Missions News From Thailand and the Sea

By Carol Hawkins, Missions Coordinator

The Lord has blessed LBF with some very special men and women who are serving Him in cross-cultural places, having a huge impact. He has used their work in reaching out to many people and bringing much-needed help and hope. I want to share some of their exciting news with you.

Pete & Mary

Pete and Mary have been serving in Asia for over 30 years, living in Nepal, Laos, and Thailand. Pete is a veterinarian and the Lord has used him greatly in helping teach nationals how to care for their farm animals. Farm animals are so vital for many people to be able to run their farms, raise their crops, and provide for their families. If their animal is sick, that could be a critical problem for them in survival.

A number of years ago Pete wrote a book called, Where There is No Animal Doctor. The book, a manual that deals with many animal health-related topics, has already been translated into four languages and there are currently four additional languages that are in the middle of translation. This is so encouraging and shows just how crucial the information in the book is. And it is also exciting when we realize that it’s one of our own missionaries who is bringing this life-saving information to other cultures.

Pete and Mary currently live in northern Thailand (Chiang Rai). Pete does animal health clinics with pastors who are also farmers. He continues to teach and serve. Mary serves with the International
Christian School. Together this couple touches thousands of lives.

Contact them: pmqberry@gmail.com, maryqberry@gmail.com

Tom & Terry Velnosky

Tom and Terry have served with Mercy Ships for almost 28 years. Mercy Ships is a ministry that brings a hospital ship, complete with doctors, dentists, nurses, technicians, operating rooms, etc., to the poor nations along the west coast of Africa with healthcare. 

Tom and Terry live in Texas, where the headquarters for Mercy Ships is located. Tom’s role is to procure all the medical equipment, medicines, and many of the supplies for the hospital ship, Africa Mercy. In that role, he also must be aware of how the equipment operates and what it would take to get it repaired (even in Africa) in the event of a malfunction. His position is instrumental to the smooth running of the hospital and the thousands of lives that are helped through the medical care received. This is so encouraging as I think of one of our missionaries in such a strategic position.

There are currently plans underway for Mercy Ships to build a second ship, which will be the world’s largest civilian hospital ship. Tom is involved in the planning and designing of the hospital
portion of the ship. This is really exciting that he is able to be such an integral part of the design. It is also a huge responsibility as well as a great honor for him.

Contact him: Tom.velnosky@mercyships.org 

Please be praying for these couples and their families. You can see that the Lord is using their talents to bless many. Their ministries have far-reaching effects that touch thousands of lives with the love of Christ. It means a great deal to have you support them through prayer. And be encouraged – you are blessing lives around the world!

This Weekend's Message: Top Agent

Imagine that you are the top salesperson at your company. Each month you top everyone else, and you get a healthy bonus check for your work. You are widely recognized and affirmed as the best salesperson at the office. Then your boss hires someone new. The new hire is charismatic, motivated, suave, and diligent. You begin to see him grow in success and people around the office recognize his talent and initiative.

Here is the question: How do you feel about his success?

Chances are that you don’t feel happy for him. More likely you feel nervous and uneasy about his success. After all, his rise to prominence may end up coming at your expense. There can only be one top salesperson, and you probably want that title for yourself.

This Sunday we will explore a passage in which it is brought to John the Baptist’s attention that Jesus is getting the recognition that used to be his. In other words, Jesus’ rise to prominence appears to be coming at John’s expense. John’s reaction to this news not only demonstrates his own valuable perspective, but it also challenges us to ask ourselves whether or not we will embrace Jesus’ rise to prominence in our own lives.

Dan

Reacting or Responding?

By Jeff Taylor, Pastor of Worship

I once went to a church that had six – yes, six – worship leaders. This meant that rarely did the same person lead two weeks in a row, which often meant there was a good chance that the person leading was not someone’s “favorite.” The things that stick out most in my mind about that time are the comments I would hear on a weekly basis like, “Oh, so-and-so is leading? Looks like I’ll just hang in the coffee house ‘til the music is done.” Or, “I just can’t worship when that guy leads.” Or, “She never does songs that I can worship to.” Now, none of these are bad or malicious people. I am sure that each of them has a heart that loves God and desires to worship Him. What these comments, and thoughts like these that I have had in similar situations, reveal is the tendency for us to react to what’s in front of us rather than being open and responding to what the Spirit of God is doing in us.

We live in a society that tells us that we should go for whatever makes us happy or feels good. That means that we have the right to evaluate anything and everything to determine what will be best/most entertaining/satisfying, etc., and choose that option, rejecting anything else. In many cases, like when choosing a restaurant, this is harmless and probably how most of us choose where to eat. It becomes problematic when we take this into our approach to God, because we then take on the responsibility of determining how and through what means God can/will work. And it is not just with worship music that we do this; it can be with a pastor’s sermon, a Bible verse we have read a hundred times, or anything else we evaluate based on our preferences and then determine our reaction based on those feelings. A reaction that may at times remove us from an opportunity for God to move or bring about change in our life.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 commands us, “Do not quench the Spirit.” This is in the context of the Spirit of God moving amongst His people, and them taking it on themselves to determine what God is doing, and what they are willing to accept. When Pastor Dan calls us to open our Bible to a passage that I am very familiar with and I tune out because I “already know” what those verses mean, I risk quenching the Spirit of God and a new work that He may want to do in my life. When a worship team begins playing a song that has really never struck me and drawn me deep into worship and I decide to just evaluate the performance or all the faults of the song, I risk quenching the Spirit of God that may want to use that song in that moment to bring healing to my brokenness in a way that I have never needed before.

Our purpose for coming to church should not be to evaluate and react. We all need to come with the anticipation that God is there, that the Holy Spirit is alive and active amongst His people, and that no matter what may be presented to us from the stage, we should look not to react based on our preferences, but to open our hearts to the work of God and respond however He leads us. This could lead to new expressions of worship, deeper understanding of the truths of scripture, and a response that takes us out of our comfort zone and into the LIFE that is promised those who would truly allow Jesus to be the Lord of their life.

I know I am deep in this journey of what it means to truly allow God to lead me, to take me past my critical nature and desire to evaluate and react, and into a deeper relationship with Him where I will respond to His leading and draw nearer to Him in every aspect of my life. Will you join me?

This Weekend's Message: New Identity

This week as we continue our series in the Gospel of John, we will learn about a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. In this conversation Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born again. The term “born again” has been used often in our culture and was made famous nationally when Jimmy Carter used it while he was president. Also in this passage is the very well known verse John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave…"

As you receive this update I want to encourage you to consider inviting someone to church with you. It could be a family member or a friend who needs to hear the message of God’s love and hope for eternal life in Jesus. I will be giving an invitation to accept Jesus at each of our Sunday services this week. Let’s partner together in helping people come to a faith in Jesus. I’m praying for a life-changing Sunday as people make a first-time decision to embrace Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

Gary

Pre-K and Kindergarten Participate in Activities that Reinforce God’s Story

By Laurie Baiz, Director of Life Kids Children’s Ministry

The Pre-K and Kindergarten classes on Sunday are simply a delight to watch. The children are learning so much about God’s Word and enjoy all the different activities that they get to do throughout the morning. Both age groups begin in their separate classrooms and are encouraged by their teachers to take part in Explore Time. This is a where the kids get to touch, create, and play with different objects that will correlate with the Big God Story they will hear later in the morning. 

After Explore Time, the Pre-K class walks down to room 111 where they join the Kindergarteners for worship. The kids sing, do hand motions, and dance their praises to the Lord! Then they gather together and get ready for the Big God Story told by one of our volunteer storytellers. This wonderful large group time is designed to encourage the kids to be interactive with the storyteller. 

There are many sections to this part of the lesson, such as Chloe’s Rules, Mail Time, the Wardrobe of Wonder, and the Big God Story. Chloe’s Rules is a DVD where Chloe the puppet goes over all the rules for story time, including the most important rule, “to have fun.” This DVD encourages the kids to respond to it by answering questions and repeating phrases back in a way that is very similar to shows like Dora the Explorer. 

At Mail Time there is one child volunteer that gets to come up and get the mail out of our mailbox and then the storyteller and child share the “Remember Verse.” This verse is also written on cards to take home, where we encourage parents to review them. 

The Wardrobe of Wonder is a large chest that has clues about the story for that day. The kids get to guess what they think is going to be in the wardrobe and then they talk about how that object is going to be a part of the story. 

The Big God Story is told by the storyteller who helps bring the story to life by asking the kids questions and having them act out parts of the story, which keeps them engaged with the story from God’s Word. 

After the large group time is finished, the Pre-K class is walked back to their classroom and both the Kindergarten and Pre-K class meet for small group time. During the small group time, the teachers dig deeper into the lesson by doing several different activities each week. The activities include games, coloring, crafts, and talking about the story. Each part of the lesson is connected together and reinforces the Bible story through repetition, modeling, and discussing the story. 

As a parent, if you are looking for additional resources to continue the learning at home, each classroom has a 1-page paper called The Home Front Weekly that features the lesson that they will learn the following week. It includes questions that you can ask your kids over dinner or before bed and the Bible verse that they are learning in class. 

These are great tools to use during the week and will further prepare them for what they will be learning on Sunday.

Filtered

By Matt Sasso, Pastor of Student Ministries

Our world easily corrupts us, but we are able to filter what we see. So many messages and values are passed on by our culture, and we are so impressionable. 

During this four-week series in Exit 83, we are going to learn how to filter our world through the lens of God’s Word. Throughout the process, we will use different types of filters to illustrate how God’s Word can help us change the channel, bounce our eyes, and reveal our desperate need for more of His presence in our lives. Oh, it would be easy to just lock ourselves in a convent for the rest of our lives, but then how would an unbelieving world see a loving God? We need to learn how to filter our world. 

During this series our student ministry will spend four weeks looking at these words of Jesus: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). During this series we hope that your students are challenged to passionately pursue life in Jesus and to lead others to do the same.

This Weekend's Message: Safe House

The football team is in the huddle. One of the players comes running in from the sidelines. As soon as he joins the huddle he begins barking out orders. He tells them what play they are going to run. He gives blocking assignments. He tells the receivers what routes to run. To us this scenario seems completely normal, but the players in the huddle look baffled. They are confused because the player barking out orders is not the quarterback. He is not even a team captain. Instead he is a rookie who has yet to play a single down for the team. At long last one of the players looks at him and says, “Who do you think you are? What gives you the right to take charge?”
           
This Sunday we will walk through a passage in which Jesus walks into Jerusalem and takes charge. Last Sunday we saw Jesus remain undercover while He performed His first sign. This Sunday we will see Jesus explode onto the scene by acting as if He has the right to take charge at the most sacred location in all of Israel: the temple. When Jesus is asked what gives Him to right to bark out orders at the temple, He will reveal a profound truth not only about the purpose of temple, but also about His purpose in our lives.

Dan

Open Table Launches at LBF

By Gary Keith, Lead Pastor

After more than two years of praying and planning and educating and building connections with our community, LBF will start a new ministry to those who are  experiencing poverty and I couldn’t be more excited.

During the month of February we will be training those of you who have
volunteered to be part of this “Home Mission” effort. I’m grateful for a man named Jon Katov, who started The Open Table in 2005 after his own encounter with poverty and a deep Christian desire to do something that will last.

As we begin this “Home Mission” it reminds me of my trip to Kenya in several ways. For example, I knew what I wanted to see accomplished in Kenya, but I had never met the actual people, so I needed to be ready to flex and adjust to their needs and not just my own pre-determined ideas of what to do. Starting this new Open Table ministry will be the same.

I know that our end goal is to help people in poverty return to a self-sustaining lifestyle, but I really can’t predict everything we will face or every situation that will come our way. With the Open Table model, the person we are helping has full veto power to anything that the table suggests. This is to maintain the dignity of the individual. It is also important for the individual to believe that they are in control of their life and that they can do this for themselves.

Yes, it is true that there is still much to learn as we enter this world of helping people in a genuine and authentic way. And in an effort to help in that learning, our elders and staff are reading a book called When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor and Yourself. Although we are just beginning our reading, even the first chapter reminded us of something we may have forgotten or not thought about lately. The author asked, “Why did Jesus come to this earth?”

Now the answer for most of us would be to provide salvation, to provide forgiveness for our sins, to do what we could not do for ourselves. And you would be correct. But let’s not forget what Jesus also said: 

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

So as we start this new ministry to the poor, rest assured that we are smack-dab in the middle of God’s will for us as a church. May His name be glorified and His reputation enhanced in our community as we move forward.

This Weekend's Message: Undercover

In John chapter 2 verses 1-12, we find out that Jesus was a secret agent. No, really! Jesus totally worked undercover in an event that all of us are probably familiar with, but maybe have not considered some of the small details that totally apply to our life and our relationship with God. This Sunday as we continue in our series "Declassified," we are going to take a look at how God chose to use Jesus in an undercover way, as Jesus followed the will of His Heavenly Father.

See you Sunday!
Jeff

Declassified: The Gospel of John

By Dan Franklin, Pastor of Teaching

The 2012 movie “Argo” was based on the true story of a creative CIA rescue mission when six Americans were in danger in Iran in 1979. The movie was only possible because, after years of keeping the details of the mission secret, the CIA declassified the mission. Finally the full story was able to be told. What once was clothed in secrecy was now made transparent.

Many things in life seem mysterious to us. Were we given our wishes, we would certainly declare many things to be declassified. We would love to have the mysteries of life, clothed in secrecy, laid bare so that we could finally understand them.

Is there any mystery that is more important than the mystery of God? Every other mystery pales in comparison. After all, God is more important than any other reality, and nothing could be more important than knowing the truth about God. Yet many lament that He is shrouded in mystery and we can never know anything about Him.

In his gospel, John acknowledges that, in the past, God has been shrouded in secrecy. Near the beginning of his book he says, “No one has ever seen God.” He is invisible. He is mysterious. The evidence of His existence is clear, but He still appears to remain hidden behind the curtain of the world. Many people have posited theories about Him, and most of them contradict one another. It seems like a cosmic guessing game. John’s statement seems to reflect the despair that many have begrudgingly accepted: No one has ever seen God.

But that is not the end of John’s statement in verse 18 of his opening chapter. Here is the full verse: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, had made him known.”

Let me paraphrase what John says in this verse. God has remained hidden from us all our lives. But then God’s Son, who is intimately connected with the Father, came and made God known to us. This is why, in the opening verses of John, Jesus is referred to as “the Word.” He is God’s final statement about Himself. 

Jesus did not come simply to sacrifice Himself and rise from the dead. If this was the case, he could have swept down from heaven, died on the cross, and then ascended right back to heaven. Instead, He spent 33 years on the earth. This is because Jesus’ mission of eternally saving people is bound up in His mission to reveal the truth about God. Jesus came to make clear what was once hidden from us. He came to declassify God.

For much of 2014 at Life Bible Fellowship Church, we will be studying through the Gospel of John. Over and over again we will be presented with the reality that Jesus has come to declassify God for us. We will see Jesus perform signs that reveal profound truths about God’s power, knowledge, and grace. We will see Jesus speak truths that will unveil God’s heart and 

His modes of working. We will see Jesus freely sacrifice himself for His people, and thus reveal God’s grace and truth in unthinkable ways. Over and over again we will have God disclosed to us through His Son.

As you prepare your heart for this study, consider spending some time reading John on your own. And read it through the grid of Jesus’ mission to declassify God for us. As you listen to the sermons and study the book in your LIFE Groups, continue to ask how the truths that Jesus reveals impact your life right now.

The truth about God is always the most relevant fact in any situation. Thankfully, we don’t have to wonder about Him. After seeming to remain hidden for ages, God now has declassified Himself through His Son.