Blessings,
Kim

So there were two things I didn’t understand.
I was so so sorry for the things I’d done. But instead of celelbrating the fact that I’d been forgiven I spent nearly 3 years basically walking around with my head down. If our purpose on this earth is to glorify God, then I wasted three years of opportunity to point to Him. Shame on me. What I should have done is look up. For the first time in a long time I felt hope about my future and I should have better expressed that to other people. What finally changed after 3 years? I felt God tugging at my heart over a period of months almost whispering Are you done pouting because I have some things I’d like you to do for me… I didn’t want to ignore God as I had in the past so I slowly began to turn my attention to the future he had for me instead of the past.

There was something else I didn’t understand.
I was just glad to be in church but assumed that because of my past failures I wouldn’t be useful in God’s kingdom. After all, people who teach Sunday school and serve as a deaconess are supposed to be people of integrity and I had been a hypocrite in the past. People knew about things I’d done wrong. I thought I’d be a poor reflection on God and I wouldn’t do that. So I figured I’d just sit quietly in a pew for the rest of my days. Of course that’s not what God intended when he forgave me. One day someone told me about how 2 corinthians 8:12 that says if we are willing to serve God then our gift is acceptable. I was acceptable. Past or no past. When God forgave it he forgave it so completely that he was unable to remember it even if other people did. And after all, if I’m working in the church, who am I working for? A God who has no rememberence of my past.

So now I teach Sunday school and lead ladies’ Bible study. I took my first seminary class this year. Do I regret my past failures? Absolutely. And in a way I hope I never fully forget because maybe that’ll keep me from going there again. But instead of refusing to forgive myself I’ve CHOSEN to give God the glory by acknowledging that forgiveness.
I wrote this verse on a notecard and taped it to my bedroom mirror where it hung for years- may it bless you too. A few words from David. A hypocrite murderer and adulterer. God called him A Man After His Own Heart AFTER all David’s failures when he turned to God for forgiveness and then forgave himself.

Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit. When I kept silent my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. THEN I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord. AND YOU FORGAVE THE GUILT OF MY SIN.
Psalm 32:1-5

As for a picture library I will have to do a little work on that but until then I have introduced a Tag Cloud to the “single” website pages with “Pictures” being the only item on it for now. I have not gone back and tagged all the posts yet but this will give you an idea. Let me know what you think.

The new real time calendar is in place I hope it works for you.

As for follow up on events I completely agree. I would love to put more follow up and news on the site but someone for the event in question would need to take the lead and get the material and a brief write up to me for posting

I agree with the youth link but the reason they are not one of the main categories on the site is because I never get anything to post for them. If you go to the archives page you will see that there is a youth category with only two postings. That was just where I tagged it that way because they were leading worship.

I would need someone in that area to get me material and write ups to post and I would be happy to do it. They just need to send the material to webmaster@pearidgebaptist.com.

good ideas above

great job with the whole thing Jake!

Also, we advertise events, but there’s rarely any follow up. What about posting pictures and comments AFTER an event like VBS or an outreach event. This could not only draw people to the sight to look @ pictures, but encourage future participation and show visitors to our website a visual representation of what we’re doing.

KJV
Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.

NASB
We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

NIV
We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

NLT
Brothers and sisters, we urge you to warn those who are lazy. Encourage those who are timid. Take tender care of those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.

The Message
Our counsel is that you warn the freeloaders to get a move on. Gently encourage the stragglers, and reach out for the exhausted, pulling them to their feet. Be patient with each person, attentive to individual needs.

CEV
My friends, we beg you to warn anyone who isn’t living right. Encourage anyone who feels left out, help all who are weak, and be patient with everyone.

The question is how do you define warning? Is it brow beating, vigorously seeking volunteers, making people feel guilty, or is it just saying you’re gonna be sorry if you don’t serve? In an ideal world the church would not have to ask repeatedly for volunteers to assist in spreading the world of God. In an ideal world you could not make people shut up about the word of God. In an ideal world our children/youth would not be some of the boldest and most effective ambassadors and means of spreading the word of God.

But we do not live in a ideal world, this world is full of sin, constant activities, and challenges that can take us all down at one time or another.

So you asked is it our duty to warn believers that they should serve I say yes. Then when that believer lets you down and does not serve in the way they promised it is our duty to go back to them again and encourage them to fulfill their commitment and serve.

You see I think that in all this we can replace the word “warn” with “encourage”. We need to encourage everyone to serve and when we are inevitably let down we go by someone we go back to the only person who has never let us down Jesus Christ. He will re-invigorate us, repair us, and send us on our way again to encourage those who are not serving no matter how angry we are, how aggravated we are, and no matter how many times we have been let down in the past.

There’s a saying that 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. That goes for churches as well. And so I understand that the church Paul was writing to probably had some inactive members, just like every church I know. But my question is, warn them about what exactly? If they are believers and their salvation is secure, then I don’t need to warn them about their eternal judgement. The only thing that came to mind was earlier in our reading when Jesus himself said, whoever isn’t for me is against me… Luke 11:23. I would take that to mean that if we are idle, that is inactive, then we are in essence against God. And that would absolutely deserve a warning don’t you think?

I guess I always felt like it wasn’t my place to tell a believer that they needed to get actively involved. It was their choice. But Paul seems to be suggesting that we have a duty to warn inactive believers to get busy for the kingdom. What is your understanding?

What I found amazing was the way Paul described his fellow believers… willing to risk their life for him, serving in prison with him, working hard for the Lord alongside him, being like a mother to him, and so on. Yes, Paul’s heart had been changed, BUT SO HAD THEIRS. They had gone from living in fear of this man, maybe hating him, to accepting him. Some were even willing to risk their lives for him.

How cool is that?

Coming to Christ at 31 I not only get to claim the journey as my own but I can also testify about the difficulty of the journey. To go that far through life and cast my “world” aside to claim Christ as my personal savor was not an easy journey. Even after accepting Christ as my savior the journey continues to this day. But I am proof that anyone can be touched by the word of God. I am proof that your sins can be forgiven and you can be accepted into a loving church home. I am proof that you can once have a Darwin sticker on your car and be so touched by God’s love you can’t understand why someone would want one. I am proof that no amount of intellectual capacity will ever allow you to explain faith & forgiveness to someone who is not willing to accept it.

Yet without faith there is no journey and there is no forgiveness. That’s why I find the faith expressed by the early church so amazing. The people in the time of Jesus and the establishment of the church were able to find faith with everything working against them. So why is it so hard for people to find faith today with more opportunities than ever to discover it?

Why? Because we are so tied up in the secular culture that we cannot be bothered for a second to see the blessing that lay before us. We cannot be bothered to lend a hand to a neighbor in need. We cannot be bothered to give any of our time to things that do not present a personal gain. We cannot be bothered to look beyond ourselves and think about the needs of others.

Just because you have faith and you have become a Christian does not mean that the statements above do not apply to you or me. But if we posses faith like that of the early church and cast the temptations and troubles of this world aside then there is nothing we cannot do for the glory of Christ.

Two things I found interesting: He ‘faced the fact’ that his wife was too old to have a child even though God had promised it. So I guess having faith doesn’t mean we’re blind to reality. I heard a pastor named Jim Cymbala once say, “Faith isn’t ignoring reality but it leaves room for God to create a new reality”. I like that because I tend to see things for how they are. I need to have faith that God is fully able to create a new reality.

The other thing that stood out was that Abraham was “fully persuaded” that God had the power to do what he had promised. If I were honest with myself, I could say that I am “somewhat persuaded” or “wishing” that God had the power to do what he promised. Intellectually, I may even say that I’m fully persuaded, but if I was, then my life would reflect it more than it does. This is my challenge today.