Posted by David on December 17, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
As a whole, Americans tend to be impatient people. As a people, our expectations commonly demand (a) speed, (b) efficiency, (c) effectiveness, and (d) productivity. “We want results! We want the right results! And we want the right results now!”
You want to make the American public complain? Make them tolerate “slow.” Force them to endure “inefficient.” Make them accept “ineffective” results. Require them to wait without explanation.
American Christians are Americans. Because our culture is impatient, we tend to be impatient. Our impatience creates a basic spiritual problem. We impatient Christians belong to an extremely patient God and follow an incredibly patient Savior. Our God endured the “slowness” of spiritually “ineffective” people who “produced” negative results for hundreds of years. He refused to allow faithless, untrusting people to deter Him from moving toward the perfect solution for evil in human life. Our Savior made preparation to teach earth’s entire population without benefit of technology by training twelve men. It was almost three hundred years after Jesus’ crucifixion before believers became a world movement.
To us, anything requiring a decade “takes too long.” Anything requiring more than a lifetime is totally unacceptable. “My life is not a spiritual investment in someone else’s future! I intend for my life to produce NOW spiritual results to my benefit!”
Consider a common attitude among Christians. “Marriages failing? Fix them now! Parenting techniques alienating children? Fix them now! Evil tempting and destroying teenagers? Fix situations now! Too many spiritually weak in the church? Remedy the situation now! Too few being led to Christ? Remedy the situation now!” Whatever the problem, find the cause, find a solution, and fix it! We demand results! Now!
Have you noticed (in your own life if nowhere else) people problems do not “fix” quickly? Do we really believe human dilemmas created by problem situations over a period of fifty years can be “fixed” in a month? six months? a year? Do we really believe it is as simple as discovering “the solution” that “works” and “plugging” it in a system?
West-Ark does not seek “quick fixes.” We are committed to genuine “turn around”–in developing marriage commitments, teaching parenting commitments, making sick relationships healthy, resisting temptations, building spiritual strength, and guiding people to Jesus.
For these worthy goals to become reality, “turn around” must occur. Where? In our understanding of spiritual existence. In our hearts. In our minds. In our Christian character. In our Christian integrity. In our relationship with Jesus. In our relationship with God. We must desire to be in Christ what God knows we can become.
Posted by David on December 10, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
For many, December is a hectic month! Many are so busy in December, they do no want to think beyond Christmas. A common thought: “If we can only survive until December 26th!” As busy as December is, we [your staff] must be busy planning for 2001. Actually, we were seriously thinking and praying about 2001 months ago.
About three months ago, your staff made serious projections regarding our 2001 work. We seek healthy transition from a work that looks at the immediate [“that’s good; let’s do it soon!”] to a work doing good in ways that increase its future opportunities [today’s good create building blocks for tomorrow]. A 2001 calendar for many planned events was printed recently on the back page of What’s Happening At West-Ark.
What is the goal? Actually, the major goal exists in 2002. We hope to interact with the Fort Smith community in a major outreach in 2002. To prepare for that, we want to increase the effectiveness of our outreach and influence in the Fort Smith area. Our primary objective is to use Jesus’ person and teachings to touch [constructively] the lives of people in the Fort Smith population area. We ask Jesus to guide us in helpfully ministering to lives and families. He is the master. He can help “the unhelpable.”
Fort Smith is a religious city. Church buildings and worship sites are everywhere. Yet, about fifty percent of the people in our population area are not religiously active. They do not worship once a month anywhere. Many struggle alone against the emptiness and void. Many have neither purpose in life nor objectives for living. They merely exist.
We want to move from the sorrowful head shake (“isn’t that sad”) to proactive outreach. We want to share Jesus’ hope, God’s promises, and eternal purposes. We want to be a powerful, positive force for God in this population area. We want Jesus to do through us what he came, died, and was resurrected to do.
Desire is not enough to make that happen. If we move from sorrowfully gazing at the need to introducing people to God’s hope, forgiveness, and direction provided in Christ, several things must happen. These happenings rest on a foundation of three things.
(1) We place our faith in God’s power. If we love and serve as Christ wants, God can and will touch and change hearts [including our own!]
(2) We must trust God’s use of us. It takes more than “motivational lessons” to build confidence. As a congregation, we must trust the truth that God can and will work through each of us.
(3) We must believe God will address peoples’ needs in ways that exceed our comprehension. We do not have all the answers to the complex problems evil creates in the lives of people. Yet, we trust God’s grace, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness to minister to the heart of any person cleansed by Jesus’ blood.
Posted by David on December 3, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
For many this is a joyful time. Family get-togethers and reunions with friends bring special joys to those celebrating the renewal of relationships. November and December provide “time” for such celebrations. Many long to be with family or special friends throughout the year. But … life’s daily demands in a society fueled by over-commitment rarely provide opportunity.
While for many it is a time of joy, others find it a time of intense loneliness. Intense loneliness comes to a person separated from family or friends he or she would love to see. A wide variety of “causes” keep some families apart. It is difficult to watch others enjoy their families when he or she cannot be with his or her own.
Intense loneliness comes to a person who lost a family member or special friend. For people who lost someone to death, the void is enormous. The emptiness can be overwhelming. An irreversible transition occurred, and everything about this season painfully reminds him or her of the loss.
Intense loneliness comes to a person who experienced marital separation or divorce. The season makes rejection’s wound raw and sore. “Part time” visits with your own children are bitter-sweet. The silent questions will not stop: “What is wrong with me? Why can I not be loved? Why was I rejected?” It is not merely being alone. It is the void created by absence of relationship.
Intense loneliness can come to the person who paid the prices to “become healthy” by escaping the sickness of a seriously dysfunctional family. One of recovery’s prices is awareness of things that never existed. Accepting “things that never existed” is painful. Accepting the cost of sick relationships in one’s family of origin can be agonizing.
Thanksgiving day forty-three of us shared the joys of meal and friendship in the Family Life Center. For a variety of reasons, many of us could not be with our families. We enjoyed being family for each other.
Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve occur on Sundays. Our usual 6 p.m. assembly is scheduled Christmas Eve. On New Year’s Eve, we will meet (6 p.m.) in the Family Life Center to praise God. After praise, our elders will share some personal encouragement. Everyone, please bring finger foods that evening. After our elders share, we will enjoy a finger food fellowship. Jerry and Meg Canfield, Ron and Debbie Belote, Curtis and Jean Jackson, and Mike and Missy Blasdel will host a New Year’s Eve gathering for those who wish to stay. Anyone may stay or may leave to attend personal plans made for the evening.
May we be sensitive to everyone! Love from caring is powerful! Everyone has worth!
Posted by David on November 19, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
Sunday concluded “Missions Weekend,” an annual November event to focus us on our foreign missions outreach for the coming year.
Goal: $140,000
(That amount is the budget for our numerous involvements.)
Our special contribution for missions:
(A second contribution taken after our weekly contribution)
| Cash: |
$2,152.23 |
| Checks: |
$63,215.00 |
| Pledged: |
$78,780.00 |
| Total: |
$144,147.23 |
On November 1, 1996, Joyce and I arrived in Fort Smith to work with this congregation. Our introduction to your work was Missions Sunday. The contribution was well over $100,000. For most of our lives, we worked with small to middle-sized congregations and some in West Africa. We were astounded to be part of a congregation capable and willing to commit so much in a single Sunday to its missions plans. It was a new experience for us.
Consider three things. Saturday morning several attended an informal prayer breakfast. Missionaries or involved contacts shared happenings in specific areas. One reported about an embassy for a formerly atheistic society. This embassy recently invited our mission team to relocate their residence and work in an unused section of its facilities. They are impressed with an outreach that shows mercy and compassion. Another reported on invitations to our teachers and preachers [on a regular basis] who are invited to teach congregations of a worldwide religion. In unlikely circumstances, a restoration movement is coming to life. The third told of the gift of land worth $500,000 in a major city of a third world country. The land was given to be the site of a new congregation. A national gave the land, and nationals are building a building and supporting a preacher.
Three principles we must remember. (1) All God asks us to do is sow the seed. Help people learn about Jesus Christ. Trust God to bring the seed to life and produce His crop. Do not waste time worrying about God’s part. Trust God and sow the seed. (2) If we want God to entrust us with more ability and opportunity, we must use the ability and opportunity we have. Why should God entrust us with more if we fail to use what we have for His purposes? (3) God is sovereign. He does things His way [not ours!]. He does not need for us to tell Him how to do His work. Trust Him enough to sow the seed. Leave results to Him. Just teach Jesus Christ.
You doubt those things? Then, you need to read again the three things I shared, think, and ask God to increase your ability to trust Him to care for His work.
Posted by David on November 12, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
This weekend is dedicated to our foreign missions involvements. The goal of Sunday morning’s missions collection: $140,000 in contributions and pledges. Prior to last Sunday morning’s worship assembly, the missions committee distributed an explanation of the goal’s “financial breakdown.” The funds provide the core financial support for our missions commitments for the year 2001.
Bill Smith, an elder from the Whites Ferry Road congregation in West Monroe, Louisiana, will be our guest speaker. Adults, remember to assemble in the auditorium for Bible class.
The American mindset is fixed on permanent solutions. We want to “meet needs and solve problems” once for all time. When approaches are not “permanent fixes,” Americans often consider such approaches a waste of time. American Christians are not immune to such thinking. Perhaps nowhere (among Christians) is this perspective’s reasoning more evident than in foreign missions planning and work.
Care to guess how many thousand people Jesus taught? How many thousand people he healed? How many hours he spent serving others? The total number of miracles he performed? After years of unselfish service, after teaching thousands, after healing thousands, only one hundred twenty people were committed to Jesus after his resurrection (Acts 1:15). Peter first presented the resurrected Jesus as Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). Three thousand people responded. To us, that is an enormous response. However, it is a small group to start a worldwide movement.
Jesus was God’s Son. He committed exclusively to God’s will–even in death. Only he did exactly what God wanted in exactly the way God wanted it. Yes, he permanently solved evil’s problems through perfect, continuing forgiveness. Yes, he made reconciliation to God a permanent option. Yes, he permanently created a people possessed exclusively by God. No, he did not end Satan’s influence. No, he did not destroy temptation. No, he did not destroy evil’s deceptiveness.
Through Jesus the solutions to evil are permanent. No change to the physical state of people was permanent. God’s forgiveness solves the problem of evil one person at a time. Each generation decides its own response to God’s love. The fact that one generation responds wholeheartedly to God’s love does not guarantee the next generation will make the same choices.
Why do Christians commit ourselves to godly character? Why are we people of integrity? Why do we treat other people properly? Why do we respond to evil by doing good? Why do we show compassion instead of justice? Why do we share Jesus’ good news with people who neither realize they need it nor want it? Because we seek permanent solutions? No. Because we know God. Because we love God for giving us Jesus. Because it is good, just as God is good.
Posted by David on November 5, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
The most challenging, demanding growth is growth toward spiritual maturity. Why? (1) It demands we acknowledge and accept a real need to be more mature. (2) It demands we accept as fact the need to grow. (3) It demands we confess that changes founded on good reasons and godly purposes are good changes. (4) It demands we grow in faith in God and understanding of Jesus. (5) It challenges us to allow God to be maturity’s standard. (6) It challenges us to allow Jesus to be maturity’s example. (7) It challenges us to accept this truth: we always need to increase our spiritual maturity.
These challenges and demands are quite similar in the individual Christian’s life and in the life of the Christian community [church]. God’s promised life in Christ is experienced through our willingness to mature. That is true in an individual, in a family, in a child, in a parent, in Christian fellowship, and in the congregation’s life and work.
Among the things shared by the elders in Sunday’s “family meeting” was the formation of an administrative committee. The basic function of these deacons is to care for the congregation’s finances and facilities. Committee members are Dave Cogswell, Bob Davidson, Paul Shirley, Larry Todd, and Jay Trotter. Paul Shirley and Dave Cogswell were presented for your approval as deacons. Paul is a former elder, and Dave has long served as an active ministry leader. [The committee will select two additional deacons to assist them.]
The objective: free the elders to spend more time shepherding the congregation. They are spending more time in prayer for you, more time in visitation with you, and want to increase the time they spend in addressing your spiritual needs.
Elders in the New Testament were mature, spiritual men who addressed the needs of Christians in the local Christian community. This congregation wants to be a Christian community. Our elders want to lovingly care for us. Thank them, encourage them, and help them. May we devote ourselves to God’s dreams and purposes.
We also sincerely thank the men willing to work as our administrative committee for the wonderful service they will render to this congregation’s life and future.
Each of us as an individual and all of us collectively as a congregation need to mature. No one has reached a level of spiritual maturity that makes spiritual growth undesirable or unnecessary. Each of us need humbly to allow God to guide and strengthen our lives. Each of us need to encourage everyone by example to pursue Christ’s mind, God’s heart, and the diligence of God’s Spirit. Help us grow by growing!
Posted by David on October 29, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
I seriously doubt anyone influenced [and influences] the thinking and direction of the American restoration movement as much as did [and does] Paul, the evangelist and apostle. Because the modern tap root of the American Church of Christ is in the American restoration movement, our single most significant spiritual influence is Paul’s thinking, insights, and writings.
That is understandable. We regard New Testament writings to be God-inspired scripture. Paul is the understood author of thirteen of the twenty-seven writings that comprise the New Testament.
How influential are Paul’s thoughts, insights, and writings? Though we call Jesus our Lord and Christ, though we call ourselves Christians [Christ-like ones], we are more likely to quote Paul than we are to quote Jesus. When we research a spiritual question, we are more likely to begin our research in Paul’s writings than in Jesus’ teachings.
Among the many invaluable lessons Paul taught, one lesson is fundamental to understanding Paul the Christian. If we read and examine Paul’s perspective in context before we decide Paul’s emphases, we see that Paul clearly, firmly anchored everything to an understanding of Jesus’ person, cross, and resurrection. The foundation for all of Paul’s emphases is Jesus, God’s crucified, resurrected Son.
So what is the lesson? What information about scripture did Paul gain after conversion that he did not possess before conversion? Paul acknowledged he was an advanced student of scripture before conversion (Galatians 1:14; Philippians 3:5,6). There was little difference in his information [his knowledge] of scripture before and after conversion.
Yet, there was an astounding difference between Paul the enemy of Jesus and Paul the servant of Jesus. If his information did not change, what changed? When he understood Jesus was the Christ, his understanding of God’s purposes changed. Before conversion, Paul was certain Jesus was not the Christ. Paul regarded Jesus to be destructive to God’s purposes. After conversion, he understood Jesus was the Christ. As the Christ, Jesus was the centerpiece of God’s purposes.
Paul’s information did not change. Paul’s understanding of the information changed.
As with Paul, information without understanding creates many crises in our lives and the church. As with Paul, a lack of understanding leads us to resist God’s purposes. What can help us? The same thing that helped Paul. We must constantly grow in our understanding of God’s purposes in Jesus Christ. God’s purposes must (without fail!) be bound to God’s work in Jesus Christ. When Paul understood that Jesus was the center and the foundation of God’s purposes, he was transformed. The same understanding can and will transform us as powerfully as it transformed Paul.
Posted by David on October 22, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
Jesus challenged the Jewish people to be godly. His teaching emphasis made several truths obvious. (1) For a person to be godly, he or she must be moral. (2) Morality arises from the internal condition of the person and is reflected by his or her external behavior. (3) A person’s behavior does not always prove he or she is moral. [A person may “wear” the morality mask for motives that neither express faith in God nor a commitment to morality.] (4) However, if one’s heart and conscience is moral, his or her internal morality expresses itself in his or her behavior.
From our perspective, Jesus’ challenges and teachings about morality were given to a strange audience. His audience was the conservative, religious standard bearers inside a religious nation. Why would he teach conservative, religious believers about principles of morality? Why did people who believed in God need lessons on morality? Unfortunately, they did what many religious people still do. They separated godliness from morality. Jesus declared it was impossible to separate the two. A godly person must be a moral person, and a moral person must be a godly person.
One reason for people who are not Christians resenting people who are Christians is based on Christian moral expectations. Too many Christians expect those who are not Christians to be bound by Christian morals. Yet, these Christians are not bound by the morality they teach. Hopefully, such Christians are a minority, but they exist. Too many Christians regard Christian morality to be essential in theory. Yet, they do not consider those morals to be the standards for daily life.
If Christian morality is to become the positive force Jesus intended, Christians must be the light of the world, the city on a hill, and the salt of the earth. Society must be blessed by our lives. Our standards must benefit the community. Homes, families, work relationships, and human relationships must be improved by our standards and our behavior. Our lives, our families, and our spiritual community bless people who live among us.
On election day, November 7, this state will decide the status of gambling. If gambling is legalized, our city and county is a designated site for legalized gambling activity. For the residents of Sebastian County, this decision determines what happens in our community.
Bill Wheeler will be our speaker Sunday evening. He has served as a minister of the church in West Memphis, Arkansas. Presently, he is Executive Director of Families First Action Committee. This committee exists to promote and encourage values that will strengthen families in Arkansas. He will encourage us to be informed about the problems produced by legalized gambling. He encourages Christians throughout the state to oppose Amendment 5 when they vote November 7.
May we do more than support moral stands. May we be godly, moral people. May we not restrict our actions to acts of good citizenship. May we live in a manner that demonstrates the value of godliness and human compassion in Christian morality.
Posted by David on October 15, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
The “God loves me more than anyone else” attitude is ancient. It is first cousin to the attitude, “God cannot love you because He loves me.” God is best understood through love (1 John 4:8). Is it not astounding to hear someone committed to God express lovelessness for other people?
Among the numerous active groups who bless this congregation is our missions committee. It is large, very active, and loves people. Their love of Christ is evident in their love for people.
They help many in a variety of circumstances. They maintain continuing, coordinated commitments to Laos, Thailand, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Guyana. They maintain involved interests in Romania and New Zealand. This year a group plans to begin active involvement in the City of Children in Mexico.
Our missions committee plans and coordinates most of West-Ark’s missions outreach. Several on the committee make short-term mission trips. Some finance their own efforts. All of them are generous and committed. When we are involved in a mission effort, they (a) stay informed, (b) supply meaningful help, and (c) have someone visit.
Our missions involvement takes many forms: evangelistic teaching; preparation of missionaries; training and supporting nationals on the field; assisting the Ethiopian deaf work; ministering to Ethiopia’s drought crisis; providing moral support and spiritual encouragement to Christians in difficult circumstances; medical missions; and working with C.U.R.E. (one of our ministries) to provide medical supplies.
Since 1990 a team travels to Guyana each year to combine four intensive efforts in a week’s work: (a) provide desperately needed medical treatment; (b) through that expression of physical concern create evangelistic opportunities; (c) teach in the schools; and (c) conduct evening gospel meetings in several congregations. Over one hundred members of this congregation have participated in that effort.
The weekend of November 12 will be devoted to missions awareness. In the morning assembly of the 12th, a special contribution will be collected. The purpose: to fund much of the committee’s budget for 2001. The committee will soon share with us the amount needed for the 2001 budget. In the past the congregation has given or pledged from $110,000 to $140,000 in support of the coming year’s work.
May we each think, plan, and pray about the help we will provide that Sunday. Someone recently asked about the significance of the flags in a corridor in our building. They represent the countries that have received teaching or help from West-Ark.
Posted by David on October 8, 2000 under Bulletin Articles
Our arrogance is often exposed. Yet, we are convinced that we are not arrogant! Arrogance exists in two basic forms. The first reveals itself in human-human relationships. The second reveals itself in the human-divine relationship.
Commonly, culture and society define arrogance in human-human relationships. In human-divine relationships, God’s nature defines arrogance. We typically attempt to confront arrogance in human-human relationships. We typically are poor in identifying or confronting arrogance in our relationship with God. The Pharisees, Sadducees, lawyers, and scribes also failed to identify arrogance in the human-divine relationship.
To conclude God is dependent on humans is arrogance. To think “it is primarily up to us” to achieve God’s will in our world is arrogance. The conviction that the critical leadership in the universal church, the American church, or the local congregation is human leadership is arrogance. To believe that God’s will cannot be achieved in the crucified/resurrected Jesus unless “the right people are in control” is arrogance. To conclude that the “future of the church depends on human minds” is arrogance.
God is not helpless. He actively will pursue His eternal purposes after we are dead. The first century persecutions, decline of the Mediterranean world, dark ages, European Protestant Reformation, Renaissance, Industrial Revolution, and twentieth century’s instability did not stop God. Neither will the twenty-first century and whatever is beyond.
God is not a dependent. When we conclude He is, we are incredibly arrogant. When we think God is helpless, we need to open our eyes and see His fingerprints.
West-Ark is significantly involved in evangelistic and medical missions. One service we provide in other nations is the distribution of used eyeglasses. Skilled, committed members do an excellent job matching glasses to needs. To simplify their work, a special instrument was acquired.
Opportunities created a need for a training video. One Sunday an “SOS” was sounded, and Ralph Smith volunteered his skills. Thanks to those who use this new instrument and Ralph’s abilities, the training video became a reality.
Bob and Jane Fisher visited a Texas congregation. A class talked about a member who would soon visit Russia to match eyeglasses to needs. Bob asked the lady if she had this particular tool. She did, but she did not know how to use it. She promptly received the video and had a very successful trip.
Can you see God’s fingerprints? Do you examine them in your world and life?
