What do you need to read the Bible successfully?

Some of you are reading through the Bible with me in 2011.  For all of us here are some things to keep in mind.  Here are some things it takes to read the Bible and keep at it.

A Plan – If you are not reading through the Bible Chronologically with me this year, let me encourage you to find and use another plan.  A simple way to start is by simply reading through the Gospels a passage or a chapter a day.  You cannot go wrong by reading the Bible but it is best to have some sort of plan.  I will be glad to help  if you will let me know.

A Place – Have a particular place where you will read the Bible each day, keep your Bible there so you do not have to search for it.  Make sure it is a quiet place where you will not be interrupted by other people or things.  Some other helpful things to have there are a pen and a notebook or spiral to jot down thoughts, questions or mark verses that are significant.  Also have a marker or two in your Bible to mark where you are even if you have a Chronological Bible there will be days you will be interrupted from your plan.  Mark where you are.

A Time – Set an appointment each day to meet with God over the pages of your Bible.  Make it the same time each day.  My number one suggestion is in the morning when you get up.  If you are not a morning person, try at night before you go to bed but set a time for everyday.  Then set up a “back up” or “make up” time; there will be interruptions.  Having a back up time will keep you from getting discouraged and dropping out.

An Attitude – Read the Bible as if it were personally written to you – like a letter or an email.  Read it with the attitude that God wants to speak to you through this.  He does and He will.  Don’t get caught up on the things you don’t understand (and there will be those things) focus on what you do understand.

A Letter to Santa

In December of 2001, a letter to Santa was found on the Christmas tree in the Borchers Cottage of the South Texas Children’s Home in Pettus, Texas.  The house parents for that cottage were members of my former church and shared her letter with me.  The little girl’s name has been changed to protect her identity but her situation speaks for itself.  She was placed at South Texas Children’s Home by her struggling family.  I have maintained her wording and her spelling so you can hear her heart in her own words.

Dear Santa,

My name is “Sarah.”  And I live hare at the home with good houes mom and houes pop.  I love them a lot.  Becuse without them I whoud not have now God at all.  As you know Im not a good kid.  I have so meany sins that some kids don’t like me.  But I have found something good about me.  Something I didn’t know about will this something is love.  Now Im going to tell you why Im writing you.

Becuse I wont give up on my famely.  I keep on praying and praying but I  feel god is not lisoning to me it make me sad that my Dad & Mom don’t whant to try to talke to one enother.  So if this goes on are famely will brakup and I don’t whant that to happen.  My Dad siad that when my mom has a baby he was getting divorse.

So I ask you for a gift to bring me my family.  Let it all be love inside my family.  Let it all be peac.  And I whant you to know I love them with all my hart.

Well see you soon

Love,

“Sarah”

I cannot tell you how her story turned out.  I can tell you that because we at Northside cooperate and give along with other Texas Baptist Churches,to support works like the South Texas Children's Home, Sarah found love that Christmas.  May we always find ways to help the Sarah's of this world.

For the journey...

What Comes from a Christmas Pageant

We have just completed the annual Victoria Christmas Pageant for the 26th time.  We saw thousands attend, they saw the story of Jesus from birth to death to resurrection.  They also saw a church dedicated to a great work.  Special thanks go to Connie and John for putting this altogether.

There is a lot more that I got see God do that I wanted to tell you about. 
I got to see:
- a young woman who described her religion as "pagan" come ask for a Bible.
- a man who had been overseas defending our country come ask for prayer for all the troubling things he had seen that still haunt him.  There were tears in his eyes.
- a single mom, recovering from divorce, turn her life over to Christ.
- another young woman sought prayer for her husband who is now in jail.
- a girl recovering from the trauma of abuse receive Christ.
- two of our prop crew accept Christ.
- a man who has worked on our janitorial crew accept Christ along with his wife.
- 17 people who told us they accepted Christ as their saviour during pageant.

A man also come by to tell us that last year he received one of the Here's Hope CDs during our pageant.  He was working with a young man from Mexico and teaching him English.  He used the audio copies of the New Testament available on the CD in both English and Spanish to help his young co-worker.  The young man became a Christian because of all of that. He has now returned to Mexico, felt a call to ministry and is studying to be a pastor.

Who knows what we will see next year from seeds sown this year.  Thanks for all of you who sowed and thanks to the Lord of the harvest for using us to His glory.  For the journey...

Why I Spoke to the City Council

Someone stopped me last night to say they saw me on Channel 15 speaking to the Victoria city council at the last meeting.  I told him that yes I did speak to the council and that I would be praying for him to have something more fulfilling in life than watching city council meetings replayed on channel 15.

In all seriousness though, I did have a burden that I wanted to share with the council and it is also something you can be praying about.  On October 17 a young man under the influence of synthetic marijuana disrupted our evening service which happened to be a gathering of area churches for our regional association.  The young man was delusional and paranoid believing that, "God was speaking" to him telling him that his girl friend was "Satan."  His girl friend was also there crying and hysterical about his behavior. (It was pretty exciting for an associational meeting).  Phil Swihart and I dealt with this young man for much of the rest of evening to get him calmed down and back in a place he felt safe.

That was my first awareness of anything about synthetic marijuana.  What I have found since, deeply disturbs me.  It is legally sold here in Victoria at places of business as an incense but used commonly to be smoked like marijuana.  It is a mixture of common herbs sprayed with powerful chemical compounds to give a "high." 

Synthetic marijuana has caused many similar, serious reactions as the young man had in our church.  Though an internet video proclaims it as a safe legal high it is anything but safe.  It has been banned in several states but Texas has not yet acted though many municipalities in Texas  have acted to ban it with in their city.  That is what I was asking the city council to do here in our city.

One council person assured me that it would come up for discussion at the next city council meeting.  Would you join me in prayer for our city leaders as they wrestle with this growing problem and pray for the problem in the people of our city. 

Knowing Your Opportunities

Lifeway Research and the North American Mission Board did a recent survey to find out when Americans are most open to considering matters of faith.  They asked 15,000 people about what times in life they would be most likely to engage in a spiritual dialogue.  Here are the results:

5. After the birth of a baby:  28%

4. After a natural disaster:  34%

3. After a major national crisis (such as 9/11):  38%

2. During the Easter holiday season: 38%

1. During the Christmas holiday season:  47%

In all the hustle and bustle of the season, we need to make sure we are not too busy to see people as open. We could miss some opportunities to witness that Christmas gives.  Pray for someone.  Invite someone.  Engage someone.  You could be a part of changing eternity.

What I Almost Missed

I moved somethings on my desk this week and found an envelope. Now I must admit I am a messy desk person.  I live by a sign I once saw, "A clean desk is a sign of a sick mind."  But as I came across this envelope that had been placed on my desk by someone I did not see and buried inadvertently in my busyness I found a wonderful note marking Clergy Appreciation month.  Yes, that was October and this is the end of November, it was buried well.

I opened the card and found a loving note of appreciation and enough money for me to take my family out for a nice meal.  Wow!  How long had that been there?  How many times had I passed over it, just inches from it but not knowing its blessing.  I was too caught up in other things.

How often are God's blessings like that?  They lay there unopened in our busyness waiting for the moment of our pausing to take care of "lesser things" -  like cleaning my desk a little.  It reminds me of how grateful I am to be where I am, to be the pastor of this church and to have people like you to share my life with. 

This holiday season I am going to try to slow down and savor the blessings that abound and the people that I am blessed with.  Oh, and I will clean my desk more often.

Happy Thanksgiving!

For the journey...

A Note I Keep in My Bible

Tuesday I did a funeral for a dear lady, Jeanne Bowman.  Jeanne has been a big influence on my life and ministry.  She was a person who knew how to get things done.  When a prison nursing home opened in the town we lived in, people were upset, many of those men held there had AIDS.  Jeanne found a way to begin a ministry to them by shopping for their needs with the meager funds they had left.  Most of the men there were terminal.  Jeanne witnessed to them and sat by them in their last days, often when there was no family to be found.

Jeanne had known her own losses, having to bury 2 of her six children. Her second son to die was murdered.  The killer(s) have never been arrested.  I wrote her a note after her son's death and mentioned Psalm 37.  Here is text of the note she sent me back:

Dear Tim,
Thanks for the note and your continued prayers - you know how much they mean.  I read Psalm 37 in the King James Bible and it is both comforting and promising.  Having friends and pastors praying for me has helped sustain my faith in God.  The older I get the deeper my faith in God becomes.  Do you remember the song Lewis Staggs (an older man in the church there) used to sing "The Longer I Serve Him?"  That is how I feel.  I can't find it in my heart to forgive the people who killed Robert, but I am working on it!  Thank you again.    Love, Jeanne

I pull that note out from time to time because I need that perspective on life.  Even in the hurts and the pains of this world, serving God can make life grow 'sweeter' as the song she refers to says.  I am grateful for having someone like that in my life.  I am grateful for the transparency of her saying she is not yet able to forgive her son's killers but I am also thankful for the faith to say in the face of such pain, with God's help, 'I'm working on it!'  For that kind of person, with that kind of faith, I am thankful that I knew her.  I am grateful she was in my life. I need to learn from her.

For the journey...

Where it is Tough to be a Christian

Where on earth is it toughest to live as a Christian?  Iran comes to many people's minds.  Last year, there were 85 documented cases of Christians being arrested for their faith.  Many reported being mistreated in jail.  Most have been released but are now under constant surveillance.  They face court cases that are still pending and fear is building among the Christian community in Iran about what may be coming next.

Iranian forces are watching Christians closely because there is a growth in the numbers of believers who come from a Muslim background.  Churches are being monitored by the secret police, some churches have even stopped meeting openly.  There are constant reports of Christians being abused physically and facing discrimination because of their faith.

What can you do?  You can pray.  You can pray for those still behind bars and two leaders who have just been released after 9 months in prison.  They are Maryam Rostampour and Marzieh Amirizadeh.

What can we do?  We can gather to pray.  This Sunday we will be joining Christians world-wide to pray for the persecuted church.  As tough as it is in Iran, there is one place that experts say is far worse.  Find out this Sunday as we join to pray.

Ministry: Results or Effectiveness?

Pastor Bill Wilson's church is in a tough part of New York City. Wilson has been stabbed twice, shot at and had a member of his staff killed but still the church ministers on.

A lady from Puerto Rico came to know Christ through the ministry of the church and asked Wilson through an interpreter for a place to serve.  He assigned her to their bus ministry and told her to ride a different church bus each week and show love to the children as they ride to and from the church.  She said OK.

She would get on the bus, look for the worst looking kid, set the child in her lap and repeat a phrase she had learned in English, "I love you and Jesus loves you."  After a few times of doing this she came back to Pastor Wilson and said she wanted to stay on one bus with one particular boy who seemed troubled.  The pastor said OK. 

One day as the bus got close to the boy's home, he turned to the lady and said, "I love you, too."  He got of the bus and left her in stunned amazement.  Those were the only words he had ever said to her.  That happened at 2:30 pm.

At 6:30 pm that night, the boy's lifeless body was found in a garbage bag under a fire escape.  His mother had flown into a rage and beaten him to death and hid his body there. 

Some of the last words he heard were, "I love you and Jesus loves you."  On the last day of his tragic life he told her "I love you too."

The bus riding lady, who could not speak much English, had not produced great results in any statistical way but she had been very effective.  Sometimes there is a big difference between producing measurable results and doing something that is truly effective. 

Jesus never asked his disciples to produce any results.  He simply asked them to be obedient and from that He would make them effective. What do you evaluate your life and your ministry by - results or effectiveness?  We will take a look at this Sunday.

For the journey...

Fellowship: Its a Scary Word

Jesus had a plan to work through relationships to change the world.  He told his disciples, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."  John 13:35  The scary thing about this plan is that it involves you and me and how we treat each other being the basis of whether or not people believe in Jesus.

In a week where people in our country get caught up in phony fears and fake fright, this ought to be a real concern of the church.  Sunday we will focus on the fellowship function of the church.  We will also use this time to come together to observe the Lord's supper.  I pray that you and I will come having treated each other in a way that makes the world say, "I want to be a part of that."  It truly is scary to think of what happens when we don't and the world says, "I don't want anything to do with that."

Perhaps Francis Schaeffer said it best, "We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus' claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of oneness of true Christians.  Now that is frightening.  Should we not feel some emotion at this point?"

For the journey...

The Cost and Joy of Following Jesus

There is no way to sugar coat what Jesus said about being his disciple.  "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."  Luke 9:23  He tells us up front it will not be easy. 

What Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in The Cost of Discipleship brings that more into light, "To deny oneself is to be aware of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us."

But with all the reality of costs there is also the reality of great benefits.  Many people can try to sell you on the benefit side but it helps to go back to something else Bonhoeffer said, knowing that it comes from a man who followed Christ all the way to his death in a Nazi concentration camp.

"If we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us?  What decisions and partings will it demand?  To answer this question we shall have to go to him for only He knows the answer.  Only Jesus Christ who bids us follow Him, knows the journey's end.  But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy.  Discipleship means joy."

There is a cost.  There is a joy that makes it all worth it.  That is what we will look at Sunday.  As you come to worship Sunday, watch for a sign on containers that asks you to take one of the contents into worship with you.  It will be a way that you can mark your journey in discipleship.  See you Sunday.

For the journey...

A Single Invitation

As I perpared for Terry Smith's memorial service, I read through the testimony that he wrote down when he became a deacon in our church.  He ended it with single sentence, "It all started with a friend asking me to go to Sunday School."  That stood out for him as a pivotal moment in his life.

I reflected on that life - a life of service to God, a life of loving others, a life of raising a wonderful family, a life of giving of himself to others.  But the significant turning point in Terry's mind was when that friend in Uvallde, Texas asked the kid whose father had died a few years before - the kid who did not go to church  - to simply come to Sunday School with him.

Does that friend have any idea what started with that single invitation?  Can they even comprehend all the things God set in motion with that simple request?  Evangelism is not that hard, becasue God wants to do things through us that we could never do on our own.

Some day, in the future, as your friends look back on your their lives, will they have a similar pivotal moment to point to because you were a faithful witness in giving a single invitation?  Why not give it a try this week?

Simmering before Sunday

Rod Cooper, Billy Graham and yours truly are all boys raised on a dairy farm who grew up to be Baptist preachers.  Yes, Billy is in a class all by himself but something Rod wrote about his experience growing up hit home with me. 

Rod, like me and Billy, had to get up very early to help with the morning milking. By the time he came to the house for breakfast his mom had often started a pot of soup for the day.  When Rod came in for lunch he always expected the soup to be ready, it smelled so wonderful.  When finding out the soup was for dinner, he asked why do we have to wait on it all day.  To which his mom would reply, "Son, it needs to simmer so we get all the juices out of all the ingredients.  And then they're all mixed together and it gives off this wonderful aroma so when you taste it, you're getting the best of what's in each ingredient."

Rod observed that is the way he has begun to see worship.  God's people at their best have been simmering in His presence all week.  Then when we come together on Sunday morning we mix all of it together to give God something pleasing, bringing the best out of each ingredient; 'a pleasing aroma to God.'

That is a good way to think of worship.  That is a good way to approach worship.  And that is a good way to approach each day.  Simmering for Sunday.  Try it this week.

"For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved..."  2 Corinthians 2:15

For the journey...

Grasping the Essentials

How do you boil the Christian life down to the essentials?  Once you have done that, how do you encooperate them into your life? 

There are five basic functions of the church and for the church to be fully functional, we as individual believers must grasp these essentials: worship, evangelism, discipleship, fellowship and ministry. Years ago I saw an illustration of how to remember those using your hand, each finger reminds us of something essential.

• Thumb - Worship.  It comes first and enables us to grip the things of God.
• Fore Finger - Evangelism.  It is the finger we use to point and we should always point others to God.
• Middle Finger - Discipleship.  It has grown longer than the others and reminds us we are to keep growing in Christ.
• Ring Finger - Fellowship.  We mark our relationships with our ring finger.  It reminds us that we have a family, a church that we belong to and we have a commitment to them.
• Little Finger - Ministry.  This is our weakest finger and reminds us that there are those who are not as strong and need help.

Now look at your hand and picture these things.  Make a fist, grip something tight.  Think about these five functions and ask yourself, "Where am I strongest?"  "Where am I weakest?"  "Where is God working on me the most right now?"  It is a quick way to do a self examination of your spiritual life and how you are really doing.

Sunday we begin a series on the five functions of the church -"Fully Functional."  God wants us to become a fully functional church by making us fully functional Christians.  Come join us on the journey...

Prayer that Restores

The LORD restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the LORD increased all that Job had twofold. Job 42:10 NASV

I am drawn back to this verse over and over again.  After all Job had been through in his catastophic loses, after all his friends had put him through in wrongly accusing him of some secret, terrible sin that forced God to bring all this "punishment" upon him, yet Job still prayed for his friends.  Grieving, forsaken, broken Job utters a prayer of intercession for friends that had just bashed him.  Amazing.

But something unasked takes place.  Job himself is restored.

He had lost so much - children, possessions, health - but after he prays for his friends he is restored.  It is the turning point in the book of Job.  It was the turning point in his life; a simple but sacrificial prayer.  We never know what prayer can do until we pray.

On this journey we travel together, it is vitally important that we make prayer a part of all we do.  Would you be willing to join me in using our new website and its prayer possibilities as way of seeing what God can do through prayer? 

What we are asking people to do is sign up to be an "intercessory prayer partner."  After signing up, you will receive training on how to go to the website and see the requests that have come in to Northside on the web and on Sunday. Then you will find a time to pray for these needs.  You will see ways to sign up this Sunday and in the Sunday's to come. 

Big things can happen in prayer.  And they may happen in our own lives.

For the journey...

What Really Lasts?

Early in August we were driving my daughter home from DFW Airport through the maze of freeways and constructions zones that is the metroplex when we came into an area I thought I should know.  There was road work going on but I knew I had driven this part of the freeway many times before but something was different.

Around a detoured corner we passed a huge pile of concrete rubble and twisted steel rebar.  "What IS that?" I wondered out loud.  Then it hit me what that WAS.  It was Texas Stadium, recently imploded, now being broken down into dump truck size loads and being thrown away. 

I flashed back to my first of only two times to go there.  When I was in high school my aunt and uncle took me to see the Dallas Cowboys play the St. Louis Cardinals on Thanksgiving Day 1976.  I saw Stauback and Landry and other men I thought to be "immortal" in a place I thought would be "eternal."  I could not have imagined on that day, that it would all be rubble on this day.

As I get older, it amazes me now how many things that I thought would last - that I assumed would always be there - are now gone.  We don't have a good grip on "eternal."  But God brings what is really lasting within any one's grasp.  True eternity is as close as finding a faith in your own heart and allowing words to come out of your own mouth. In an amazing simplicity God brings eternity to us and asks us to make a choice, a decision about what we believe to be eternal and about what we trust to last.  We will look at that this Sunday.  Come ready to make a choice.

Something to Grow On

We just finished a statistical year at Northside.  I know it passed with out much fanfare but there are some things I wanted to share with you about what the numbers say is happening.  For the most part it was an incredible year of growth. 

In typical Baptist fashion, let me start with baptisms, we had 52 this year, up from 33 last year.  We now have over 2,000 resident members, 2,012 to be exact.  We were at 1,990 last year.  Our overall Sunday morning worship average grew from 637 last year to an average of 703 this year.  Other areas had some modest growth, other areas were down some but overall we have seen God really bless us.  We have cause to be thankful.

We also have cause to be busy.  The growth we have seen just touches the potential and the need.  I also read this week where on any given Sunday only 5 out of 100 Texans will be in a Baptist church and only 20 out of 100 will be in any evangelical church.

More people have joined us in the journey at Northside.  Many more need to know that they can join us and that God has a path for all of us through this life with Him.  This Sunday we will pick back up on our series  "The Path."  We will discuss the path to life's greatest gift.  I hope you will join us and bring some one along for the journey.

5 Ways I Wish I Was Like My Beagle

Walking my dogs the past few mornings, I have begun to admire my beagle, "Bailey."  There is much that irritates me about her as a year old, overly excitable puppy/dog but there are things I am learning to appreciate, even wish I could be more like.

I wish...

...I could be as happy as she is to greet people who wake me up from a nap.  Of course sleeping about 12 hours a day like she does would help me be happy to see anyone.

... I could enjoy my sense of smell like she does.  God made her to smell things out and she sniffs up things to the glory of God.  To me, most of it I can't smell or it just smells to high heaven.  To her, everything is an odoriferous adventure.  I don't want to like what she likes, I just wish I could like more of what I encounter.

... I could get as excited about exercise as she does.  The word "walk" will wake her from a dead sleep with perked ears and wide open eyes.  I wish I had a word that would do that for me. It would be my new alarm clock.

... I could see everyone I encounter as a new friend.  She never meets a stranger.  Of course, it I jumped up on people, wagged my tail and licked people's toes like she does, I would not have many friends.

... I could enjoy life as much as she does.  Dogs never seem to worry about their mortgage or seem to be troubled by the economy.  She seems to be happy with how God made her and where she is in life.  Yes, she enjoys chewing up things too much but overall she enjoys being who she is and what she does. 

Do you really enjoy what you do?  Is there purpose in your work life?  How do you make a difference in what you have to do?  We will look at those questions Sunday and see how God helped Moses to be a difference maker at his job.  I hope you will join me.

Reflections on the Water

I think I got a little sore from baptising Sunday.  That is not a brag but a admission of my age.  It was a neat baptism - a very memorable one, but not the most memorable one.  Right now what stands out in my mind is baptising three international students earlier this summer. 

It really boggles my mind that I got to baptize three students from China, the land of Lottie Moon.  Lottie gave her life to missions and laid down her life by giving her food away to the people she loved in a famine.  She died on ship as other missionaries tried to get her home. 

What would she have said if she could have been at Northside that day?  How could she ever have dreamed that the great grandchildren of the people she ministered to would come to America and come to know Christ?  It would have been beyond her dreams and beyond her imagination.

I wonder what Charlie Culpepper would have said if he could have been in worship with us that day?  Charlie grew up in Karnes County, Texas but God called him to China.  He was a part of a great revival there.  His reports home were so incredible in the numbers of people coming to Christ, the Foreign Mission Board sent people to check out what he was saying.  It was true; God did a mighty work.  What would he have said to see the grand children of the people he went to China to reach being baptized in Victoria, Texas?  Could he ever have prayed a prayer that big?

On any given day, God can answer in a way that goes beyond our prayers, beyond our imagination, for His glory.  Maybe today or tomorrow or Sunday could be such a day for you.  How great is our God!

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  Ephesians 3:20-21

Handling Change

I watched two children walk toward the water.  It was a hot day at children's camp along the Frio River so they were not alone but they also stood out from the giggling, screaming, splashing throng going down to the river. 

The girl had on pink flip flops that matched her pink bathing suit that matched the pink bow in her hair.  Yes, a pink bow in her hair to go swimming. She stepped to a shallow spot in the pool and ever so gingerly placed one foot in the frigid water and quickly pulled it back.  Then in a moment of great resolve stuck that foot back in the water and left it there and shuttered as she eased her other foot into the pool.

The boy walked past me as I stood watching the girl's precise, painful adjustment.  His rumpled bathing suit seemed a bit too large for his scrawny, tan body.  Perhaps it was a hand me down?  It did not look like he had combed his hair that day. One pocket of his trunks was pulled inside out and bounced as he walked barefoot toward the deep end of the swimming hole. 

Without breaking stride he stepped to the edge of the concrete platform and then off into the deepest water of the pool.  His head soon came up and with a breath taking, "Haaaa" he expressed his sudden adjustment to the Frio's water.  He swam over to a group of friends and began to splash and play with them.

I looked back over at the girl.  She was now in thigh deep water, slowing, haltingly edging forward and deeper.  She was stooped over a little with her arms wrapped around her chest like she was facing a January "norther."  Her skin seemed to be turning more pale and the discomfort of adjustment was written on her face.  I looked back at the boy.  He had blended in to the thrashing throng that is a children's camp swim time.

Change.  It always has some discomfort.  It always requires adjustment.  Perhaps it is better and easier to just dive right in.  There are a lot of changes happening at Northside.  This website and this blog are just a few.  Its my hope that you will just dive right in and find that there are a lot of other people joining you and after a moment of adjustment, this all can be pretty enjoyable.

For the journey,
Tim