Men's Breakfast
The breakfast last Saturday, July 20th went great. There were about 25 men present. It was a good group that had a mix of ages, not just older, so it was different than the last time I spoke to this group about men's group. I started my talk affirming their community, stressing the importance of meeting together, but also piggy backed off of something one of the men had said regarding his recognition that he couldn't do ministry alone. I had a lot to share, but his words really were the catalyst for my conversation. Evangelism is important, no doubt about it, but as men, we need to be meeting together in close fellowship, keeping one another accountable. I continued to speak on this and gave some of the danger signs for why men aren't accountable, mostly stressing that we don't like to be transparent and we like to hide and not confront our sin. Then, prompted by the leader, went further into my discussion about sharing my faith at the mall and focusing on the question, "What will happen to you when you die?" I really enjoyed speaking and the time flew by. I had a lot to say. I stayed vocal as there wasn't a mic. In the end, many men came up to speak to me and really appreciated my words. It was a great time. I was glad Tyson was there, to eat, but also to hear me.
E-class
I sent an email to our pastor earlier in the week about the class. I kind of had a revelation. God really spoke to me earlier in the week through an email I found from our pastor from a question I asked him 3 years ago. It was back when he wasn't pastor yet, but he was responding to a question I had asked about discipleship and the emphasis that you don't do discipleship like it was a check list system that once you complete you are a disciple. He mentioned that the pastor at the time often stated, out of the being comes the doing and it really is the idea that when we surrender and submit to the Father, acknowledging Him as our Savior and Lord, seeing our sin, then God changes us. It will happen. We don't have to manufacture it. So, I thought that instead of having a class that showed a step by step method of evangelism, we could have a class of encouragement, a class of evangelism discussion. The class would be called E-class to hopefully force people to take the time to read the class description since the class name won't explain to them the class or cause them to guess what the class is all about. The pastor loved my idea.
Church
My wife and I went to church. We got into the auditorium towards the end, but did hear a song. It was good. I went into the service expecting to hear from God. I didn't want to go in with a poor attitude, expecting not to hear something, but wanted to accept what God would have to share with me. The message was a good one, focused on husbands and there primary role to love their wives. 4 points stood out (this wasn't the pastor's outline):
- Should - (Eph 5:28 ) "husbands should love their wives" - should is a word that means ought to or bound to it. So, our love is not part-time, but it is always.
- As their own bodies - (Eph 5:28) "husbands should love their wives as their own bodies." This is a great picture Paul uses because it begs the question, "how do we love care for our bodies?" As I thought about it, we protect it, we are careful with it, we don't take chances with it, we shower, we exercise, we take care of our appearance. We go to great effort and time to look after our own bodies. We sacrifice a lot for ourselves.
- Nourish and Cherish - (Eph 5:29) "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it." - I am to nourish my wife by providing for her. I am to cherish my wife by protecting her. Marriage is a covenant relationship.
- Hold fast to your wife - (Eph 5:31) "a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife." - Hold fast means we are joined; we are viewed as one; can't separate something that is joined together; divorce shouldn't happen.
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