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Good morning! Here we go with another week of life and ministry!
I want to begin today by responding briefly to the unfortunate news regarding Pastor Ted Haggard. Ted was the president of the National Assocaition of Evangelicals, as well as the founder and Sr. Pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The church has 14,000 members.
Pastor Haggard has admitted to being involved in sexual immorality, as well as some drug use. You can go online to the church's website and read the press release, as well as letters written by him and his wife to the congregation. Please be in prayer for them, the Church and the Body of Christ at large. When high profile Christian leaders fall it impacts many, many people.
I received an email last night from somebody in our church family asking for advice on interacting with their children regarding this news. My advice to them included an encouragement to converse openly (but discreetly) about our fraility as human beings, the nature of our flesh (even as believers), and the attacks and deception of the evil one toward our leaders. If the devil can take down those with a high profile he can cause much reciprocal damage. We also need to be reminded to extend grace and forgiveness to those who have sinned against the Lord and the Body of Christ. A reminder for all of us that our personal sin always has corporate ramifications.
In the context of this situation, I would ask you to always remember to pray for our pastoral staff here at Calvary. Pray that we would live in purity and with consistent integrity. We all have feet of clay. And in the context of yesterday's passage, pray that we would stand firm (Philippians 4:1) in the Lord and finish well.
This next Sunday I will be speaking on the subject of relationships within the church family. In particular, my focus will be on relational conflict, praying for each other and about thinking and modeling those things that are most honoring to Jesus Christ. The text is Philippians 4:2-9. I would appreciate hearing anything along the lines of this first point, namely relational conflict among believers. I see MANY Christians simply move from one church to another because of interpresonal conflcit with other believers. How sad! What can we do to more effectively help people work through relational issues rather than run from them?
In prayer and dependence upon Jesus for each day of life!
Pastor Todd
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New Testament Reading Guide
We all are tempted and we all have to make the same choice. Do we turn to the wisdom of Jesus and His camp or do we rely on our selfish judgement and seek the wisdom of those who are of this world or those who agree with the selfish us. I have struggled with choices in my walk, and I know which choice is the easiest to make, because that is what the world tells us in the ads, on the TV, and in the movies. But the best choice is the same one that Jesus would make and if you are missing the mark, then get help, get in the correct lane of life, and start to run towards and with the right camp and the people willing to stand up for the right choice and remain consistent for the long haul. We need to answer the question, why we are here, and what is success. We might even have to redefine our meaning of success.
I want to express my warm thanks to the servants in our church who have brought 120 men together every week to address and guide us back into the correct lane of ife. This is helping me to deal with the past and my baggage. I have started to look at the life I live and hold it up to a new standard. The best of all is that we meet each time after a lecture on a topic and discuss the topic and challenge each other and we sharpen iron onto iron. I don't know why Pastor Haggard fell, but I would speculate that his camp at the time of his fall wasn't from the membership where he trained to become a minister.