Kids’ Club II (Video)
Here’s a video of July’s second kids’ club. Thanks so much to those of you who prayed! I really felt the Lord used your prayers on the last day.
Jim
About Jim
Posts by Jim :
The most important thing – overview
Today we’re going to take the bird’s eye view of the question we started asking 10 months ago. When it comes to serving the Lord, what is the most important thing?
Let’s take a look at how it all fits together. Our original introduction to the most important thing is here. We looked at four different aspects of ministry to see which was the most important – results, doing, being, and finally God. Though each one was important, we discovered that God was really the most important of all.
We’re going to use this chart to sum up the whole idea:
You see here all four things in order of importance. Remember that one flows into the other – God is the one that transforms us into the image of His Son (Rom 8:28-30). As we’re transformed, that changes how we spend the minutes and hours of our lives – we do different things. As we live a live of obedience, there are results (by God’s grace), both in our lives and the lives of others. Sometimes we can see those results, sometimes we can’t.
You can also think of the chart in reverse. If, for example, we’re not seeing any results in our ministry, that may be a red flag that we should check our strategy. Are we struggling to know what to do? Or do we find ourselves constantly doing what we know is wrong? Maybe it’s time to check and see if we’re allowing God to truly transform our hearts. Sometimes we get into the trap of only following the motions.
If we even lack the power to change (as we always do), we need to drop to our knees before the Source. He is our only hope – we can’t do it on our own!
Of course, it’s not always as clear-cut as that. For example, we may be doing everything right, and still not see results. In the end, we need to leave even that up to God. And remember, God really isn’t just at the top – we need to bathe our being, doing, and desire for results all in prayer.
As God works through His grace, our lives are changed. That change results in a wonderful overflow of good works, in which our lives continue to change. As the world sees our love, people see the Source more clearly. The lives of those around us begin to change. To what end? Those people glorify God (Luk 18:43)! And so it always comes back to the top of the chart – full, rich worship of the Almighty Giver of Grace.
Finally, on the right of the chart you can see the dangers of over or under emphasizing each thing (to the exclusion of the others). We talked about this in the articles dedicated to each thing. Successful? You may be tempted just to “leave it to God”. You may feel that your “holy” life is enough, and you have no need to “do” anything else.
Or, you may become convinced it’s all about doing – if you just do a little more, you’ll have a better life/be accepted by God/see more results. If you have good results, you may assume God is blessing you, and ignore the sin in your life. Or you may be seeing results that look alive, but are really dead to the core. You didn’t recognize it because you didn’t bring everything before God.
Failing? You may become angry at God, or figure that nothing you do is good enough for Him. Why bother? You may be terrified that you’ll never be good enough to be accepted by God (as if it’s all about your works!). When you just can’t do enough you may despair. If all your hard work isn’t yielding results, you may feel helpless. You’ve done it all – and still can’t see any fruit.
No, I believe these things must be kept in balance – all important, but not all equally important.
It’s fun to pull passages out of the Bible and see which of the above 4 points in represented. Can you see any of the four points above in these verses?
that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father in heaven.
Mat 5:16
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me…
Then I will teach transgressors Your ways,
And sinners shall be converted to You.
Psa 51:10,13
Now may He who supplies seed to the sower,
and bread for food,
supply and multiply the seed you have sown
and increase the fruits of your righteousness,
while you are enriched in everything for all liberality,
which causes thanksgiving through us to God.
2Cor 9:10-11
What do you think? Do you have something to add? Have you heard confusion over these things? Anything you disagree with, or agree with? Please, leave a comment! Let’s talk.
If you’d like to pray for kids’ club tomorrow…
I recorded this audio post about the kids’ club in the van, so excuse the background noise. You’ll be able to hear the siren from the gas truck (just stop the truck if your house needs gas) and later on briefly the clanging bell of the garbage truck (time to take out your garbage – don’t forget to tip the garbage man!).
Anyway, listen for news about the week and a prayer request for tomorrow morning.
[display_podcast]
Facebook (and the like)
Ok, this is a fad that I’ve actually found to be useful. Of course, it will only be useful as long as the fad lasts.
That’s right, I have a Facebook profile. After getting a flood of emails from friends who had their own profiles, I decided to give it a go.
For those who don’t know, Facebook is a networking site. You set up a page with a little about yourself, and then you start linking to your friends. Then you can also see their friends. Sometimes you’re connected with friends that you have lost contact with. There’s more to it than that, for example, you also connect yourself to networks like your old school, or your workplace, etc.
It’s useful because our friends are putting up news about themselves, so it’s great to see where they’re at. Of course, if your friends stop bothering, the site becomes useless.
So, if you know me, go ahead and make me a Facebook friend! My profile is at www.facebook.com/p/Jim_Cottrill/518391432
Find out what this missionary says about Facebook and similar sites, and see a brief video that explains these kinds of applications. Here’s another missionary’s love/hate relationship with Facebook. And be sure to read this fascinating article about how teens are using sites like this – the article is called Kids say e-mail is, like, soooo dead (thanks to Lifehacker). And here’s a useful site to find out if your friend is on any of a few networking sites.
Shari doesn’t have a Facebook profile yet, but we don’t think it will be long.
And by the way, I do have a MySpace profile as well (thanks to Perpetual Progress for giving me a way of hiding the horoscope junk). It’s right here: www.myspace.com/jcottrill
I haven’t used the MySpace one much, but there it is.
As with instant messaging, the trick is that everyone’s on a different network (for example MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). But the rush now is to perfect applications that can unite them all (as Trillian does with instant messaging). If you have a lot of scattered friends you want to stay in touch with, this is worth keeping an eye on.
Meanwhile, just today another 100,000 people became Facebook users. Mark and Dustin (Facebook founders) must be pleased.
Gospel, gunshots, tumours, dog bites, and more to ponder and pray about
Here are a few bits of current news. Some of it is too current for the prayer requests page (which I only update once a month roughly), so I’m stopping by to give you a summary:
- Men’s Day – or, part of a day. Today I’ll be heading down the hill a little ways to get together with some of the men from our church. We would appreciate your prayers for the growth of the men in our church (including me, of course!). I’ll be over there around 2pm local time for the afternoon/evening.
- Dog bite – On Thursday (19 Jul) Caleb (14), a part of the Downs family was bitten by a dog. Apparently he was walking by some teenagers that were sitting there with a dog, and the dog just latched onto his arm in a split second. The actual damage wasn’t bad, but it ripped his shirt and did break the skin. He went to the hospital for shots, and now they’re looking for the dog to see if it had its shots. So far, Caleb seems to be fine.
- Reaching children – This week two "summer missionaries", two Mexican teens, will be coming to our church to do a kids’ club. We’re hoping that the momentum will continue to build from last weeks’ club. Between the youth events and children’s events last week, I heard that about 80 people heard the Gospel. Lord willing we’ll be able to help a little this week. Read more about the previous kids’ club at the O’Brien’s site here, or see a quick video of the kids’ club a week ago Wednesday here. Read a brief explanation of the summer missionaries program here.
- Summer interns – Bill and Alyssa, summer interns, left last week after a week of language school. Now Crystal and Sara (did I spell that right?) are here now and for the next two weeks, sharing and learning at the university and beyond.
- Brain tumour – Some of you read our earlier entry (or email update) about Kaitlyn, the little girl who had the primary brain tumour. Kaitlyn is part of a missionary family from the USA. There’s lots of good news there – first, it looks like the tumour was non-cancerous. Second, it looks like they got it all in the surgery. However, she’s really had a struggle with all the surgeries, with the strong medication she’s been on, and all the other factors that go along with being in a strange place and going through a traumatic situation. You can read more on Kaitlyn Contreras’ website. The family could use your prayers more than ever.
- Kenya and Sudan – Shari’s sister Amy is scheduled to arrive in Sudan on Tuesday (24 Jul). She’s still in Nairobi, Kenya. She sent some of her belongings on ahead in a truck. The truck was stopped by bandits, and one of the drivers was shot. As far as they know the items in the truck are still there, but I think the tires were shot out and the truck was impounded. The driver is alive, and improving, but in intensive care. We’d appreciate your prayers for him, and all the complications involved in travelling to Sudan. Amy will be travelling over the next few days. Visit Amy’s website here.
- Preparing for a big change – This week we’ll be focusing on getting the kids ready for school. For example, we need to get uniforms, several books, and roughly 35 other different items (many of them we haven’t even translated yet to know what they are!) (Edit: That’s 35 things for just one kid – and there are different things for each child. Yikes!). We’re also working on arranging book shipments from Canada (mostly) for the English/Canadian portion of the kids’ schooling. This isn’t a small task!
- More praise – By the way, there’s a lot to praise the Lord for too. We’ve had some interesting opportunities to share at school (as have the summer interns). We also have enjoyed some good times with friends from the church, and we look forward to more. That’s how we help each other grow in the Lord! Also, after seeing our pledged support level drop significantly, we got an email from someone who wants to start supporting us financially on a regular basis, so the trend is upward once again (current financial stats here). God is working in the dramatic, and in the mundane. Praise the Lord!
