Need a vacation, a rest from the weariness?
Sit with God as you might with the ocean.
You bring nothing to the ocean, yet it changes you.
Sean Caulfield
I was watching the rain today. Rain we did not need. Heavy, and no wind. Dancing, slapping, beating down on everything as far as I could see. Not like my puny little lawn sprinkler. While I was watching I got to thinking that God’s grace and goodness is over all. It touches everything, beats down on everything. More like the rain than any human-made sprinkler. I sat and watched the rain today. I sat with God. And it was good.
~ ~ ~
Need a change, a break from the worthlessness?
Unless someone will pay a higher price for me than Jesus did, they’re not allowed to tell me what I’m worth. I will be used for God’s glory.
Nikki (Air1 Christian Radio, the Positive Alternative)
It is Jesus who determines a person’s worth by how high a price he is willing to pay to cover their debt. Nikki says Jesus paid a high price for her, made the ultimate sacrifice. And because of having been made worthy she will glorify God all her days. Jesus died for you too. Why? Because you are worth it. Therefore you, too, are … worthy! And since your worth comes from God in heaven, no one on earth can take it from you. Never worthless. Forever worthy. Sit with God today. Praise the Lord.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
My Favorite Month - May
Hi, Pastor Dale here with some personal reflections on God's little blessings.
FAVORITE THING this month = MY BIRTHDAY.
Usually I don’t pay much attention to birthdays, but this one was really fun with all the birthday cards, text messages, facebook posts, phone calls, and emails. Messaging today is kind of like surround sound. It comes from everywhere and sounds rich and full and oh so sweet. Thanks to everyone for “making my day.”
FAVORITE PEOPLE this month = DENNY AND KELLY
My classmate and good friend Denny Butler died after a heroic battle with cancer. I am so grateful to have known and enjoyed him, and to have re-connected with him this past year.
My new friend, Kelly Lee James, from last year’s Cowboy Church, lost everything but his life in the Joplin tornado. His faith is guiding him through his devastating losses and inspiring others. The shining faith of both of these men of God is a living testament to Jesus. Is there anything better than good Christian friends?
FAVORITE EVENTS this month = STUDENT EVENTS
I love it that the youth and the youth leaders from the church are responding to the needs of tornado victims taking supplies to Joplin.
I love it that the Garden Grove Post of the American Legion conducts the essay contest for the 5th graders on “What the American Flag Means to Me,” and then leads the outdoor service, teaching the students how to honorably retire worn and tattered flags.
I love it that Mormon Trail Seniors attend Baccalaureate. This year was amazing – the Senior Class, the teachers, the program, and all the pastors together.
FAVORITE FAMILY MOMENT this month = CHELCEE'S GRADUATION.
I was so happy to attend the first of our grandchildren’s graduations – Chelcee from Park Hill South in Kansas City area. So proud of you. LOL!
FAVORITE TIMES WITH LINDA this month = WEEKENDS.
First, to Oklahoma City for a family wedding Linda was officiating for Derrik and Malorie. Friendly and Fine. Driving through the Flint Hills of Kansas is really restful to me. I call it my “prairie fix.”
Second, a relaxing, local, 4-day Memorial Day weekend, which included a little mowing, a little cleaning, a lot of relaxing, going to a movie, and the Ft. Des Moines Memorial Day program. Sweet month, May.
FAVORITE THING this month = MY BIRTHDAY.
Usually I don’t pay much attention to birthdays, but this one was really fun with all the birthday cards, text messages, facebook posts, phone calls, and emails. Messaging today is kind of like surround sound. It comes from everywhere and sounds rich and full and oh so sweet. Thanks to everyone for “making my day.”
FAVORITE PEOPLE this month = DENNY AND KELLY
My classmate and good friend Denny Butler died after a heroic battle with cancer. I am so grateful to have known and enjoyed him, and to have re-connected with him this past year.
My new friend, Kelly Lee James, from last year’s Cowboy Church, lost everything but his life in the Joplin tornado. His faith is guiding him through his devastating losses and inspiring others. The shining faith of both of these men of God is a living testament to Jesus. Is there anything better than good Christian friends?
FAVORITE EVENTS this month = STUDENT EVENTS
I love it that the youth and the youth leaders from the church are responding to the needs of tornado victims taking supplies to Joplin.
I love it that the Garden Grove Post of the American Legion conducts the essay contest for the 5th graders on “What the American Flag Means to Me,” and then leads the outdoor service, teaching the students how to honorably retire worn and tattered flags.
I love it that Mormon Trail Seniors attend Baccalaureate. This year was amazing – the Senior Class, the teachers, the program, and all the pastors together.
FAVORITE FAMILY MOMENT this month = CHELCEE'S GRADUATION.
I was so happy to attend the first of our grandchildren’s graduations – Chelcee from Park Hill South in Kansas City area. So proud of you. LOL!
FAVORITE TIMES WITH LINDA this month = WEEKENDS.
First, to Oklahoma City for a family wedding Linda was officiating for Derrik and Malorie. Friendly and Fine. Driving through the Flint Hills of Kansas is really restful to me. I call it my “prairie fix.”
Second, a relaxing, local, 4-day Memorial Day weekend, which included a little mowing, a little cleaning, a lot of relaxing, going to a movie, and the Ft. Des Moines Memorial Day program. Sweet month, May.
Friday, May 6, 2011
It's May
Wow, it’s May already, with final exams and graduations, Mothers’ Day, planting and gardening, Memorial Day, 4H and more. Time sure marches on.
But before we move into summer I’d like to lift up a huge congregational Shout of Praise & Thanksgiving to God for all the Heavenly Blessings we enjoyed in April. Surely the Presence of the Lord was in this place.
I want to celebrate a full and wonderful year of TUF Team after-school programs. Thank you Lord, for these great youngsters and our whole team of leaders. Our final gathering for the year was a dinner the youth prepared for their families. 59 people were served. A happy night and a great year! 6 of the youth will be attending camp this summer with the help of the Cans for Camp. Thanks, too, to all of you who bring your cans to the church for us to recycle for cash.
*On April 9 the Upper Midwest Region of the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, re-organized their regional governing by-laws, a vast and exciting change that promises stronger lay leadership in Regional ministries and administration. The Region also elected the interim director, Bill Spangler-Dunning, as director.
With Easter coming so late this year, the Holy season of Lent filled most of the month. We kept that season by having a Sunday night Study Series at the LeRoy church. For four weeks we studied, with lively debate, “A Life Worth Living” by Bruce Wilkinson. We ended the series with a mission report from Linda O’Connell and friends from the Presbyterian Church in Indianola who together had traveled to El Salvador to visit a *mission site with which they have connection, called “Our Sister Parish.”
The Holy Week communion services were soooooo… beautiful and meaningful, impressing us with the cost of salvation mercifully paid by Jesus on the Cross, and the endlessness of God’s great love. Then, with the sun shining and spring hope in the air, Easter arrived. What a perfect day to receive New Members in both churches and celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism by immersion at Humeston.
April’s best. The parish is celebrating a huge achievement. Challenged to read 400 chapters in the Bible each month from Oct 2010 to April 2011 (2800 chapters in all) we exceeded the challenge 3 fold. By April 30 we completed reading a total of 8821 chapters (or an average 1261 per month). How awesome is that!!!!!!
Other April events included Presbyterian Women’s Fellowship Dinner, United Methodist Women mission disbursements, scrolling announcements being projected in church, and the parish attending an Iowa Barnstormers game at Wells Fargo Arena.
But before we move into summer I’d like to lift up a huge congregational Shout of Praise & Thanksgiving to God for all the Heavenly Blessings we enjoyed in April. Surely the Presence of the Lord was in this place.
I want to celebrate a full and wonderful year of TUF Team after-school programs. Thank you Lord, for these great youngsters and our whole team of leaders. Our final gathering for the year was a dinner the youth prepared for their families. 59 people were served. A happy night and a great year! 6 of the youth will be attending camp this summer with the help of the Cans for Camp. Thanks, too, to all of you who bring your cans to the church for us to recycle for cash.
*On April 9 the Upper Midwest Region of the Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, re-organized their regional governing by-laws, a vast and exciting change that promises stronger lay leadership in Regional ministries and administration. The Region also elected the interim director, Bill Spangler-Dunning, as director.
With Easter coming so late this year, the Holy season of Lent filled most of the month. We kept that season by having a Sunday night Study Series at the LeRoy church. For four weeks we studied, with lively debate, “A Life Worth Living” by Bruce Wilkinson. We ended the series with a mission report from Linda O’Connell and friends from the Presbyterian Church in Indianola who together had traveled to El Salvador to visit a *mission site with which they have connection, called “Our Sister Parish.”
The Holy Week communion services were soooooo… beautiful and meaningful, impressing us with the cost of salvation mercifully paid by Jesus on the Cross, and the endlessness of God’s great love. Then, with the sun shining and spring hope in the air, Easter arrived. What a perfect day to receive New Members in both churches and celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism by immersion at Humeston.
April’s best. The parish is celebrating a huge achievement. Challenged to read 400 chapters in the Bible each month from Oct 2010 to April 2011 (2800 chapters in all) we exceeded the challenge 3 fold. By April 30 we completed reading a total of 8821 chapters (or an average 1261 per month). How awesome is that!!!!!!
Other April events included Presbyterian Women’s Fellowship Dinner, United Methodist Women mission disbursements, scrolling announcements being projected in church, and the parish attending an Iowa Barnstormers game at Wells Fargo Arena.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Spring - Easter - Spring
Come to the Palm Parade during worship
both churches – April 17th
Join us in Remembering Jesus’ Last Days
Thur April 21 @ LeRoy – Communion Service @ 7 pm
Fri April 22 @ Humeston – Communion Service @ 7 pm
Celebrate! Worship! on Easter Sunday April 24
Youth Sunrise Service and Breakfast @ 6:30 and 7:15 am
Easter at LeRoy – 9:00 am
Easter at Humeston – 10:30 am
both churches – April 17th
Join us in Remembering Jesus’ Last Days
Thur April 21 @ LeRoy – Communion Service @ 7 pm
Fri April 22 @ Humeston – Communion Service @ 7 pm
Celebrate! Worship! on Easter Sunday April 24
Youth Sunrise Service and Breakfast @ 6:30 and 7:15 am
Easter at LeRoy – 9:00 am
Easter at Humeston – 10:30 am
Thursday, March 31, 2011
The Church in the World Today
A church member asks, “How can I minister, even in my own little world, when it has pretty much become to me a foreign land?” It’s no longer the world I grew up in.
A Lucas County youth pastor is telling me that one of the small group leaders in his ministry community (a woman) has a number of young girls in her group struggling with serious eating disorders.
- Not the world I grew up in.
He talks about cutting - young men and women seemingly addicted to cutting themselves, and if not addicted, at least using cutting as a way to temporarily drive away the greater and more horrible inner pain they face daily.
- Not the world I grew up in.
Here are some questions parents asked online.
1. In a time of overbearing parenting and institutionalized narcissism, how can I cultivate caring in my children?
2. Sometimes my husband will say – we need to toughen these kids up; they have to live in a tough world. How do we balance teaching them kindness/gentleness vs being tough?
3. Growing up in an alcoholic family, and with anxiety as an adult, how does one manage anxiety with parenting?
4. Can you help me with spiritual principles for my 6-year old? She asks many questions about God and I don’t know how to discuss spirituality with her.
What a challenge for today’s church.
Where in your faith community can youth and parents like these turn for help? Can they turn to you? to your church? In Matthew chapter 10 Jesus called the 12 disciples and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and every sickness.
From the beginning, ministry in Jesus’ name was the work of the church. Another Matthew, Matthew West, has a contemporary song about living in, and then breaking out of, “My Own Little World.” The chorus of that song asks
“What if there is a bigger picture, What if I’m missing out,
What if there’s a greater purpose, I could be living right now
Outside of my own little world?”
From St. Matthew to Matthew West, Jesus is the same.
The church gathers in his Name for worship.
That’s good! --- good for one’s soul.
The church disperses in his Name for ministry.
That’s also good! --- good for the world.
He is the Son of God. All power and authority are his. He calls. He sends. He disperses his followers to minister, even among wolves, with these words, “Do not worry about what you are going to say [or do] or how you will say it [or do it]. When the time comes, you will be given what you will say. For the words you will speak will not be yours; they will come from the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
- Not the world you grew up in?
- For sure!
But it is still God’s world. And it is still the world into which the church is sent. From the beginning, ministry in Jesus’ Name was the work of the church. It still is.
A Lucas County youth pastor is telling me that one of the small group leaders in his ministry community (a woman) has a number of young girls in her group struggling with serious eating disorders.
- Not the world I grew up in.
He talks about cutting - young men and women seemingly addicted to cutting themselves, and if not addicted, at least using cutting as a way to temporarily drive away the greater and more horrible inner pain they face daily.
- Not the world I grew up in.
Here are some questions parents asked online.
1. In a time of overbearing parenting and institutionalized narcissism, how can I cultivate caring in my children?
2. Sometimes my husband will say – we need to toughen these kids up; they have to live in a tough world. How do we balance teaching them kindness/gentleness vs being tough?
3. Growing up in an alcoholic family, and with anxiety as an adult, how does one manage anxiety with parenting?
4. Can you help me with spiritual principles for my 6-year old? She asks many questions about God and I don’t know how to discuss spirituality with her.
What a challenge for today’s church.
Where in your faith community can youth and parents like these turn for help? Can they turn to you? to your church? In Matthew chapter 10 Jesus called the 12 disciples and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and every sickness.
From the beginning, ministry in Jesus’ name was the work of the church. Another Matthew, Matthew West, has a contemporary song about living in, and then breaking out of, “My Own Little World.” The chorus of that song asks
“What if there is a bigger picture, What if I’m missing out,
What if there’s a greater purpose, I could be living right now
Outside of my own little world?”
From St. Matthew to Matthew West, Jesus is the same.
The church gathers in his Name for worship.
That’s good! --- good for one’s soul.
The church disperses in his Name for ministry.
That’s also good! --- good for the world.
He is the Son of God. All power and authority are his. He calls. He sends. He disperses his followers to minister, even among wolves, with these words, “Do not worry about what you are going to say [or do] or how you will say it [or do it]. When the time comes, you will be given what you will say. For the words you will speak will not be yours; they will come from the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
- Not the world you grew up in?
- For sure!
But it is still God’s world. And it is still the world into which the church is sent. From the beginning, ministry in Jesus’ Name was the work of the church. It still is.
Monday, March 7, 2011
The JESUS Film - Overcoming the Darkness
In March and April we want everyone to have the opportunity to view The JESUS Film. We will be showing it in the churches, around town, anywhere we can. We have DVD and VCR copies to loan. VHS and DVD copies are available at the Humeston Library if you are unable to attain a copy at the church. The film can also be seen on your computer right here in over 100 languages (English, Spanish, or whatever).
I recently read an article in a devotional booklet about Candra and John Penny’ mission venture in Benin. The mission was called Benin Beginnings and was a JESUS Film mission trip.
They wrote, “Imagine visiting a remote nomadic West African village, sitting with a king, visiting the Voodoo center, and being confined inside after 10:00 pm because of the Voodoo worship ceremony going on outside.”
I said, “Oh yes, I can imagine.” I had an experience so like that in 1995 while ministering in Ghana, except it was a Voodoo tree upon which spells had been cast and which, reportedly, had the power to harm and kill. It was a frightening place. I could feel the evil.
Benin is an impoverished West African nation where hundreds of years ago its inhabitants were marched down dusty paths to the ocean where they were loaded on to slave ships bound for the Caribbean and the United States. Benin has many village languages and nomadic tribal groups.
Candra and John were visiting the Fulbe people, showing the film over and over in several different local languages. They and their team saw 19 new house churches started. Literally thousands of people in central Benin came to pray, to seek God’s forgiveness and mercy, and to open their hearts to follow Jesus.
What a miracle.
Pray for such a miracle in South Central Iowa these next two months, the miracle of Jesus overcoming whatever darkness is destroying people’s lives. Pray for God to use you in accomplishing this miracle.
I recently read an article in a devotional booklet about Candra and John Penny’ mission venture in Benin. The mission was called Benin Beginnings and was a JESUS Film mission trip.
They wrote, “Imagine visiting a remote nomadic West African village, sitting with a king, visiting the Voodoo center, and being confined inside after 10:00 pm because of the Voodoo worship ceremony going on outside.”
I said, “Oh yes, I can imagine.” I had an experience so like that in 1995 while ministering in Ghana, except it was a Voodoo tree upon which spells had been cast and which, reportedly, had the power to harm and kill. It was a frightening place. I could feel the evil.
Benin is an impoverished West African nation where hundreds of years ago its inhabitants were marched down dusty paths to the ocean where they were loaded on to slave ships bound for the Caribbean and the United States. Benin has many village languages and nomadic tribal groups.
Candra and John were visiting the Fulbe people, showing the film over and over in several different local languages. They and their team saw 19 new house churches started. Literally thousands of people in central Benin came to pray, to seek God’s forgiveness and mercy, and to open their hearts to follow Jesus.
What a miracle.
Pray for such a miracle in South Central Iowa these next two months, the miracle of Jesus overcoming whatever darkness is destroying people’s lives. Pray for God to use you in accomplishing this miracle.
Monday, January 31, 2011
As Promised on Sunday
At church Sunday I promised I would post the two Cybertales I read from the pulpit. Here they are. Scroll down to read The Christ-like Thing and The Masters Way.
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