* You are viewing the archive for May, 2008
I am trying to simplify my life and so I will no longer be adding to this blog. I plan to move it all over to the Vision News. I will still write things that I feel go here but will be putting them on the Church’s blog. I hope that I can invite you to subscribe there and follow all that is happening.
One of the poorest attended meetings in the local church each year is the Church Mission’s Conference. This is a sad indictment upon our churches and our concern for lost souls around the world. However it also indicates poor planning and preparation on the part of the pastor and the church. Someone said; “Everything rises and falls on leadership!” That is certainly the truth! Here are a few ideas that you might consider that might help your next conference.
Begin preparations for the conference a year in advance. If you do it at the last minute obviously it isn’t important to you and so your church folks will feel the same about the conference that you do!
Get the people involved in the preparations. Have them think of it as the most important meeting in the year.
Express real interest in world evangelism, lost people, others, missionaries through out the year. You get what you honor. Your people will honor and love what you honor and love.
Get the people personally involved with the missionaries; have them write letters to the missionaries telling them that they look forward to meeting them. Have them send them personal emails. Have them call to arrange for their comfort when they arrive. Make the people know that what they are doing is of eternal value.
Help the people develop a personal relationship with the missionaries. Let them eat out together, converse together, pray together, play together, etc.
Advertise the meeting! Put posters around the church weeks or months in advance. Put it in the bulletin. Send out prayer requests and preparations to your church members via email.
Get more people involved in preparing for the conference. Have them help decorate. You will do much better if you involve the people and not just staff or secretary.
One church asks each missionary before they arrive what each missionary’s favorite drink, dessert, etc. is and then one of the church folks will be in charge of trying to take that special item to each missionary at the meals etc.
Have someone take each missionary’s car to fill it up with gas or get it washed.
Do not make it a money raising campaign as much as a blessing time for others. Help your people get their eyes off of themselves and onto others. If they think all you are going to do all week is try to get money out of them then they will not come.
Have the folks get information together about each missionary so that the folks can fill like they know them.
Find ways to honor the missionaries and what they have done for the Lord.
Let the people feel good about giving. It is better to give than to receive! People enjoy knowing that they are helping others.
Christian people will do what they should do and do it well when they know “why” they should do it and “how” they should do it.
Dr. Ironside, when a boy, helped his widowed mother by working during vacation, Saturdays, and out of school for a Scottish shoe worker who was a Christian. He posted Bible verses all over the shop so that everywhere one looks, he would see the Word of God. No package went out to a customer without a tract or a word of testimony, and many came back for salvation.
Dr. Ironside’s Job was to pound leather for shoe soles. A piece of cowhide was cut to size, soaked in water, and pounded in until it was hard and dry. After endless poundings, he was weary. One day, he noticed that another godless cobbler was not pounding, but was nailing the soles while still wet. “So they come back quicker,” was the reply. The Christian owner explained to Ironside: “I do not cobble Just for $.50 or $,75 from customers. I do it for the glory of God. In heaven I expect every shoe returned to me in a pile, and I do not want the Lord to say, “Dan, that was a poor Job. You did not do your best.”
Name __________________________________ Country ____________________________
Date of Trip _____________________________
Cities Visited: _________________________________________________________________
Living Expenses:
What is available to rent? ______________________________________________________
What is the cost of an apartment? _____________ a house? ___________________________
Other? ______________________________________________________________________
What is the cost for utilities? Electricity? _______________ Water? _____________________________ Is the current 220 or 110?
Telephone? ____________________ Gas for house? ____________ Propane, Natural, Gas
bottles? What will set up cost be for the bottles etc.? ____________________
Food? What is available and unavailable?
Clothing: What is available and unavailable?
Medical: Where can you get good medical treatment? Name of the suggested clinic or hospital
_____________________________________________________________________________
Name of good doctors? __________________________________________________________
Medicines What is available and unavailable?
Water purification? _____________
Transportation? ________________Public Trains etc ____________Taxis _________________
Bus ______________________
What will it cost to get a car, truck or van __________________________________________
What would be the most appropriate vehicle __________________________________ ____
Cost and availability of parts________
Education of Children. Home School, Christian School, cost etc
Language School for parents. Cost etc. Child care?
Laundry and dry cleaning?
Set up expenses?
Cost of furniture
Rent and guarantee to be paid up front?
Type of contract to sign?
Cost of hotel or where to stay until you find a house etc.?
What will I need to take with me to the field from the states?
What do I do to get a visa?
How safe is it?
How will I get my money?
What about my personal library?
I just thought you might like to fly first class one time–what do you say
Singapore Airlines was the first airline in the world to provide flights with the brand-new Airbus A380 - the largest passenger jet in the world.
Singapore Airlines also has a reputation for having the finest passenger service of any airline.
So it is no surprise that when Singapore Airlines decided to launch a new ‘Beyond First Class‘ Luxury Suites for its Airbus A380 fleet, it pulled out all the stops.
Here are some of the highlights:
1. They are private suites - just you, in a space with closable windows and doors. Its like your own little apartment (and larger than some midtown studios).
2. A large stuffed reclining armchair - their largest ever. The storage forward of your seat seems ample.
3. The chair turns into a lie-flat bed A lie-flat bed with dedicated mattress is stowed in the wall, with sheets and a REAL pillow! The mile-high club has never been more appealing.
4. Instead of looking around the cabin to see which flip-down first-generation 9″ LCD has the least washed-out picture, you get your own personal 23″ Widescreen LCD television with personal DVD player.
5. Of course, the normal gourmet food Singapore Airlines is famous for, on Givenchy tableware with a glass of Dom Perignon (or Krug if you must).
As someone who has flown 6 hours in a United 747 lie-flat bed, I can tell you that the experience is NOT overrated. Its fantastic. However, the United 747 bed is an army cot compared to the Singapore Airlines Luxury Suite.
Unfortunately, Singapore Airbus A380 aircraft currently only fly 2 routes - Singapore-London and Singapore-Sydney. (Singapore-Tokyo starts May 20th).
Now the question you’re asking is ‘how much?’ Well, as usual for first class, only the insanely well-heeled or high-miled can afford this tiny ‘island paradise in a sea of tranquility’.
I priced a June London-Singapore round-trip at about $15,000 (or about 360,000 frequent flyer miles). Seeings that the flight is 13 hours, this works out to about $577/hour. That makes a stay in a Singapore Airlines Luxury Suitesignificantly more expensive than a 2-bedroom suite with 3 room service meals at the Burj Al Arab in Dubai.
By comparison, a Qantas first-class ticket would cost $8400, and a Qantas economy would be $1200 (just $46/hr!).
April Baker, one of our missionaries here at Vision Baptist Church, is going to the doctor today to get checked up. She has been having severe head aches and needs your prayers. God has greatly used her and her husband in Ireland and we want to see her feeling good and on her way back to the field soon.
I will try to inform you later of what God does today at the doctor’s office but wanted to take this time to remind you to pray.
Also pray for the Pastor’s Conference for World Evangelism that is going on right now at Vision Baptist Church here in Forsyth County, Georgia. Check out www.visionbaptist.com/blog to keep up with all is going on.
I do not know if you ever have the problem that I do but since the Lord has allowed me to preach in many different places over the years and to return to preach there I often forget what I have preached where. I know that I am supposed to write it down or keep it in a file and I have. Then somehow I lose the file. I was so excited with my first palm and later pocket pc but then I lost the information. I now have a different system and thought that I would share that with you.
I went to google and opened another blog. I am keeping it private for my own use. I called it ag’s preaching records. Each time I preach I enter where I preached, the pastor’s name, date, and even the entire outline by simply copying and pasting it into the blog.
As you know a blog is a great archive and is always on the Internet no matter where I am. It is easily searchable and so I think that this is going to be one of those things that I will be able to use for a long time.
Even what I am preaching each week at Vision is logged in there. That way I will have the date etc and maybe some notes as to what happened on that day. Good for future use to I think. I thought you might like to use that especially as a missionary wanting to remember what you preached where and maybe something about what happened there.
This week we will be having a Pastor’s Conference for World Evangelism and I will be giving more little ideas. I hope you can come and be with us.