What Law will govern the Kingdom of Heaven when it comes to Earth.

[andrew]

So how's everybody's family doing, and how can Biblical Families help you be better husbands, fathers, and leaders in your communities? (And if you don't need any help there, how can you help us help others where they are?)

 

[Nikud]

So how's everybody's family doing, and how can Biblical Families help you be better husbands, fathers, and leaders in your communities?

We are doing great Andrew. My wife is trying to start a women's bible study during their break time [(her work said yes and now their trying to rearrange when people take breaks so it can happen) they just can't involve the residents at the facility], the kids are missing all the children we've met at the retreats and trying to convince us that we need to go visit everyone every weekend, I could use some ideas on how to have patience (more so deal constctivly with my lack of) with every one in the local Churches and good works volunteering community here that doesn't involve asking the man upstairs for it. I believe I'm in the situation I'm in now because I asked him to give me patience.

(This is called Hijacking a thread ha,ha)

 

[andrew]

Glad to hear it!

My advice would be to say your piece to whatever local churches you cross paths with, stay where you're accepted, shake the dust off where you're not, but don't worry about them too much overall. Look outside the religious community for ministry opportunities for the most part, following the example of the apostles in the New Testament. I'll pray that God grants you plenty of patience in the meantime!

Note to everybody here: Individual posts hijack a thread; individual threads hijack a forum. Y'all please consider my post above a friendly reminder that this forum is one part, and not the most important part, of a ministry that has a specific purpose. People that can take subtle hints and friendly reminders don't have to deal with unsubtle hints and unfriendly reminders. 'Nuff said?

Carry on!

 

[rockfox]

Look outside the religious community for ministry opportunities for the most part, following the example of the apostles in the New Testament.

I like the idea but don't know the what of that; i.e. I lack vision. I would love to hear more practical examples and ideas of this.

 

[Cap]

I like the idea but don't know the what of that; i.e. I lack vision. I would love to hear more practical examples and ideas of this.

What about work places, community events, bars, concerts, local hangouts, hobbies that include others like car shows and boating circles.

 

[Nikud]

I like the idea but don't know the what of that; i.e. I lack vision. I would love to hear more practical examples and ideas of this.

So basically take the Gospel out to our fellow sinners who don't believe or have a confused view instead of trying to draw them into an assemble. Before I share this next example please remember I do not live this type of life style.
Here there is a BDSM community. There's now a men's group I mediate for. Half of the Men are Christian men who beleive it is scriptural to physically discipline their wifes. The other half are men trying to use scripture to justify their kink. Both are denied fellowship because of their life style choices. I take the cast no stone approach with them. We talk about scripture their concerns about what is acceptable and not (the first half) and I try to confirm that Patriarchy and submission of the wife is scriptural, while challenging them to pointing out where it shows Domination and subjugation are.

 

[rockfox]

I understood ministry to be greater than just simple evangelism of the Good News. Though it certainly includes that.

 

[andrew]

I like the idea but don't know the what of that; i.e. I lack vision. I would love to hear more practical examples and ideas of this.

In a time crunch. Quick outline.

In the Experiencing God study, one of the case studies is a dying church that was getting ready to close its doors. Somehow they found out about some kids at a nearby apartment building, and (I'd have to look this up, but the way I remember it) one thing leads to another and a few months later they have a thriving ministry at the apartment complex.

More later as time permits. State convention weekend.....

 

[Mojo]

You know how when you buy a new car, and everywhere you look, you see that exact car and never realized how many others were out there?

Same is true for ministry opportunities. Each year, I lead my family in a focus for the year. It's all ministry related, but has nothing much to do with our brick and mortar church. It's just us being salt and light in the community. It's amazing how many things we find that fit our focus that we never realized were there.

 

[Shibboleth]

Each year, I lead my family in a focus for the year.

What do you mean by a focus? Can you provide an example or three?

 

[Mojo]

One year was "Being a Servant". It didn't matter how (using time, talent, strength, knowledge) but I directed my family to look for ways to serve others.

It was amazing because we were able to help others in auto accidents, one older person who had fainted from heat exhaustion in public and hit his head, but nobody was helping him. We visited elderly shut ins, grieving widows, and on it went. It was like one or two things a month that kept coming. We were just a presence, offering a shoulder to cry on and prayers for comfort. We served them with food, or a reference for services they needed.

We were living the gospel. What's the St. Francis quote? "Preach the gospel at all times, and if possible, use words."

I think it's made a huge impact on my kids.

 

[andrew]

I like the idea but don't know the what of that; i.e. I lack vision. I would love to hear more practical examples and ideas of this.

Installment 2:

Back in the mid 90s, we watched the movie Where The Day Takes You (focusing on runaway youth) and then soon thereafter started doing worship evangelism (basically street worship) in downtown Houston on Friday and Saturday nights, worshiping in front of a mix of urban slackers coming downtown to party, runaway teenagers that had come to Houston and were living on the street, homeless adult alcoholics (mostly male), and homosexuals coming downtown to go to the gay dance clubs. We started taking in some of those folks, and at one point we had an even dozen homeless people living with us (mostly kids, some adult alcoholics). That was a crazy couple of years, but we saw God working some major miracles during that time. High risk, high reward, so to speak.

Had nothing to do with the church we were going to at the time which was very focused on street ministry, but more like street ministry lite, nice and tidy. They thought we had gone too far and weren't supportive of what we were doing.

Funny how we all ended up, but that's a story for late night in Ron's room at retreats. The point here is that we just went out on a street corner to exuberantly sing songs, handing out cold drinks on hot nights and hot drinks on cold nights, and created a LOT of ministry opportunities for ourselves.

 

[andrew]

At the time, we really had a heart for runaway teens (and at that time Houston was a Mecca for runaways), so we just went out looking and we found 'em. @rockfox (or anyone else), who's on your heart? If you pray and ask God who you could serve, who do you start thinking about?

A few years later we were in a college town and really had a heart for the young (mostly confused) musicians and singers who were freshmen and sophomores in college but had no direction. So we started a group that met regularly at our music school, partly to jam or have a drum circle, and partly to talk about life and Jesus and stuff.

All of this was very organic and felt very natural--just serving the people we came across or heard about that obviously needed some help. But it always involved going to them, and never involved 'inviting them to church'....