As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
Here’s the scenario:
Gabriela and Alejandro Flores and their three children live in your community with their three children.
The children attend your church’s VBS and several make professions of faith.
Your church’s outreach ministry visits in their home and thanks to the bi-lingual couple who connects with them, both Gabriela and Alejandro make professions of faith themselves,
The couple want to be baptized and unite with your church.
“He will step into the role in January, after the retirement of the mission agency’s current president, Dr. Gary Anderson” GARBC
(From Voice magazine, Nov/Dec 2015. Used by permission.)
As I said in Part 1, over the years I’ve deliberately surrounded myself with some of the finest people imaginable. Those great folks have given me so much that I’ve often felt overwhelmed with gratitude reflecting on the countless ways I’ve been blessed by others in my life. Yet I also know that people fail (including, and most especially, me). We are all fallen, feeble, frail and broken instruments—but God is great! This truth has helped temper my perfectionistic, unreal, idealistic expectations when I’ve directed them at myself and those around me. I’ve learned to be more patient and forbearing over the years knowing all of us need to receive grace and extend forgiveness each and every day. People are great; people are frustrating. People help us up; people push us down. My actions are good; my actions are bad. In all the variations of our humanity, this one thing is certain: God never changes and He’s always dependable. He will never fail and so we should keep our eyes on Him.
(From Voice magazine, Nov/Dec 2015. Used by permission.)
Shortly after I became a Christian at the age of 18, I sensed God’s leading into full-time ministry and I enrolled in a Bible institute to begin my preparation. During two of those summers I served as an intern in a small church plant in Utah, the second summer serving as “the pastor” when Ron (my mentor) left for a month of missionary deputation.
Discussion