Kid's Church - A new day

An exciting, contagious, new day is coming to our Kid's Church. I feel a deep shaking and trembling of excitement as God begins to reveal to us what He wants us to do. We can almost see the end result and as we take the first step of obeying Him the picture becomes clearer.

It is our responsibility as Kid's Church Leaders to impart His spiritual truths to these future pastors, evangelists, prophets, apostles and teachers. Some of you may be asking the same question we have asked ourselves, 'How are you going to do that?' The answer is, "By keeping our focus on Him." As we enter this new day we have to re-evaluate our intentions, motives, and purpose as Kid's Church leaders. We are seeing God take us in the direction of training them up now while they are in Kid's Church rather than waiting for them to move into the Youth Group to grow spiritually. This means we need to know where the kids are spiritually so that we can help them step into new spiritual things and begin to mature.

This is the challenge that we have the privilege of facing in these next days. Please pray that we would have wisdom and discernment as we endeavor to teach the kids how to walk with God.

Home Groups

By Megan L.

The home groups have been a vital part in learning how to have right relationship within the body of Christ. I have experienced a lot of personal growth as a direct result of the support of my brothers and sisters in our home group. They have a vision of the new things which God desires to do in all of us and have encouraged me to pursue Him more passionately than ever.

Pastor Dave has used the rebuilding of the wall in the book of Nehemiah as a reference numerous times over the last months. God has used our home group to rebuild the wall of protection around me personally and also the corporate body. The book of Nehemiah has been an awesome parallel of what God has accomplished in our home group. God is forming us into a family as he teaches us what it means to live in covenant with Him and one another.

Over the last few months my brothers and sisters have stood guard for me when I was discouraged from looking at the rubble in my life and was a weak spot in the wall. God has blessed me with opportunities to do the same for some of them. We have lifted each other and the body in prayer so that our hands would be strengthened. Confirmation has come over and over that we are hearing the word of God as one man. Our hearts and lives are being knit together with His as he teaches us to love, trust, and prefer one another. Each individual is vital, and though we are all hearing the same things from God, each person contributes in ways that no one else can. Praise God that He is bringing forth the character of Jesus in our lives and our relationships with each other.

"The home groups
have been a
vital part in
learning how
to have right
relationship
within the
body of Christ."

Inner View

By: Pastor Dave Limmer.

God is teaching us what the church is and how it functions. One way the church functions is through home groups- house-to-house meetings to break bread, pray together and build relationships with each other. God wants us to encourage and support each other, see needs and extend ourselves to meet those needs. But before we can step into the Biblical pattern of relationship and do these things, we need to repent. In His faithfulness, God is continuing to reveal areas of our insecurity and pride, which are really the same things. The Lord is showing how we really don't want to go out of our way to help others, except perhaps those we are close to. God is stretching us to get into relationships where we learn to trust and serve, to prefer and love without qualification, other than loving God; then we'll be able to give ourselves permission to break through the limitation of fearing to be close to each other.

As we build relationships, God's desire is that we break through the fear of being vulnerable and take the risk of reaching out to those around us. So often we don't want to get close to someone because we're afraid of being hurt. Is it worth the risk to begin living a lifestyle of relationship in our homes and our church?

God longs to take us into a deeper relationship with Himself and each other. To do this, He is bringing us into a season of repentance and as we step into it, it will bring us into a new level corporately.

Inoculate the Body

By: Kathy C.

A computer virus is a file that can erase your hard drive or just make your computer freeze or lock up. You can get your computer to work right for a short time by turning it off and on or by rebooting. One way that your computer becomes infected is when you open an email attachment that has the virus in it and without your knowledge your computer becomes infected. Where I work we use a computer virus detection program called "Inoculate". This program checks every file on your hard drive. If you have a virus you are asked if you would like to either delete or cure the file. This file that has the virus may be a small file and may be insignificant to the untrained eye. But to a computer it could mean a lot.

In parallel the church body is like a computer. The people in the body are like the computer files. If in each of us (or a file) there is something not right, when we come together we may not be able to function properly. God would like to inoculate the body, individually and corporately. There may be something that you personally think is small and insignificant but to God it is not. In 1 John 1:7 we can take comfort because Jesus tells us plainly "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." So glory be to the Father. He has a virus protection program, His Son.

Praying for the Persecuted Church

By Karen F.

As I have tried to pray for the persecuted church worldwide, I realize that I shy away from doing so because I don't want to think about people suffering. It isn't something I want to meditate on. Often I feel guilty for the blessed life I have - all the material blessings, my family, Christian brothers and sisters, freedom to worship and having the Word readily available to me, when in dark corners of the world there are Believers being abused physically and emotionally. Many of them are enduring this in isolation, with no brothers or sisters there to support them. Probably many of them do not have access to a Bible. How are they sustained? My heart breaks to think about it; so I don't

How do I reconcile the inequality? The seeming unfairness? As I ask the Lord about this, I am reminded that there was no mistake about when and where I was born (Acts 17:26), so guilt is not appropriate. I need to pray for God to reveal His heart and wisdom to me about these things and for understanding of my role in this-what to do, how to pray.

I don't have the answers yet, but I can't let the ugliness of the facts or guilt or detachment stop me from praying for God's people who are being persecuted. One thing I do know; prayer in the power of the Holy Spirit is not bound by time or space. Our prayers do have impact; our prayers do turn back the forces of darkness.

"The effectual
fervent prayer
of a righteous
man availeth
much." James 5:16

Concert of Prayer

Where:

Christ United Methodist Church 1868 South Poplar

When:

March 21, 2002 at 7:00 p.m.