There has been a lot of talk lately about the needs for missions, discipleship, evangelism, prayer, Christian living and so much more. Many are confused and end up focusing on one thing and missing the beauty of how God gave us His instruction in His Word. ALL of our lives are to be lives and work together for His glory.
We are commanded by Jesus in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples, teaching them all that He commanded. Jesus taught how to live, how to share the Gospel, how to make disciples, how to live, how to pray. All of it is meant to fit together. As we learn and grow we are to take all the God teaches us and use it to train others. God does not want us to learn and grow as His disciples to our own end but rather for His purposes and those purposes are stated clearly in His Word.
So we are to pray, prayer is one of the primary parts of our faith. This in union with the Bible is how we commune with God, we are to do this alone and with other believers. As we pray and seek God through His Word then we are to also serve Him. We serve Him by following His commands like go and make disciples which begins with the word "go" meaning as you go through your life. So we live out our faith and as we do we seek to share the Gospel (evangelism) and as people respond we are to teach them or help them to grow as disciples of Jesus. This all to be so that where ever we go it can continue. What we teach others about Jesus is for them to become stronger in their faith and to share with others. Replication is a core part of Christianity and we must have this mindset in what we do.
So we commune with God so we can server Him to His glory out of His power to bring others into relationship with Him so that they can learn and grow to do the same. A cycle of reproduction, the Church is to be living and growing through God's people being active in this mission.
So let us get radical. Let's make better decisions. Let's make kingdom minded decisions. Maybe one less holiday or a less expensive car or wait on new appliances and instead be on mission. That mission may be in your neighborhood, city, province, country or across the world and we need to make sure we keep our resources (time, talents and Treasure) freed up to be used by God. Yes we need to use all of what God has given us for His glory. These are hard words for me and I pray that God would continue to be patient with me as I mature in the process of making my desires, my wants, my time, my priorities, my resources, my life all fully submitted to the Lord Jesus to be used for His mission.
Pastor Bruce
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Education, who is responsible?
Too many times lately I am hearing about things that cause real concern in our world today. Some are about wars, bombings, shootings and such violence. But some are the more subtle acts in politics and changes in law and policing. One of the areas of concern is education.
It seems that in today's culture there has been a big mistake made. Education is seen as the responsibility of the "state", the country or region you reside in is seen as the one in charge of educating your children. The challenge in this environment has been the growing idea that this also means that as a parent you have no choice and no control in the area of your child's education. We have heard recently of families being taken to court because they decided to home educate, families that had their children removed from the home because they refused to send them to the state run schools.
Society is heading down a scary road, not only for Christians but for all of us. The ideals being followed to bring us to this place where the government is in charge of your child and their education is against the idea of family and investing in your own children. It is also against the idea of true learning.
First I want to address the reality of family. Whether you are a Christian or not, your children are a gift given to you to raise and invest in so that they are prepared for life and can be ready to live and contribute to society in a positive way. I believe it is the parent's responsibility to ensure that this is happening. I also believe that the parent may choose different forms of education and tools that assist in the process. What works for one child and family may not work for another. The State should be available to help the family if needed but not to enforce their particular program of learning as the "best" way or "only way". This is the government getting involved too much in a matter that is for families to deal with.
Second I want to address learning itself. We know from looking at history and at societies where the government's prescribed schools and curriculum were enforced by law. That what happened was a set back to true learning. That in these situations learning was stifled because there were certain topics that were not to be taught and there other topics that were taught and they were incorrect but it was what you were being told to believe. True learning happens when we teach the younger generation to ask questions and to look for the answers. We share what we have learn't along the way but not because we cannot learn more and have different perspectives. Learning needs freedom for it to flourish. Governments have never assisted in moving true learning forward by enforcing their "views" on the people. The times and places where society has had a relaxed control on education is where learning flourishes.
By the way I have been known as extremely conservative at times. I am no hippy and not into some crazy world view where we need no government. But when I see trends that concern me then I need to speak out. So do you. Do you want the government to tell your children what to believe? Do you want your freedom to train your children in the way that works best for them to be taken away? Do you want to ensure that there is freedom to talk and discuss thoughts, ideas, issues, theories etc... without being shut down for fear that these things might go against the "state" schools?
I think that in areas like education and religion the government should stay out of as much as possible. there are other areas too but today's point is education. Governments of the world, offer to help people with a service, encourage learning and training to be a lifestyle but keep your distance and drop the "enforcement" model.
Let's appreciate the freedom we still have in Canada, at least for today.
Pastor Bruce
It seems that in today's culture there has been a big mistake made. Education is seen as the responsibility of the "state", the country or region you reside in is seen as the one in charge of educating your children. The challenge in this environment has been the growing idea that this also means that as a parent you have no choice and no control in the area of your child's education. We have heard recently of families being taken to court because they decided to home educate, families that had their children removed from the home because they refused to send them to the state run schools.
Society is heading down a scary road, not only for Christians but for all of us. The ideals being followed to bring us to this place where the government is in charge of your child and their education is against the idea of family and investing in your own children. It is also against the idea of true learning.
First I want to address the reality of family. Whether you are a Christian or not, your children are a gift given to you to raise and invest in so that they are prepared for life and can be ready to live and contribute to society in a positive way. I believe it is the parent's responsibility to ensure that this is happening. I also believe that the parent may choose different forms of education and tools that assist in the process. What works for one child and family may not work for another. The State should be available to help the family if needed but not to enforce their particular program of learning as the "best" way or "only way". This is the government getting involved too much in a matter that is for families to deal with.
Second I want to address learning itself. We know from looking at history and at societies where the government's prescribed schools and curriculum were enforced by law. That what happened was a set back to true learning. That in these situations learning was stifled because there were certain topics that were not to be taught and there other topics that were taught and they were incorrect but it was what you were being told to believe. True learning happens when we teach the younger generation to ask questions and to look for the answers. We share what we have learn't along the way but not because we cannot learn more and have different perspectives. Learning needs freedom for it to flourish. Governments have never assisted in moving true learning forward by enforcing their "views" on the people. The times and places where society has had a relaxed control on education is where learning flourishes.
By the way I have been known as extremely conservative at times. I am no hippy and not into some crazy world view where we need no government. But when I see trends that concern me then I need to speak out. So do you. Do you want the government to tell your children what to believe? Do you want your freedom to train your children in the way that works best for them to be taken away? Do you want to ensure that there is freedom to talk and discuss thoughts, ideas, issues, theories etc... without being shut down for fear that these things might go against the "state" schools?
I think that in areas like education and religion the government should stay out of as much as possible. there are other areas too but today's point is education. Governments of the world, offer to help people with a service, encourage learning and training to be a lifestyle but keep your distance and drop the "enforcement" model.
Let's appreciate the freedom we still have in Canada, at least for today.
Pastor Bruce
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
what to do when tech fails?
What do you do when your technology fails? Well I hope you continue on as best as you can. Like at our Church FFBC in Brandon, the last few weeks the internet drops out often. Now the techs are looking at it this week and hopefully it gets fixed. But as the problem has been present it caused us to not have video feeds or recordings of the last few Sunday sermons. Whether it is your internet, your IPAD, Laptop, Projector or Sound Board, if your technology dies your message must continue on. The message is much greater than the technology we use.
God will use the message and like the many generations of Christians who preached and taught without such technology we too must be prepared to minister without them. The message of the Gospel, the teaching of God's Word is not to be held back by our "program" crashing.
So all that being said for those of you who missed Church in the last few months we do have a link for you to access the audio files if you would like them. I will post this same info in a few other places as we do not have the Church website updated yet with the files.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bz69ajNSG55pRk1FV0ZXdkNrMXM&usp=sharing
It should be sorted in folders of year, then month and then the files should be named in dates on which they were recorded.
Lets us seek to grow together and not be restrained by our modern technology or lack of it.
Pastor Bruce
God will use the message and like the many generations of Christians who preached and taught without such technology we too must be prepared to minister without them. The message of the Gospel, the teaching of God's Word is not to be held back by our "program" crashing.
So all that being said for those of you who missed Church in the last few months we do have a link for you to access the audio files if you would like them. I will post this same info in a few other places as we do not have the Church website updated yet with the files.
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bz69ajNSG55pRk1FV0ZXdkNrMXM&usp=sharing
It should be sorted in folders of year, then month and then the files should be named in dates on which they were recorded.
Lets us seek to grow together and not be restrained by our modern technology or lack of it.
Pastor Bruce
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