ST Highlight

1 February 2024

Diving into Teaching

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

We’re diving into some new teaching adventures – well, sort of new.

*The Gospel according to the Apostle John*

The institute classes are continuing, although I haven’t been involved as much as I had hoped. However, I’ve been able to attend a couple of classes since being back, and they’ve been good. We’re learning about preaching and pastoral ministry – mostly the second one right now.

We’re nearing the end of our study of the Gospel of John, which has been amazing. We’re hoping to be done by Resurrection Sunday. So we’ll have a whole month to especially focus on the resurrection, which is pretty cool.

We’ve also decided to go through our doctrinal series again on Sundays, because there are so many new people at the church. There are 26 lessons, covering our doctrinal statement, our doctrinal distinctives and our values.

So I’m looking forward to kicking that off on the 11th!

One thing that is always a challenge to explain is this. Everyone wants to know what the “key” doctrines are, or what you need to “believe” in order to be “saved”. I’m not putting quotes in because I don’t believe in those words, but because these are things which themselves require explaination and definition.

Everybody likes a list, right? We talked about this in our last institute class – a “list” of priorities for the pastor. Except, the Bible doesn’t give us a list, and it’s not always that simple. Yes, we’ve all seen abuses – a pastor who ignores his family and spends all his time at church events – that can’t be right. But does that mean that the family comes “before” church events in every sense? In other words, you never sacrifice family for ministry – the family must always have the “best”?

Ministry simply isn’t that simple.

And neither is doctrine. Obviously churches list “priorities” in doctrinal statements. But does that mean you don’t need to believe the rest of God’s Word? Are parts of it not authoritative in our lives? Surely every word from God’s mouth should be believed. And of course, any church summary can never replace the Bible, which is the ultimate authority. What then is “more important”, and why? Some things are more important because they allow our church to function smoothly. Even some “opinions” or “traditions”. Other times, beliefs are virtually unseen, but they can rot your soul away little by little if they stray from God’s Word.

So we need to be careful with lists.

Another new adventure is coming after the book of John – we’re going to go through Zechariah next. Visions of people flying around in baskets and people in stinky clothes, and all that apocaliptic stuff. A different culture, a different language, a different time in history. I’ve been enjoying studying it already – but it will be a new challenge for us all!

God really does use all these teaching times and more to change our lives and give us direction and encouragement. His Word is power!

19 January 2024

Fixing, Fixing…

Jim Practical matters, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

First, and most importantly for you, I do believe I’ve fixed our web forms. If you need to contact us, sign up for our newsletter, make changes to your address – it should all be working – for the moment – I hope.

I’m sorry for the delay, and thankful to those who let us know that they weren’t working.

But anyway, that’s one thing that I’ve been trying to fix.

We all have those times in our lives when everything seems to be falling apart, and it wouldn’t be so bad except for a lack of two crucial resources – time, and money.

We have a lot to update and fix at the moment. One of those things is simply document renewals – well, “simple” maybe isn’t the word – let’s say, “regular”. This time it’s a multi-step process involving the documents themselves, some communication, some driving, some payments… But a couple of steps are done, so we’re making progress!

And how many leaks are we dealing with at the moment? Well, less than we would be if it were rainy season. However, we still have several leaks, some of known cause and some unknown. When our hot water tank stopped working yet again, we called the plumber and took advantage of the situation to fix one of the major leaks. We now have hot water again, the major leak is fixed, two smaller leaks have appeared, and a significant one became larger. Would it be helpful to hire a plumber full-time?

There are some major appliances hanging on by a thread. And there is some work on the van which needs to be done. And there’s some weird issue with our bank.

Not to mention some other digital issues, besides the one related to web forms, which seems to be solved for the moment!

And there’s that ebook I ordered that never arrived. Supposedly the issue should be resolved in 3-5 business days. Well, 3-5 more business days.

Probably many of you – most of you – can relate. We could make fixing, fixing… a full time job, except that we have other jobs to do!

Anyway, it’s just one of those times when everything seems to be happening at once. But anyway, a little prioritizing, a little progress, and a little leaving it with the Lord – and we’ll make it! 🙂

11 January 2024

43 Days – A Quick Look Back

Jim Ministry glimpses, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

It’s been almost 43 days since we got home, and I haven’t been reporting much! So let me give you a bit of a summary of what’s been going on…

We’ve been settling back in, and cleaning up the volcanic ash inside and out that has accumulated (in spite of the fact that friends did some cleaning while we were gone – it builds up fast!). But also the van had to be verified (the day we returned), and we needed to make sure we had all the basics – gas for the house, water, food – it all took some time!

We’ve enjoyed some time with our church family. I had the privilege to preach on Christmas Eve. I finally got to join some others for a time of evangelism at a local hospital. We’ve also had some extra time to chat with everyone. Shari has been connecting with a couple of the women about Sunday School and women’s ministries. There’s a lot to catch up on! Lord willing I’ll be with some of the leaders on Saturday to talk about the upcoming months!

A lady we knew who is the mother/grandmother of some of the people in our church passed away in December. Along with other church leaders, I had the opportunity to share the gospel at the funeral. Please pray for those who still don’t know the Lord.

Over the holidays we were able to spend quite a bit of time with one another and with family from various parts of the world! And some board games very likely were a part of the rest time. 🙂 We also enjoyed time with the Lord, reflecting on the miracle of His coming.

Speaking of games, we were able to get together with our Avant mission team as well. It was a good time to get updated on how to pray for one another. And we introduced the team to Flick ’em Up…

Our coworkers Rod and Mayra are back for three weeks – you can get an update from Rod here.

At the first Sunday morning service of the year, our friend Oscar took a picture of us all (well, his camera took it – he’s in the photo!) – just click on it for a larger version:

Well, there are just a few of the things that have been happening over the last 43 days! Thanks for your prayers!

1 December 2023

Back in Mexico

Jim Practical matters, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

Just to make it official – yes! We are in Mexico. 🙂

Thanks to all of you who were praying for our trip. Everything went very smoothly.

Now that we’re back, there’s a lot to get organized. Our first day home I was already getting our van verified so that we could drive it freely (for those who don’t know or don’t remember, vehicles in Mexico City need to be emissions tested. They’re then categorized with fewer or more restrictions, based on the age and condition of the vehicle.) There’s a lot to do to simply get life going again.

And thanks to those who were praying for my Mom, who finally got a place to move into. Even though it may still be temporary, it’s a lot nicer than waiting in a hospital!

29 November 2023

Travelling to Mexico

Jim Family, Practical matters, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

Yes, Lord willing we will soon be back home in Mexico! We appreciate those who are praying.

Not long before our trip south was to begin, we all got sick, which certainly meant some unexpected changes to our last few days in Canada. We’re still not at 100%, so that makes it difficult to look forward to all this travel. So if you think of it, do pray that we will be all right on the trip. There’s also a lot that needs to be done right away as we settle back into life in Mexico, so pray that we would be able to get those things done and have some time to recuperate over the next few weeks.

We’re thankful that my Mom is also moving – a room became available which will likely be temporary, but it is a room, a nice room actually, and it’s not in the hospital, where she’s been waiting.

Lots happening all at once, as always! For us at the moment, it’s planes and taxis!

8 November 2023

Travelling is…

Jim Family, Ministry glimpses, Practical matters, Prayer and Praise, ST Highlight 0

Travelling is good – a blessing – and also difficult.

We’ve been travelling for 5 months, which is a long time to live out of a suitcase, be out of your routine, be away from familiar surroundings. And if we’re here much longer, it will be a record time away from home.

But travelling has been a blessing as well. We’ve been able to spend time with family. We’ve been involved in ministry in many different churches. We’ve visited friends, and even made new friends.

We got together with some people at Avant who do so much for us (not pictured was Carolyn – we appreciate you too!):

One church even put together a pretty cool Mexican display for me to stand in front of (Prairie Tabernacle):

Prairie Tabernacle Mexico display (and I).

Shari shared at a women’s prayer meeting, and is preparing for another. And for those who have been asking, my Mom is doing a lot better! Here she is at the prayer meeting (front and centre)…

Shari, Beth, and other women at a prayer meeting.

And of course there was another Where did the Bible Come from? seminar. Here’s a group pouring over “ancient” manuscripts of the fabled story of Javier the Louse…

Where did the Bible come from? - studying "ancient" manuscripts

Well, there has been so much happening that I won’t go into it all here. But it’s been fun!

But we’ve also been missing Mexico. In fact, we even missed a church anniversary service for the first time – although we were “there” in spirit, and we did record a video message for the service.

And so the time is coming to prepare for travel back to Mexico. We would appreciate your prayers for reasonable tickets, and that God would give wisdom as to timing! There’s a lot to do before we go, so I’d better get to it.

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