Preserving the Bond of Peace: Is it Possible?

Ephesians 4:1: Therefore I the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you have been called,

2:with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love,

3: being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.



I do believe it is possible to create and maintain a bond of peace in the body of Christ. As Paul is asking the believers in the Ephesian church to walk in a manner worthy of their calling. Imploring means to earnestly request that they would walk that way. Sometimes as a believer,I find myself getting upset at times. I find myself needing to sit back and examine my thoughts and actions. If I act out and speak out against others, is it worth creating a division in the body in order to get my way. Have I lost my focus on Jesus and the mission and vision he has placed on my life and why he has placed me in this local body of believers.



Have I been humble enough to take time to listen to what my brothers and sisters in Christ are trying to show me? Am I looking at the interests of others above myself and looking at Christ's example of looking at others interests when He voluntarily gave His life that others may live and have life to the fullest? Do I have a gentle spirit when others are speaking to me? Am I patient ?Am I willing to seek a resolution or mediate with them and come up with a solution that will benefit both sides? Am I willing to love others more than myself? Am I willing to be steady and constant at working and refocusing on outcomes that if I follow the leading of the Holy Spirit that the end result will be the strengthening of the bond of peace in His church which is the bride of Christ?



The other day I was looking in a dresser drawer in one of my upstairs bedrooms and I saw some dish clothes that my Aunt had made several years ago. As I looked at two of them, one was in great shape. She liked using several bright colors and as I was looking at it carefully, and each little loop of yarn although it was different in color in several areas was it's own individual circle of yarn, but it was able to be connected with other loops that were the same color, and later in the pattern their were other places just like it, but a different color, but still joined together with strength. I pulled on the corners to see how the clothe was bonded together, and that this carefully knit item was put together to serve a purpose. She had made it during her time of illness. She was able to finish this project, even though to some people it may seem to be just a little thing she made, to her it was difficult, because not only was she ill, but she had trouble with her vision also. She was able to complete it because of her gentleness, patience, love, and diligence. She had another one that I lifted up and for some reason it had a whole in the middle, and I lifted it up and the yarn started falling apart. the circles and loops that were supposed to be held together to serve a purpose were separating from one another. This one lost it's purpose because it was not able to stay together in unity.



This illustration shows me that even though the church is composed of several ministries and several groups of people working in various ministries within the local church body, the end result should be to build Christ's kingdom and bring non-believers to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord. So I pray Lord that my greatest goal in serving you is to strengthen the bond of peace so that we will be gathered in unity and spirit so we can be effective in reaching a lost and dying world both here and throughout the world.

Ephesians 2:19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household,
20:having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
21: in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple of the Lord,
22,in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

So is it possible to maintain the bond of peace. Yes, as long as I am willing to let go of my free will and allow Christ to be the cornerstone in whatever I do.

My Vision is Getting Clearer

Proverbs 29:18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keep the law, happy is he.



My frustration that I have been sharing in my past few blogs is beginning to turn into passion and concern. I am spending much time in the Word and devoting myself to prayer. Today I was able to speak to Pastor Cliff about my desire to go out into the deep and follow Christ in a deeper commitment. I shared with him my willingness to start a small group leadership training ministry. I shared with him that I would devote my time to much study on how to develop the ministry with a target date of meeting with potential leaders early in January. I feel a burden to equip people to be able to reach people in their communities by having home Bible studies and not only for unchurged people, but to have opportunities to disciple and shepherd people who are already attending church and fairly new in the faith.



I purchased a book last week on small group studies and one of the reasons it gave to start was because of the growth of the church. When Pastor Cliff first started here there were only 75 or so coming, but that has increased to around 130 or more regular attendees. As this continues to increase he will be less able to meet and shepherd those who seek spiritual care, but if we were able to have those who would like to be shepherded and discipled visit in homes, many more people would be cared for and as they begin to grow spiritually and new people began to be added to their numbers those being changed into the image of God would be multiplied and the church will become even healthier than it is today. People will be able to be taught to develop and use those gifts that God has given to each man.



The thought that comes to my mind out of the book is people building up a community so they can reach other communities. It also came to mind when Moses uncle came to him and said their are too many people for you to take care of by yourself. Appoint others to take care of hundreds, and break it down to groups of tens, and you take care of the bigger issues.



I want to become more involved in people's lives. I want to be a part of teaching truth out of the scriptures, Help them develop spiritual discipline of prayer, time spent alone with God, and to help new believers to better understand terms and words and Bible phrases that will help them better learn about the faith. As they grow in these areas perhaps Christ will lead them to disciple others. We also need to allow time for them to ask questions. Many times as long time believers, we assume everyone understands the Bible, but many have never heard. Some don't even know the main characters in the Bible. We need to pray for them, encourage them, help affirm them and walk beside them as they begin to follow walks of faith.Through these steps we will fulfill the great commission to make disciples of all nations and to follow the new commandment to love one another as Christ first loved you.



Today, I took the first step, with fear and trembling, but Christ's grace is sufficient for me.

Jesus spent three years with the 12 disciples teaching and training them in the first small group ministry, and after he left, the promised Holy Spirit continued to teach them and show them what to do.

I will close this week with a promise from Christ Himself:

John 14:12: Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.

The same Holy Spirit that taught the twelve lives in each one of us, and He will teach us what is next to come. We were bought with a price we are His and He is mine. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a people for God's own possession so that we may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Help me Lord to not be ashamed of the gospel. Help me to not want to keep the good news to myself but loosen my tongue and grant me courage and strength to share it with my neighbors who are perishing and without hope.

Celebration Time, come on were Going to Have a good time

Tuesday night was my birthday and I had a lot of friends at church for a surprise birthday party.

It started out with several young people coming for a special art project taught by Ron Bayuzick. I want to thank Ron for giving of his time and talent and helping the night be successful. There were also several adults who shared in creating the art project. Ron seemed to be the happiest that I have seen him in a long time. I am hopeful that he will establish some sort of art program for young teens at the church or I heard that he may want to use Tom and Betsy's barn for an art studio. He is gifted as an art teacher and I will continue to pray for him that he would give that gift to advance others in expressing their creativity. After the art project we had pizza and then came the surprise the birthday cake and magic candles. I am not to good at blowing out candles so some of the young people tried to help me. It was a blast. I was also given a musical birthday card that played the song Celebration time. All those who came signed it. I asked my neighbor when they all signed it and they were doing it one at a time while we were doing our art project, and I hardly noticed anyone leaving the room. I wanted to thank you all for making the evening special for me.





Tonight is Wednesday and we are having our weekly Bible study at my neighbors house. we are studying the book of Ephesians. I recently got a book about causing small group members to be trained in growing in their faith. It has several suggestions on adding new things to your study to encourage people to grow in their faith and how to gradually get them to be disciples. Tonight I will add hymn singing and a icebreaker question. I am not sure of the question yet, but you are supposed to think of a simple one and encourage all participants to take turns answering it. During the opening prayer time, I will encourage each to pray with something they are thankful to God for. i have been having trouble to get them praying at all, so the book gives some advice how to get others started in feeling comfortable in sharing. We will also be sitting in chairs, as laying on the living room floor on the carpet was causing too many distractions. I also bought a thank you card for someone special that we will be sending it to this week, because I want them to begin learning how to reach out to others outside of ourselves . Please pray for this group as we excercise our faith to ourselves and others.



One of the eventual goals as we grow and become more comfortable is to break up into two or more healthy groups. There are a couple of other small groups meeting outside the church in others homes. My encouragement to these people is that if you feel that God has done a good work in what you are doing together in your comfortable group, begin to pray and seek out a few other couples and share that blessing with them. As these groups begin adding to their number the work of the Holy Spirit will multiply those who are being changed by the teaching of the word. A good example of how this is working is with the Wednesday night prayer groups. It was sad for many who regularly attend to see some of us leave and start two home bible study and prayer groups, but as a result we ended up not dividing but multiplying those who are now able to study and pray Wednesday nights. It also worked that way in the early church, when the church was persecuted people met in homes and shared things and met the needs of each other and had things in common. Although they were not able to meet together in one place the gospel was further spread because of the work that was being done in individual homes and as they had opportunity they met together in groups as they were able. So if you are in a small group every so often think about who would be someone new you can invite to help in the spread of friends and neighbors being discipled and cared for and they will be changed also into the image of Christlikeness.

Leading Life-changing Small Groups

This has been a very busy week for me to fit in my job responsibilities along with going to camp meeting every night. But I have been attending each night so far. The speaker is talking about developing the correct kind of attributes and character that would be most Christ-like. He is using several people out of the Old Testament and teaching us through their faults and successes how to accomplish the work of God. He is showing us that god uses those who are week in a worldly sense and how God makes them strong. There is also a missionary family who speaks each night. Their last name is Volstad and they are in Russia. Last week I wrote in my blog the discouragement I had with ministering to people who had issues involving alcohol. The missionary addressed that last night as he shared a testimony about a young man who struggles with that same problem. His family are Christian and he also has accepted Christ, but still struggles with it. In fact his doctor has warned him many times that he will die if he doesn't quit. The missionary shared that the average life expectancy in Russia is around 60, because of the abuse of alcohol. It is good to know others who are also experiencing similar struggles in their ministries. They have also been sharing the testimony of a lady who they have been descipling and she has now been trusted with some ministries in the church they have developed in Moscow. It has taken about five years for her to reach that point of ministering. It shows me that if you work with descipling people it will be frustrating and it will be a long commitment and it takes lots of love and nurturing.

I was sharing with Pastor Cliff last week some of my frustrations with ministry. At first it seemed like things were going great, but my Bible study at the neighbors house seemed like it was getting stale. It seemed like I was just going through the motions and not seeing any progress being made in me or those who are coming. Let's watch the video, pray a few sentences eat cake, go home and see you next week. I felt like I was supposed to go to the book store after camp meeting Tuesday night, and I promised Pastor Cliff that I would pray about what to do. As I started looking at the book titles I reached down and found this book Leading Life-changing small groups and it had many of the same ideas that Pastor Larry taught me when I was a part of a leadership team of small groups several years ago. We also last summer had to fill out a questionnaire for the church health group team that is an outside of the church organization that determines where a church needs to go next in order to become healthy. Through this study, it was determined that we need to develop small group Bible studies. After I began to read the advice in the book, I realized how off the course I am in leading my neighbors in this study group. I have been writing down many of the suggestions in the book. We are so off course that at this point it would be impossible to go next week and just do all the things suggested in the book, but I am praying about it, and I will plan to add something new every couple of weeks and we will gradually change and become more Christlike. One of the ideas is to pick one or two of those who are now coming and gradually train them to be leaders and gradually invite a few new people and as those leaders begin to lead the group that already exists the idea is to divide the group into two or more other groups in other homes. It is suggested that this process may take more than a year. In future blogs I will give you information about what I added to the group and keep you updated on the progress we are making. I am glad to see that Christ is so quickly giving me new hope and through the sharing of the night speaker and the missionary that reaching out to people will be difficult at times, but if we continue to be steadfast and patient we will bear fruit in due season. Continue to pray for our church that we will continue to see lives changed and that we will work on getting people placed in caring ministries and that Christ will show us unique and new ways to show love to our brothers and sisters in Christ and also those who are not yet part of His church. Pray that Christ will cause us not to spend time with just friends we feal comfortable with, but that we would get out of our comfort zones and reach out in some way to include and minister to the new families and individuals that He has sent to us that we would include them in our fellowship in a loving way.