Being Patient

Truth be known, being patient has not always been one of my greatest characteristics. I usually like to charge ahead trying to get to a destination. The problem is that more than once in my life I have arrived at my destination only to find out that that is not where God really intended me to be. This last week I was blessed to be reminded that God is in control, and we need to be faithful to the small things in front of us; and He will be faithful to guiding us to His destination. Let me give you three encounters from my week to illustrate this point.

On this Thursday I started by traveling to Caro to meet with Bob Sweeney. For those of you who don't know Bob, he is the Pastor at the Cass City Missionary Church and the head coach for the Thumb Area LEAD Team. Bob and I were meeting to discuss some of the issues that had been raised at our last LEAD Team meeting. At that meeting there were some discussions that perhaps our efforts in Sebewaing were not as far along as they should be, and that maybe we needed to change directions a little. The conversations, which I felt like were productive and needed to take place, had caused some division among the LEAD Team, and I appreciated the leadership Bob was showing in the matter through his emails and personal contacts.

During our time together Bob shared with me from a book on discipling, the amount of time Jesus had spent with the 12 over the three plus years. In the end the conclusion by the author said that if we used that same time line with people we are discipling, we would need around seven years based on the number of hours of contact with the individual. Now I don't anticipate that we will have seven years in the Sebewaing project before we really start seeing a lot of fruit, but it was encouraging to hear that time is not as urgent as we sometimes make it.

For me, Bob's and my meeting was a confirmation of what I had heard earlier in the week at a meeting talking about restructuring some things in the Missionary Church. The meeting which was conducted by Bill Hossler, our denomination President; Jim Keller, Michigan DS; and Steve Jones, Central DS, centered on how the Missionary Church might more effectively reach its goals of planting more churches and winning the lost to Christ. For me some of the main points of the meeting reflected an attitude change about what churches were suppose to look like and how we are going about creating those churches. It seemed to me that many of the things the leadership were talking about, we have been trying to do with our Thumb Area LEAD Team. Again, even though progress has seemed to be slow, God has been working and the foundation that is being laid will help us to build a stronger structure to reach the lost in the future.

The third event which for me showed that you need to stick to the disciplines that God has in front of you to accomplish longer term goals, was my encounter with Kevin on Thursday. When I called Kevin to confirm our meeting time for our Life Transformation group, he started by talking about being too busy to meet today. I was almost tempted to let him off the hook but something in me suggested that we really needed to meet, and so I simply told him I would meet him over lunch like we had originally planned. When we did meet that day, it was clear that God intended our time to be a real encouragement to one another. Both Kevin and I learned that the urgency of the moment needed to be put aside for the time of fellowship and prayer before God.

So this week let's work on the things God has set before us and not worry about the things that we have no control over. If we take care of the things God asks us to, He will lead us to the right destination.

Praises:
The encouragement of Believers
The continued opportunities to serve in the USA schools
For a growing awareness of the presence of the Missionary Church in the Sebewaing area

Concerns:
My schedule in the next month which takes me from Texas to KeyStone training to Kentucky, a total of 21 days
My friend Joe who continues to battle illness
What direction God would have us move in not only in Sebewaing but perhaps in other communities in the Thumb

Your Servant in Christ,

Pastor Brian