We appreciate all the prayers and help for Andrew. He is being admitted to Gwinnett Medical tonight for surgery either tonight or tomorrow. They are going to do a surgery to clean any debris out of his foot and also to take cultures in order to determine if the foot is infected or not. This will be the first of a couple surgeries that he will need. We will keep you updated. It is 6:00 p.m. Saturday.
Sandy, Kathryn and I arrived in Buenos Aires Argentina Tuesday morning. We are staying with Jeff and Mindy Bush and their three lovely daughters, Lydia, Adriana, and Johanna. Of course, I began feeling the call to Argentina while eating my first big Argentine steak that I have heard so much about.
It is a real privilege for us to be staying with Jeff and Mindy. They are being greatly used of God here in Argentina. The church on the new land in La Plata is a story of sacrficial giving and lots of hard work by the Bushes and the members of the church. The Lord has won many souls and the Bushes have won many hearts. We enjoyed a good mid week service Wednesday night and have had some great fellowship with some of the members.
Pray for Jeff and Mindy that God would continue to do great things through their faithfulness here in Argentina.
Missionary prayer letters are on display in various locations in the church at Vision. My daughter Kathryn (one of my secret weapons) is in charge of collecting the prayer letters as they come in, getting them circulated to the leadership at the church for reading and collecting information, then getting them displayed. She does a wonderful job.
You may notice the initials at the bottom of each prayer letter on display. This is something that Austin required when we started the church that I believe is a great idea. The leadership reads each letter and initials it at the bottom when they are finished. I know that prayer letters are not often read. That is a sad report. A missionary that visits Vision will see his letter displayed and that it has been read and acknowledged by at least 4 of the leadership before being displayed. If I were a missionary that would mean a lot to me. I think this is a wonderful idea that deserves a little promotion.
The team that represents our missionaries in Peru and Venezuela held their first meeting last night. Ten of our committee members and five of our missionaries were able to attend. We had a wonderful time of food, fellowship and a great first meeting. It was good to have Chris Gardner, David and Katie Gardner and Jeremy and Rebekah Hall with us.
Even though many of us know each other and have been good friends for a while, not everyone knew each other’s background or testimony. We spent the first 30 minutes letting each of the members of the team give their testimony or just introduce themselves. It was great to hear each individual experience of the greatest thing we share in common. Our relationship to Jesus Christ. After the team introduced themselves and gave their testimonies, we listened to each of our missionaries that attended and their wives talk about their call to the ministry and what God was doing in their lives.
Keeping in contact: Keeping in contact is one of the best ways to form close relationships with our misisonaries. They are part of our mandate from the Savior to get the gospel to the world. We are not merely supporters, we are teamates in the great commission. Kathryn Pearson spoke about the different ways the Peru-Venezuela team has developed to keep in touch with the 8 mission works on which we focus. We have developed a list of all the names, kids, birthdays, anniversaries, address etc., and all the vital information as well as a prayer page that has their photo and a brief description of their ministry. It is critical to the success of the missionary effort that we pray for them each day and get involved in their lives.
Mission Conference: After a chance to get to know each other better, we discussed the upcoming mission conference. A good friend of mine use to quote Oswald Smith’s line all the time. “A mission conference is a business meeting of the church to determine the fate of the world.” September 18th-21st at Vision Baptist Church. The PV team will be decorating, hosting and helping raise money for the mission works we will focus on in the conference.
Training Ground: Probably the most important thing we discussed was the fact that Vision Baptist Church was started to be a training center for world evangelism. We are to look at all we are and have and ask God how He wants us involved. Each and every thing we do as a church and as indivuduals should be aligned with God’s purpose for us. We should look at our young people as future missionaries and our adults as team mates in the mission.
Take a trip: Two of our team members are already ticketed to go to Peru in October. Rhonda Gibby and her sister are going as well as Sam Paxin. They will come back with a different perspective. If you can’t afford a trip this year then put away a few dollars a week and plan for next year. I encouraged all to plan a trip.
Next meeting will be in August and will be detailed planning for the upcoming mission conference. If you would like to recieve the weekly update on the mission works in Peru and Venezuela, be a part of the PV team or get either the missions or business quote of the day, please email me.
Here is a great article from Brian Tracy’s blog. You might benefit from this.
Overcome A Major Fear
A major source of stress in your life is the “fear of rejection” or “fear of criticism.” This fear of rejection manifests itself in an over-concern for the approval or disapproval of your boss or other people. The fear of rejection is often learned in early childhood as the result of a parent giving the child what psychologists call “conditional love.”
Rise Above the Need For Approval
Many parents made the mistake of giving love and approval to their children only when their children did something that they wanted them to do. A child who has grown up with this kind of conditional love tends to seek for unconditional approval from others all his or her life. When the child becomes an adult, this need for approval from the parent is transferred to the workplace and onto the boss. The adult employee can then become preoccupied with the opinion of the boss. This preoccupation can lead to an obsession to perform to some undetermined high standard.
Have a great opinion of yourself with The Science of Self-Confidence
Avoid Type A Behavior
Doctors Rosenman and Friedman, two San Francisco heart specialists, have defined this obsession for performance as “Type A behavior.” Experts have concluded that approximately 60% of men and as many as 30% of women are people with Type A behavior.
Don’t Burn Yourself Out
This Type A behavior can vary from mild forms to extreme cases. People who are what they call “true Type A’s” usually put so much pressure on themselves to perform in order to please their bosses that they burn themselves out. They often die of heart attacks before the age of 55. This Type A behavior, triggered by conditional love in childhood, is a very serious stress-related phenomenon in the American workplace.
Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to deal with the fear of rejection, criticism and disapproval.
First, realize and accept that the opinions of others are not important enough for you to feel stressed, unhappy or over concerned about them. Even if they dislike you entirely, it has nothing to do with your own personal worth and value as a person.
Second, refuse to be over concerned about what you think people are thinking about you. The fact is that most people are not thinking about you at all. Relax and get on with your life.
We had an eventful night. Andrew was in an accident on his motorcylce just about the time that VBS got rolling. Someone at the scene was nice enough to call us and let us know that he had messed up his leg (really his foot and ankle) pretty bad. They took him to North Fulton Hospital (where my dad is a volunteer) and after 3 hours of surgery and some hefty plaster work, he is resting in his room with his wife at his side. This is a night that Sandy and I are very grateful to God for sparing our son from what the paramedics said could have been much worse. They said lucky, I know we were given a grand measure of mercy.
Some other things I am thankful for. I am thankful that my son is alive. I am thankful that he married one of the sweetest young ladies I know and that they love each other very much.
I am thankful for Austin and Betty who never cease to show us and so many others true friendship. I am thankful for a church family that loves us enough to spend the hours with us while we wait to see how surgery turns out. We had a waiting room full.
I am thankful for a God that loves us and delivers all things for our good.
I am so very thankful for my wife, Sandy who is the greatest.
One of my good friends is a Pastor in Stone Mountain named Virgil Barnard. He is the only Pastor I know that has taught in extensive detail on the Thousand Year Reign. There are few if any books written on this topic at any level of detail.
The Barnards have been good friends of our family. For many years, I and others have urged Brother Virgil to write a book on the Thousand Year Reign. He has finally put all his material together, although not in a book but in a 3 DVD series that is now available. I got my copy in the mail last night with a letter from Brother Virgil telling me that I finally got my wish and to enjoy.
Of course I have known about the project for a while because my son Andrew has been putting the video production together. Virgil has known Andrew since he was born but I think they really bonded during the project.
Please email me at john@bcwe.net if you would like information on how to obtain this series. I encourage you to get a set and learn about this important topic.
I have been sending out the Businessmen Comitted to World Evangelism Quote of the Day for almost 3 years now. It has been so long that I sometimes think that its just that thing that is always in my inbox. I have received many blessings over the years because of it. I frequently get emails from guys I have not seen in a while that say, “wow today’s quote really hit home.” Or, “thanks for this, it really helps me.” Just this week I was invited to lunch by a businessman that wanted to talk with me about some ideas he has to help his business glorify God. At the end of lunch, he thanked me for doing the quote. I need to thank some people for the quote also.
We started the Quote of the Day for businessmen when David Gardner was working for me at BCWE. I appreciate those days working with David. He is in Peru right now with a group and will be heading back before long to begin his personal ministry there with his wife Katie. Thank you David for all you do.
Kristen, my daughter that is in Morocco right now on a short term trip took over the quote after David and has been doing it faithfully for me for almost 2 years. I read the books and make a big “Q” next to anything worthy of the quote. Kristen also was good at finding them out on the web when I ran out. Thank you Kristen.
Now, the mantle has fallen upon my youngest daughter Kathryn to do the quote. She is a very hard working young lady and helps me on so many things. Thank you so much Kathryn for your willingness to serve the Lord and your dad.
If you would like to recieve the Businessmen’s Quote of the day and Scripture reading, please email me, John@bcwe.net.
Today’s Quote
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One thing a down economy will do is help your prayer life. Pressure and fear have a way of bringing you closer to God. Generally, the times in our life when we have the closest relationship to God is when the heat is on. So what do I do when times are really good and I find that I am “in need of nothing?” Try creating some needs in your life.
Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”
If there are no urgent needs putting pressure on you to go to your knees, here are a few things you can do to help.
1. Try taking a big risk on God. Do something or make some comitment that is way outside the box for you. Something bigger than you have ever done. Something that will require you to trust God or crash. How about offering to help out in a ministry, double your offering or find someone and go knock on doors. These will put you in a “have to have” power from God situation. That will get you praying.
2. Take a big risk on someone else. I read this week that we should find out where God is already working and jump in. I like that idea. How about that person that others seem to overlook, yet he is always around. The one that is popular that you want to work with only comes sometime. I will take faithfulness and self discipline as raw material over popularity any day. Spend time with them. Ask them if they understood the message or would they like to study the bible together. Take a risk. That will put you on your knees seeking God.
Face it, we pray the most and the best when we are in need. I find grace in time of need because that is when I go looking for it. So if you are “in need of nothing,” create some needs in your life and get the prayer life going.