The Layman

As of this morning I had no idea what to blog about. Just too many "plates spinning" around in my head I guess. Well, while I was chatting with a friend she encouraged me to either just pick a word and expound upon what it meant to me - or perhaps just blog about a meeting I am going to have tonight. I've opted to chat about the meeting - it was easier for me to come up with words for. :) Well, tonight is the start of the fulfillment of a very long desire I've had for essentially lay preaching - and posssibly more. When I was a new Christian I had a deep desire to delve deep into the scriptures - as do most new Christians. I attribuited it to just new found enthusiasim. It never really abaited, but I was moving along in life. New jobs, a love interest, etc. Well, when I met my future wife in the fall of 1991 I distinctly remembering feeling an impression - almost an audible voice in my head - that God had wanted me to bring the experience I was having in my home church, out to where I would be moving to go to school after I got married. Well, life continued on its merry way and some half hearted attempts on my end never produced much fruit. After five years of spinning my wheels spritually my beloved and I started commuting an hour and a half back to my home church so that we could be where we were being fed spiritually. In 1999 I moved my family closer to the church we were attending after praying about it for about eighteen months. Although it was difficult to be involved much more than we were previously we got involved as much as we could. And after much prayer, and some prodding from God (I believe) I started to petition the church to have a church plant in the city we were then living. I really felt like God was moving in that direction. That perhaps I was being prepared for something in that city. Well, five years later and the 'parent' church still did not see a calling to plant a church, and with having to still commute 40 minutes or so to attend services and be a part of the various ministries I began feeling a tug back to the region where I first met my beloved. And you know what - late last year my old church announced a church plant in the very city I had been pleading with them about! :) It will be planted this spring, and I am very excited for them. So in 2004 we moved back - to where I am living now. I am now 16 years into my walk with the Lord, and my desire for delving in the deep waters of His Word is still there, and I do not satiate this desire near often enough for my tastes. Well, a few weeks ago while attending small group leaders meeting our Pastor (Ed) announced that he had a desire to mentor a handful of men and women who feel a call for "lay pastoring". Well with no other way to put it, my heart quickened and I felt a little faint. I have prayed since then and feel that I should participate in these meetings - which start tonight. There is more. On a few occasions, two of which come to mind readily, there have been words of prophecy prayed over me. I am nervous, and humbled that God would even consider using me. I truly am a no body. I have not performed feets of spiritual strength. But I feel a burden to be a man that preaches Christ, and Him crucified in glory. I don't know where this path will lead six months, let alone six years, from now. But may it be to the glory of Christ. Maybe I will be preaching from a pulpit somewhere. Maybe a small home church (or caregroup), or perhaps I will be only the preacher for my family. Only God knows. Verse for today: Isaiah 46:3-13 esv Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship! They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble. “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose, calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. “Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness: I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”