November 5, 2008

Seven Steps for Following the Great Commision

Posted by pastordansmith under Disciplemaking, Leadership, Missions, Soul-winning
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bigstockphoto_feild_of_wheat_176088I found this article from www.buildingchurchleaders.com over at the www.newchurchreport.com. I like the concise and practical way it points us toward the harvest.

Seven steps closer to reaching the world

In doing the work of global outreach, my church matters. Your church matters. The church down the road matters. Every local church can—and must—play a role if we intend to carry out the Great Commission. Consider these simple ways to increase your church’s commitment to global outreach:

  1. Ask God to give you a heart for the world. I have seen entire churches burdened about the Great Commission after God moved first in the life of only one church member. Passionate, mission-minded church members are difficult to ignore!
  2. Teach about missions. Train children, youth, and adults about the significance of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). Use every opportunity to show why every follower of Christ should be concerned about missions.
  3. Promote, promote, and promote again any missions offering that your church supports. Challenge your members to give sacrificially. For example, encourage them to give to missions at least a tithe of what they spend on Christmas gifts this year.
  4. Invite stateside missionaries to speak to the church. Nothing speaks to churches quite like a “real live” missionary does, and the time set aside for a missionary speaker is time well spent. Contact any missions agency to find the names of missionaries now on stateside assignment.
  5. Challenge church members to pray daily for missionaries. Provide a list of names and needs, being careful to protect missionaries who serve in sensitive areas.
  6. Sponsor a short-term mission trip for your church members. Teaching about missions is a starting point, but actually experiencing missions can be life-changing. Set a goal to send at least 10 percent of your church’s active attendees on a mission trip this year. Be sure to commission your members as missionaries as you send them out.
  7. Pray corporately that God will call some of your church’s members to be career missionaries. Perhaps he will use some of your members to take the gospel where it has never been.
 

October 30, 2008

How to Have Communion in Your Cell Group

Posted by pastordansmith under Cell Groups
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Communion is one of two ordinances (the other is water baptism) that the Lord Jesus left for us to observe in worship. Cell groups are an excellent place for sharing in communion. Here are some practical suggestions for a cell group communion service.

1) Try and schedule a communion meeting at least once every month in your cell.

2) Begin with a meal. It can be a potluck, a pizza or potato feed, a BBQ or anything else you can think of. Just be sure to begin early to have enough time and to bring enough food for everyone to eat their fill. (See 1 Corinthians 11:21)

3) Go ahead and structure your meeting in the normal way (Welcome, Worship,Word,Works,Witness) but have it around a table with the meal.

4) Establish a scriptural basis for receiving communion from one of the Gospel accounts, from 1Corinthians 11, from the Exodus passover account, or from another appropriate text.

5) Give adequate time for personal and public confession. NEVER require someone to confess sin out loud but ALWAYS give the opportunity. Respond to each and every confession with prayers of love, acceptance and forgiveness. Resist the temptation to give advice during this time.

6) Receive the bread first and then the cup. This is not only scriptural but practical as well to help wash down the food. Any sort of bread or crackers are appropriate but in these days of Alcoholics Anonymous, grape juice is preferable to wine.

7) Be especially sensitive to the free flow of the gifts of the Holy Spirit before, during, and after receiving communion. Allow Him to heal, to speak, and to reveal Himself as He sees fit. Point this out to the entire group. Don’t try to over-control or to rush the time together.

8) Don’t forget to pray for the lost before closing the meeting

 

October 22, 2008

Change Your Life

Posted by pastorjanice under Missions
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Where should you go?

Where should you go?

It’s been 5 years already since I was frantically getting ready to travel with Pullman Foursquare Youth to Thailand and experience my first ever missions trip. I am not a passionate traveler, ready to go at a moment’s notice, anywhere or anytime. The thought of traveling overseas often brings out the worst in me, worry and fear and the unknown. I can recall now many wrong perceptions of what it was going to be like…. traveling in a foreign country.  Recently, a friend sent me a link to the following article:

*Despite Benefits, Few Americans Have Experienced Short-Term Mission Trips 

 
I was flooded with memories of a trip that changed my way of life and my way of thinking. My earlier perceptions were all ridiculous and my expectations were beyond realized. God used the time to shape me and bless me in ways I never imagined. He also built my faith in a way that only He could by showing me the miraculous in my own life.  We often have numerous reasons or excuses why we can’t possibly join in on a missions trip……I’ve used several of them.

Here at Pullman Fourquare Church, there are many possibilities and potential trips in the works. A team recently traveled to Kenya and another team is getting prepared to return to Thailand in the Spring. Have you considered making a short-term missions trip part of your life? Are you willing to let God influence your decision? Think about it…..your life will never be the same!


 

October 3, 2008

In the Word

Posted by pastorjanice under Cell Groups, General Information, Leadership | Tags: , |
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I was reminded recently why it is so important to be reading your Bible! And although I have always known it is important (even when I am not daily reading it), there are times when I am astounded by how important it is.

I recently had a conversation with a fellow who was asking me about God’s love. He talked of all these feelings he had about who God was, how God loved people, and of how we don’t love one another as God intended that we should. I asked him if he knew what the Bible called it when we didn’t follow God’s way for us? He didn’t know so I suggested it was ”sin nature”. He followed up with several examples of not believing in something so negative and tried to assure me of the contradictions in the Bible. When I asked him if he had ever read through the Bible, he confessed he never had.

Now, the thing that resonated in my spirit, is how many of us (professed Christians in church) have never really read the Bible. Or read it through from cover to cover. That our exposure to the Bible consists of pulpit teachings, cell group meetings, occasional “I’m looking for something specific” moments, or relying on a grace-filled God to overcome our dread of reading His word. We often decide what we believe by what someone else tells us to believe, and when we rely on someone else, and not on God alone, those beliefs will be flawed by our human nature. Now I am not saying it isn’t good to hear from others but it is still our responsibility to line it up with God’s word. And the only way to do that is to read your Bible!

Find a place, find a time, find a method and work at it. It’s not always easy but you will eventually know what you believe but even better…….you will know why you believe it!

 

September 22, 2008

WWJL: Where Would Jesus Lead?

Posted by pastordansmith under Uncategorized
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In his upcoming book, “Chaordic Leadership:Making Disciples by Leading Among Not From” Gary Gooddell gives a great character sketch of Jesus’ ministry style:

Where Would Jesus Lead?

Who was this walking, strolling, wandering Master Teacher? Who was this peripatetic rabbi whose walks turned into life lessons and whose strolls turned into blasts of transformational truths. Who was this storyteller so skilled at communicating that it was though His stage and all of his teaching aids and props followed Him around to miraculously appear at the maximum moment?

For the woman at the well in John 4, Jesus operated with a word of knowledge and prophecy, Matthew 16 becomes a serious Q & A moment as He used an arousing survey that released the truth about His identity. To the blind man at Jericho it was mud and spittle; to a demoniac in Mark’s gospel it was an exorcism into a herd of pigs that provided a regional evangelism assignment.

To the street walker His pausing in a home for a meal meant an appointed anointing with costly perfume, to a man blind from birth in John 9, it meant an apologetics of generational questions gone bad, and on a stormy sea it was an afternoon nap and a rebuke of the storm that produced both faith and fear in His disciples.

In Mark 6 it was the gathering of a large hungry crowd in and a small boy’s lunch of sardines and muffins that turned into a bread and fish buffet miracle that caused the crowd to want to make Him an earthly king.

To a tree out of season it was a lesson on faith and fruit bearing, to a conspicuous child set in they’re midst it meant a revelation of the character of childlikeness.

And where did all of these learning moments happen? In a classroom? In a school hall? In the assembly hall of the local synagogue? And was this a preset series of preplanned systematic theology that needed to be completed through the fill-in-the-blanks bulletin inserts or notebooks?

What did it mean for Jesus to walk among His friends, doing the Father’s will and being constantly available and ready to debrief with questions, probing ideas, interaction and the constant presence of miracles, signs, wonders, and healings.  What about all of these parables, and what about the stories?

I remember a friend saying to me once, “Gary, do you really want to do what Jesus did?” His answer was to pick a dozen guys, live with them day in and day out, and see what that experiment becomes.

Sometimes we make ministry too regimented and formulaic.  If we are truly led by the Spirit, virtually any circumstance is a ministry opportunity. Let’s “experiment” with Jesus’ methods for a while.

For more info on Gary’s books and other writings visit his site: www.thirddaychurches.com

 

August 27, 2008

Fall Encounters

Posted by pastordansmith under Events, Uncategorized
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Women’s Encounter 

September 26-28, 2008

@ Snake River Rendezvous

http://www.snrr.com/directions.html

Men’s Encounter

October 3-5, 2008

@ Field Springs State Park

http://www.parks.wa.gov/parkpage.asp?selectedpark=Fields+Spring

map: http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=field+springs+state+park+Anatone+Washington&ie=UTF8&ll=46.080852,-117.167816&spn=1.373589,2.460938&z=9

 

August 19, 2008

Media/Book Fundraiser

Posted by pastorjanice under Events
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WHAT CAN $1 BUY? CHECK IT OUT!!!!

Pullman Foursquare is having a Media/Book Fundraiser for Kenyan missionary, Kennedy Ochieng. Our hope is to start a transportation fund that will allow Ken to travel to remote refugee camps. Please join us in supporting Ken by taking this opportunity to browse and buy ( at cheap prices) books, CDs, DVDs, VHS, and magazines for all ages!

Dates: Friday, August 22:  5-9 pm and

Saturday, August 23: 9am -1 pm

LOCATION: Pullman Foursquare Church

135 N. Grand Ave. (the old Cordova theater) in downtown Pullman

 

August 13, 2008

Posted by pastorjanice under Cell Groups, General Information
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 ell groups are at the heart of ministry here at Pullman Foursquare Church.  Cells are small groups of 3-15 people that grow and multiply by experiencing the presence, power and purpose of Jesus Christ.  They meet weekly at various locations throughout the area (homes, businesses, schools, etc.) to eat pray, fellowship, study the Bible, and pursue God’s vision for his church. 

Cells are organized by life-stage and gender.  Children, youth, university students, and community members all have cells designed especially for them. 

 If you would like more information about cell groups contact:

 · the church office at 332-8612

· email us at 4square@pullmanfoursquare.org

· Check it out on the web www.pullmanfoursquare.org

· ask the person sitting next to you in our Sunday Celebration Service

 

 

 

August 13, 2008

Our Calling….

Posted by pastorjanice under General Information
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 GOD HAS CALLED US TO BE A:

 

 

· Biblical church; reading, believing and obeying the
     scriptures in all things

· Cell church; building strong Christian community in small groups

· Discipling church; learning to live in God’s ways and serving others

· Evangelistic church; reaching out relationally and sharing our faith

· Foursquare church; working within the mission and doctrine of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel

· Generous church; freely investing our time and wealth in His kingdom

· Integrated church; ministering with people of all ages, races and nations

· Loving church; showing God’s love, acceptance and forgiveness in practical ways

· Missionary church; supporting and  planting churches in other places

· Praying church; seeking God in prayer and intercession in groups and individually

· Spirit Filled church: experiencing the gifts of the Holy Spirit in ministry and His fruit in our lives

 

 

July 26, 2008

A Spiritual Confrontation

Posted by pastordansmith under Prayer
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In Acts 12 we see one of the great spiritual confrontations of all time. On one side we have Herod who, from the world’s point of view holds all the advantages:

  • Political Power: Herod is a third generation appointee of the Roman empire with dictatorial power over his area of the world.
  • Military Might: With his position comes access to the great legions of soldiers, sixteen of whom have been detailed to personally guard Peter.
  • Legal Advantage: A show trial has been arranged to make Peters execution a “fair and legal” process.
  • Popular Opinion: Herod does all of this with the approval of the Jewish people who feel threatened by this little upstart faith.

On the other side we have the church which has several disadvantages going into this confrontation:

  • James, a key leader of the movement has already been mudrered by Herod.
  • Peter, the head of the church is now in chains and awaiting certain death.
  • The Rest of the Twelve are in hiding and do not appear to have any significant influence in the outcome of this conflict.
  • The Church has no polictical, legal, military, or financial power whatsoever and does not have popular opinion on her side.

But…“while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him.” (Acts 12:5 NLT)

 

 

What was the outcome of this confrontation?

  • Angels were summoned. Although the church had no authority over angels (see Hebrews 1-2) they did have the ear of God for whom the angels serve.
  • Peter was miraculously set free, even while he slept, unaware that help was on its way.
  • The Church, though it was praying for results, was amazed at the rapidity and profundity of God’s answer. They were shocked to find Peter free and knocking at the door.
  • Herod was removed. First from the area (vs.19) and then permanently from the earth.
  • Ministry was unleashed. By the end of the chapter the church was again growing rapidly and the first missionary team was being positioned to “Go into all the world….”

This confrontation in Acts 12 has profound implications for the church today. If we will unite our hearts in prayer there is nothing the Lord cannot and will not do to set people free, remove the power of the enemy, and unleash the church for ministry. We will be simply amazed at the results.

Let’s keep praying and never give up.

 

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