Ephesians 2:10).

But how do we figure out how we fit into those pictures? If God is putting together a grand story that we each have a role in, what does it take to unravel the clues to what it is? It’s like searching for buried treasure, but not only are we often without an easy map to follow, we’re sometimes unclear about what the treasure looks like.

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Christian Living, Ministry

Searching for One’s Self

Chris

We are winding up our second year of our current home group program at church. I’m finishing up my third run of a course based on the study by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson entitled, “Living A Life On Loan.” I picked out this DVD study to help emphasize the character quality of fruitfulness. Though it doesn’t line up with my original thoughts on the matter, the study does encourage Christians to use their gifts and abilities in order to dispense grace and good works through their lives.

Discussion in our group will often return to a thought that each person is trying to figure out who they are. Men and women in their thirties and forties are realizing that they’ve go so long living life, either for the Lord or themselves, and now they’re starting to figure out that they have something to do, some gift to bring to the world.

I’d written a couple of posts in recent months on spiritual gifts. I find myself bringing up those thoughts in our discussions, so you might find them interesting (read Spiritual Gifts 1 | read Spiritual Gifts 2). It seems, though, that for all of the tests, for all of the books and programs that are available to help us discover our personal gifts, it is still extremely difficult for people to determine what they are and live their lives doing them.

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Ministry

“Hip 2B Holy” on Global TV

Chris

I’ve seen it now four times. Today our church leadership used it to kick off our monthly CAST Meeting. Many don’t even know what it is. Did you see it?

This past Monday night Global TV (a network here in Canada) broadcast a documentary on evangelical Christianity in Canada. Through the magic of PVR/DVR, I was able to go to bed at a decent time and still catch this message that is helping to shape the view of evangelicalism for the masses in Canada.

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Christian Living, Ministry

RE: Spiritual Gifts (2)

Chris

We’ve started a discussion about how our we get confused when it comes to our spiritual gifts. The people around us often identify the skills we’ve acquired in life, whether for work or personal use, to be our spiritual gifts.

We mentioned that one reason this happens is because those evaluating or examining us, trying to figure out our gifts, often do so by first comparing our abilities to their own and those around us. If we stand out in an area, we must be gifted there. There is another filter that those close to us make use of, and that’s my topic for this post.

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Christian Living, Ministry

RE: Spiritual Gifts

Chris

Do you remember the excitement of the discover of what you were meant to do? In ministry we call it the divine call. All of us, though, through our talents, passions and other factors, are designed by God to fulfill a particular purpose. Most of us won’t get the opportunity to fulfill that purpose as our livelihood, but we can all come to the place where we get to aplly our gifts towards a holy passion in our hearts.

Over the past six weeks I’ve found myself on a journey of rediscovery. While I tend to read an awful lot and have a tendency toward learning that way, I’ve been exposed to some video teachings that have caused me to pause and reflect, leaving the books I’ve been reading lying around the house, unopened for days at a time.

One of the topics I’ve been chewing on is one that I had wanted to write about in the past. I had several thoughts going through my mind then and couldn’t really figure out how to go about it. Now I think I’m ready to tackle it. That topic is Spiritual Gifts.

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Ministry

Community Revival

Chris

Subtitle: How do you change the heart of a city/town?

I’ve made the move from big city to small town. I joined up in my current position almost two years ago now. There has been a lot of pastoral turnover in those couple of years, and as we all settle in and get the lay of the land, we’re noticing that the heart of our town is basically dead.

What does it mean to have a town that is dead? There is no heart, no desire to be more than it is, no spirit, no pride. The people in our town are like zombies, having any spark of life sucked out of them at every turn.

As pastors, having made this diagnosis, we now find ourselves trying to find out the best way to bring life back to this “valley of dry bones.”

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